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Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, ten months have passed.
Chu Chengzhou, now on vacation, had his bedding tied up and slung over his back. He hummed a little tune, his short legs taking small, swaying steps as he made his way home.
In the Douluo Continent, although there are divisions of years, months, and days, there is no such thing as the Spring Festival.
Nuoding Academy has only one semester throughout the year, and during this semester, there are no holidays.
However, each semester lasts for ten months, and after each semester, students who have not yet graduated have a two-month vacation, which is February and March. When April arrives, the new semester begins.
One year after his martial soul awakened, at the end of the first semester, Chu Chengzhou had grown significantly taller. His arms had developed beautifully defined muscles, and he had finally shed the label of "a little trash with less than 1st-level soul power" to become a glorious "big" little trash.
[Attribute Panel]
[Host: Chu Chengzhou]
[Soul Power: 3rd-level Soul Trainee]
[Martial Soul: Elemental Summoning Flag]
[Skills: Meditation (Yellow), Body Refinement (Yellow), Eye-Preservation Exercises (White)]
On the attribute panel, the Summoning Flag martial soul now had the word "Elemental" added to it. The Meditation and Body Refinement skills were at the yellow level, and the Eye Exercises skill was at the white level. These were the results of Chu Chengzhou's year of AFKing with his martial soul.
Of course, the benefits of a year of AFKing were not limited to these.
More than a month after entering the academy, the ordinary quality Summoning Flag martial soul had been upgraded to a high-quality martial soul through AFK.
After the transformation of the martial soul, the most direct manifestation was that his cultivation talent had greatly improved, and his soul power upgrade speed had doubled compared to before.
If quantified precisely, the efficiency of his soul power cultivation had actually increased by more than twofold.
After all, with the same soul power level, the total amount of soul power in a high-quality martial soul master is significantly more than that of a low-quality martial soul master.
With a longer "blue bar," the accumulation needed for upgrading would naturally also increase.
In addition, the upgraded martial soul had a higher upper limit for soul power level.
Originally, the ordinary quality Summoning Flag could accommodate at most two soul rings, and Level 29 Soul Grandmaster was Chu Chengzhou's limit.
But after the upgrade, the martial soul could accommodate up to six soul rings, and his maximum soul power level limit was raised from 29th-level Soul Grandmaster to Level 69 Soul Emperor.
The reason why the upgraded martial soul was named "Elemental Summoning Flag" by Chu Chengzhou was that once he had a summoning flag, he could freely convert his own non-elemental soul power into the element possessed by the summoning flag.
For example, if he had a fire-element summoning flag, he could convert his own soul power into fire-element soul power, acting as a fire-element soul master.
This characteristic may seem inconspicuous, but if paired with powerful attack skills obtained through future cultivation, then this summoner himself could also possess formidable combat power, and it is even possible that his strength would not be inferior to that of the summoning flag.
Of course, a high-quality martial soul is not considered a powerful martial soul. Apart from the level limit, the Elemental Summoning Flag martial soul still has serious shortcomings.
Apart from the summoning flag still not possessing intelligence, the bloodline of the summoning flag is also limited to below the top level.
For example, if Chu Chengzhou were to use a pure-blooded true dragon soul beast as his summoning flag, due to the limitations of the martial soul, the true dragon summoning flag could at most only exert the power of a high-level bloodline soul beast.
This greatly limits the power of Chu Chengzhou's summoning flag, because the strength of a soul beast cannot be judged solely by its age.
There is no shortage of geniuses in the soul master world who can challenge higher levels, and the same is true in the soul beast world.
For example, a soul beast with a powerful bloodline can rival a three-ring Soul Elder at a hundred years of age, a five-ring Soul King at a thousand years of age, and even a casual Title Douluo has to avoid its edge when its age reaches ten thousand years.
That's right, I'm talking about the Dark Gold Terror Claw Bear.
But once the Dark Gold Terror Claw Bear, a soul beast famous in the soul beast world, becomes Chu Chengzhou's summoning flag, its bloodline is suppressed below the top level, and such an exaggerated ability to challenge higher levels will be greatly reduced.
Fortunately, a high-quality martial soul is not the end of AFKing. As long as it continues to be cultivated in the AFK slot, this limitation will eventually disappear.
However, it is easier to upgrade an ordinary martial soul to a high-quality martial soul than to upgrade a high-quality martial soul to a top-quality martial soul.
Even though the Elemental Summoning Flag martial soul has been in the AFK slot for nearly nine months, the progress of upgrading to a top-quality martial soul is just over a quarter.
A full 1,000 days of martial soul AFK time, if it were not for the substantial benefits of the transformation of martial soul quality, Chu Chengzhou would not be willing to occupy the current precious AFK slot.
In ten months, he was able to progress from a little trash with less than 1st-level soul power to barely stepping into the 3rd-level Soul Trainee, with a soul power increase of more than two levels. His cultivation speed far surpassed that of his previous self, and this is mostly due to the transformation of the martial soul's quality.
Of course, apart from the martial soul, the upgraded Meditation skill is also an important factor.
The upgraded Meditation skill at the yellow level has increased the cultivation speed by more than 20% compared to the previous white-level Meditation skill.
It is precisely because of the improvement of the martial soul and the Meditation skill that Chu Chengzhou's soul power cultivation speed has greatly increased.
As for the yellow-level Body Refinement skill on the attribute panel, this skill was upgraded from the gray-level Calisthenics after 130 days of AFKing.
It took thirty days to upgrade from gray to white, and one hundred days to upgrade from white to yellow.
After the Calisthenics skill reached the Yellow level, Chu Chengzhou noticed that the effect of improving his physical fitness during cultivation was significant, so he renamed it the Body Refinement skill.
After half a year of cultivation, his physical fitness has improved a lot, and before the vacation, he even challenged the student workers in the seventh dormitory to a arm wrestling match.
It was a proper arm wrestling match, not a fight.
Somewhat unexpectedly, he was just a seven-year-old child, but except for Li Erniu, who was twelve years old and had a beast martial soul, all the more than ten student workers in the seventh dormitory lost to him in arm wrestling.
According to Chu Chengzhou's original plan, the Eye Exercises should have been upgraded to a skill that cultivates mental power.
However, due to insufficient AFK time, the level is still white, and the progress bar for upgrading is just over three-quarters. The white-level Eye Exercises do not yet have the effect of improving mental power.
However, it is not without its uses. The gray-level Eye Exercises, practiced a few times a day, can at most only prevent vision deterioration, and the effect is not very good, otherwise there wouldn't be so many students wearing glasses in the previous life.
But the white-level Eye Exercises can not only effectively prevent vision deterioration, but also have the effect of slightly improving vision.
Over the past two months, he has practiced the white-level Eye Exercises a few times a day, and has clearly noticed that his vision has improved somewhat. Although it's not as exaggerated as having hawk eyes, he can see distant objects more clearly.
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