As the soft sound of breakthrough still echoed within his body, Situ Xuan suddenly felt the world spin.
The moonlight that had been slanting through the window suddenly twisted into ribbon-like strands. The mechanical clock on the wall began making abnormal ticking sounds, its hands starting to turn counterclockwise.
Most bizarre of all, though he was clearly still seated in meditation, he could distinctly feel himself falling—not downward, but sinking endlessly toward some indescribable direction.
"Was this... a meditation deviation?" The thought had barely surfaced when the sensation of falling came to an abrupt halt.
The space before him suddenly opened up.
The pure white space had neither walls nor boundaries, as though someone had bleached the entire world white. Situ Xuan tentatively moved his fingers and found that he could move freely, yet felt nothing beneath his feet when he stepped on the ground. Stranger still, the air carried a faint scent of ink, as if someone had just copied calligraphy here.
Click.
A crisp sound came from behind him. Situ Xuan spun around and saw a floating Bronze Codex appear out of thin air three meters away. The book was astonishingly huge, as large as a door, its surface gleaming with a bluish-green patina.
Its pages turned on their own with a rustling sound. With every page it flipped, several tiny flecks of bronze peeled from its spine, transforming into wisps of green smoke and vanishing as they fell.
"An illusion from a Martial Soul awakening?"
Situ Xuan frowned and approached. As he drew closer, he noticed seven strange chains wrapped around the cover, each link engraved with a different beast's head. The chain at the very center had already snapped, its fractured surface reflecting flecks of cold light.
When he stopped half a meter before the book, its turning pages suddenly froze.
The left page before him was blank, while the right bore an Eight-Character Mantra written in blood-red cinnabar: <Practice martial arts with sincerity; follow your true heart>.
The writing was indescribably strange—every horizontal and vertical stroke hid fine serrations, while the ends of each sweep and press curled into barbs, as though every character were alive.
"Playing tricks."
Situ Xuan reached out to touch the page. The instant his fingertip touched the paper, the entire book began to shake violently. Dense lines of tiny golden script emerged on the once-blank left page, the characters gradually deepening as if carved by an invisible blade:
[With fists, storms sweep the wilderness; righteous spirit stands amid the vastness.
Ten years honing the sword, the heart remains crimson; through a hundred battles, hidden edges forge unyielding will.]
The moment the poem appeared, Situ Xuan's pupils contracted sharply. He had clearly never seen these words before, yet his heart suddenly clenched as if struck by a heavy hammer.
Even more terrifyingly, every word of the poem left an afterimage on his retina. Even after he looked away, the golden characters remained suspended in the air, forming a three-dimensional curtain of light.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Three crisp cracks rang out in succession as three more chains shattered.
The codex suddenly rose into the air, its pages flipping at a breathtaking speed.
This time, with every page it turned, dense black characters peeled away from the paper and condensed into a tangible stream in the air. Situ Xuan tried to retreat, only to discover that his feet had been bound by ink-black chains that had appeared at some point.
"Get lost!"
Situ Xuan instinctively swung his fist at the chains, but his fist passed straight through the phantoms.
At the same time, the torrent of characters had already surged before him.
The black characters at the very front suddenly warped, transforming into two completely different marks—the one on the left was a palm print as black as ink, with seven scarlet points of light glowing in its palm; the one on the right was a silver-white fist-pattern totem, with the Big Dipper embedded at its knuckles.
Situ Xuan instinctively raised his hand to block them, but the two marks slipped nimbly around his arm like weary birds returning to their nest and plunged directly into his forehead.
"Ah—!"
Indescribable agony exploded inside his skull. Situ Xuan dropped to his knees as the white space before him began to collapse.
Countless scenes of martial training flashed around him: the silhouette of a black-clad figure practicing sinister palm techniques beneath the moon; a burly man shattering granite with his fists in slow motion; and countless meridian circulation paths crisscrossing and flashing through the void.
In the end, all the images collapsed into two streams of light that endlessly circled within his mind.
In the real world, Situ Xuan's body suddenly pitched forward, and he fell to the floor with a thud.
The overturned teacup rolled a long way across the floor, its tea spreading into dark stains over the wooden boards.
