"Not enough."
Feeling the Spiritual Power inside him remain completely undiminished, barely recovering more than he released no matter how freely he poured it out, a thought flashed through Arthur's mind. He wanted to test his own limits.
The black soul ring behind him lit up.
Soul power, released!
"BOOM!"
In an instant, the crimson-gold Spiritual Power that had been weaving around him erupted without warning. Like a powder keg set alight, it detonated outward from Arthur at the center.
The bluestone floor of the training ground fractured in response, cracks racing outward like a spider's web and reaching the edges of the entire grounds in the blink of an eye.
Some of the shattered stone chunks were sent airborne by the gale of Spiritual Power, carving shrieking lines through the air as they flew.
The training racks and wooden posts nearby were like paper constructions, sent tumbling into the sky by the rampaging currents before crashing back down with a heavy impact.
Splinters and rubble sprayed in every direction.
The medicinal liquid in the herb pool was hurled into a towering wall of water over thirty feet high, and the billowing mist was vaporized in an instant by the scorching heat of the crimson-gold Spiritual Power, turning into a dense white steam that draped itself over the entire training ground. The air was thick with the rich scent of medicine and searing heat.
Mu Ye's heart gave a small, pained lurch as he watched the herb pool disappear. He could barely accept it, though he reasoned that Arthur had absorbed most of it by now anyway.
He narrowed his eyes and watched Arthur carefully, trying to work out what exactly the boy was doing.
Time passed, slowly.
One breath. Two breaths.
One quarter-hour. Two quarter-hours.
Gradually, Mu Ye noticed something was wrong.
After all this time, Arthur still stood straight and unbowed.
He maintained his Spiritual Power release posture without faltering. The black soul ring behind him shone steadily, and the crimson-gold Spiritual Power rolling across his body churned like boiling magma.
"Your soul power..."
Mu Ye's voice carried a disbelief he could not contain.
He took two involuntary steps forward, eyes fixed on the crimson-gold Spiritual Power churning around Arthur.
After this prolonged, frenzied release, even a Soul Emperor-class Soul Master should have burned through the better part of their reserves.
Yet the soul power radiating from Arthur had not diminished in the slightest. If anything, it was growing more concentrated and refined.
Arthur slowly opened his eyes. Despite having sustained his release for so long, there was not a trace of fatigue in them. They shone with a startling brightness.
He raised his hand. The crimson-gold Spiritual Power gathered in his palm and condensed into a spinning orb of light, its radiance steady and blazing. "I hadn't expected the Red Dragon Furnace Core's energy supply to be completely without a ceiling."
Feeling his Spiritual Power snap back to fullness with each breath, Arthur felt as though he had cracked the world open.
"That's enough for now."
He drew his Spiritual Power back in gradually and let out a long breath.
"That force inside you, is this what it does?" Mu Ye stepped forward to ask.
"That's part of it." Arthur rolled his shoulders. "There's a lot more besides, but I need time to bring it all together."
"Still getting used to it."
"Still getting used to it?" A mysterious smile crossed Mu Ye's face. "Then let me help you along. I'll check your physical body's progress at the same time."
The words had barely left his mouth before Mu Ye vanished from where he stood.
The next instant, a plain, unadorned fist came swinging straight at Arthur.
The old Arthur would already have been arranging himself into a suitable position for losing consciousness.
But things were different now.
Arthur advanced instead of retreating. He matched Mu Ye's rhythm and fell into step with it.
He clenched his own fist, poured every ounce of his physical strength into it without holding a single drop back, and drove it forward to meet Mu Ye's incoming blow.
"BANG!"
The moment the two fists collided, a deep, shuddering impact set the air itself humming. A ring-shaped shockwave detonated outward from the pair of them, and the already-fractured bluestone tiles were sent completely airborne.
"Good!" Mu Ye's eyes lit up.
He added more force, and threw another punch.
Arthur felt a surge far more violent and unyielding than the last come bearing down on him.
Inside his body, the Red Dragon Furnace Core hammered wildly. A surging flood of qi and blood rushed into both arms, and his physical strength detonated in full. The lines of muscle stood out in sharp relief with the exertion, and a rich crimson-gold halo bloomed across his knuckles.
