After successfully fusing the External Soul Bone – Heart of the Undying Laurel,
Ye Yu slowly opened his eyes.
Immediately, Dugu Bo, Ye Zilan, and Ling Zhantian gathered around, all looking concerned.
"Ye Yu, how are you feeling?"
"Where did the soul bone fuse into?"
"Was it your heart?"
"Yes, it fused directly into my heart," Ye Yu replied, standing up as he spoke.
He then tried activating the soul bone's ability.
This soul bone skill, he named:
Undying Heart.
It had two effects—one passive, one active.
The passive effect was to enhance and protect the heart, making it significantly more resilient and brimming with life force.
And since the heart is the pump of blood—
This directly caused Ye Yu's blood to become infused with life energy, vastly boosting his physical regeneration.
As for the active effect, it allowed the storage of life force and soul power, to be drawn upon when needed.
The life force stored inside was immense—comparable to the effect of the Blue Silver Emperor Right Leg Bone's second soul skill:
"Wildfire Burns Without End, Spring Breeze Revives Again."
With it, Ye Yu could regenerate lost limbs.
As for storage capacity—
Ye Yu experimented by storing his compressed soul power into the Heart of the Undying Laurel.
On the way back from the Star Dou Great Forest,
he gradually stored a volume of soul power nearly equal to his entire internal reserve.
To his surprise—
The soul bone absorbed it all.
In other words:
Ye Yu now had a full second soul power reservoir.
Originally, Ye Yu already had three soul skills—Undying Root, Starlight Absorption, and Earth Pulse Connection—
That drastically reduced the soul power cost of summoning and sustaining his Martial Soul.
Combined with compressed soul power,
Ye Yu had basically become a miniature version of "Little Pillar" (Hashirama Senju).
But now, with his Blue Silver Spirit Jade Vine evolving into the Blue Silver Spirit Jade Tree, its scale had increased—
Naturally, summoning and maintaining it also consumed more soul power.
Plus, Ye Yu still wanted to replicate techniques like:
Wood Release: Wood Dragon Technique
Wood Release: Sage Art: Deep Forest Emergence
Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands
—through his Martial Soul and develop original soul skills to match.
But these techniques would summon massive constructs—
And that meant massive energy consumption.
Now that he had the Heart of the Undying Laurel,
Ye Yu no longer had to worry about depleting soul power.
He could push his limits further and use his future original soul skills without hesitation.
Of course, once he returned home—
His training in lightning-tempered body cultivation would continue without pause.
So would his efforts to compress his soul power.
His next goal: to condense a Soul Core during the Soul King realm!
Ye Yu made up his mind.
Upon returning to Heaven Dou Imperial City—
Thanks to gaining both the Fifth Soul Skill: Undying Body and the External Soul Bone: Undying Heart—
Ye Yu's regenerative ability had become downright terrifying.
So he decided to go even further—
He merged the Thunder Hell Infernal Spear, his external soul bone, into his spine, and—
Began releasing dark purple extreme lightning from within,
tempering his body from the inside out.
Naturally, this internal lightning tempering was unimaginably painful—
But the results were absolutely phenomenal.
Ye Yu gritted his teeth and endured it all.
After all, he had two soul bones capable of full-limb regeneration.
Why fear injury?
If it won't kill me, then go ahead and electrocute me to death!
Through relentless lightning-tempering, Ye Yu's physical strength skyrocketed—
His soul power compression advanced rapidly once more.
By compressing his soul power three times as a Soul King,
His soul power quality had already reached initial Soul Sage level!
But he didn't stop there.
Every day, he would use the extreme lightning from the Thunder Hell Infernal Spear to temper his body internally.
Then he would use the Blue Silver Emperor Right Leg Bone and Heart of the Undying Laurel—
Both soul bones capable of limb regeneration—
To recover his body,
like a phoenix reborn from fire.
Through this cycle of destruction and rebirth—
Ye Yu underwent a transformation every day.
After just one year—
He had compressed his soul power five times, and his soul power quality had reached peak Soul Sage level.
As for his physical strength—
Ye Yu estimated that he had already surpassed standard Titled Douluo in raw physique alone.
Because while his soul power level was still relatively low—
His compressed soul power was of such high purity and density,
His body had to be even stronger than what most Spirit Masters at his level could endure.
Now—
Ye Yu no longer needed Dugu Bo to suppress his strength during sparring.
Just using pure body strength and basic soul power augmentation—
He could already face his grandfather head-on.
But after using the Thunder Hell Infernal Spear's extreme lightning for a full year—
Just like how the body develops resistance to medicine,
Ye Yu's body had gradually developed resistance to lightning.
The lightning's effectiveness had begun to wane.
However, Ye Yu had anticipated this long ago.
If soul power lightning stops working…
Then use heavenly lightning instead!
Thus, Ye Yu began leveraging his Third Soul Skill: Tribulation Ascension—
Summoning roiling black thunderclouds to draw down heavenly lightning and temper his body.
Of course, he didn't use the strongest heavenly lightning right away—
That would be suicidal.
The active effect of Tribulation Ascension had two stages:
Summoning thunderclouds to gather lightning in the sky
Calling down the heavenly lightning for attack
If the thunderclouds summoned in stage one were smaller or brewed for a shorter time,
the lightning summoned would be weaker.
Ye Yu began by drawing low-intensity heavenly lightning for his tempering.
To be cautious—
He also summoned his Blue Silver Spirit Jade Tree Martial Soul and activated its Fourth Soul Skill: Earth Pulse Connection—
Preparing to redirect any uncontrolled lightning into the ground if needed.
Additionally—
He had already fused the Thunder Hell Infernal Spear into his spine.
If the heavenly lightning proved too much—
He could activate its Lightning Devour ability to absorb the energy.
And finally—
He always activated Undying Heart in advance,
ready to draw out stored life force at any moment to heal his body.
Thanks to all these precautions—
Even though the heavenly lightning blasted him nearly into oblivion—
scorching his once-lustrous black hair and nearly tearing his body apart—
Ye Yu survived every time.
Each cycle of collapse and regeneration was like a rebirth through nirvana—
Greatly boosting his physical limits.
In the blink of an eye—
Another year passed.
Under this heavenly lightning body tempering, Ye Yu's growth only accelerated.
His soul power compression had reached eight times!
Now at Fifty-Eighth Rank,
his soul power quality had already reached the level of a high-rank Soul Douluo.
It was now approaching Soul Land Year 2643.
Only about two years remained before the next
Continental Advanced Spirit Master Academy Elite Tournament.
According to Ye Yu's memory—
This year, Heaven Dou Imperial Academy would form its official Team Heaven Dou One,
And under Qin Ming's leadership, begin traveling across the empire's major cities—
Participating in team battles at the great Spirit Arenas for field experience.
Ye Yu would be going with them.
Which meant—
It was time to finish compressing his soul power
and condense his Soul Core!
PS: Read Advance Chapters at https://www.patreon.com/c/ReadJin