Chapter 25: External Force
Lin Mo closed his eyes, letting his mind sink into a careful analysis of his own condition and Charmander's current state.
The double joy of Charmander hatching and successfully obtaining his first Spirit Ring had left him no time to examine the new information on the panel. Now that he had finally calmed down, the details about evolution requirements surfaced on their own, forcing him to think.
Charmander's hatching and its first evolution required Rank 10 Spirit Power and Rank 30 Spirit Power respectively.
That lined up perfectly with the Douluo Continent's common understanding of cultivation bottlenecks.
For most Spirit Masters, Ranks 10, 30, 50, and 70 were the most critical thresholds on their path.
First was Rank 10, the starting line of a Spirit Master's journey, and the dividing line between ordinary people and Spirit Masters.
A tiny number of people awakened Spirit Power, yet remained stuck below Rank 10 because their innate Spirit Power was too low, their Spirit quality too poor, or their cultivation method flawed.
These people were not true Spirit Masters. They were only Spirit Scholars with Spirit Power, their futures essentially sealed.
If they could not break through the Rank 10 bottleneck, they would never possess a Spirit Ring or a Spirit Ability in their entire lives.
Tool Spirit users at least had some function, but Beast Spirit users could not even achieve Martial Soul possession.
In other words, they were ordinary people who happened to have Spirit Power, forever barred from becoming real Spirit Masters.
Next was Rank 30, a hurdle that blocked far more people.
Countless Spirit Masters exhausted their entire lives yet remained stuck at Rank 29, forever Spirit Grandmasters, unable to take a single step further.
Take the so called Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang. His Luo San Pao failed to mutate properly, leaving him trapped at Rank 29 for life, never able to become a Spirit Elder.
Rank 30 marked a qualitative leap. From then on, a Spirit Master could absorb thousand year Spirit Rings and truly step into the intermediate Spirit Master domain.
Rank 50 was not as decisive as Rank 30, but it was still extremely important for most Spirit Masters.
Only at Rank 50 could a Spirit Master withstand and absorb ten thousand year Spirit Rings.
The gap between a ten thousand year Spirit Ring and a thousand year Spirit Ring was enormous.
Whether in Spirit Ability power or overall physical enhancement, the difference was like heaven and earth.
Obtaining a ten thousand year Spirit Ring largely determined a Spirit Master's future ceiling.
As for Rank 70, it was a threshold every Spirit Master dreamed of.
At Rank 70, a Spirit Master gained a seventh Spirit Ability that embodied their Spirit's greatest strength, Spirit True Body.
Once Spirit True Body was released, every attribute of the Spirit Master surged, and their strength transformed completely.
Only Spirit Masters with Spirit True Body truly entered the high rank domain, and gained the confidence to stand firm on the continent.
"Rank 10 is the starting point, Rank 30 the key, Rank 50 the leap, Rank 70 the metamorphosis…" Lin Mo silently organized these facts.
"And Charmander's first evolution is set at Rank 30…"
His thoughts became clearer.
If hatching Charmander required Rank 10, and evolving it into Charmeleon required Rank 30, could he infer that evolving Charmeleon into the final form, Charizard, would likely require Rank 50?
After all, Rank 50 was another crucial threshold for Spirit Masters, the stage where ten thousand year Spirit Rings appeared and power leapt.
Charmander's evolution stages aligning so neatly with key cultivation ranks felt less like coincidence and more like a rule level mapping, as if the world's underlying laws were shaping Charmander's growth path as a Martial Soul.
At that realization, Lin Mo's heart burned with excitement.
If his guess was correct, then as long as he cultivated steadily to Rank 30 and Rank 50, Charmander would evolve naturally.
Yet those clear conditions immediately made him think of his other Spirit, the Heart (Blood) main body Martial Soul.
Unlike Charmander's panel, which listed exact requirements, his second Martial Soul still displayed "Unknown" under evolution conditions.
That single word had become a cloud in his heart.
Through recent research, combining his first life's knowledge of blood and meridians with his experience in this life, he had already grasped some basic uses of the main body Martial Soul.
He had even created a Spirit Skill, Blood Burst, that could momentarily erupt qi and blood to strengthen specific body parts.
But he still had no clue how this second Martial Soul could evolve, not even a single thread to follow.
"If the requirement were simply reaching a certain Spirit Power rank…" Lin Mo thought, "…then the panel would show something like 'Evolution condition: reach Rank XX,' just like Charmander."
"It wouldn't stay as the vague 'Unknown.'"
After weighing possibility after possibility, the conclusion became hard to deny.
His panel was the manifestation of his unique talent, and its function was limited to displaying status information about himself and Charmander.
He had tried focusing on other people and objects before, and the panel never reacted. That proved it could not provide information beyond himself and his partner.
So the "Unknown" attached to his second Martial Soul suggested one strong possibility.
The evolution condition of the Heart (Blood) main body Martial Soul could not be met simply by raising Spirit Power ranks like Charmander.
Its evolution likely required intervention by some external force.
Because that external force was not something he currently possessed or could confirm, the panel could not give a concrete hint, and could only label it unknown.
"External force intervention…" Lin Mo's eyes brightened as his thoughts raced.
He began sorting through everything he currently knew, trying to identify what kind of external force could trigger the evolution of his second Martial Soul.
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