Douluo Continent: Dragon's Journey Across the World

Chapter 102: The Preliminary Rounds End

The Tiandu regional qualifiers ended quickly, and the official rankings were finally released.

The top five are Shenfeng Academy, Chihuo Academy, Tianshui Academy, Shrek Academy, and Leiting Academy. Apart from Shrek Academy, there are no other surprises.

Shrek Academy was indeed a dark horse before the start of the competition, but with the addition of Yu Tianheng and Dugu Yan, they were even considered a favorite to win the championship.

However, after a brief period of hype, Shrek Academy suffered consecutive defeats against Shenfeng, Chihuo, and Tianshui Academy, barely managing to rank fourth.

As for Thunder Academy, they basically lost to the top four, but judging from Yu Tianxin's expression, they must be extremely unwilling.

The sixth and seventh are Elephant Armor Academy and Azure Radiance Academy.

Canghui Academy is also one of the dark horses in this Soul Master Competition. With all of its members having gem-attribute martial souls and a unique formation, it does have a suppressive effect on weak teams, but it is not so easy to deal with strong teams.

These strong teams all have top-tier control-type Soul Masters, so they won't let them seize any openings to use their formations.

As for the Canghui Academy facing Shrek Academy, they didn't dare to use the so-called Seven Asura Illusions at all.

The Seven Asura Illusions are extremely powerful, but they also cause great harm to people, easily crippling opponents.

Since Yu Tianheng and Dugu Yan joined Shrek Academy, with the descendants of these two Title Douluo in our hands, if Canghui Academy really dares to take drastic measures, it will probably be wiped out in the blink of an eye. Didn't you see Dugu Yan's grandfather watching from the guest seats?

Shi Nian also had no chance to attack Tang San, since Tang San was now heavily guarded, with Titan, a Soul Douluo, providing close protection. Unless Shi Nian was extremely foolish, he wouldn't go looking for trouble with Titan.

After the preliminary rounds, there will be a month-long rest period. Other teams from various regions of the Heaven Dou Empire will gather in Heaven Dou City and compete in the qualifying rounds together in the military camp outside Heaven Dou City.

Aside from occasionally going out for drinks and chats with Feng Xiaotian's people, Yang Ping'an spends most of his time cultivating. Of course, if he has time, he also likes to relax in the Soul Arena and earn some gold soul coins along the way, as long as he's not short of money.

During this month, Yang Ping'an felt incredibly relaxed and began to gradually work on some self-created soul skills.

Yang Ping'an has always devoted almost all his time to training his body and improving his soul power, or spending some time reading books. He has basically never studied creating his own soul skills.

The main reason was that he felt his innate soul power was too poor and his talent was far inferior to others, so he had no intention of studying it.

Another aspect is that creating one's own soul skill requires a lot of time and is very easy to become addicted to. For example, Feng Xiaotian almost ruined himself because of creating his own soul skill. For Yang Ping'an, wasting time is too shameful.

Yang Ping'an does have some time now, and he can conduct research in this area.

Although Yang Ping'an has always enjoyed using external objects, he has only ever used bows and crossbows or steel nets, purely because of their powerful effects. He has never thought about using weapons like swords or knives, and since he doesn't have any kind of weapon spirit, there's not much point in learning them.

Yang Ping'an felt that his self-created soul skills were mainly in the areas of fist and foot techniques, especially palm techniques.

The entire Heaven Dou City is filled with wandering Soul Masters, some participating in Soul Battle Competitions, others seeking other avenues of opportunity, and there is also a supporting Soul Master industry.

The hotel where Yang Ping'an stayed was very large, and even had a backyard where he could occasionally practice his martial arts.

In his previous life, Yang Ping'an was a big fan of martial arts dramas and was extremely obsessed with them. He even scrutinized the words of various novels, and he loved the heroic and unrestrained feeling they evoked. His current martial soul, the Purple Gold Mastiff, should theoretically be considered a Golden Sacred Dragon, but it has only just begun to grow.

Even so, each punch and kick carried a special power, seemingly the legendary dragon force.

Especially after each palm strike, there is a gust of wind between each strike, as if it is filled with infinite power.

However, Yang Ping'an knew that this self-created soul skill could not be mastered overnight. So he made a large cauldron filled with iron sand, carried a heavy load on his back, and his hands carried a full 100 kilograms of weight. Then he struck the iron sand heavily with each palm, making sure that his feet were in a horse stance throughout the entire process, and that his whole body, except for his hands, remained completely still.

This process seems very simple, but Yang Ping'an is very clear that martial arts training is something that is honed day by day, and even if it cannot be greatly improved in the short term, the control of soul power and body is still very important.

Another important aspect of martial arts training is the control between movement and stillness. Even if the so-called martial arts secrets are fictional, some training methods are basically the same. Although they may not achieve the same effect as those in martial arts novels, they can still create a gap between you and ordinary people.

For example, the horse stance. There is a saying that martial arts training begins with the horse stance, which is necessary to improve the body's resistance and is absolutely fundamental for everyone who practices martial arts.

For example, in my childhood, I often heard the saying: "Stand like a pine, sit like a bell, walk like the wind, lie like a bow." Although it is just a common requirement for being a person, it also contains some principles of martial arts. Just like the saying goes, "Still as a virgin, move like a rabbit."

All of this seems to contain the principles of martial arts, but because it has been spread so widely, it has gradually become the principles of conduct and interpersonal relationships.

Yang Ping'an didn't care about anything else and every day he was in a horse stance, seemingly using all his strength to strike the iron sand.

And there seems to be some understanding in this, after each palm strike, one can feel the flow of iron sand, the reaction of the iron sand between each palm strike, and even the control of power between each palm strike.

Especially after using soul power, I always felt that each palm strike was becoming smoother, and it was even a bit like the Purple Gold Mastiff was deliberately guiding the flow of my palm technique.

Yang Ping'an couldn't help but marvel: This Purple-Gold Mastiff truly lives up to its reputation as a pure dragon. Its dragon attributes are beginning to show, and it is even starting to influence him in his thoughts and actions, guiding him to cultivate in the right direction.

What surprised Yang Ping'an even more was that the soul power in the Douluo world was like the internal energy in martial arts novels, which could circulate along the body and even act on the outside. Didn't this mean that he was now like Xu Zhu in the novel, with internal energy transferred by Xiaoyaozi, but no knowledge of the moves?

In particular, Yang Ping'an had a vague feeling that the reason why the Purple Gold Mastiff had always seemed to ignore him was probably because he was unable to unleash his full potential.

(End of this chapter)