The Red-Haired Woman

Chen Jianshu emerged from the principal's office safe and sound. From then on, a legend circulated through Eastsea Junior Academy.

It was said that the family backing Chen Jianshu were mighty figures from the Spirit Pagoda, with means that reached the heavens. With a single thought, they had determined the power structure of Eastsea City.

From then on, everyone looked at Chen Jianshu with awe and fear, leaving him unsure how to get along with his classmates.

I wanted to get along with you as an ordinary person, but I'm done pretending. I'm laying my cards on the table!

All right, what actually happened was that Chen Jianshu sat alone in his seat and cultivated. Everyone was too afraid to disturb him, and he had no intention of chatting with anyone else.

Of course, some people tried to strike up conversations with him, but they ran out of things to say after only a few sentences. Chen Jianshu's life followed a strict routine: every day, he was either cultivating or attending school.

The Spirit Pagoda had also given him unlimited access to the Primary Spirit Ascension Platform. On top of that, everything in the Spirit Pagoda Mall was half price for him. These were privileges of a Red-Level Core Disciple.

Not only that, he also had one chance every week to take a medicinal bath in the Medicine King Department.

The main purpose of the medicinal baths was to temper his physique. He had been worried that his physical toughness would put him at a disadvantage.

After all, the Golden Dragon King relied purely on overwhelming strength. Chen Jianshu couldn't afford to fall too far behind him in physical ability.

After finishing his medicinal bath, he walked out of the Medicine King Department. Looking at the department's name, he couldn't help feeling suspicious. Seriously, wouldn't that name get it blasted with a flaming arrow by a certain bow-wielding fellow?

In any case, he felt the name wasn't very safe, especially since his cheat was so much like Currency War from Honkai: Star Rail... It really was unlucky, you know?

"O Reignbow Arbiter, please don't look this way."

He pressed his palms together and prayed. If Lan, the Reignbow really fired an arrow over here, the entire Douluo Universe would be doomed.

After praying, he prepared to head back and cultivate. But when he turned around, he saw a figure with long, bright red hair cascading over her shoulders.

The newcomer was incomparably beautiful, with a graceful figure. Her fiery red eyes were gazing calmly at him, and his mind went blank for a moment.

Mainly, it was because she had appeared so silently not far behind him and was watching him. It really was a little frightening.

But she was so beautiful that she didn't seem quite so frightening anymore. Still, they didn't know each other, and it seemed rather rude to keep staring at her, so he immediately looked away and left.

He brushed past the fiery red figure. After he left, she made her way to the office on the Spirit Pagoda's top floor.

"Patriarch."

Skyhawk Douluo stepped aside and bowed to her. The woman nodded and replied with a gracious smile:

"Elder Skyhawk, thank you for your hard work."

"It was no trouble. Everything was for the family and the Spirit Pagoda!"

As Skyhawk Douluo spoke, he placed various documents on the desk. The woman picked them up and looked through them, while footage of Chen Jianshu's performance during his first visit to the Spirit Ascension Platform played nearby.

His performance could be called competent and unremarkable. Perhaps only the children of top families who had received professional training could have performed more impressively. Unfortunately, Chen Jianshu was just a commoner.

But for a mere commoner to have done so much showed that his combat talent was also top-notch.

"His physique and combat talent are both excellent, especially his spiritual power. In the future, he may well become another pillar holding up the heavens for the Spirit Pagoda."

Chen Jianshu's spiritual power when he first awakened his Martial Soul could be said to have broken the Douluo Continent's record.

One had to know that even Illusory Brain Douluo Han Tianyi, currently the foremost human spiritual-type expert, had only been close to the Spirit Connection Realm when he awakened his Martial Soul.

A normal person's spiritual power should be between one and ten points, while exceptionally gifted prodigies had more than ten but fewer than forty.

Spiritual-type Soul Masters generally had higher spiritual power, usually below seventy points. Even a pure spiritual-type supreme prodigy like Han Tianyi had started with only ninety-five points.

In this era, people no longer pursued Soul Power alone; they also trained their spiritual power.

Seeing his formidable innate talent for spiritual power, she had thought his Martial Soul was spiritual-type, but it wasn't.

It was a card Martial Soul resembling something from an entertainment game. The abilities it had shown so far included summoning sword-type weapons to attack enemies, almost instantly and seemingly at very little cost.

Next was summoning small pets, seemingly a variant type of slime Soul Beast: lightning-type and fire-type slimes that assisted him in battle.

The woman stared intently at the silver spear Chen Jianshu had spent some time projecting on the screen. This spear had allowed a Soul Master with one ring of cultivation to wound a hundred-year Man Faced Demon Spider. Its quality seemed to surpass the category of top-tier Martial Souls.

Finally, there was... something resembling a transformed state. The little fellow had used that final transformation to turn the tables and kill the Man Faced Demon Spider.

Among the powerful Soul Masters on the continent today, not one could single-handedly kill a Man Faced Demon Spider with only one ring of cultivation.

Whether figures from history or the many dazzling geniuses of the present, not a single person could kill a hundred-year Man Faced Demon Spider alone with one ring of cultivation.

But this child had done it. Although they had perished together, even through the screen she could sense that the child had truly burned himself out.

After watching, she sank into thought. Judging by his performance so far, he was indeed remarkably impressive and had met the Spirit Pagoda's standards for a Red-Level Core Disciple.

But the problem was that the child was still too young. Others were at least eight or nine years old when they obtained a place as a Spirit Pagoda core disciple.

The main issue was that Soul Masters with one ring had far too many uncertainties, so core disciple selection and evaluation generally waited until they had three rings.

Moreover, being too conspicuous would invite assassination attempts from other factions, so the identities of core disciples were generally kept secret.

She had only learned of this because she happened to have eyes and ears here. After thinking it over, she looked up at Skyhawk Douluo and said:

"Elder Skyhawk, our Phoenix Family recently acquired a new batch of cultivation resources. As it happens, your grandson seems to have Innate Soul Power of rank nine as well. I have high hopes for that child."

"Thank you for your concern, Patriarch."

Hearing this, Skyhawk Douluo smiled. His Innate Soul Power had been rank eight, and he might never advance beyond the Super Douluo realm in this lifetime. But his descendant was more talented than he was. If the child received special attention and training, then his Skyhawk family could be said to have made something of itself.

Meanwhile.

After two months of cultivation, Chen Jianshu had finally broken through to rank twelve. At the same time, he felt it was necessary to find a swordsmanship teacher.

Right now, he relied on the Iron Sword and Prototype Archaic to deal damage. The Silver Dragon Spear consumed too much, so he could only use it as an ultimate move.

If he wanted to deal heavy damage, he would certainly need to find a swordsmanship teacher to give him some guidance.

Otherwise, all he would know how to do was swing his sword around wildly, and his disorderly fighting style would likely put him at a disadvantage.

The first update for July 9, bringing the total to two thousand Chinese characters.