At the sound, Luo Fanchen's thoughts stirred — he called up his martial soul information and claimed the reward in the same breath.
[Strongest Beast Martial Soul of All the Ages: the Chaos Ancestral Dragon!]
[The primeval true dragon said to have existed before Chaos itself was split — first ancestor of the dragon race, sovereign of the ten thousand beasts. After its true spirit fell into extinction, chance and karma remade it as the Host's martial soul. Upgrade it, and you will forge a legend without equal.]
[Strongest Item Martial Soul of All the Ages: the Damaged Azure Lotus!]
[A mysterious supreme treasure of legend. Grievously wounded, it was drawn in by great fortune, and by twist of fate became the Host's martial soul. Develop it, and you will unlock a very special surprise.]
[The Host has successfully claimed the reward.]
[Reward One: the Ancestral Dragon Heaven-Devouring Art! Nine Transformations of the True Dragon — each transformation, one heaven higher; beyond the ninth heaven, Chaos comes again.]
[Reward Two: a sheepskin scroll! Nine hidden places of mystery lie unknown across the Soul Martial Continent, concealing great fortunes tied to the Host's martial souls. This map points to one of them.]
Hisss—
Are my two martial souls seriously this overbearing?
Luo Fanchen drew a long breath, blood singing. He truly hadn't expected that sorry-looking little loach and lotus to have origins this heaven-defying — outrageous didn't begin to cover it.
A sheepskin scroll slipped soundlessly into the fold of his robes. At the same instant his mind filled with the roar of ten thousand dragons swearing fealty to one terrible shadow, as a vast, tyrannical supreme heavenly art printed itself deep into his memory — as if it had been born there all along.
Outside, only a few breaths had passed.
"Please wait!"
The shout came from behind — none other than Long Tao, who had stood rooted and hollow-eyed ever since Luo Fanchen's parting words, now running to catch up.
Long Tao rushed around to block Luo Fanchen's path, and Chief Lu and the others' faces changed.
They thought darkly: now that this fellow has seen Fanchen's martial soul crippled, is he reverting to his bully-the-weak, fear-the-strong ways — here for revenge?
From the shadows, the palace-gowned noblewoman and the young girl watched with sharpened interest.
"What's this about?" Luo Fanchen asked.
Long Tao straightened his robes, then cupped his fists and bowed low to Luo Fanchen — the full salute of a disciple to a master.
Everyone froze. The picture made no sense at all.
Lips pressed tight, Long Tao spoke. "I have always loathed my commoner birth. Though 'loathed' isn't right — it was shame. I never dared face where I came from."
"Fierce to peasants, servile to the strong — I lost myself in this chaotic world long ago, and grew into exactly the kind of man my younger self despised most. Trapped in a prison of my own making, and never even knowing it."
"Your words rang like a bell in a deaf man's ears. They woke me. They gave me back my original heart. I was born a commoner — and why should a commoner not have dignity?"
Luo Fanchen studied the trembling, overwrought man, and said thoughtfully, "Your cultivation must have slowed to a crawl these past years, hasn't it?"
Long Tao's eyes bulged. "How could you know that? Uncanny!"
Luo Fanchen shook his head with a small laugh. "Nothing uncanny. A blind guess."
"It's just that your mind is a tangle and your original heart is lost — how could you cultivate with a whole heart like that? Of course you slowed."
His tone eased, and he gave Long Tao one long, deep look.
"Understand this: bowing to power is a way to survive — but it is not the way of the strong. Soul masters like us must press forward with our edge bared. Otherwise, what breakthrough is there to speak of?"
The words rocked the crowd all over again. Su Jiu'er couldn't fathom it — where does the little man keep pulling these insights from?
The eavesdropping noblewoman felt her heart jump too. This boy — how could his comprehension be this monstrous, piercing to the very marrow of the strong one's heart in a single sentence?
For so many soul masters stuck below their bottlenecks, it was never talent that failed them — it was the state of their hearts.
Wisdom beyond his years... comprehension like this is a talent to shake the age, she admitted to herself.
"Teacher, he's amazing," the young girl chimed, crisp and clear.
"Mm. This boy is excellent." The noblewoman nodded. "He hasn't even begun cultivating, yet he grasps such insight. His future has no ceiling."
The girl sighed. "But his martial souls..."
