NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 61: Exploration and Validation
Given the current calm at the Hanfeng Camp, it is highly unlikely for any soldiers to sustain internal injuries. Even if there are some internal traumas or concussive injuries, the presence of healing spirit techniques leaves little chance for Ling Yi to take his time with gradual treatment and observation.
️ Therefore, Ling Yi restrained his urgency and instead focused on cultivating his spiritual energy, exploring his meridians, and experimenting with the principles behind spirit techniques.
️ Of course, this does not mean completely abandoning the research into the structure of internal organs but rather avoiding rash and hasty actions, choosing instead to proceed with caution.
️ Thus, Ling Yi's daily schedule continued to be as regular and serene as before.
️ Each night, he alternated between unyielding cultivation and deep sleep.
️ Every morning, Ling Yi visited the Soul Master's exclusive canteen for a breakfast that might not be luxurious, but was certainly nutritious. Afterward, he would organize the notes he had taken the previous day, pondering their contents.
️ After a brief digestion, he practiced the Basic Body Forging Exercises on the Blue Silver Grass field behind the camp, going through the forms of the Cat, Dog, Chicken, and Rabbit, along with the Horse form he developed during his six months at Hanfeng Camp.
️ Approximately an hour later, Ling Yi would take a round to the wounded soldiers' tents in the Third Military Medical Camp, observing each patient's recovery. Occasionally, he would perform the 'First Spirit Technique: Brimming Vitality' to aid their recovery, engaging in friendly conversations as well.
The duration of this process depends on the number of injured people present. When there are fewer individuals, it might only take an hour or so. But if the count increases, even the whole morning might not suffice.
Most of the time, Ling Yi can wrap up his interactions with the recovering soldiers before lunch. During this period and right after lunch, he reflects on the application of his soul techniques as the injured heal in the nurturing embrace of lively energy, speeding up their recovery. He observes changes in his martial soul, soul rings, and soul techniques as they connect through soul power. He also simulates the pathways of soul power flowing through his meridians.
This brings us to the essential topic of the soul techniques contained within soul rings.
Through Ling Yi's research, he has found that while these soul techniques appear similar to the spells found in a mage's skill bar, they more closely resemble skill stones or spell scrolls that can be recharged and used repeatedly.
Upon activating his own soul power and magical energy, he can unleash a variety of skills, be they offensive, defensive, supportive, or control-oriented.
Thanks to the influence of numerous imaginative novels from his past life, Ling Yi was inspired early on to replicate the principles behind executing each of these skills. By studying and practicing them, he aims to bypass the need for direct soul ring activation and perform these techniques independently.
Should he succeed, Ling Yi could potentially break free from the limitations faced by a soul master—each ring for only one soul technique—especially outside the realm of special circumstances involving soul bones.
Unfortunately, the speed at which soul power circulates during the execution of soul techniques is excessively fast, with part of it confined within the soul ring. This has caused Ling Yi’s current plans to imprint these techniques to progress slowly.
Since acquiring his first spirit ring last October, it has been eight months, roughly over two hundred forty days. In that time, Ling Yi has deployed his 'First Soul Skill: Abundant Vitality' no less than eight hundred times!
Through meticulous observation time and again, now, at last, he has only managed to fully record the route of soul power circulation within his meridians. As for the soul power transformation inside the soul ring, with its array-like pattern engravings, Ling Yi can only construct it in its entirety within his mind but is incapable of disassembling it, let alone imprinting it onto his meridians.
Ultimately, Ling Yi has too little time and too many tasks at hand. These tasks, which can bolster his strength and depth, are intricately linked, making it hard to choose. He has no choice but to organize them logically according to their importance and the priority of available resources.
It is his mastery of deep sleep that allows him to restore his state through slumber; otherwise, Ling Yi’s progress would be even slower!
An hour of deep sleep equates to eight hours of quality rest, restoring both mind and body, allowing Ling Yi to treat a day as if it were two or even three, further enhanced by his formidable thinking capacity—making him appear a genius in others' eyes.
