"The woman from the Yun Clan derived these conclusions based on her own understanding and research into martial souls," Xu Lin continued.
"Although these conclusions had not yet been proven at the time, they explained the root cause of their defect to a certain extent. They even provided a direction for a solution, even if the final strategy had yet to be found."
"However, she did not give up. She understood that the key to solving this defect did not lie in immediately making her clansmen's soul ring absorption as effective as other martial souls to gain a massive boost in strength."
"In fact, increasing combat power wasn't the primary goal—it could even be considered secondary. The focus was entirely on how to trigger the evolution and metamorphosis of their martial soul."
"Since the ideologies of the 'Extreme Stream' seemed unsuitable, she found herself at a temporary standstill. Consequently, having grown somewhat disillusioned with the traditional Extreme Stream, she turned her gaze toward the recently established 'Fusion Stream.'"
Hearing this, Ling Xiao felt a surge of excitement.
He knew the eventual outcome: this woman would successfully resolve the issue by following the Fusion Stream. However, he still couldn't fathom exactly what kind of road she had eventually carved out.
"At that time, the Fusion Stream had only recently established its status, and its practitioners were few. From the perspective of that era, the Yun Clan's martial soul didn't seem compatible with the Fusion Stream at all."
"Thus, the Yun Clan knew very little about it, possessing only a vague, hearsay understanding of its core concepts. Hoping to find a solution within the Fusion Stream, the Yun woman decided to travel to the Huyan and Lu Clans to study their ideologies."
"After all, during the birth and rise of the Fusion Stream, these two Clans had made the most significant contributions; the two main branches of the Fusion Stream had originated from them."
At this point, Xu Lin sighed with some emotion.
"While she was born with a malignant mutation and had terrible luck in that regard, one must admit her timing was fortunate. It was just as the Fusion Stream was becoming officially recognized."
"Because practitioners were scarce and few knew the specifics of its philosophy, the Spirit Master world was in a state of transition. Many masters who were actually suited for Fusion were still following the traditional Extreme Stream."
"To expand their influence and prestige, the two great families welcomed anyone who actively sought to learn their ways. Furthermore, because she came seeking a way to resolve a defect in her clan's martial soul."
"It mirrored the struggles of their own ancestors who had researched how to better unleash their own souls' power. This earned her a great deal of goodwill and kinship from them."
"The woman spent about three years studying with the two clans. Aside from the deepest secrets involving their inherited martial souls, they taught her the core essence of the Fusion Stream without reservation, leaving her greatly enlightened."
"Upon returning to her clan once more, she combined her understanding of the Fusion Stream with the traditional Extreme Stream. She finally deduced a method that was highly likely to solve her clan's defect: the Single-Attribute Fusion Stream."
"Single-Attribute Fusion?" Ling Xiao frowned as he contemplated.
"How can a single attribute fuse? It should be Dual-Attribute Fusion!"
"The so-called Single-Attribute Fusion does not mean fusing two different attributes together for cultivation like the Dual-Attribute branch," Xu Lin explained.
"Instead, it refers to a situation where a martial soul has only a single characteristic or attribute, and a new attribute is fused into it."
"This new school was different from the previous two Fusion branches."
"It wasn't a method of martial soul cultivation, but a method of Martial Soul Evolution. Perhaps you've noticed that the first two branches of the Fusion Stream focused on how to cultivate the soul, not how to evolve it."
"Before Single-Attribute Fusion appeared, the Fusion Stream was not only niche but also incomplete; it naturally couldn't compare to the Extreme Stream, which already had a perfected system covering both cultivation and evolution."
"The Yun woman drew inspiration from the Fusion Stream. She reasoned that if simply strengthening the 'Sharpness' of their tool attribute failed to evolve the martial soul, then perhaps adding a completely new attribute would work."
"Even if the martial soul's power didn't see a massive immediate jump, the difference between the new form and the original would be substantial. This created a much higher probability that the evolved state could be passed down to descendants."
"Moreover, if a Spirit Master could reach the Soul Saint rank, even if their power seemed weaker than other Soul Saints due to the 'Ordinary Tool Soul' defect, it wouldn't change the fact that the soul had undergone a fundamental change."
"Once this martial soul—now possessing a 'special power'—awakened in the next generation of Yun children, it would be classified as a High-Level Martial Soul from birth."
"At that point, if they attempted to absorb soul rings and the effect was normal, the defect would be permanently resolved."
"As long as the clansmen continued to cultivate this way and produce heirs, they could eventually transform their ordinary Sword martial soul into a brand-new High-Level Tool Soul. Future generations would never lag behind others again."
"While the inspiration for this solution came from the Fusion Stream, the actual implementation was born from the Extreme Stream's method of evolving ordinary Beast Souls into Soul Beast martial souls."
"As I mentioned before, according to the Extreme Stream, to evolve an ordinary animal soul into a Soul Beast soul, one must choose soul rings from the same species of soul beast as much as possible—or at least ones that are extremely similar."
"This forces the ordinary soul to evolve into that specific Soul Beast martial soul. For a long time, the Spirit Master world believed that Tool Souls couldn't follow this path because of their inanimate forms."
"They thought tools could only develop their existing traits. But the Yun woman realized something: on the surface, an ordinary beast evolves into a soul beast, but if you look past that to the level of Martial Soul Origin, every fusion of Origin and Soul Ring Power is essentially adding a new attribute or characteristic to the soul."
"This is most obvious in Spirit Masters who target elemental soul beasts. After evolving into a Soul Beast martial soul, they don't just gain elemental power; their beast attribute is also enhanced to the level of that soul beast."
"Therefore, she believed the Yun Clan's Sword could fuse with a new attribute by repeatedly absorbing soul rings from a specific elemental soul beast."
"Even if there were no 'Sword-type' soul beasts in existence, the Yun Clan could forge a unique, unprecedented martial soul themselves—just like a blacksmith forging a legendary divine weapon."
"Because of the inefficiency of ordinary Tool Souls in absorbing soul rings, the fusion of the new attribute and the enhancement of the 'Sharpness' might still be inferior to other martial souls at first."
"However, she had another hypothesis: it might be possible to balance the absorption efficiency while forcing the evolution. Regardless, even if they couldn't balance it, this method of cultivation offered hope."
"It might not make the current generation of the clan stronger than before, but as long as it fused a new special power into the clan soul—creating a fundamental difference from the original—and that soul reached the Soul Saint level, it could be passed down. Solving the defect in the next generation was what truly mattered."