Douluo: Unlocking the Great Secrets of the Human Body, Becoming a Heavenly Demon - Part 3

The two stood before the machine connected to the Spirit Ascension Platform. Leng Jiuming said, "Bai Xu, with your current strength, you don't need to worry about surviving in the Junior Spirit Ascension Platform at all. Instead, you should choose Thousand-Year Soul Beasts as targets and upgrade your soul spirit as much as possible."

"You'll be alone in there, so you'll inevitably face situations where you're surrounded by Soul Beasts. But don't be afraid. I want to cultivate that fearless spirit in you—the kind of person who can stand against an army of a million alone. That is the path of the strong, understand?"

Bai Xu smiled. "Of course, Teacher." His thoughts happened to align perfectly with Leng Jiuming's.

Beep, beep, beep!

A Soul Guidance Communication ringtone sounded from Leng Jiuming's waist. As he removed the communicator, he said, "Go into the Spirit Ascension Platform first. It's the normal period right now. In a few months, when the Junior Spirit Ascension Platform enters its unrest period, that will be the time for you to truly show your abilities."

"Alright."

Bai Xu lay down, ready to connect to the Spirit Ascension Platform. However, after Leng Jiuming answered the call, his expression changed drastically. He hurriedly pulled Bai Xu up and rushed toward the top floor.

He said in shock, "The Spirit Pagoda's Deputy Tower Master has arrived. She specifically requested to see you."

Bai Xu was puzzled, and somewhat displeased. "The Deputy Tower Master?"

"Heavenly Phoenix Douluo Leng Yaozhu, the Deputy Tower Master from headquarters. You may not know this, but she is a rank 98 Limit Douluo and a Four-word Battle Armor Master! Why would someone so important suddenly appear at the East Sea Spirit Transmission Tower?" Leng Jiuming drew a sharp breath, suppressing the turmoil in his heart as he quickened his pace.

In less than a minute, the two reached the office on the top floor.

Knock, knock, knock!

"Come in!"

The first thing Bai Xu saw was the woman seated upright in the office chair. Her features were as flawless as jade, while her temperament blazed like fire—passionate yet alluring, beautiful enough to topple kingdoms, brimming with the vitality of the sun.

A young girl stood beside her. She was poised and elegant, refined beyond the ordinary. Her noble and chilly aura made her seem just as transcendent as the Titled Douluo herself.

Leng Jiuming bent at the waist and lowered his head respectfully. "Greetings, Her Excellency Heavenly Phoenix!"

Bai Xu followed his example without being servile or overbearing, cupping his hands in salute. "Greetings, Her Excellency Heavenly Phoenix!"

Leng Yaozhu glanced at them and spoke indifferently. "You are Leng Jiuming?"

"Yes, Your Excellency."

She chuckled softly. "Then this little fellow must be the Number One Genius who has caused such a stir in Eastsea City these past years? Now that I see him in person, he is indeed quite impressive. His spiritual power realm is very high."

After exchanging a look with Leng Jiuming, Bai Xu stepped forward and said, "Your Excellency, my name is Bai Xu. My Martial Soul is the Heavenly Eye, and I am a rank 29 Control System Battle Soul Master."

Leng Yaozhu seemed to have had her curiosity piqued and looked somewhat surprised. "Oh? Judging from your bones, you are only nine years old. You truly are a rare genius. And this Heavenly Eye Martial Soul resembles the legendary one from the Spirit Pagoda so closely. May I ask what your soul skills are?"

"Of course. My First Soul Skill is Spirit Amplification, and my Second Soul Skill is Illusory Dream Eye. Their effects are self-explanatory."

Hearing this, Leng Yaozhu seemed to have expected it already. She thought to herself, After all, he is not that person from ten thousand years ago. The effects of his soul skills are far too different. I heard that person's First Soul Skill was Mimicry, capable even of replicating the pressure of a ferocious beast. This Spirit Amplification is rather lacking in comparison. Still, he is a promising seedling. He can be brought back to headquarters for training.

"Not bad soul skills. Your training plan will remain unchanged. If you can pass the branch tower's assessment at the age of twelve, report to Spirit Pagoda Headquarters. You may contact me then."

