The villagers stared as if at descended gods, not daring to speak. Su Jiu'er slipped soundlessly back into the crowd.
Long Tao turned to Luo Fanchen, buzzing with excitement. "Shattering space! That is a tremendous divine ability — it must be a personage of the Temple above level ninety, come especially for you!!"
A gray-robed old man stepped out of the spatial rift, leading a young man in magnificent robes.
The young man's expression was cold and detached, his pupils a burning red-gold, as if flames smoldered inside them — extraordinary and uncanny.
The moment the two took in Cloud Village's shabby surroundings, their brows creased.
"Branch-hall Deacon Long Tao greets the two great lords." Long Tao knelt in salute.
The red-eyed youth spoke tonelessly. "I am Huang Yan, Holy Son of the Divine Temple. This is my teacher, the Fourth Enshrined Elder."
Something detonated inside Long Tao's skull.
The Holy Son — Huang Yan!!
The legend hailed as one of the strongest geniuses under heaven, presumptive heir to the Pontiff's seat.
And an Enshrined Elder — what was an Enshrined Elder?
Only the truly strong deserved enshrinement, venerated and attended by the world. Every Enshrined Elder had once been a Temple elder, a being standing at the very apex of the Temple's pyramid.
Now they lived withdrawn in the Hall of Enshrinement, devoted wholly to cultivation.
As for the Grand Enshrined Elder, his strength was unfathomable — the previous Pontiff, who had suppressed an entire era after abdicating, said in legend to stand within a hair's breadth of godhood.
Long Tao had gone numb from head to toe. He'd never dreamed one message would blast personages this terrifying out of the woodwork — but then he thought of Luo Fanchen's talent, and his confidence settled.
Huang Yan said, "You reported that a peerless genius of the century had appeared here? My teacher and I were passing by, so we came for a casual look."
Long Tao nodded hard and pointed at Luo Fanchen.
"This is that heaven-sent prodigy. The signs at his martial soul awakening were astounding — never seen before in history, and likely never to be seen again."
"Never seen before in history? Heh. Bold words for you."
Huang Yan sneered, disdaining to say more. What insight could a petty deacon squinting up from the bottom of his well possibly have?
Luo Fanchen read the man's bearing clearly.
No wonder Long Tao never rose far out there. This Holy Son was plainly an arrogant one — say "never seen before in history," and whose face do you think that slaps?
Emotional intelligence is a precious thing. Alas...
Long Tao sensed the chill entering Huang Yan's voice and floundered, uncomprehending — shouldn't the Temple be delighted to harvest a heaven's-pride talent? He rushed to explain:
"Reporting to the two great lords — this young master's awakening light reached ten full zhang, and his grade showed ten colors, Rank Ten. The stuff of heaven-defying divinity!"
"Impossible!" The Fourth Enshrined Elder's perpetually half-lidded eyes snapped open, lancing with light. "Will you stake your life on those words?"
Long Tao felt a colossal pressure descend; sweat sheeted down his back.
"Discern clearly, my lord — this humble servant would not dare speak one false word."
The Fourth Enshrined Elder gave a small laugh. "Huang'er. Do you believe it?"
"Teacher, I do not." Huang Yan's red-gold eyes settled on Luo Fanchen. "Boy. Release your martial soul."
Luo Fanchen frowned.
Great personages coming especially for him — that pleased him well enough. The tone this one took — that, he did not like at all.
But the visitors were plainly powerful, and he had no wish to buy Su Jiu'er trouble over a moment's pride.
"SWISH!"
At a stir of his will, soul power surged; a long dragon cry rang out, and dazzling radiance welled up in his palm.
Such potent dragon-might.
The Fourth Enshrined Elder and the Holy Son both felt their pupils tighten. They fixed their eyes on it — and their faces darkened.
Huang Yan pointed at the martial soul. "Long Tao. THIS is your peerless prodigy?"
Long Tao's jaw dropped. His mind simply stopped.
In the distance, Su Jiu'er and the villagers rubbed their eyes, wondering if they were seeing wrong.
For there was no true dragon anywhere in sight. In Luo Fanchen's palm lay only a little black loach, not half a chi long — radiating pure dragon-might, yes.
But look at it from any angle and it was neither fish nor fowl, and absurdly, pitifully weak.
Luo Fanchen himself felt his head swim. If the System hadn't told him outright that this was the strongest God-Grade martial soul, he'd be questioning his entire existence right now.
"Hmph!"
The grunt cracked like thunder. The Fourth Enshrined Elder's face soured. "Long Tao. Ten zhang of golden light? A ten-colored martial soul? THIS? This is it?"
"My lord, I don't know either... I don't know what's happened." Long Tao was coming apart, with no idea how to explain.
"A false report to the Temple is a capital offense."
Long Tao's face drained white on the spot. He crawled on his knees to Luo Fanchen's feet and clutched at his trouser leg, begging, "Brother! Big brother, explain it to them! How could this happen!"
Luo Fanchen shook his head and reclaimed his leg. He didn't know what was going on either — surely the heavenly thunder hadn't lamed it?
Still, Long Tao dying over this would be a genuine injustice.
"As it happens, I have two martial souls." Luo Fanchen extended his left hand. A soft azure light shimmered; fragrance suffused the air; and a six-petaled azure lotus bloomed into being.
"Twin martial souls? The legendary twin martial souls!!!" Long Tao lit up with joy — the world had gone dark, and now the lights were back on.
"Another martial soul?" Even Holy Son Huang Yan was startled.
"Oh?"
The Fourth Enshrined Elder stepped forward to confirm it, and sighed with feeling. "To think a poor backwater like this could produce a bearer of twin martial souls. Rare indeed."