Unless a multitude of wounded soldiers appears, Ling Yi always takes an unshakable hour of deep sleep after lunch as his midday rest. It serves to recover the energy expended in the preceding half-day, especially observing himself while performing soul skills and deliberating over various situations, where the exhaustion of mind is considerable and requires urgent recovery.
Since ancient times, deep emotions do not last long, and extreme wisdom leads to harm. The consequence of overexerting mental strength is the decline of spirit.
By actively employing his mental strength and enhancing his comprehension and calculation abilities through his 'Beginner’s Hyper Ego State,' Ling Yi achieves partial effects comparable to those achieved by individuals taking "NZT-48," albeit not as intense.
In his previous life, Ling Yi remembered learning from a nursing student sister who told him, "The heart houses the spirit, the lungs the soul, the liver the soul essence, the spleen the mind, and the kidneys the will." Ling Yi kept this maxim in mind, knowing that whenever he felt mentally exhausted, he would perform his "First Soul Skill: Vitality Bloom" to nourish his five organs with vital energy. This was followed by a deep sleep to repair and rejuvenate his body, organs, and spirit.
In the afternoon, after a good sleep, Ling Yi, with his energy, spirit, and vigor at their peak, decided whether to head to the forging area in the military workshop. There, he practiced the "Random Cloak Hammer Technique," using the forging process to strengthen his body. He found the subtle insights into the movement of power during his hammer swings intriguing.
Concurrently, Ling Yi engaged in discussions with Brother Xue, an expert blacksmith, and others, sharing their insights on forging, the changes metals undergo under high temperatures and hammer strikes, and the reactions when various metals are smelted together.
If Ling Yi chose not to visit the military workshop, he would often gather with Old Man Yao and three others, either to exchange insights and teachings on the treatment of physical injuries or to study the properties and combinations of various herbs. He personally verified the different reactions herbs had when applied externally or taken internally, albeit in very small doses.
Before dinner, Ling Yi would seek out injured soldiers still staying at the third military medical camp, asking them to summon their martial souls. While observing them, he would cast "First Soul Skill: Vitality Bloom" to attach his spiritual power to the life energy, probing deeper into the soldiers' physical conditions and their martial souls.
Carrying a mind full of data and observations back to his tent, Ling Yi organized and summarized the information into notes.
In the vast Cold Wind Base, the official count of soldiers is around twenty thousand, with several thousand additional logistics personnel. Ling Yi had come into contact with approximately two thousand units of injured soldiers and about twelve hundred logistics personnel dealing with everyday ailments.
This is a substantial dataset, encompassing over 900 weapon soul holders and nearly 300 beast soul owners.
In the handwritten "Weapon Soul Compendium" by Ling Yi, it records that among the 900 weapon souls, there are over ten types of tools that can be used as weapons, including knives, spears, swords, axes, staffs, hammers, forks, whips, lances, and rakes.
Similarly, these weapons are further subdivided; for instance, the knife category can be broken down into machetes, straight knives, horse-cutting blades, sickles, and more.
In another book, "Bird Spirit Compendium," various birds are documented, such as sparrows, swallows, seagulls, which are small birds, and larger birds like hawks, falcons, eagles, cranes, and geese.
Additionally, there's the "Beast Spirit Compendium," covering cats, dogs, pigs, wolves, lions, tigers, bears...
All these spirit souls follow one rule: The stronger the quality of the soul, the stronger the physical abilities of the owner, and the greater the chance of generating soul power becomes!
Conversely, if one considers it the other way around, could it be that the stronger one's own abilities, the higher the quality of the awakened soul becomes, and the greater the innate soul power potential?
In the past, while staying in the Mountain and Sea Village, Ling Yi also speculated in this direction. However, the population in the village was too small, and opportunities for prolonged close observation were limited, making it difficult to conduct related validations.
Upon reaching Hanfeng's camp, thanks to the abundant resources available here, Ling Yi was finally able to preliminarily verify and confirm his previous hypotheses.
This provided significant advantages for his future endeavors in nurturing village children and the offspring of like-minded individuals, especially concerning whether these young ones could possess innate spirit power.
(End of Chapter)
