Douluo Continent: On Becoming a God Through Science

Chapter 23 Master-Disciple Conversation: Cultivation of the Three Elements of Essence, Qi, and Spirit

After reviewing the battle, the two continued their discussion; rather, it was merely a prelude, and the truly important part was yet to come.

"Yan, what do you think is your biggest problem right now?"

You Chen knew the answer, but instead of giving it to him directly, he chose to stimulate his disciple's thinking and let him figure it out on his own.

A teacher's role is not only to impart knowledge to students, but also to cultivate their learning and thinking abilities, especially at this point in time when they are about to leave.

Yan's mind was still filled with the recap of the battle, and his brain was at its most active at this moment.

Unlike usual, when he needed to rack his brains, he quickly gave his answer: "Teacher, is it my control over my soul power? If I could keep the Vulcan Cannon from collapsing, I wouldn't have been completely at a disadvantage in the first clash, which left me with almost no chance to fight back later."

You Chen nodded and then shook his head: "The idea isn't wrong. But to be precise, it's still a problem with your mental strength."

Seeing Yan's thoughtful expression, You Chen continued, "You don't have that much time to spend further improving your soul power control. At this stage, this level is more than enough. The rest is just a matter of patience and perseverance."

As You Chen explained, he naturally adapted Feng Xiaotian's story, telling the tale of a genius with innate full soul power who spent too much energy on creating his own soul skills and improving his control over his soul power, resulting in him being only a level 44 Soul Master in his twenties.

And after hearing this story...

"Innate full soul power, level 44 at twenty years old!? Damn, has this guy wasted his twenty-odd years of his life? Is this really the aptitude for full soul power? Teacher, you're not just making this up to scare me, are you!?"

He wasn't born with full soul power, and he figured reaching level 44 wouldn't take him more than a few years, maybe even two or three. This story is way too exaggerated!

You Chen silently scoffed to himself, "Making it all up? You'll be able to see this legendary myth for yourself in a few years."

As for Feng Xiaotian's extremely brainless act of suppressing his level during his prime years due to his sycophantic nature, there's no need to elaborate.

He simply said meaningfully, "Some things, if you invest your energy in them and become engrossed in them, you'll find yourself wasting a lot of time without realizing it. Especially you young people, you don't know how to restrain yourselves, and you'll regret it when you're old."

"Teacher, why do I feel like there's something hidden in your words?" A glint of wisdom flashed in Yan's eyes. He had already noticed that his teacher sometimes liked to suddenly utter profound and enigmatic riddles.

"That must be your imagination."

You Chen coughed lightly, not wanting to stray from the topic, and said, "In short, at your age, this level of soul power control is more than enough. You don't need to spend too much energy on it in the next few years. After I leave, you should cut your daily practice time in this area by four-fifths, which should be enough to ensure that your condition doesn't decline."

But mental strength is different. Increasing mental strength also improves your control over soul power, but while previous training focused purely on technique and proficiency, mental strength enhances your fundamental abilities. Most importantly, soul power manipulation techniques only improve your combat skills, while mental strength training boosts your cultivation efficiency.

"Teacher, I haven't forgotten that."

Yan nodded: "So this is the cultivation of the three elements of essence, energy, and spirit that you mentioned?"

You Chen nodded.

The essence of martial spirits in this world is the gift and miracle of the world created by the unity of essence, energy, and spirit.

In all the myriad realms, the vast majority of cultivation systems bear the shadow of this path at their roots.

Moreover, Douluo Continent has a certain foundation and style of old martial arts novels. After spending a certain amount of time and effort, You Chen completely confirmed the correctness of his conjecture.

In this world, the three elements of essence, energy, and spirit refer to the body, soul power, and mental power, respectively. In more detail, they are the body's vital energy and blood essence, soul power, and mental will.

The reason why one has to wait until age 6 to awaken their martial soul is not because the number 6 is special or because the rules of the world stipulate that one must be 6 years old to awaken their martial soul.

Instead, one needs to grow physically to a certain extent so as not to be too weak, have a mentally matured, and have a basic understanding of essence and energy before one can fill in the last piece of the puzzle called soul power, thereby achieving a relative balance among the three elements of essence, energy, and spirit, and prompting the awakening of the martial soul.

Otherwise, there is a risk of congenital deficiencies.

For example, Huo Yuhao in Douluo II suffered oppression from the Duke's mansion. His physical growth lacked sufficient essence, while his spirit was excessive, resulting in a deficiency of innate soul power.

For example, most physical spirits are the embodiment of the soul master's essence, energy, and spirit, since the spirit is the body that is relatively weak at the beginning. The physical spirit is only a part of the body, and the essence attribute is only a part of the whole. Therefore, the essence is insufficient and the innate soul power is generally not high.

Conversely, if the body and mind develop to the baseline early enough to awaken before the age of 6, there are no hidden dangers. This has already been verified by the Spirit Hall.

Therefore, the cultivation of martial spirit is essentially the cultivation of the three elements of essence, energy, and spirit, which are mutually reinforcing.

Refining the physical body, cultivating soul power, and tempering the spirit and will—any lapse in any one of these will affect the overall cultivation speed and cause it to decline. Conversely, any improvement in one can indirectly drive the improvement of the other two.

However, if one relies solely on one advantage to overcome a weakness that is dragging one down, in the long run, there will often be some side effects, which is commonly known as an unstable foundation.

The righteous path requires all three to advance simultaneously.

In fact, You Chen did not keep this knowledge to himself; his related works had already been published in the Spirit Hall's journals many years ago.

At that time, he was only 14 years old, and he was just making a conjecture. He received far less attention than "Don't Use Whale Glue," which could directly benefit Soul Masters.

Shortly after he completed the verification and published the compiled content in a book, the change of the papacy occurred.

The book that embodied his hard work disappeared for some self-evident reasons and was sealed away by the Spirit Hall. It is likely that only the true high-ranking members of the Spirit Hall know its contents.

But the books were forbidden to be distributed, yet the knowledge remained hidden in his mind.

After accepting Yan as his disciple, he naturally did not hide anything and even incorporated his new insights from over the years, passing them all on to Yan.

He also told Yan that most of his knowledge was written in that book, but that book was considered a forbidden book by the Spirit Hall, so the relevant knowledge was absolutely not allowed to be passed on, not even to his two childhood sweethearts.

Otherwise, there may be trouble.

(End of this chapter)