Douluo: In an extraordinary world, with unparallel understanding!

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After the fourth strike, Sun-Moon Soul Engineering Academy's two artillery-type soul engineers, one support-type soul engineer, and one defense-type soul engineer were all severely injured.

Their Invincible Barrier had already been exhausted earlier, leaving them no choice but to take the full force of the attack.

Seeing that Sun-Moon's remaining contestants were unable to continue, the referee immediately halted the match.

"Tang Sect, victory!"

---

 Returning to Sun-Moon Hall

Back at Sun-Moon Hall, Su Yu focused on consolidating his insights from the day's battles.

The Soul Dueling Tournament had indeed proven valuable.

"Essence, Qi, and Spirit fusion—I'm still missing the integration of vital energy. I thought it wouldn't be too difficult, but it seems far more complex than expected."

Once again, he failed. Opening his eyes, he pondered the challenge of harmonizing vital energy with spiritual power.

If he truly wanted to contain both energies within soul power, treating them as just two more aspects of its nature, then it wouldn't be a fusion of Essence, Qi, and Spirit anymore.

Instead, it would become spirit merging into Qi.

And strangely enough, this concept reminded Su Yu of the Yin-Yang Complementary Soul Core.

Su Yu had yet to reach a definitive conclusion regarding the relationship between the three soul cores.

Was Yin-Yang Complementarity about balancing the connection between any two soul cores? Or was it that two pairs were complementary, while the third resonated with both?

This was similar to the current process of merging spiritual power and vital energy into soul power, blending and enhancing their different attributes within it.

"And yet... something still feels imperfect."

Thus, he had to fine-tune the relationship between vital energy and spiritual power as well. Only then could he achieve a true fusion of Essence, Qi, and Spirit.

It was like a large circle encompassing two smaller circles—but if these two smaller circles only coexisted without truly merging, the fusion would be incomplete. The ideal state would be three fully overlapping circles, perfectly unified.

"Three... such a special number."

Spiritual power and vital energy naturally contained a certain level of conflict. One represented the intangible, the other the tangible—this contrast was the source of their inherent opposition.

At the same time, however, both held a unique attraction to soul power.

"No, wait—there's still conflict."

Su Yu suddenly grasped a key insight.

Within soul power, some aspects resonated with spiritual power, while others resonated with vital energy. This meant that:

- The part of soul power that matched spiritual power would naturally conflict with vital energy.

- Likewise, the part of soul power aligned with vital energy would inherently oppose spiritual power.

This created a three-way opposition, where every pair of forces contained a natural contradiction.

Thus, if he wanted to fuse all three into one, he couldn't just focus on removing conflict—he had to maintain both opposition and connection simultaneously. Only by resolving these contradictions within a unified framework could he achieve a true, harmonious fusion.

After all, only opposing forces merging together could generate even greater power.

---

 Lost in Thought

"Is it time already?"

The sound of his soul tool's alarm snapped Su Yu out of his deep contemplation.

He realized that he had been lost in thought for over an hour.

"Why didn't that kid Yuhao come to get me?"

Pausing his study of Essence, Qi, and Spirit fusion, Su Yu set out to find Huo Yuhao—only to discover that he, too, was completely absorbed in his own insights.

"Well now, looks like this guy got too caught up in his comprehension as well."

But something felt off.

At first, Su Yu assumed that Huo Yuhao was still refining his understanding of spiritual power and soul power fusion.

However, after a closer look, he realized that the techniques Bei Bei had demonstrated earlier—particularly the two absolute techniques passed down from Mu En—had provided Yuhao with an unexpected breakthrough.

"This is... the seamless flow of soul power? He's reaching the threshold for forming a soul core!"

Su Yu had chosen the safest approach when he fused his own soul core.

He had methodically adjusted the circulation of soul power throughout his body, ensuring that at the moment of compression, his soul power would collapse into the most optimal, perfect soul core state.

This technique was essentially the principle of seamless flow—soul power circulating as a single, unified whole.

However, Su Yu had achieved this through logical reasoning and deliberate control.

Huo Yuhao's situation was different.

Rather than relying on a systematic plan, he had experienced a moment of pure enlightenment—allowing his soul power to naturally align itself into a state of complete unity.

Neither approach was inherently superior.

- Su Yu's method was entirely analytical—he reached his conclusions through logical deduction and rigorous self-regulation.

- Huo Yuhao's method was more intuitive—a moment of inspiration allowed him to naturally synchronize his soul power.

At first glance, Huo Yuhao's approach seemed easier—as though he had simply stumbled upon the correct feeling.

But to Su Yu, his own method was undeniably better.

After all, every step of his progress had been carefully analyzed, refined, and cultivated through his own efforts—not dependent on fleeting moments of insight.

Just as Electrolux had once told him:

"True enlightenment must be something you can engrave into knowledge. Only then is it real insight."

Without being able to maintain that sensation, one would be unable to harness it—what would that even count as? Not true insight.

"Not a small gain."

Huo Yuhao stopped his cultivation, opened his eyes, and was clearly aware of the time pressure. He left Sun-Moon Hall with Su Yu to head for the Soul Master Competition.

Each round of the competition had ample time—over three hours for each one.

Of course, this was plenty of time for the two of them.

After Su Yu had already made prior arrangements, their match continued as scheduled.

Even though Huo Yuhao's breakthrough had delayed their arrival by two hours, they still had the right to enter directly into the competition and participate.

"Hey, a young kid, did he oversleep?"

Across both arenas, this remarkable rumor spread without fail.

At the same time, betting pools on the competition had added options for Su Yu and Huo Yuhao advancing.

Moreover, the condition was that they advanced with the best possible score.

And with such odds, the payout was quite high.

Ten to one!

Some people scoffed, but soon enough, many others placed their bets.

The ratio of payout gradually adjusted behind the scenes at both black market venues, eventually dropping to five to one.

"Not bad, I put all my funds on the ten-to-one payout." Su Yu, unfazed, casually scanned his winnings with his spiritual power before getting to work on making soul tools.

"This time, I'll craft a Level 6 Soul Tool, a defensive gem."

At the crafting station, Su Yu selected several rare metals of extremely high hardness that were ideal for making defensive gems. He used Sunken Silver as a binding agent to forge various rare metals together.

This alone drew admiration from many who were familiar with the craft.

After all, fusion forging was a technique typically only mastered by high-level Soul Masters, and by high-level, this referred to Level 8 or 9 Soul Masters.

The reason for this was that crafting soul tools of such a level required extremely rare metals, which in turn made the crafting process much more complicated.

This necessitated using a combination of metals, which is where the technique of fusion forging came in.

Of course, fusion forging wasn't an exclusive skill for only high-level Soul Masters to grasp, but it was usually only after reaching higher levels that Soul Masters would have the time and resources to research it.

"Fusion forging these rare metals wasted nearly half an hour. I'm probably not going to finish the final product in time."

"An hour's not enough to create a Level 5 Soul Tool that could be rated as excellent—this is probably just a display of skill, meant to give himself extra points."

"..."

(End of chapter)