"Thank you, Your Excellency. If there is nothing else, Bai Xu and I will take our leave first." Leng Jiuming wanted to end the situation. Would such an important figure truly come all this way just to meet Bai Xu once?

Impossible. The girl beside her was probably the true reason. That child's aloof temperament made it obvious she was no ordinary person. Indifference and distance showed in her eyes. Most likely, Heavenly Phoenix Douluo had taken a liking to her talent and accepted her as a disciple.

As for Bai Xu, he had merely received a few words of encouragement. It seemed he had not caught Heavenly Phoenix Douluo's eye.

How could that be? A rank 29 Soul Grandmaster at nine years old was an absolute genius anywhere. Could that girl be even more monstrous?

After the two left the office,

Leng Jiuming was somewhat dissatisfied. He said, "Go find a Spirit Pagoda staff member and enter the Spirit Ascension Platform for training. I'll go ask around about a few things."

"Alright." Bai Xu watched Teacher Leng leave. That otherworldly girl from earlier should have been Gu Yue.

Inside the office,

Leng Yaozhu said, "Disciple, what do you think of that boy around your age? If your spiritual power realms were roughly equal, could you defeat him?"

How could Leng Yaozhu not understand the significance of a nine-year-old rank 29 Soul Grandmaster?

It was simply that she had seen too many geniuses over the years. Innate Full Soul Power was no longer anything rare. In this era, one needed not only high Innate Soul Power, but also an exceptional Martial Soul in order to stand out in the future.

What was an exceptional Martial Soul?

Like her disciple's. Her Martial Soul was the Elementalist, capable of controlling several elements—ice, fire, earth, wind, space, darkness, and light. That was what true genius looked like.

A mere spiritual-attribute Martial Soul was only on par with Gu Yue in terms of spiritual power. How could it be considered outstanding?

"I will win, Master. I promise you."

If they truly fought, Gu Yue could not imagine any possibility of herself losing.

"If my guess is correct, if you do not return with me, that Leng Jiuming will likely have Bai Xu challenge you to a duel later. Those from Shrek Academy all have the same rotten temper."

Bai Xu merely felt that he had wasted ten minutes. The only useful information he had gained was learning the timeline of the story.

Led by a staff member, he lay down inside the machine. After a spell of dizziness, he arrived in the virtual world.

Dense forest surrounded him. The chirping of insects and birds was especially clear, and the rich aura of life made him feel refreshed and at ease.

The trees here were incredibly thick, each dozens of meters tall. Their leaves were so dense that even sunlight could not shine directly through, making the forest seem dark and profound.

Bai Xu traveled in the manner of Naruto, leaping back and forth across tree branches as he moved through the forest in search of prey.

"Hmm, a wolf pack?"

Several dozen meters away, a wolf pack was hunting. Their prey was a wild boar with tusks a meter long.

"Thirteen Demon Wolves with several decades of cultivation hunting a Savage Earth Pig with a hundred years of cultivation. Perfect for testing my methods."

Bai Xu focused and held his breath. His spiritual power transformed into invisible threads that drifted from between his brows, slowly attacking the distant wolf pack.

A spiritual-attribute Soul Master's most powerful method was naturally Spirit Shock, but this kind of attack had a major flaw. If the opponent was powerful or possessed excessively high spiritual power, using Spirit Shock would be no different from courting death.

But Bai Xu's situation was very different.

The strands slowly drifted into the alpha wolf's brow. In mere moments, blood poured from its seven apertures, and it died violently. Seeing the alpha wolf die, the pack fell into chaos, with howls erupting everywhere. Under Bai Xu's control, the threads then slowly drifted toward the Savage Earth Pig's brow. A few seconds later, it too died violently.

The wolf pack began dropping one by one. In the end, only three Demon Wolves abandoned their prey and fled in terror.

"Killing with spiritual power is this easy?" Bai Xu had not expected such a result. He had even prepared himself to suffer backlash, yet despite repeatedly using Mental Attack, not a single Soul Beast had been able to endure it.

Faint, indistinct glimmers drifted from the corpses of the dead Soul Beasts and landed on Bai Xu's body. His eyes flickered slightly as his soul spirit's age increased by several years.