"You are the Holy Maiden. Do not be as short-sighted as the common run," the noblewoman said. "A martial soul can still be raised up by fortune and opportunity. But comprehension and temperament like his? I'd say one in a million is generous."
The girl quietly marveled. Her teacher — the Female Pontiff whose power tilted the world — kept her sights higher than the clouds; almost no one entered that regard.
Even the prodigiously gifted Holy Son earned exactly one word from her teacher: fool. Yet here she was, favoring this handsome young man from a mountain village. Extraordinary indeed.
"I've said all there is to say. Farewell." Luo Fanchen glanced at Long Tao — frozen in place yet again — and walked on.
He'd made it only a few steps when Long Tao's voice burst out behind him, delirious with joy.
"Hahahaha — I see it now! The knot of all these years is finally, completely undone!"
"BOOM!"
Long Tao threw back his head in a long, exultant howl. His lizard-dragon martial soul surfaced behind him; something like a shackle shattered inside his body; his soul power swelled — and before the crowd's stunned eyes, he broke through on the spot.
His talent was a Rank Five martial soul, yet he had been jammed at level twenty-nine for years without ever learning why, souring and twisting a little more each season. Now, in a single stroke, he stood at level thirty. His state of mind needed no describing.
The first thing the newly broken-through Long Tao did was drop into a full kneeling bow to Luo Fanchen — utterly sincere.
"Thank you for your guidance. A kindness this great, I will never dare forget."
"There's no need for all this. I was making it up as I went." Luo Fanchen didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Who could've guessed the man would just... break through? Absurd.
"You are far too modest." Long Tao shook his head.
"Get up." Luo Fanchen's expression turned odd; this new version unsettled him. "I think I liked you better arrogant and insufferable."
"Ahem. Ahem."
Long Tao's mouth twitched. Rising, he turned and saluted the villagers — which made their skin crawl.
"My earlier words were vile and gave much offense. I beg you, elders and neighbors, don't take them to heart. Consider them a fart in the wind."
The villagers were flabbergasted, inwardly screaming: holy hell.
They'd always known the Luo boy was a beast at hunting — since when was he this much of a beast with his mouth too? The before-and-after on this Long Tao was giving them whiplash.
Long Tao said hotly:
"Benefactor — even if that Fourth Enshrined Elder and the Holy Son can't see your worth, I still say you're magnificent. If the Temple won't keep a man, somewhere else will gladly have him. You could try the Azure Dragon Empire's Soul Master Academy — and one day slap their dog faces with what you become."
"And who says the Temple cannot see his worth?"
A woman's voice rang out, cold and august — like the cry of a phoenix.
Every head turned toward it. Space tore open, and from the pitch-black doorway stepped two tall, graceful figures.
Every heart on that square skipped — man and woman alike — and not because of power. The two women before them were simply too beautiful.
The noblewoman's lush curves were sheathed in a golden palace gown, a waterfall of wine-red hair spilling down her back.
A sapphire necklace lay against the white of her swan neck; long jade legs ended in high-heeled boots; an ineffable air of nobility rolled off her, and her phoenix eyes held the majesty that belongs only to those who rule.
The other, a girl in the freshness of youth, wore her violet hair in a crisp ponytail — eyes quick and bright, lips like rose petals, unripe and lovely.
A short skirt hugged her pert curves, fair legs bare above black leather boots.
Even Luo Fanchen lost himself for a heartbeat.
Since arriving on the Soul Martial Continent, apart from Su Jiu'er, here were another two peerless beauties who could effortlessly crush every socialite and bombshell of his past life.
"The Pontiff... Her Holiness the Pontiff!" At the sight of that matchless beauty stepped straight out of a painting, Long Tao's soul nearly fled his body, his calves cramping.
"Hee — you wicked thing, you actually recognize my teacher?" The girl's laugh chimed like an oriole.
Long Tao dripped cold sweat. The Temple's Enshrined Elders lived hidden from the world and rarely walked it — never having seen one was normal. But the woman before him? How could he not know her?
Decisive in slaughter, her phoenix-majesty over all the world — the Female Pontiff, Di Weiyang.
"This lowly one once had the honor of beholding Her Holiness's portrait."
The Female Pontiff's phoenix eyes settled on Luo Fanchen and his exiled-immortal air. Her vermilion lips parted, and the cold question came again.
"Was it you who said the Temple cannot see his worth?"