Big Companies Really Are Better

Cai Kun raised an eyebrow and did some quick calculations in his head.

A dozen or so Gold Soul Coins a month was enough to buy half a mountain in Holy Soul Village.

But he was determined not to touch a position like Holy Son, a target that could be thrust into the eye of the storm at any moment.

"The benefits sound passable."

With both hands in his pockets, Cai Kun idly kicked at the loose stones along the edge of the steps:

"But let me make this clear upfront: I don't want to be any Holy Son, and I won't take any important leadership post that involves commanding troops or managing people."

"Does the Spirit Hall have any cushy jobs with little work, no one looking over your shoulder, no office hours, and the freedom to wander around outside all day?"

"I don't mind a few fewer gold coins in pay. The important thing is freedom, to go wherever I want."

Faced with this string of outrageous demands, Su Yuntao's face immediately turned as bitter as a bitter melon.

He had spent most of his life working at the little Nuoding City branch, and every clerical post he knew had its own fixed duties.

There were armored guards who stood watch and patrolled, and clerks who copied documents day after day. Where was he supposed to find some heavenly job that let someone "travel everywhere without keeping office hours"?

"Little ancestor, you're really making things difficult for me..."

Su Yuntao scratched his scalp, but seeing Cai Kun looking ready to walk away at any moment, he gritted his teeth, steeled himself, and slapped his chest:

"Fine! As long as you agree to join the Spirit Hall, I'll personally plead with Supervisor Ma Xiunuo about the position!"

"With heaven-defying aptitude like your Innate Full Soul Power, I'll have the supervisor make a special request in the confidential report to the Pope Hall!"

"Even if His Holiness the Pope created a custom-made sinecure just for you, one that paid you twenty Gold Soul Coins a month for nothing, it wouldn't be impossible!"

Cai Kun felt his heart stir slightly.

Deep down, he wasn't too keen on having that lunatic woman Bibi Dong as his immediate superior, or being sent undercover like a Pokémon.

But as the saying went, a single penny could stump a hero.

Old Jack had scrimped and saved in the village all his life and never enjoyed much of a good life. His only dream was for the village to produce another Soul Saint.

The old man had placed high hopes on him, always talking about him "becoming a Soul Saint and bringing glory to the family."

Though he was bent on eating, drinking, and having fun, picking up a well-paid public-sector post along the way, being assigned to fight in a competition now and then, and helping the village shed its cap of poverty seemed natural enough.

"All right, Brother Tao, you've talked me into it. I agree."

Cai Kun relented and held out his hand:

"Hand it over."

Su Yuntao froze and blinked. "Hand what over?"

"The indenture."

Cai Kun rolled his eyes and spoke plainly:

"You take the money and do the work, sign your name and leave your mark. When your public organization recruits civilian Soul Masters, don't they all have to sign a lifelong death contract swearing never to betray you?"

At the word "indenture," Su Yuntao nearly choked. He waved his hands repeatedly, torn between laughter and tears:

"Oh, my young friend, where did you hear such country nonsense?"

"Our Spirit Hall is the holy land of Soul Masters across the continent, not a slave trader's market! Why would we have indentures?!"

"As long as your heart is with the Spirit Hall, you only need to willingly enter your name in the register. You're free to come and go, and you can return home to visit family whenever you like!"

Su Yuntao wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and grinned so widely that even his back teeth showed, as though he could already see a bright future of promotion and riches:

"Besides, your name doesn't need to go through the usual procedures anymore!"

"Yesterday, I sent the file on your Innate Full Soul Power and Martial Soul up by eight-hundred-li express, along with the one on Tang San from your village! I'm sure His Holiness the Pope will see them before long."

At those words, Cai Kun, who had looked completely relaxed, suddenly went rigid.

The morning breeze swept across the steps, carrying a hint of chill.

Cai Kun turned his head, his neck somewhat stiff, and his pupils contracted slightly:

"Wait... what did you just say?"

