Chapter Twenty-Two: This Is the Backstory!

“Xu Zhao, of the Mingdu Xu family.”

As the saying goes, you don’t strike a smiling face, so Xu Zhao openly revealed his identity to Luo Guixing.

Upon hearing this, a flicker of surprise briefly crossed Luo Guixing’s blue eyes.

“So you’re a descendant of the former royal family of the Sun and Moon Empire, the predecessor of the Federation. No wonder you managed to purchase such a powerful mutated soul spirit from the Soul Transmission Tower.”

“But if I recall correctly, your soul spirit doesn’t seem to match any of the three major inherited martial souls of the Xu family.”

Luo Guixing’s own martial soul was the control of spatial elements. Before buying a soul spirit from the Soul Transmission Tower, he had naturally researched which types would suit his martial soul.

The first soul spirit for spatial element control should ideally be one with pure spatial or pure mental attributes.

The Silver Wolf was a purely mental attribute soul spirit.

Moreover, the Silver Wolf’s innate ability was to forcibly control the seven elements through mental power, including spatial elements.

In short, unless there was a soul spirit with an extremely high-quality pure spatial attribute, the Silver Wolf was the best first choice for his martial soul.

Unfortunately, the Silver Wolf was already exceedingly rare during the soul beast era over ten thousand years ago, and even scarcer in the current soul spirit era.

Therefore, Silver Wolf soul spirits were not normally sold by the Soul Transmission Tower but required considerable background and strong connections to acquire.

The Luo family behind Luo Guixing did not yet have the means to purchase such a rare soul spirit as the Silver Wolf from the Tower.

Hence, when he first saw the mutated Silver Wolf before him, he inevitably felt a pang of jealousy toward its owner.

“That’s because I awakened a mutated martial soul with mental attributes,” Xu Zhao answered calmly.

Martial souls were not like soul techniques; unless one never used their martial soul in battle, there was no reason to hide it.

“Mental attribute?” A fierce competitive glint flashed in Luo Guixing’s eyes as he said, “My martial soul is spatial element control, and since spatial elements are closely related to mental attributes, it can be considered half mental attribute.”

“Upon awakening my martial soul, I immediately possessed mental power at the initial Ling Tong Realm, which counts as some talent.”

“May I ask, after awakening your martial soul, to which level has your mental power reached?”

“Hmm, initial Ling Tong Realm, a decent talent,” Xu Zhao nodded and replied, “Like you, I also possessed Ling Tong Realm mental power immediately upon awakening.”

He deliberately omitted specific figures, not wanting to discourage the young man before him.

In the story, this character had a bit of a fragile ego.

Meeting for the first time and completely shattering someone’s proud talent wouldn’t be very polite.

“My Ling Tong mental power did not mention ‘initial’,” Luo Guixing thought to himself, “Could it be that his mental power is exactly one hundred points, just meeting the Ling Tong Realm’s minimum, and he’s embarrassed to say ‘initial’?”

With this thought, a smug smile curved his lips, and his mood brightened as he invited, “We’re both here to extend the lifespan of our soul spirits. Why not team up? I’ll handle control, and your soul spirit can focus on offense. That way, we can improve efficiency.”

“No,” Xu Zhao refused decisively, with a hint of disdain. “My goal this trip is to extend Xiao Yue’s lifespan to a thousand years. Teaming up with you would only hold me back.”

“Maybe next time then, definitely next time, if we meet again at the Ascension Platform.”

With that, Xu Zhao mounted Xiao Yue’s back, letting it carry him deeper into the forest, leaving Luo Guixing standing alone and disheveled in the wind.

Killing a soul beast on the Ascension Platform only yields one-tenth of the beast’s spiritual energy from its lifetime.

Xiao Yue’s lifespan was already close to nine hundred years; just over a hundred more years of spiritual energy would push it beyond the thousand-year mark.

A hundred years’ worth of soul beast spiritual energy translates to over a thousand years in lifespan.

Killing ten-year soul beasts would be time-consuming and laborious; killing thousand-year beasts was risky and nearly impossible to encounter on this beginner Ascension Platform.

Thus, Xu Zhao focused his hunt on century-old soul beasts.

Unless he only hunted soul beasts exactly one hundred years old, the spiritual energy gained from killing ten such beasts would suffice for Xiao Yue’s breakthrough.

...

Half an hour later.

Deep within the inner circle of the beginner Ascension Platform.

An eight-hundred-year-old human-faced demon spider lay fallen in a deep pit blasted out by elemental forces.

“You almost caught me off guard,” Xu Zhao said coldly, watching the demon spider’s fading remains.

The human-faced demon spider was truly a top-tier assassin in the soul beast world, with innate stealth talent considered the best in its realm.

Even at just eight hundred years old, it nearly evaded his mental perception.

Xu Zhao’s mental power had now advanced from the peak 499 of Ling Tong Realm on the day of awakening to an early 502 in the Ling Sea Realm.

Ling Tong Realm mental power could sustain thousand-year soul spirits, while Ling Sea Realm could sustain ten-thousand-year soul spirits.

The gap between these realms was like that between thousand-year and ten-thousand-year soul beasts.

As the demon spider’s remains completely dissipated, a surge of spiritual energy, the strongest Xu Zhao had yet witnessed, flew from the pit and merged into him.

After absorbing this energy, Xiao Yue, already on the verge of breakthrough, instantly surpassed the thousand-year soul spirit bottleneck.

Its aura soared, and a second pair of pure white wings sprouted from its back, transforming it from a four-winged white wolf to a six-winged one.

“Awooo—!!!”

Xiao Yue howled towards the sky, the mighty sound rippling through the forest, scaring off countless soul beasts.

Yet, while weaker soul beasts fled from the roar, stronger ones were drawn toward it.

At the boundary between the beginner and intermediate Ascension Platforms, a gigantic eye with tentacles, floating in midair, opened its eyelid and stared toward the source of the roar.

Outside.

The Soul Transmission Tower staff member responsible for receiving Xu Zhao grew panicked upon seeing the alarm on the projection screen.

“Bad news! The guardian of the beginner Ascension Platform has been alerted by this mutated Silver Wolf’s breakthrough past a thousand years. We must have this kid exit the Ascension Platform immediately.”

He reached to press the forced exit button on the metallic chamber but was stopped by an aged hand.

“Don’t rush, lad. Let me make a soul-guided call first.”

Xu Minghuang calmly took out a soul-guided communicator and dialed.

“Hello, it’s me. Yes, I have a favor to ask.”

“My grandson is currently on the beginner Ascension Platform in Tiandou City. He might take something soon — yes, exactly that. Please help with the aftermath…”

“Difficult? No, it’s not difficult. By the way, I should tell you, my grandson is the only disciple of Zhen Hua in this entire city… Which Zhen Hua? Who else but that Zhen Hua…”

“Really? Easy then? Good, act quickly. I’ll be waiting for your good news. Goodbye!”