Chapter 39: The Layout, Beginning Now!
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If the Sun-Moon Twin Pupils symbolized a dragon-type martial soul containing the power of the sun, moon, and stars, then Xu Zhao’s astonishing initial spiritual power of 499 was proof that he must also possess a martial soul of exceptionally high quality with a spiritual attribute.
Moreover, the form in which his martial soul manifested indicated that it was an innate eye martial soul.
“What a pair of Sun-Moon Twin Pupils. They actually symbolize both of your martial souls at once. The sun and moon represent your dragon martial soul, which contains the power of the sun, moon, and stars, while the eyes represent that mysterious spiritual martial soul of yours.”
Yang Wenkang voiced the conjecture he had kept to himself. Staring intently at Xu Zhao, he asked, “If you didn’t need this old man’s help to obtain these soul spirits, were you planning to keep treating Grandpa Yang like an outsider and continue hiding it from me?”
“How could that be?” Xu Zhao denied it. “Grandpa and I never intended to hide anything from you. You simply never asked, did you?”
“And besides, even if we take the most pessimistic view, you know now, don’t you?”
“You little sly fox!” Yang Wenkang was not angry in the slightest.
“All right. You’ve released all four of these unyielding soul spirits, so sign the soul-spirit contracts first.”
“Once that’s done, Grandpa Yang will personally take the remaining four soul spirits and escort you home.”
With so many precious soul spirits in the possession of a six-year-old child, Yang Wenkang was unwilling to let Xu Zhao leave the Spirit Pagoda alone. Even having a Soul Sage driver who was also a Two-Word Battle Armor Master was not enough to put him at ease.
Several hours later.
The Xu Family’s Landscape Manor.
Ye Qinghe watched Yang Wenkang depart.
“Son,” she asked curiously, looking down at Xu Zhao beside her, “what kind of soul spirits did you choose? Uncle Yang was actually unwilling to let you bring them home alone and went so far as to personally escort you back!”
“Oh, nothing much. Just four ten-thousand-year soul spirits that aren’t for sale, along with four thousand-year unyielding soul spirits possessing rare attributes.”
After speaking, Xu Zhao raised his head toward his mother.
“By the way, Mom, I’m going back to my room to digest these soul spirits. Just have dinner sent to the outer room.”
With that, he released Howling Moon and had it carry him toward the depths of the manor.
…
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Deep into the night, the sky was filled with countless stars.
Beside the room’s window, Xu Zhao released the Voidborne Jellyfish and allowed it to float instinctively around him, drifting up and down in slow circles.
“An otherworldly species capable of shifting freely between reality and unreality, while also possessing the power to alter the mental perceptions of living beings. Heaven truly is helping me!”
Gazing at the Voidborne Jellyfish before him, he exerted the power of his Mind Martial Soul with all his strength for the first time since awakening his martial soul.
Before long, a seed of the mind containing a trace of Xu Zhao’s consciousness was planted within the body of the Voidborne Jellyfish.
“Go,” Xu Zhao commanded. “From this moment onward, enter your incorporeal form and travel through every corner of Douluo Star. Scatter this seed of the mind into the innermost hearts of every living being on Douluo Star.”
“Pay particular attention to the oceans. While scattering the seeds of the mind, subtly influence their mental perceptions as well, so that they abandon their faith in the Sea God from the depths of their consciousness!”
“Go, then. Go. Whether I can borrow the power of all living beings to revive Douluo Star’s true planar spirit will depend entirely on you.”
As the final word faded, the Voidborne Jellyfish’s illusory body completed its transformation into incorporeality. It entered the void and departed from the Xu Family.
Through the soul-spirit contract, Xu Zhao sensed the Voidborne Jellyfish leaving. He then turned and sat down in the chair beside the window.
From the moment he awakened his Mind Martial Soul, he had already conceived a plan to use the power of all living beings to revive Douluo Star’s planar spirit.
The difficulty lay in scattering the seeds of the mind throughout the innermost hearts of every living creature on Douluo Star without anyone noticing.
Without even mentioning the other requirements, simply traveling safely across the entire planet was enough to leave Xu Zhao at a loss.
The mainland was manageable. With enough effort, it could be done. But the oceans…
That was why, when he saw the information on the Voidborne Jellyfish in the Spirit Pagoda’s archives of unyielding soul spirits, he had immediately resolved to obtain it at any cost.
To a planar spirit, transforming into all things and protecting all living beings was supreme divine power—and the source of that power was also all living beings.
The strength of an individual might be insignificant, but the strength of a collective could exceed all imagination.
When every living being on Douluo Star simultaneously conceived the desire to revive the planar spirit, and the tiniest fragments of power converged into one, they would form a vast and immeasurable force of faith.
With all living beings united in purpose and praying for the planar spirit’s revival, it would be enough to awaken the dormant planar consciousness within Tang Hao.
And with this enormous force of faith, the planar spirit’s consciousness would possess sufficient strength to reclaim from Tang Hao the planar authority that rightfully belonged to it.
In this way, the greatest threat of this era—the one most difficult to resolve—could finally be eliminated.
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As the driving force behind all this, Xu Zhao naturally stood to receive the planar spirit’s favor. The Mandate of Heaven in this era would therefore belong to him as well.
With the Mandate of Heaven upon him and no Divine King interfering from above, Douluo Star would enter a brand-new era belonging solely to Xu Zhao.
“Keep lying low! Keep lying low!”
Xu Zhao drew several deep breaths, calming the exhilarated emotions surging within him.
“The plan has only just begun. I can’t let success go to my head. The experience of my previous life proves that those who open the champagne too early usually don’t meet a happy end.”
“Although Tang Hao is currently pretending to be dead by remaining asleep in order to evade the Abyssal Saint Sovereign’s perception, Tang Hao’s wife, who transformed into the source of life for Douluo Star, still has part of her consciousness active in the outside world.”
“Raising my own strength as quickly as possible is what I should be doing now.”
Xu Zhao finally regained his composure and returned to the bed to begin meditating and cultivating.
Half a year passed. His soul-power rank rose from level fifteen to level eighteen, leaving him less than two levels away from becoming a great soul master at level twenty.
The reason he was only at this rank was that absorbing the two Radiant Dragon Annihilation Claws had not increased his soul power.
That was because the pair of Radiant Dragon Annihilation Claws inherited by the Xu Family had been passed down as heirlooms from the family’s first ancestor to the present day.
The span of time involved amounted to tens of thousands of years.
Over such an impossibly long period, even with the Xu Family’s careful preservation, the soul power of the remnant soul within the Radiant Dragon Annihilation Claws could not withstand the erosion of tens of thousands of years.
Long ago—no one knew exactly how long—the power of that remnant soul had already dissipated completely.
Otherwise, considering the extraordinary origins of the Radiant Dragon Annihilation Claws, which were suspected to have fallen from a true Radiant Annihilation Dragon, the soul power remaining within this external soul bone might have been enough to propel Xu Zhao’s soul-power rank directly from level fifteen all the way to the realm of a Titled Douluo.
And that was not even counting the fact that the Radiant Dragon Annihilation Claws came as a pair rather than a single piece.
If that had truly happened, he would have ascended to heaven in a single step. By absorbing two external soul bones, he would have become a ninety-ninth-level Titled Douluo at the age of six—one who had even condensed the embryonic form of a divine throne.
That would have been more exhilarating than the most over-the-top power fantasy: the ending arriving at the very beginning.
But the truth was that the passage of time had not allowed such a thing to happen.
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