Chapter 53: The Essence and Exploration of Soul Skills

"Ring Fusion, that is quite an interesting technique."

Watching Huo Wu burst into action in the spirit battle arena, Mo Hui touched his chin and muttered to himself.

Ring Fusion was a rare innate ability mastered by only a handful of spirit masters. Its effect allowed multiple spirit rings of one's own to act simultaneously, thereby amplifying the power of a specific spirit skill.

This effect reminded Mo Hui of the Clear Sky School's Great Clear Sky Hammer. He even strongly suspected that the Great Clear Sky Hammer had been invented by some spirit master based on the principle of the Ring Fusion talent, and through generations of refinement by the Clear Sky School's spirit masters, it had gradually evolved into the present-day Great Clear Sky Hammer.

Shortly after, Mo Hui watched Huo Wu's Ring Fusion more closely for a moment, nodded thoughtfully, and said, "So that's how it is."

The underlying principle of Ring Fusion was actually quite simple, yet ordinary spirit masters could never achieve it because it involved the very essence of spirit rings.

Ever since transmigrating to this world, Mo Hui had been pondering what the true essence of a spirit ring was. After years of contemplation and personal experience, Mo Hui had arrived at his own answer.

To a spirit master, the essence of a spirit ring was simply a spirit power circulation circuit condensed from energy.

The amount and quality of the energy condensed within a spirit ring determined its level, while the configuration of the spirit power circulation circuit determined the spirit skill contained within it.

Why are hundred-year spirit rings inferior to thousand-year and ten-thousand-year spirit rings?

Aside from the spirit power circuits—meaning the spirit skills—contained within them, there was another crucial factor.

That was the upper limit of the spirit power output that a hundred-year spirit ring could handle, which fell far short of thousand-year and ten-thousand-year spirit rings!

This was the primary reason why hundred-year spirit rings became increasingly powerless as one progressed; the spirit master's own reserve of spirit power increased, but the output aperture of the hundred-year spirit ring did not expand correspondingly, causing its power to inevitably fall behind.

As for the innate ability of Ring Fusion, it worked by mobilizing the spirit power outputs of other spirit rings and channeling them into a single spirit ring. This was equivalent to several spirit rings simultaneously outputting spirit power to fuel the release of a single spirit skill, naturally resulting in a massive surge in power.

In Mo Hui's view, this was a technique with both obvious strengths and equally obvious flaws.

Using other spirit rings purely as channels for spirit power output meant that the spirit skills bound to those rings could not be used at that moment, severely restricting one's adaptability in battle.

Moreover, transmitting spirit power from other spirit rings into the target spirit ring incurred energy losses. Consequently, compared to releasing a spirit skill normally, the consumption was even greater. If one's own spirit power reserves were insufficient, the strain might become unbearable after only a few uses.

Even with these drawbacks, Mo Hui still considered Ring Fusion to be a fine technique, because it broke through the spirit power output limit of a spirit master's current tier, revealing an entirely new possibility to him.

Previously, the self-created spirit skills Mo Hui had devised—whether it was the multi-in-one Air Blade or the Cutting Wind Wheel—essentially functioned by using his first spirit skill, Wind Blade, as the foundational spirit power circulation circuit to extend and construct external spirit power circulation circuits.

The more powerful circuits endowed his ultimate techniques with greater might, and the increased frequency of spirit skill releases freed him from the single-use spirit power output restrictions.

Therefore, the two spirit skills created by Mo Hui were not heavily constrained by the age of his spirit rings. Theoretically, as his mastery over wind-attribute spirit power deepened, they could reach the level of hundred-thousand-year, million-thousand-year, or even higher-tier spirit skills.

Of course, theory remained just theory. In practice, if other spirit masters were to learn his two ultimate techniques, their upper limit would generally only reach the ten-thousand-year level, and reaching hundred-thousand-year status was virtually impossible.

