The ancestral hall of blue bricks and gray tiles stood silently at the end of the alley.
The stone beasts on the upturned eaves had lost their former splendor, and the bronze bells at the corners were mottled with rust. Whenever a breeze passed, they gave off a dull hum, as though recounting the loneliness of bygone years.
Inside the weathered wooden doors, the smell of mildew mingled with sandalwood incense.
On the shrine, the gilded ancestral tablets had long since faded. The flickering red candles seemed to weep, their wax tears solidified upon the altar table.
Though the plaster peeled from the walls and the painted beams and pillars had faded, traces of the old auspicious air could still be seen. The entire ancestral hall exuded an ancient, solemn presence.
An elderly man with white hair and beard, wearing a five-pointed platinum crown, casually waved a hand, and six jade stones floated into the air.
"Yan, what are you daydreaming about?!"
The old man's voice shattered the silence within the ancestral hall.
Before him stood a boy of about six, his skin a healthy wheat color. He muttered, "Yan? You called me Yan?"
In an instant, countless memories surged through the boy's mind like raging tides.
The boy's pupils contracted sharply, and he could not help but cry out under his breath.
"Tuoba Yan... Tuoba Xi's grandson... the young clan leader of the Sacred Dragon Clan..."
He stared wide-eyed, incredulously looking up at the old man before him, who stood over two meters tall.
After waiting a long while for an answer, the old man heard the boy's muttering and urged, "Yan, enter the Awakening Array. I'll awaken your martial soul!"
The boy took a deep breath and slowly stepped into the array formed by six jade stones glowing with golden light.
He was not from this world.
In his previous life, he had been a die-hard Douluo fan. Not only had he devoured all five novels, but he had also been obsessed with the anime.
He remembered falling asleep while watching Chen Xin's theatrical special. He had never expected that when he woke up, he would have transmigrated to Douluo Continent.
The moment he stepped into the array, a wondrous energy steadily lifted him off the ground, suspending him in midair.
The golden energy wrapped gently around him like the sun on a warm winter day.
With a soft "pop," it felt as though some shackle inside him had broken. Warm power instantly flowed through his entire body, filling him with inexhaustible strength.
Immediately afterward, his body began to undergo a startling transformation.
Green spread across his entire body like a tidal wave. His muscles swelled as though inflated, stretching his clothes taut.
With another crisp "pop," the fabric tore apart. His clothes could no longer withstand the power erupting from him in that instant and split to shreds.
His nails rapidly lengthened, gleaming with a dark luster under the ancestral hall's light.
Most striking of all were his golden eyes, which carried a scorching, oppressive aura. Stare into them for too long, and one would feel as though they had been cast into a blistering desert.
Tuoba Xi stood to the side in a daze, the light in his eyes flickering like an uneasy heart, restless and apprehensive.
"A mutated martial soul?!"
As everyone knew, mutated martial souls could mutate into weakness, but they could also mutate into strength.
Some powerful martial souls, after mutating, could instead become weaker.
Before testing his Innate Soul Power, Tuoba Xi had no idea whether Tuoba Yan's martial soul had mutated into weakness or strength.
The boy stood frozen, muttering, "A mutated martial soul?"
Unable to see his own martial soul, he felt deeply uneasy.
As a transmigrator, the boy also knew that martial souls could mutate into strength, just as they could mutate into weakness.
Seeing this, Tuoba Xi flipped his empty hand and took out a mirror from a Storage Soul Guide Device. Using Soul Power to support it, he sent the mirror before the boy.
Holding the mirror, the boy saw the phantom of his martial soul behind him and froze.
Two words that did not belong to Douluo Continent slipped from his mouth.
"Saint?"
That was right. Behind him stood the phantom of a green statue, shaped like an oversized round table. It had no limbs and resembled a coiled giant serpent. Its entire body was yellowish-green, and the statue bore twelve small octagonal holes inlaid with talismans.
Wasn't this Saint from Jackie Chan Adventures?
The boy shifted his gaze from the mirror to Tuoba Xi.
Tuoba Xi's martial soul was a completely white White Armored Earth Dragon with four legs.
An inverted blade ran from the earth dragon's neck along its spine all the way to its tail. If not for the dragon scales covering its body, it would have been easy to mistake it for an enormous lizard.
This was the inherited martial soul of the Tuoba Clan, Spirit Hall's "imperial relatives"—the White Armored Earth Dragon.
Eight soul rings lit up beneath Tuoba Xi's feet in succession: two yellow, two purple, and four black, dazzling and brilliant.
Suppressing the excitement in his heart, Tuoba Xi took out a crystal ball from his Storage Soul Guide Device and used Soul Power to carry it before the boy.
"Mutated martial souls can be strong or weak. Yan, place your palm against the crystal ball and test your Innate Soul Power! If your Soul Power is above Rank Seven, your future will be bright!"
The boy tremblingly extended his right hand while Tuoba Xi stared intently at the crystal ball.
When the boy's right palm touched the surface of the crystal ball, a suction force came from within, drawing all his Soul Power into it.
In an instant, the crystal ball burst forth with dazzling blue light.
"Rank Ten... Innate Full Soul Power! Child, you haven't disappointed your grandfather. The revival of our Tuoba Clan is finally in sight!"
Tuoba Xi was overwhelmed with excitement. Without even bothering to put away the jade stones used to awaken the martial soul or the crystal ball used to test Soul Power, he rushed forward and tightly embraced the boy.
After quite a while, the boy gasped uncomfortably, "You... you're hugging too tightly... I... can barely breathe!"
Only then did Tuoba Xi come back to his senses. He hurriedly released the boy and looked down at him with affectionate eyes, growing more satisfied the longer he looked.
Tuoba Xi was still extremely excited. His face was filled with a gratified smile.
He slowly turned and looked toward the three portraits hanging on the main wall of the ancestral hall, explaining, "Yan, you have not disappointed your grandfather or your mother. You possess Innate Full Soul Power. Your martial soul did not mutate into weakness, but into strength!"
The boy raised his head and carefully studied the portraits hanging on the ancestral hall wall.
All three ancestors were men, tall and powerfully built, each with a dragon-shaped phantom behind him, though their martial souls took different forms.
Tuoba Xi's voice sounded beside his ear.
"Look carefully at the martial souls of the three ancestors. They all possessed Innate Full Soul Power, and all of them had mutated martial souls. Yan, you haven't let your grandfather down. You have the bearing of a Title Douluo. In the future, you may very well have your portrait hung here after your death, worshiped by your descendants!"
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