Chapter 54

Initiating the Spirit Pool is not difficult. By concentrating all of your combat power at one point and continuously compressing it, as long as your combat power reaches the required level, you can complete it in a very short time.

Increasing from ten thousand to eleven thousand combat power is the fastest improvement in a martial cultivator's career. A ten percent increase can be achieved in just a few seconds.

Where to place the Spirit Pool is a headache-inducing issue. This thing, along with the human heart and brain, is known as one of the three major weaknesses of martial cultivators.

Martial cultivators are also human, and even divine masters are no exception. If the heart or brain is severely damaged, the chances of survival are not high.

If the Spirit Pool is destroyed, there will be significant trouble, even though it won't cause immediate death, the outcome won't be good.

Piercing the Spirit Pool is equivalent to losing all of one's power. The combat power will leave the body through the punctured Spirit Pool, and in a short time, one will become an ordinary person. Even if you want to retrain, it will be extremely difficult.

The heart and brain are innate weaknesses, while the Spirit Pool is an acquired weakness, a position that martial cultivators need to protect carefully.

Du Qian hesitated for a moment and placed the Spirit Pool at the heart position, which is the choice of ninety percent of martial cultivators.

The benefit of this is very clear. If the heart is pierced and destroyed, the person is already dead, so it doesn't matter whether the Spirit Pool is destroyed or not.

Protecting two positions is easier than protecting three.

"Feels great..." The Spirit Pool was activated, and his body felt drained. The ten percent increase in combat power came at the cost of completely depleting his combat power. However, it's not a problem. Under the pressure of external spiritual energy, he could clearly feel the spiritual energy flooding into his body.

The recovery speed is amazing. It's much faster than after manifesting a spirit tool. Without using a differential machine to calculate, Du Qian knew that his current recovery time for combat power is about fifty minutes.

The faster the recovery, the stronger the sustained combat ability. It is said that at the divine master level, one can fully replenish all combat power in a single breath.

Du Qian couldn't imagine what that realm would be like, but the recovery data for battle masters is public. A battle master with one million combat power recovers in five seconds, and a battle master with five million combat power recovers in just one second.

Next, there was a window period. During this hour, he couldn't absorb spirit horns or separate energy threads.

But was there really nothing to do?

No, and it was quite important. That was choosing the first spirit weapon. Usually, the first one to condense is a spirit weapon, also known as the main hand weapon. This weapon will accompany the martial cultivator for life, so the choice must be made with great caution.

Du Qian was in trouble, just like Yao Jing was when she started. As a war orphan, he had no real teacher and had never learned any combat techniques, so he didn't know what would be the best fit for him.

Yao Jing's choice was mainstream. What is mainstream? Forty percent of people choose to use a knife, so condensing a spirit knife is fine. Twenty-eight percent choose to use a sword, which is also good, and the secondary weapon can be condensed into a sword.

This result, now, is not just hasty but will also affect her future development. A knife is aggressive, fierce, and relentless. A sword is balanced, both offensive and defensive, and as light as a swallow.

Two spirit weapons, completely different in appearance and nature, have never been successfully merged. Yao Jing's final outcome will likely be to abandon one of them.

In tests, combat power may not change much, but in actual combat, it's like cutting off an arm. Even if it's not that extreme, it will definitely be a significant disadvantage.

The choice of spirit weapons is diverse. No one has stipulated that the condensed spirit weapon must be a certain form. There are always people with creative ideas, some of which have failed, but many have succeeded.

In terms of quantity, the most condensed are knives. Knives are primarily offensive, and the high selection rate of forty percent shows their influence. Martial cultivators who choose knives usually have two options for secondary weapons: dual knives or knife and shield.

Swords are similar, with dual swords or sword and shield.

Next are long spears, which are also popular. The secondary weapon is usually a staff, which can connect to the main weapon, the spear, to increase its length and attack range.

After that, it gets messy: halberds, axes, hooks, claws, forks, whips...

Anything you can think of or can't think of will appear as a spirit weapon.

Among these, there are also many peculiar spirit weapons, such as bows, crossbows, and guns.

Spirit weapons are not real weapons; they are combat power transformed from spiritual energy, requiring the support of the Spirit Pool. Once they leave the body, the combat power automatically converts back to spiritual energy, which dissipates outside the body.

These weapons attack by leaving the body, so the consumption is higher than ordinary spirit weapons, and the sustained combat ability is poorer. However, they can injure from a distance and are hard to defend against.

