"There's a high possibility, but not necessarily so."
Although Zhou Qing knew very well that Tang Hao's martial soul was the Clear Sky Hammer, he couldn't act like he knew it now. And as someone devoted to being a rigorous amateur scientist, he had to be professional he needed to analyze all possible scenarios for Tang San.
"Why?" Tang San asked in confusion.
"For example: let's say someone's martial soul is a Yellow Ox, a beast-type martial soul, but they don't have any soul power. According to my data on martial souls, soul masters don't acquire a true martial soul form until they reach the seventieth level—Soul Sage. What exactly a martial soul true form is, I don't know yet. But based on book descriptions, it's a state where beast-type martial soul users can fully transform into a soul beast-like form."
Zhou Qing explained to Tang San, "So, I boldly categorize the stage before reaching Soul Sage with a beast-type martial soul as the growth period. During this stage, for every major level a soul master advances, parts of their body gradually resemble parts of a soul beast. I call this process 'beastification.'"
"Take the Yellow Ox martial soul as an example. If the person doesn't have innate soul power and can't cultivate, they absolutely can't transform into an ox to plow fields."
"However, since it's a human with a Yellow Ox martial soul, the awakened person would possess greater strength and endurance than normal people. That gives them an advantage in plowing. But if they go to the city for physical labor, or even become a blacksmith, that's also completely viable. After all, these life skills don't necessarily rely on martial souls—humans can learn them on their own."
"San'er, if your martial soul was a Yellow Ox, would you rather toil in the fields for half a year and earn only twenty silver soul coins, or go to the city, learn blacksmithing, and earn close to fifty—or even more—silver soul coins in the same time?"
Naturally, Tang San would choose the latter without hesitation.
At that moment, Tang San's thinking expanded: his father was a blacksmith, so his martial soul could be a forging hammer—or maybe a beast-type soul that granted strength and endurance like the Yellow Ox. It could even be a plant-type soul—after all, people don't always choose their profession based on their martial soul. Maybe some just like being a blacksmith?
What was it that Zhou Qing said again?
Ah, right!
Respect the diversity of human choice!
Putting down the materials in his hand, Tang San picked up the book "Spirit Hall's Basic Meditation Technique". After flipping through it for a while, he felt the cultivation methods of this world were just a little... strange.
He closed his eyes, sensing the rhythm of his martial soul within his body. Using this sensation, he tried to feel the flow of soul power through channels different from blood vessels, and learned to guide this flow through conscious intent.
To be honest—
As someone who hadn't yet awakened his martial soul, Tang San didn't know how to describe this cultivation method.
When cultivating Xuantian Technique, he also had to calm his mind and allow his internal energy to circulate through his body, based on the Ren and Du meridians. It extended to major points like the Baihui at the top of the head, the Yongquan at the soles of the feet, and connected areas like the Yintang between the eyebrows, the Tanzhong at the chest, and the Guanyuan three inches below the navel—these referred to the three great dantians.
As for Tang Sect's techniques like Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, Mysterious Jade Hand, Purple Demon Eye, and Controlling Crane Catching Dragon, although they couldn't cultivate internal energy or raise one's level, they still required coordination with the Xuantian Technique for the best effect.
But the cultivation methods of this world…
At least based on this Basic Meditation Technique of Spirit Hall, it seemed that as long as one awakened their martial soul and had innate soul power, they could sense a cultivation path granted by the martial soul just through meditation.
How convenient was that?
"The martial souls of this world truly are mysterious!"
Tang San thought to himself. He then turned to the next page of the book and found a diagram showing the soul power circulation path in the human body.
To him, this looked like the simplest form of internal energy training—just a cycle through the Ren and Du meridians.
"What's this?"
Tang San was slightly surprised. Although the diagram didn't label any acupoints, it showed two lines connecting the brain, throat, chest, lower dantian, and spine. In his previous life, this was the most basic Small Heavenly Cycle internal cultivation diagram.
