Xu Lin continued her lecture from the podium.
"At that time, the voices of opposition within the Soul Master world were very loud. Gradually, even the Huyan Clan themselves began to feel that their method didn't truly qualify as a new cultivation stream."
"However, who could have predicted the future? After the Huyan Clan proposed the Fusion Stream, even though the Soul Master world refused to recognize its status, many Soul Masters with dual-attribute Martial Souls were inspired."
"They attempted to combine the Fusion Stream pioneered by the Huyan Clan with their own Martial Souls, pushing the development of the stream even further."
"If we say the Huyan Clan's creation of the Fusion Stream was the first period—producing its prototype—then the second period was when the Fusion Stream officially established its status."
"In this second stage, another clan played a massive role: the Lu Clan."
The Lu Clan? Which one is that? I've never heard of them, Ling Xiao thought curiously, his forearm propped up and his head tilted slightly as he rested his cheek on his fist.
"The Lu Clan was also a powerful Soul Master clan, no weaker than the Huyan Clan at the time."
"In the Heaven Dou Empire, there are five famous high-level Soul Master academies known as the Five Element Academies. Among them, Godwind Academy was founded by a branch of the Lu Clan."
"As for why I say a branch of the Lu Clan rather than the entire clan, that is also related to the establishment of the Fusion Stream. The Lu Clan's inherited Martial Soul is called the Wind Fire Phoenix, a top-tier flying-type Beast Martial Soul."
"Its primary attribute is Wind and its secondary is Fire. Correspondingly, the Wind Fire Phoenix Soul Beast is not only extremely fast in flight but also wields powerful wind and fire energy, boasting outstanding attack power."
"Before the emergence of the Fusion Stream, when the Lu Clan followed the Extreme Stream, they put all their effort into developing the Wind attribute power within their Martial Soul's origin, following the path of the Agility Attack System."
"After all, the Wind Fire Phoenix is a large avian Martial Soul that grants the ability to fly. Since its primary attribute is Wind, it is the best choice for the speed and offensive power required by the Agility Attack System."
"Of course, as a dual-element Martial Soul, the drawbacks of following the Extreme Stream were greater for them than for the Huyan Clan's Diamond Mammoth. When the Wind Fire Phoenix followed the Extreme Stream, the Fire attribute talent was essentially wasted."
"But at that time, the Lu Clan had no choice; dual Wind-Fire attribute Soul Beasts were too rare. If they tried to strengthen their Fire origin power while obtaining Soul Rings."
"The results couldn't compare to an extreme enhancement of the Wind attribute—unless they were lucky enough to gain a hybrid Wind-Fire Soul Skill that could utilize their stronger Wind power."
"Otherwise, a pure Fire-attribute Soul Skill was clearly inferior to a Wind-attribute one. During that era, the Fire power within the Lu Clan members served as little more than an auxiliary tool."
"Compared to single-attribute Martial Souls, their advantage wasn't obvious. The Lu Clan understood this situation well. Once the Extreme Stream matured, these dual-attribute Soul Masters began seeking other paths."
"The Fusion Stream created by the Huyan Clan undoubtedly gave them an epiphany. Referencing how the Huyan Clan used the Diamond Mammoth to follow two systems to unleash both defense and strength."
"The Lu Clan began trying a dual-system approach to unleash the dual Wind and Fire talents of the Wind Fire Phoenix. However, while both are dual-attribute Martial Souls, there is a major difference."
"The Diamond Mammoth does not master elemental energy; its dual traits of defense and strength can generally be enhanced by a Soul Ring from a single Soul Beast. But the Wind Fire Phoenix is dual-elemental."
"Unless they can find a Wind-Fire attribute Soul Beast, a single Soul Ring cannot significantly strengthen both attributes simultaneously. So, the Lu Clan chose to strengthen their Wind and Fire attributes alternately as they obtained Soul Rings while simultaneously following two cultivation systems."
"Since the Fire attribute is naturally heavy on offense, they chose the Power Attack and Agility Attack systems. While these two systems have different characteristics, they share a common goal: the pursuit of offensive power."
"By following both, they pursued a combination of speed and devastating strikes—where Wind handled the speed and agility-based attacks, and Fire handled the power-based strikes."
"Merging these two cultivation directions to find a way for Wind and Fire to resonate was the Lu Clan's original intent. Naturally, this type of cultivation was fraught with variables at first."
"It wasn't as easy to test as the Huyan Clan's method, so their exploration was much more difficult. Without existing experience to draw from, the first generation of Lu Clan members who followed the Fusion Stream actually had lower combat power than those who stuck to the Extreme Stream."
"But the Lu Clan didn't give up. Instead, they doubled their efforts. After about four hundred years and several generations of trial and error, the Lu Clan's Wind-Fire Fusion Stream cultivation method finally succeeded."
"The power unleashed by their Martial Souls began to exceed what they had achieved under the Extreme Stream."
Xu Lin became somewhat excited at this point.
"The dual-attribute Fusion Stream created by the Lu Clan, built upon the foundation of the Huyan Clan, was perfectly suited for their Wind Fire Phoenix."
"Similarly, even if the attributes differed, the philosophy of the Lu Clan's Fusion Stream was applicable to other dual-element Martial Souls across the continent. Other dual-attribute Soul Masters began to follow this path one after another."
"Furthermore, because the Lu Clan's Fusion Stream strengthened two types of power within the Martial Soul's origin separately, it completely broke away from the framework of the Extreme Stream."
"Therefore, after the successful creation of the Lu Clan's dual-attribute Fusion Stream, more and more people began to acknowledge that the Fusion Stream had become a new cultivation school, second only to the Extreme Stream."
Silence.
After Xu Lin finished this segment, she stopped speaking to let the children digest the information.
She felt the same; although she had recounted the history of the Fusion Stream many times, every time she spoke of it, she was filled with such admiration that she wished she had been born in that era.
Ling Xiao took a deep breath, suppressing the shock in his heart.
The journey from the Fusion Stream's initial birth to its official recognition took less than five hundred years, but those five hundred years were enough for several generations to grow.
Generations of Soul Masters constantly experimenting and exploring just to find a better cultivation path for their Martial Souls—it was truly fascinating.
As Ling Xiao reflected, the initial Fusion Stream proposed by the Huyan Clan hadn't yet fully escaped the framework of the Extreme Stream. But by the time the Lu Clan developed the dual-attribute Fusion Stream, it had its own complete structure.
Now, whether it was a Martial Soul like the Diamond Mammoth with dual physical traits or one like the Wind Fire Phoenix with dual elemental attributes, both could follow the path of the Fusion Stream.
The foundation for fully unleashing a Martial Soul's origin power had been laid. It was no wonder the Soul Master world of that time had to officially recognize the status of the Fusion Stream.
He just wondered what the third stage of the Fusion Stream, as mentioned by Teacher Xu Lin, would be like.