"You sent up Tang San's certificate too, the one that says Blue Silver Grass and Innate Full Soul Power... exactly as it was?!"

Su Yuntao noticed nothing amiss and even puffed out his chest with some pride:

"That's right! Two people with Innate Full Soul Power from one village—that's the greatest achievement on my record in my whole life!"

"Blue Silver Grass may be a Trash Martial Soul, but full Soul Power is rare all the same. I took it upon myself to send his file along so the important people upstairs could have a look..."

Cai Kun stood on the steps, his head buzzing.

It was over.

That kid Tang San had Twin Martial Souls, with the Clear Sky Hammer hidden in his left hand. Any sharp-eyed person who saw Blue Silver Grass with full Soul Power could guess with their eyes closed that he had to have a Second Martial Soul!

Worse still, once Bibi Dong and that bunch of old monsters in the Worship Hall saw the report, all it would take was a little digging into the background of Tang Hao, the blacksmith in Holy Soul Village, for a purge order of the highest level on the entire continent to follow!

When that happened, the Pope Hall's enforcement team, or even a Titled Douluo elder, might personally descend on Nuoding City...

Cai Kun sucked in a breath of cold air.

For the sake of his greater plans, Tang Hao might find a way to eliminate him in advance, to keep the Spirit Hall from growing stronger.

Although he could escape, there was no telling whether Tang Hao might use Old Jack to threaten him, and then things would be difficult.

Pull up a radish and the mud came with it. If he really brought the Spirit Hall's suicide squad down on them, he feared he would never have another good day.

Heaven Dou Empire, Heaven Dou City.

Inside the bishop's private chamber on the top floor of the Spirit Temple, the light was somewhat dim.

Platinum Bishop Salas leaned back in his leather chair, his fingers tapping gently on the red sandalwood desk.

"Tap, tap."

An absolutely confidential scroll, forwarded urgently from Nuoding City, lay open in the middle of the desk.

At the top of the file was the unmistakable personal seal of Su Yuntao, a deacon of the Nuoding City branch, with the seals of the branch halls at each level below it.

Salas narrowed his sinister eyes and scanned the neatly drawn image of a long platinum locomotive on the file, letting out an extremely faint snort.

"Absurd."

Salas seized the file and shook it, making the paper rustle, a mocking smile curling at the corner of his mouth:

"This mishmash of a thing had to be awakened three times before it tested as level ten full Soul Power?"

"And the other one... Blue Silver Grass, a weed everyone knows, also has Innate Full Soul Power?"

"Has the branch deacon from a backwater like Nuoding City got a death wish, making up such preposterous nonsense to claim credit?!"

Salas casually slapped the paper onto the desk, intending to throw it straight into the wastebasket and burn it to ashes.

But the moment his fingers touched the corner of the desk, he reconsidered and stopped.

The room fell silent.

The contempt in Salas's eyes was gradually replaced by greed and calculation.

As the Platinum Bishop of Heaven Dou City's Spirit Temple, his Soul Power had been stuck at level eighty-nine for years without advancing an inch. An unbridgeable chasm still stood between him and the Elder Hall, the symbol of the Spirit Hall's core power.

Though he couldn't believe Innate Full Soul Power would appear in such a poor place, he also didn't believe his subordinates would deliberately make it up for a little credit. More likely, something had gone wrong during the awakening, and they had mistaken it for Innate Full Soul Power.

But... what if it was true?

Martial Souls came in all manner of strange forms, and those with malignant mutations were as numerous as hairs on an ox. It was not entirely impossible for one or two anomalies that defied common sense to appear now and then.

If that iron-box Martial Soul really was some peerless, previously unrecorded attack-type divine weapon, and that Blue Silver Grass also concealed some unknown wonder...

"If I personally go to Nuoding City to verify it and claim all the credit for this heaven-sent achievement before the Pope Hall sends anyone down..."