"It's the foundational soul power circulation path summarized by Spirit Hall. Apparently, all soul masters' soul power flows along these two lines." Zhou Qing noticed Tang San's surprise and guessed this must be the most basic form of internal cultivation.
In his past life, when Zhou Qing helped his parents buy traditional Chinese medicine, he had seen similar diagrams on the wall of a TCM shop—those were far more complex and detailed than this one.
In this life, based on this simplified chart released by Spirit Hall, Zhou Qing speculated that the majority of people used this Small Heavenly Cycle path through the Ren and Du meridians for soul power cultivation. Moreover, judging from the pattern of this Basic Meditation Technique, it seemed people in this world had yet to fully map out the meridians and acupoints of the human body.
Still, Zhou Qing guessed that the more powerful a martial soul was, the more complex, refined, and comprehensive its soul power route would be—leading to faster cultivation.
From this angle, did the amount of innate soul power a martial soul granted also represent how many meridians it used during soul power cultivation?
Undoubtedly so.
The more meridians used and the more complete the circulation, the faster the cultivation and the more powerful the enhancement of the human body.
As for Tang San's Xuantian Technique?
Zhou Qing speculated—given that Tang San's primary cultivation in the original story was this technique—Xuantian Technique probably involved a large and complex meridian network, potentially surpassing even top-tier martial souls like Blue Silver Emperor and Clear Sky Hammer.
Otherwise, Tang San wouldn't have ignored the cultivation routes offered by those top martial souls and persisted in cultivating Xuantian Technique. Though he was rigid on some moral principles, when it came to his own cultivation, he was a pragmatist.
Then again…
It could also be that in the original story, after receiving Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang's cultivation method, Tang San never even considered trying the native meditation methods of the Douluo Continent. That means he never discovered the internal soul power route maps granted by the Blue Silver Emperor or Clear Sky Hammer. In the original, he just kept training in Xuantian Technique, and enhanced it by attaching spirit rings to his second martial soul and refining their power.
Still, the Xuantian Technique is already a fully developed system with established theory.
Even if a soul master in this world had a god-level martial soul with a stronger cultivation method, without solid foundational theory, they wouldn't be able to explain much about how it worked.
In that case, even if the soul power they cultivated was immense, their efficiency in using that power might be far inferior to Tang San with his Xuantian Technique.
It's not that Xuantian Technique crushes all the cultivation methods in this world—rather, it's the foundational martial theory behind it that completely crushes the simplified, intuition-based training theory of this world.
"Is that so?"
Tang San nodded, indicating he understood. He also realized that soul masters in this world cultivated based on methods formed through meditation and understanding of their martial souls—
Powerful martial souls might offer training routes just as effective, or even faster, than the Xuantian Technique. But from this extremely basic manual, he could tell one thing clearly:
The soul masters of this world have a very limited understanding of the human body.
However, considering this manual was compiled and released by Spirit Hall, Tang San also guessed: if this world had sects or martial arts families, their cultivation methods were probably based on their own clan's martial soul. For soul masters without similar martial souls—or those from outside the sect—those techniques likely wouldn't work well.
Still, they were probably more effective than the generic methods granted by low-level martial souls.
As for how this basic manual was distributed so freely…
Tang San didn't find it strange. After all, cultivating internal energy required specific breathing methods—and this basic meditation manual didn't include any. Perhaps because each martial soul brings its own breathing pattern during cultivation, there's no way to generalize or include one.
Or maybe—even Spirit Hall never realized that the key to internal cultivation isn't the martial soul, isn't the meditation—
It's the breathing.
With that sudden thought, Tang San didn't know how to evaluate this world's cultivation system anymore. It was powerful and convenient—yet fundamentally lacking in theory, which made it feel…
Weird.
Of course—
That was just Tang San's current impression. Everything would depend on what he experienced after awakening his martial soul two years later.