This was because spirit skills had cooldown periods. In actual combat, opponents would not grant you enough time to stack Wind Blades. Being able to stack the wind blades released by a spirit skill twice was already ideal; wanting to stack them a third time was completely unrealistic, and in most cases, one had to release the technique after at most a single stack.

Not everyone's spirit skill was like Mo Hui's first spirit skill, where the cooldown was practically nonexistent, allowing for rapid, multiple consecutive releases of wind blades to build up stacks.

A self-created spirit skill was ultimately crafted by the user based on their own circumstances, and when used by others, varying degrees of incompatibility would inevitably arise.

In contrast to Mo Hui's delicate and refined approach, the technique of Ring Fusion was exceptionally straightforward and crude. It did not require a high level of spirit power control to amplify a spirit skill's power, nor did it demand specific prerequisites other than possessing other spirit rings—the requirements were remarkably low.

"It seems I must find some time to study Ring Fusion. If I can channel the spirit power outputs of the second and third spirit rings into the first spirit ring, the power of a four-in-one Air Blade could reach the level of a present-day twelve-in-one Air Blade."

Mo Hui thought to himself inwardly.

The Five Elements Academies Exchange Tournament lasted a total of seven days, and today was only the first day. He could observe Huo Wu's Ring Fusion more over the coming days to gather data for his subsequent research.

Amidst the battles among the students of the Five Elements Academies, the sun gradually dipped below the horizon, and the first day of the exchange meeting officially came to a close.

As the meeting concluded, Mo Hui intended to leave, but Feng Qingcang called out to him. Helplessly suppressing his urge to head straight for the Hurricane Canyon, Mo Hui walked over to Feng Qingcang's side.

"Mo Hui, this is Huo Yangyan, the headmaster of Blazing Flame Academy. Huo Wu, who fought you earlier, is his daughter."

Seeing Mo Hui arrive, Feng Qingcang gestured toward Huo Yangyan and introduced him.

"Greetings, Headmaster Huo."

Mo Hui glanced at the headmaster who was approaching fifty years of age, as well as Huo Wu and Huo Wushuang standing behind him, and offered a polite greeting.

Huo Yangyan looked at Mo Hui with admiration in his eyes and said, "What a truly talented youth. You are close in age to Wu'er and Wushuang; you should grow closer and interact more often in the future."

"This is Shui Yueer, the headmaster of Tianshui Academy! By the way, you brat really don't know how to be gentle with ladies; hurry up and apologize to Headmaster Shui."

With that, Feng Qingcang cast a meaningful glance at Mo Hui.

Hearing this, Mo Hui was momentarily stunned before reacting, and he opened his mouth to say something, only to be interrupted by Shui Yueer's subsequent words.

Shui Yueer waved her hand and said, "There is no need for that. I am not that petty."

Following that, Shui Yueer looked at Mo Hui with keen interest and said, "Mo Hui, is it? To be able to pull off a self-created spirit skill like that, you easily rank in the top three among all the geniuses I have ever witnessed. By the way, Bing'er holds a rather favorable impression of you. The two of you can exchange pointers and get to know each other hereafter."

"Headmaster!!!"

Hearing these words, Shui Shui'er—who stood behind Shui Yueer—was the first to crack under the embarrassment, calling out with a flushed face.

"Headmaster Shui is most generous. If there is an opportunity in the future, I certainly will."

Mo Hui nodded and replied.

Next, Feng Qingcang introduced Yu Hengyu and Huyan Dong to Mo Hui. Both of them smiled and nodded at Mo Hui, holding a favorable impression of this newly emerged prodigy.

At that moment, Feng Qingcang glanced at the talented youths standing behind the various headmasters and said, "I suppose we don't need to wait for the future. Xiaotian, Mo Hui, the two of you take these fellow students on a tour of Kamikaze Academy. By the way, foster some camaraderie; our Five Elements Academies share a bond like branches of the same tree, and that connection must not be broken in your generation."

Upon hearing this, the remaining headmasters nodded in agreement. With a wave of their hands, Mo Hui walked off with the outstanding students trailing behind them to go mingle and forge bonds.