Xu Lin's voice continued to resonate through the classroom.
"After more than a decade of continuous study, this woman from the Yun Clan had completely mastered all the martial soul theories her clan could teach. Subsequently, she spent three years traveling abroad."
"Those three years not only broadened her horizons but also allowed her to develop a more profound understanding of martial souls, forming a unique ideology of her own."
"Upon returning to the clan, she requested her father for permission to review every research record the clan had kept regarding their martial soul since their history began. Fortunately, her father was not a pedantic man and readily agreed."
"Thus, while consulting the clan's historical data and combining it with her own theoretical research, she began searching for a way to resolve their martial soul's inherent defect."
"She had always believed that for a normal martial soul like the Yun Clan's, an innate defect shouldn't exist. The current phenomenon—where the effects of absorbing soul rings were poor—was more likely because people simply hadn't found the correct method of cultivation yet."
"After all, among Beast Souls and Tool Souls, whether they were based on soul beasts or ordinary objects, most could absorb soul rings normally. There was no reason for ordinary Tool Souls to be inherently inferior."
"She placed great importance on the polarized phenomenon of soul ring absorption efficiency among Tool Souls. During her studies, she learned that when the Yun Clan's Sword martial soul cultivated, it faced a unique hurdle:"
"As an ordinary Tool Soul based on a mundane object, there were no 'Sword' type soul beasts in nature that had gained sentience. Therefore, they couldn't follow the path of ordinary Beast Souls."
"However, the Sword possessed the characteristic of 'Sharpness,' which is a manifestation of a tool's attributes—one that is extremely pure, much like the life attribute possessed by ordinary Plant Souls."
"Because of this, the Yun Clan ancestors always chose soul beasts with high attack power for their soul rings, attempting to enhance the Sharpness of their martial soul."
"This seemed to align with the sword's nature, but the results were consistently disappointing. The attack power did not increase significantly, and the soul skills were lackluster."
"Even when they absorbed soul rings of a higher age, the results were barely any better. Yet, high-level Tool Souls and above did not suffer from this issue. Furthermore, ordinary Beast Souls of the same medium or even low rank didn't face this problem either."
"At the time, the woman from the Yun Clan believed this discrepancy was the breakthrough point. Of course, she wasn't the only one to notice this, but no one knew the actual cause."
"The woman couldn't explain it initially either. However, through her travels and her studies, she proposed a bold hypothesis."
"If we ignore the fact that high-level Tool Souls absorb rings normally, the cause of this phenomenon is clearly the massive gap between a Tool Soul's form and a soul beast's life form. Their compatibility is low, and their essential attributes conflict."
"But since high-level Tool Souls can absorb them normally, then perhaps the process by which a high-level Tool Soul absorbs the 'Origin' of a soul beast is fundamentally different from that of an ordinary Tool Soul."
"Can the process of the Martial Soul Origin absorbing soul ring power actually differ?" Ling Xiao felt a bit confused, not quite grasping the nuance of that sentence.
Seeing the similar looks of confusion on the students' faces below, Xu Lin smiled faintly and continued: "That woman was truly brilliant and daring. She looked at it from the perspective of Soul Masters who possessed high-level Tool Souls."
"If one inherits a high-level or even top-tier Tool Soul, the martial soul itself must possess a special power, and its Origin level is far stronger than that of an ordinary martial soul."
"In this scenario, the process of the martial soul absorbing a soul ring is likely more akin to 'Devouring.' The Martial Soul Origin devours the power of the soul ring, treating it as nutrients."
"It uses its own Origin as the dominant force to directly strengthen itself. In contrast, ordinary Tool Souls lack that special power; their Origin is very mundane. When they absorb a soul ring, the process is likely closer to 'Fusion.'"
"Without the subjectivity and forcefulness of 'Devouring,' the process is hindered by the low compatibility and the conflict between the tool's essence and the beast's life form. This is what leads to the poor absorption effect in ordinary Tool Souls."
Holy crap, that hypothesis is actually quite reasonable, Ling Xiao thought, startled.
This idea could indeed explain the phenomenon logically.
Moreover, this hypothesis regarding the absorption process could be extended to other types of martial souls. It could even be linked to the phenomenon of martial soul evolution via soul ring absorption.
Generally, for high-level souls, it's hard to trigger further evolution; people usually just say the hunted soul beast wasn't 'strong enough.' Conversely, if a soul evolves, they say the beast was 'strong enough.'
However, that explanation was too superficial. Ling Xiao had understood it that way in his past life, but hearing Xu Lin explain the Yun woman's theory, he felt it was not only consistent but much deeper.
Ling Xiao wasn't the only one surprised.
Every student in the classroom who understood Xu Lin's narrative wore a look of shock. The young girls, Hu Liena and Tuoba Yu'er, looked on with faces full of admiration, as if they were the ones who had made the discovery.
Xu Lin clearly wasn't finished.
After a pause, she continued: "Once she made this hypothesis, her path forward became clear."
"According to her theory of the two absorption methods, to solve her clan's plight, she had to find a way to make their martial soul evolve into a high-level Tool Soul that possessed 'special power.'"
At this point, Xu Lin smiled and said with a tone of respect, "Everyone, don't look down on this. To a layman, this conclusion might seem like it's just circling back to the starting point—like a piece of useless advice."
"But that's not true. Once she reached this conclusion, she made a judgment: the traditional 'Extreme Stream' the Yun Clan had followed for generations was likely a wrong turn. Even if they followed it for ten thousand years, it would be a futile effort."
"To make a martial soul evolve through cultivation and then pass it down to descendants, at least two conditions must be met. First, there must be a fundamental difference between the soul before and after evolution"
"The Martial Soul Origin must undergo a clear metamorphosis, not just a simple enhancement of existing traits. Second, the Soul Master of that generation must reach at least the Soul Saint rank."
"The Yun Clan's past direction was to use soul rings to strengthen the 'Sharpness' of the sword with all their might—a classic 'Extreme Stream' ideology. Based on her theory, this 'Fusion' would always be poor due to low compatibility."
"The enhancement to the martial soul wouldn't be significant enough to create a fundamental change from the original state. Thus, martial soul evolution and successful inheritance were essentially impossible."