Roar! Roar!

The roars coming from afar caused Bai Xu's figure to vanish into concealment once more. As long as his true body remained hidden, any Soul Beast below a thousand years in this Junior Spirit Ascension Platform would be at his mercy.

Within a single day, he did many things.

Outside the Spirit Pagoda, the staff responsible for monitoring stared in utter disbelief.

"My heavens, what is he doing!?"

"A hundred-year Long-tailed Rat Swarm, hundred-year Gale Demon Wolves, a flock of no fewer than a hundred Green Wind Eagles—every one of them was instantly killed the moment they encountered that boy!"

The staff members trembled as they watched. Every dead Soul Beast bled from its seven apertures before suddenly dying violently. With their low intelligence, they never even found the killer before turning into fragments of virtual data and returning to the machines.

"Is this the Number One Genius of our East Sea Spirit Transmission Tower?"

"He really is a monster!"

"After slaughtering so many Soul Beasts, none of his physical indicators have fluctuated much, and his Soul Power consumption is practically negligible. How did he do it?"

"Record this quickly!"

Inside the Spirit Ascension Platform,

Bai Xu looked at his still-purple soul ring and frowned slightly. "Although low-level Soul Beasts are easy to kill, they add too few years. The spirit energy produced in the Spirit Ascension Platform is only one-tenth of a dead Soul Beast's cultivation age. Now that I am somewhat familiar with this place, I should hunt as many Thousand-Year Soul Beasts as possible."

"And since I have confirmed that Mental Attack possesses absolute killing power against Soul Beasts with a hundred years of cultivation or less, I must try it on Thousand-Year Soul Beasts as well. If I cannot defeat one and suffer backlash, I can simply press the emergency device and leave."

Having made up his mind, Bai Xu headed toward a forest with relatively few Soul Beasts. The Soul Beast guidebook had explained that the stronger a Soul Beast was, the stronger its territorial instincts would be, and the fewer beast packs would be active around it.

If his guess was correct, a Thousand-Year Soul Beast should be living within this forest.

Not long after Bai Xu began scouting, he discovered a cave beneath a cliff. It was five meters tall, pitch-black inside, with nothing visible beyond the entrance.

"This should be that Thousand-Year Soul Beast's lair, right? I need to lure it out."

Unfortunately, Bai Xu had not yet learned any spiritual control skills. Otherwise, he could have controlled a few low-level Soul Beasts to lure it out and would not need to risk himself.

He leaped down from a tree. The instant his feet touched the ground, something inside the cave opened its eyes and slowly vanished from within the cave.

Bai Xu shouted at the cave entrance, then carefully retreated several dozen meters and remained on guard. Yet the cave was completely silent, without the slightest sound emerging from within.

"How could that be? Is it asleep?"

He tried several more times with the same result. Even someone as cautious as Bai Xu began to think it was an empty lair. Just as he prepared to leave, an ominous feeling suddenly rose within him. His body nearly instinctively bent and sprang into a tree.

The next instant, a massive mouth burst through the ground and bit down where Bai Xu had been standing.

The Soul Beast's body emerged from underground. Its dragon body was more than ten meters long and covered in armor-like earth-yellow scales. Majesty gleamed in its vertical yellow pupils as it let out a dragon roar toward Bai Xu in the tree, venting its rage.

Bai Xu was somewhat surprised. "A Thousand-Year Earth Dragon!"

Earth Dragons were draconic subspecies of the Mountain Dragon King's lineage. They could control the earth element, and the scales covering their bodies were incredibly tough. Soul Beasts of the same level would find it difficult to break through their defenses.

Earthen thorns burst from the ground as countless clumps of soil transformed into spears and shot toward Bai Xu on the branches. He could only keep changing positions throughout the forest, using the terrain to evade the Earth Dragon's fierce earth-element attacks.

"Can I break its armor with brute force at my current strength?"

"Let's try it!"

Bai Xu leaped down from the tree and arrived at the open ground before the cave, ready for battle. With his powerful spiritual power and the enhancement of the Essence of Earth, his senses were extraordinarily keen. It could be said that he held the initiative everywhere.