If you're not careful, you'll suffer from these spirit weapons, but if you know in advance, they're not hard to deal with.

"How should I choose?" Du Qian clutched his head and groaned in pain.

Suddenly, the room went dark, and three nebulae appeared inexplicably. Du Qian noticed that from another nebula, two mist-like things flew out, constantly twisting and deforming in front of him.

Various weapons kept materializing, as if testing something. After an unknown amount of time, they finally slowly stopped.

On the left was a spear, very ordinary. On the right was a staff. When combined, they formed a long spear.

"Could it be that the long spear is the best fit for me?" Du Qian looked at the spear in front of him, speaking to himself.

"Damn... What is this thing? I was thinking about condensing a spirit weapon, and it appeared. Does the spirit talisman have so many functions?"

Apart from the spirit talisman he had used before, he couldn't think of any reason why he would see those three nebulae.

"Alright, a long spear it is. It looks pretty good." Du Qian decided to trust the nebula's choice. After all, it was something created by a talisman master, a highly prestigious profession with much better judgment than his own.

Trusting the expert's choice is the right thing to do.

The spear is the king of all weapons, the staff is the ancestor of all weapons, the sword is the emperor of all weapons, and the knife is the courage of all weapons. These four weapons are the most widely used and have the most users.

That's it. As for the short staff as a secondary weapon, it's clearly meant to connect with the main weapon, the spear, to increase its length, spiritual energy, and combat power. At this point, Du Qian's combat power was still too low, so he didn't need to worry about it.

When Du Qian made his decision, the spear in front of him shattered into countless small pieces, which continuously enlarged and floated past him in a line.

Du Qian opened his eyes wide, not daring to blink. He knew this was the detailed process of the nebula choosing his spirit weapon.

Many people use spirit spears, but each one can have a different internal structure. Spirit spears with different structures can have significant differences in usage and power. The nebula, created by a talisman master, is absolutely the most professional.

At least, that's what Du Qian thought.

Given his knowledge, he naturally didn't know that a spirit talisman couldn't be so miraculous. The public had deified talisman masters, which is why Du Qian thought they were omnipotent.

Compared to talisman masters, martial cultivators sound more ordinary and are everywhere. Unless a divine master appears, it's hard to feel like meeting an idol. Ordinary martial cultivators can be seen on the street.

As for soul masters, there are so few that reports about them are extremely rare. In the eyes of ordinary citizens, they are at most a curiosity, far from the admiration for talisman masters.

In Du Qian's perception, the spirit spear components floating by seemed to take several days before he could remember all the details. When he felt he had memorized everything, the nebula dispersed, and the room returned to light.

He glanced at the time; over two hours had passed. He felt his body, and his combat power had already recovered to its peak. It was time to absorb the spirit horn.

Testing, recording, absorbing, testing again, and recording again.

This process made Du Qian excited again. Becoming a martial cultivator was great, with a significant increase in strength and easier cultivation.

"Rich, rich."

"Pity, pity."

"Ruined, ruined."

From excitement to agitation, and then from agitation to despair, countless thoughts flashed through his mind in just a few minutes. Fortunately, there wasn't much in the office, but even so, he threw the chair to the ceiling, which fell to the ground with a loud noise.

The test results were indeed exciting. This spirit horn increased his combat power by seventy points, reaching 11,070. It might not sound like much, but if you do the math, you'll see. In the past, he absorbed dozens of spirit horns, and the average increase in combat power was less than fifty.

The spirit horn was still the same, and the spiritual energy it contained didn't change. The only explanation for such a significant increase in combat power is that Du Qian's absorption efficiency has improved.

How much it has improved requires more data to support.

The initial joy quickly turned to regret. It was too bad. If he had known that his absorption efficiency would improve with his strength, he wouldn't have used so many spirit horns before. What a waste.

The same spirit horn used to increase his combat power by a maximum of fifty points, but now it jumps to seventy. How could he not feel heartache?

But then, Du Qian found balance. With his martial cultivation talent, without the support of so many spirit horns, it would be questionable whether he could become a martial cultivator in less than a month, let alone in his lifetime.

This time, not only did his absorption efficiency improve, but the time required was significantly shortened.

Before, it usually took him two and a half to three hours to absorb a spirit horn, with the shortest time being two hours and twenty minutes.

This time, it only took him one hour, reducing the time by one and a half times. This is a good thing, indicating that his future absorption speed for spirit horns will greatly increase. Including the four-hour window period, he can absorb one spirit horn in five hours.

Squeeze a bit, and he can absorb one more spirit horn per day.