Yinglong

Time flew by.

After who knew how long, Mu Qian slowly opened his eyes, his mind clear once more.

His body, which had swelled as the vast energy filled it, had returned to normal at some point.

The corridor from before had vanished, too. Mu Qian found himself in the open space at the entrance to the Divine Temple, facing the same blue-gold crystal he had seen at the beginning.

The temple doors had already closed behind him. He couldn't help wondering whether he had really entered one of the temple's passageways, or whether he had never left this place at all.

A delicate, fresh fragrance hung in the air. Looking at the familiar clearing, Mu Qian began to recall what had happened.

As expected, he must have begun the divine inheritance of an unknown ancient god.

Ancestor God...

In his hazy state back then, Mu Qian had heard only those two words.

He vaguely remembered that there had seemed to be a prefix before "Ancestor God" in the voice inside his mind, but he hadn't heard it clearly in the circumstances.

He also had a vague impression of what happened afterward. Through his blurred vision, he thought he had seen a delicate figure.

He still clearly remembered the cool yet gentle sensation in his arms.

He was certain it hadn't been an illusion.

"Was that Snow Maiden? Why did she do that...?"

Mu Qian sighed softly. He hadn't forgotten any of what had happened.

At that moment, he truly had no idea how to face Snow Maiden...

Perhaps because he hadn't yet undergone Martial Soul Awakening, the First Trial had been relatively easy. Even so, he had received a score of only seventy, which was a little disappointing.

A mysterious feeling inside him told him that his Martial Souls had awakened.

Twin Martial Souls, granted as a reward for passing the First Trial.

The Martial Soul Origin within him seemed to be telling him about the origins of his two Martial Souls.

First Martial Soul: Yinglong.

No one in this world understood the meaning of those two words better than Mu Qian, who had come from another world.

In mythology, Yinglong was the beginning of everything—the creator god and god of creation, as well as the True Dragon and the Dragon Ancestor.

Yinglong had a pair of wings on her back and a long, massive body, like the most perfect creation in the world. If there really was a creator, perhaps she was it.

Yinglong carved up the earth, gave birth to the divine beasts Phoenix and Qilin, hunted the Kui Ox, and fought alone against the four beasts—the tiger, leopard, bear, and brown bear... With her dragon tail, she traced rivers across the land, divided yin and yang in Chaos, and gave birth to Pangu, the great creator god—a primordial giant deity.

Her tears formed the Yellow Springs of the underworld, while her body became the constellations in the sky.

Even though his Martial Souls had only just awakened and his Martial Soul Origin was still weak, Mu Qian could nevertheless sense an awe-inspiring pressure and presence that seemed to tower above everything else.

Mu Qian had once complained that, as someone who had crossed into another world, he hadn't even gotten a cheat or anything like that.

But looking at things now, even without a Second Martial Soul, the name "Yinglong" alone would be enough to let him rise above the mainland and the Divine Realm in the future, perhaps even surpassing this world's limits.

As for his Second Martial Soul, Mu Qian knew much less about it.

He only knew that his Second Martial Soul was called "Nine Nether."

It didn't seem like anything special so far. When summoned, it had appeared as nothing more than a mass of black-purple energy.

For some reason, though, Mu Qian felt that the energy contained indescribable negative emotions.

Hatred, anger, ridicule, mockery...

It was like a geometric shape made of malice, gathering all the negative emotions in the world.

"Such intense negative emotions. Could they be connected to that corridor filled with all kinds of emotions?"

Mu Qian murmured to himself, his mind clouded by deep confusion. Unfortunately, there was no one who could give him an answer.

This Martial Soul was full of unknowns and uncertainties, but there was one thing Mu Qian could be sure of: it would never harm him. It would only become an asset.

Since it was a reward granted by the divine inheritance trial, there was no reason for it to be harmful.

He would have to discover what this Martial Soul could do in the future.

As for the other reward, the astonishing Innate Soul Power of level twenty, it hadn't surprised Mu Qian too much.

After all, even a god-level Martial Soul like the Angel Martial Soul could achieve that. There was no reason his two Martial Souls should be inferior.

In fact, Mu Qian even felt a little shortchanged. He had to admit, he was being greedy.

As he pondered, Snow Maiden came into view, followed by a massive ice-blue Spirit Beast.

The beast looked somewhat like an ice dragon, but it clearly wasn't a pure-blooded member of the Dragon Clan. It probably had only some dragon blood.

More striking than anything else were its foreclaws, which had begun to rot. They didn't look injured; they looked more like they had suffered frostbite.

Its listless, lifeless gaze seemed to confirm this.

As it aged, it had lacked the strength to break through to a higher level. In the end, it could no longer resist the passage of time.

Even though it was an ice-attributed beast, it could no longer withstand the extreme cold ravaging its body in the Extreme North Core.

Mu Qian sighed softly, his eyes devoid of pity.

This was the law of the world. If he couldn't break through his own limits someday, he would end up the same way.

"My lord, this is a thirty-thousand-year Green-Scaled Ice-Armored Dragon. It has reached the end of its lifespan, and may die naturally in a few days. I asked it, and it agreed to offer itself to you as your First Soul Ring."

Snow Maiden spoke calmly, as though she were describing something perfectly ordinary.

She said she had asked the beast, but given her status and strength in the Far North, there probably weren't any Spirit Beasts that dared to defy her will.

Her voice was still cold, but Mu Qian saw deep tenderness in the way she looked at him.

He rubbed his eyes, nearly suspecting that he had imagined it.

But he clearly hadn't. Far from fading, that tenderness seemed to have become a constant feature of Snow Maiden.

He even saw a hint of shyness...

No wonder.

Mu Qian couldn't help sighing. He never would have thought that after preserving his purity for two lifetimes, he would end up like this...

"All right. Thank you, Sister Xue'er."

This clearly wasn't the time to ask why. He'd wait until they were alone.

Mu Qian was still somewhat excited that his First Soul Ring would be from a ten-thousand-year Spirit Beast.

Having read the original novel and watched the anime, he knew that when a Spirit Beast offered itself willingly, there was no limit on the number of years of the Soul Ring one could absorb.

If it came to it, even a hundred-thousand-year Spirit Beast might not be impossible to fuse with.

Mu Qian had no doubt that Snow Maiden could find a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast for him if she wanted to, but it wouldn't be that easy.

Even without a limit on its age, an ordinary person couldn't easily withstand such immense energy.

For Mu Qian, absorbing this thirty-thousand-year Green-Scaled Ice-Armored Dragon as his First Soul Ring was already good enough—and that was only because the beast was at its weakest.

It would take him a long time to digest all that energy alone...