Outside the window, a dark cloud happened to cover the moon, while the mechanical clock on the wall chimed the hour.
"Cough... cough, cough!"
With a violent fit of coughing, Situ Xuan abruptly pushed himself upright.
When the moonlight spilled in again, it revealed the dense beads of sweat on his forehead and the faint golden motes that had yet to fade from his pitch-black eyes. He instinctively touched his forehead, where a slight burning sensation lingered.
"Not a dream..."
Situ Xuan lowered his head and looked at his hands. An unfamiliar power seemed to flow through the lines of his palms.
The moment he tried to recall it, two complete martial arts systems immediately surfaced in his mind—one was an incomparably fierce fist art and breathing method, while the other was a sinister, venomous palm art and cultivation technique. Both were as clear as instincts he had been born with.
The sound of nocturnal cats fighting drifted in from outside. Situ Xuan turned to look through the window.
Aolai City's outline was blurred beneath the moonlight, and the spire of the Spirit Pagoda glimmered faintly in the distance. He slowly clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking sharply.
"Interesting."
A cold curve touched the youth's lips, and the golden light in his eyes vanished completely into his black pupils.
The Black Heart Evil Palm was a powerful martial art practiced by Black Heart Tiger, the main villain of the animated series The Legend of Rainbow Cat and Blue Rabbit from his previous life. It had twelve levels, each possessing immense power.
Fist of the North Star was an inherited martial art practiced by Kenshiro, the protagonist of the manga Fist of the North Star from his previous life. It tempered the body and honed the will; the fiercer one's emotions, the stronger the practitioner could become. Combined with Pressure Point Striking and fist techniques, it held endless wonders.
Such a fortuitous encounter could not help but excite Situ Xuan.
Fist of the North Star possessed endless wondrous uses in developing the human body, making it perfectly suited to his Martial Soul—the Body.
The Black Heart Evil Palm had brought Situ Xuan an immensely urgent and necessary powerful cultivation method!
Yet compared to beginning cultivation immediately, Situ Xuan had another important matter to attend to—obtaining a Soul Spirit.
The Sun Moon Empire unified the Douluo Continent and was later renamed the Sun Moon Federation.
The Spirit Pagoda organization had existed for ten thousand years. Due to its importance to Soul Masters and its era-defining creation of artificial Soul Spirits, its status had risen steadily. Its branches spread across three continents, making it one of the most powerful factions.
Aolai City also had a Spirit Pagoda branch, located at the city center. It was a three-story tower-like building, the lowest grade of Spirit Pagoda branch. Spirit Pagodas in medium-sized cities stood seven stories tall, while those in large cities reached thirteen stories.
The Spirit Pagoda headquarters in Shrek City, after years of renovation, stood eighty-one stories tall and was known as the most magnificent building on the Douluo Continent.
Situ Xuan headed alone toward the Spirit Pagoda branch in Aolai City. The Spirit Pagoda was not lively; in fact, apart from its staff, there was practically no one there.
"Little friend, what have you come here for?"
A Spirit Master dressed in a gray robe rose to his feet and looked at Situ Xuan. Though the boy still appeared somewhat young, he was developing unusually quickly. The Spirit Master asked gently.
"To buy a Soul Spirit."
Situ Xuan was concise. He took out a Federation Card from his pocket. "There are thirty thousand in it. I want a random Soul Spirit."
Seeing that the youth had come alone, the Spirit Master patiently explained the possible drawbacks of a random Soul Spirit to Situ Xuan.
But none of that posed any problem for Situ Xuan. After a simple spiritual power test confirmed that everything was normal, the Spirit Master personally led Situ Xuan to a machine resembling a lottery machine from his previous life.
Inside, all kinds of unknown Soul Spirit balls were piled together, waiting for someone fated to take them away.
Efficiency—when he was weak, Situ Xuan could not afford to waste even a moment.
Rather than agonizing over whether he might randomly draw a defective Soul Spirit, he might as well make his choice quickly, return home, absorb it, and officially begin cultivating his martial arts.
At that thought, a smile appeared on Situ Xuan's face. Without hesitation, he pressed the green draw button.
Before you continue