"However..."
"That is also all it amounts to."
Weren't twin martial souls strong enough on their own?! Long Tao burned to protest — the words rose and died in his throat. He dared not give offense.
As if reading his mind exactly, the Fourth Enshrined Elder passed judgment with indifference:
"The world agrees: the weakest class of martial soul is the plant. And this azure lotus of his is useless even by that measure — lesser than a common vine. If it carried some healing property, he might at least have made a support soul master."
Luo Fanchen's expression never flickered — unmoved by favor or disgrace. But hidden in the crowd, Su Jiu'er's beautiful eyes had gone sharp and upright with displeasure.
Long Tao couldn't swallow the verdict of "trash martial soul" either. He pressed anxiously, "My lord, why not verify it on the bronze pillar, here and now?"
"No need to waste the time."
The Fourth Enshrined Elder shook his head. "Twin martial souls are always two souls of closely matched grade. However pure that loach's dragon-might, the fact that it shares a body with this lotus seals the verdict — a pair of trash souls with no potential worth developing. Not worth the resources to cultivate."
"But..." Long Tao tried again.
"Insolence!" Huang Yan's voice cracked cold. "My teacher's learning spans oceans. Would he deceive the likes of you?"
"BOOM!"
Searing white light radiated in all directions. Behind Huang Yan manifested a four-winged angel wreathed in blazing fire.
His red-gold eyes shone with boundless, sovereign confidence. "Do you see? THIS is a true top-grade Rank Nine martial soul."
"SWISH—"
Then a second wonder — a blazing golden sun ignited above Huang Yan's head. He spread both arms wide.
"Great Sun Illumination."
"Do you see? THIS is a true top-grade pair of twin martial souls."
The villagers' eyes went wide with awe. Even Long Tao was deeply shaken.
And yet, somewhere beneath it, he couldn't shake the feeling: strong as the Holy Son's souls were, next to the cataclysm Luo Fanchen had stirred up earlier, they honestly paled.
"What need is there to flaunt a mountain of gold before a beggar? You cling too much to appearances, Huang'er. We're leaving." The Fourth Enshrined Elder scolded with his mouth; his eyes were pure satisfaction.
Against the Holy Son's magnificence, Luo Fanchen — a loach in his left hand, a lotus in his right — looked threadbare indeed. But inside, barely a ripple stirred. If anything, he wanted to laugh.
So this was a Holy Son? Rather childish behavior. The heart of a boy.
His confidence in his own road to power ran bone-deep. This Holy Son would never be the target he measured himself against.
The Fourth Enshrined Elder raised a hand and space split open into a dark portal. Leading Huang Yan through, he tossed something back at Luo Fanchen.
"Boy. This dragon blood is yours. Swallow it and let your own fortune decide the rest. A passing whim — no need for gratitude."
Luo Fanchen caught it on reflex: a small transparent vial, filled to the stopper with scarlet liquid.
In the instant the Enshrined Elder and Holy Son vanished —
A graceful figure that had long been watching from Cloud Village's shadows made to step out, only to be caught and held back by the palace-gowned beauty at her side.
"Gone? Just like that, gone?" Long Tao's laugh was all bitterness, over and over. "What in the world is wrong with that martial soul of yours?"
Luo Fanchen withdrew his souls, closed his fist around the little vial, and said offhandedly, "The heavenly thunder probably crippled it."
Long Tao remembered that monstrous punishment and shuddered head to toe. Could it be — that unprecedented ten-colored martial soul, its very foundation smashed by the heavenly punishment?
Degenerated into trash in the short time they'd stood waiting?
His heart bled quietly at the waste. Then, looking at Luo Fanchen's face — calm from beginning to end — a strange awe crept over him, and he couldn't help asking:
"It should have been a peerless God-Grade martial soul, and it fell to trash — spurned and slighted by an Enshrined Elder and the Holy Son. Doesn't it pain you? Doesn't it hurt at all?"
The villagers shook their heads in pity, unable to bear watching. Su Jiu'er bit her lip too, worried sick that her little man would break under the blow.
"Hahahaha."
Luo Fanchen only laughed — a clean, open laugh, that devastating face carrying an ineffable air of an exiled immortal. He clapped Long Tao on the shoulder and started walking off the square, his words easy and free:
"So what if a man is born an ant? Remember this: never hold yourself cheap."
"Even a life thin as paper should keep an unbowed heart."
"The weaker you are, the harder you stand — and never let fall your ambition for the clouds."
His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried into every ear. As the meaning sank in, face after face changed.
Su Jiu'er stared blankly at this man — battered by everything today and still laughing, light and unburdened — and for the second time, her heart fluttered.
Long Tao trembled all over. The words had gone straight through to his soul, straight into the sorest place in him. Wasn't he exactly the man who had held himself cheap all his life over a peasant birth?
An unbowed heart. Ambition. Did he have either?
If he had, wouldn't he have walked much, much further by now?
In the shadows, the palace-gowned noblewoman secretly watching had heard it all — and even her proud, frost-cold face could not help but change.
Were these the words of a young man whose hopes had just been crushed?
Such a transcendent temperament. Such a strong one's heart. Astonishing!!
And beside the noblewoman, the young girl of flawless beauty watched the exiled-immortal figure on the square, wave after wave of brilliance rippling through her lovely eyes.
[Ding! Unmoved by favor or disgrace — smiling as the flowers bloom and fall before the courtyard.]
[The Host's will stands firm: the Heart of the Strong, comprehended unaided. Hidden special reward triggered: How Could a Sparrow Know the Swan's Ambition!]
[Please claim your reward!]