Without a moment's hesitation, he held his hard-against-hard stance and drove his fist forward again with unstoppable force.
"BOOM!"
The second collision was heavier and deeper than the first, like a thunderclap going off inside the training ground.
The ring-shaped shockwave doubled in power, blasting the surrounding rubble skyward all over again.
One punch. Two punches. Three punches.
The two of them were like a pair of rampaging beasts. They abandoned all technique and simply hammered each other with raw physical force. The meaty sound of fist against flesh rang out in one unbroken chain.
Fists filled the air.
Mu Ye kept his power under careful control, making sure each successive punch was one degree stronger than the last.
Gradually turning it up.
Arthur used the exchange to wring something out of himself, growing more familiar with the new power as they went.
"ORA ORA ORA ORA!"
Arthur roared without stopping. The qi and blood inside him reached a full boil. His fists flew in a torrent as dense as a downpour, crashing into Mu Ye's strikes in a relentless series of deep, thunderous impacts.
Before long, Arthur was on the ground and not getting back up.
A chance encounter with the Body Sect's Sect Master. He had given everything he had and still couldn't win.
"What a monster." Mu Ye wiped at nonexistent sweat. He looked down at Arthur and felt only deeper and deeper satisfaction with the decision he had made to teach him.
The Body Sect would flourish greatly.
He could already see the bright future ahead of Arthur on the path of the body, a path that would transcend all predecessors and push toward the ultimate limits of what was possible.
He reached out and gave Arthur's shoulder a pat. Not too hard, not too soft, but it was enough to make Arthur grimace and bare his teeth. "Bear with it for a while. You destroyed the herb pool yourself."
"Stay here and don't move. I'll go brew another batch for you."
Arthur weakly rolled his eyes.
Time passed, and eventually the rich aroma of meat drifted over on the breeze, making Arthur's stomach growl insistently.
He turned his head to see Mu Ye coming back with a food box in one hand and a medicine jar in the other.
"Have something to eat first, take the edge off."
Mu Ye tossed the food box in front of him, then opened the medicine jar. A bitter medicinal scent spread through the air. "I brewed this Mind-Settling Recovery Soup just now. It's not up to the standard of the herb pool, but it'll do the job."
Arthur sat up, never so much as glanced at the medicinal soup, opened the food box, and immediately began wolfing down its contents.
The solid food held far more appeal for him.
Healing medicine and the like barely registered anymore.
As long as he was anywhere covered by Douluo's spiritual veins, his injuries would mend on their own, slowly but surely.
He was simply exhausted right now.
And that was only because he was still too weak. Once he grew stronger and could draw on more of the ley line energy, being fully healed in a single second would be no distant dream.
"Child of Nature" was no longer adequate to describe him.
Actually, if there were such a thing as a Child of Nature, strictly speaking they would be something like Arthur's descendants. He was the new Plane Lord, after all, just still in his developing stage.
Layered on top of that, the Red Dragon Furnace Core restoring his power.
He really had become a walking fountain.
"Slow down, no rush." Mu Ye said. "I noticed that after you break through to rank forty, you'll still only have three soul rings."
"Do you have any thoughts on a new soul spirit?"
Arthur's mouth was stuffed full. His cheeks were puffed out like a squirrel's, and he mumbled indistinctly, "A soul spirit? Honestly, it doesn't matter much for my martial soul."
He swallowed. "But I'm planning to wait a bit. When the time comes, I'll absorb a hundred-thousand-year soul spirit."
Mu Ye stared at him. "Hmm?"
His eyes went perfectly round, as though he had just heard the most outlandish tale imaginable. "A hundred-thousand-year soul spirit?"
Oh no. Oh no.
Had he been hitting too hard just now?
He'd knocked Arthur's brain loose.
Mu Ye stared at Arthur, his fingers drifting unconsciously to his chin.
His expression was one of undisguised concern that read: "This poor child may have been punched into stupidity."
"Arthur, tell me the truth." Mu Ye's voice took on a grave weight. "During our sparring just now, did one of my punches catch you on the head?"
"You can tell your teacher. I'll fix it."