Guyue

Donghai Spirit Transfer Pagoda.

From many places in Eastsea City, even some remote corners, one could almost clearly see this Spirit Pagoda. It stood over a hundred stories tall, exceeding four hundred meters. Even amid Eastsea City's forest of high-rises, it was a landmark building.

The Spirit Pagoda's base was octagonal and covered an enormous area. Every ten floors upward, it narrowed inward, all the way to its pointed spire.

Even from the outside alone, one could feel its utterly majestic presence.

After all, Donghai Spirit Transfer Pagoda was one of the Spirit Pagoda Organization's eighteen major branch pagodas. These eighteen large Spirit Pagodas were also extravagantly known as the Eighteen Sky Pillars.

The Spirit Pagoda Organization had already existed for ten thousand years. Because of its importance to Soul Masters and its era-defining development of artificial Soul Spirits, its status had risen steadily. Spread across three continents, it had become one of the most powerful forces.

This was not Lin Xiuran's first time here, yet whenever he arrived, he still could not help marveling at the Spirit Pagoda's extravagance.

Even the first floor of the Spirit Pagoda, the place used to receive guests, was decorated in magnificent splendor. The floor was paved with Dark Gold stone, covered in dazzling natural patterns. Massive stone pillars supported a dome dozens of meters high, while the gorgeous colored murals on those pillars and the dome were even more breathtaking.

These murals were resplendent in gold and jade. They depicted scenery and people, seemingly recording a story.

Lin Xiuran knew very well that this was the story of that fellow Huo Yuhao. Yet what puzzled him was that he did not see the figure of Tang Wutong, Huo Yuhao's wife with pink-blue hair, who should have appeared at his side.

Such a massive organization as the Spirit Pagoda could not possibly have gotten it wrong, but Lin Xiuran did not dwell on it. What had happened ten thousand years ago had nothing to do with him. His current goal was a Soul Spirit.

Although Lin Xiuran had bought a Soul Spirit here once before, that had been several years ago. Worried that the location might have changed and that he might enter the wrong floor, causing unnecessary trouble, he went to ask.

That was easy enough. The Spirit Pagoda was much like a hospital. At the front was a counter-like station, behind which sat a Spirit Pagoda Master in a gray robe, specifically responsible for answering questions. The Spirit Pagoda was simply too large; anyone who was not staff could easily take a wrong turn.

After asking about the exact floor, Lin Xiuran went to take the Soul Guidance Elevator. It was on the fifty-first floor—walking up there would probably exhaust him to death.

Eastsea City was a major city, so naturally there were many Soul Masters and plenty of people visiting the Spirit Pagoda. After waiting for a short while, he finally got on.

But when the Soul Guidance Elevator reached the halfway point, the twenty-fifth floor, it stopped. Clearly, someone else was getting on. Lin Xiuran was not surprised by this. Everyone who had been in the elevator before the twenty-fifth floor had gotten off, and given the Spirit Pagoda's traffic, it was perfectly normal for someone to board.

However, when he clearly saw the person who entered, his gaze went blank for a moment.

A girl stepped inside. She was not exceptionally beautiful, merely delicate and attractive. She had long black hair and black eyes. Her figure was above average among girls her age, well-proportioned, and her large eyes were bright with life. She wore a simple set of black casual clothes, yet she carried a distinctly unusual aura.

But that was not why Lin Xiuran was shocked. The real reason was her face. He was not particularly familiar with it, but he had seen it before—and he knew everything about her.

She was none other than Guyue from Zero Class. Lin Xiuran had seen her at the Riotous Spirit Ascension Platform, and she had been the one to eliminate Xu Xiaoyu. But only he knew that her true identity was... the Silver Dragon King!

After Guyue pressed her floor button, the elevator continued upward.

The Spirit Pagoda's elevators were naturally the finest available, fast and smooth. Yet to Lin Xiuran, it now felt unbearably slow.

For some reason, the moment he saw her, his heart began pounding violently. It was a frantic beat tinged with pain, so intense that even his breathing became unsteady.

Perhaps it was because of her identity. After all, before an existence like Guyue, the Silver Dragon King, his current strength was no different from that of an ant.

Perhaps his unsteady breath caught the attention of Guyue, whose spiritual power was formidable. She suddenly turned back and glanced at Lin Xiuran beside her.

At that moment, Lin Xiuran also happened to glance at her. Their gazes met.

"Mmgh!"

Almost at the same time, both clutched their heads and staggered back a step. In an instant, Lin Xiuran's eyes were flooded with purple light.

It came quickly and vanished just as quickly. The next moment, his eyes regained their clarity, but his head felt heavy, leaving him with an indescribable sensation.

A trace of confusion appeared in Guyue's eyes. She looked at Lin Xiuran, steadied herself, then noticed the elevator doors had opened and walked out first.

Lin Xiuran, left in the elevator, regained his ability to think at that moment. What had just happened was so sudden that he had not figured it out at all.

Was it Guyue's deliberate test?

Clearly not. He had distinctly seen that she had been affected as well. Yet aside from that flash of purple light, nothing else had happened.

He had no energy to think further. Soon, he arrived at the fifty-first floor. Seeing that his body was unharmed, Lin Xiuran walked straight inside.

This floor was specifically for selecting Soul Spirits. It was filled with a modern atmosphere, with all kinds of advanced equipment arranged throughout.

The first step in selecting a Soul Spirit was testing one's spiritual power. The strength of one's spiritual power determined what level of Soul Spirit one could fuse with.

After paying the fee for the spiritual power test, Lin Xiuran sat in a chair while a staff member fitted him with something resembling a metal helmet.

The spiritual power test was very quick. Before long, the result came out.

"One hundred and fifty-five!"

The Spirit Pagoda staff member sucked in a cold breath. This number was simply terrifying for a child around ten years old.

Forget Eastsea City—even across the entire continent, there were only a handful of Soul Masters who could reach such a level of spiritual power at that age.

At first, seeing Lin Xiuran's thin, worn clothes, the staff member had not paid him much attention. But now, he truly took him seriously.

With spiritual power at the middle stage of the Spirit Origin Realm, fusing with a hundred-year Yellow Soul Spirit would not be a problem. With spiritual power like Lin Xiuran's, he could naturally choose and fuse with any hundred-year Soul Spirit without issue.

The staff member quickly brought up every Soul Spirit available in Eastsea City on a large screen. Donghai Spirit Transfer Pagoda was, after all, a major place, so naturally it had no defective products. Nor did it have a method like Tang Wulin's, where one drew a Soul Spirit at random. Therefore, Lin Xiuran had to choose one himself, then purchase it.