"Ding. The host has successfully become Pope Bibi Dong's disciple and rejected the Worship Hall's offer. His allegiance to the Pope Palace faction has been fully confirmed."
"Fate has taken a major turn. The God-Level Choice System's exclusive newbie gift pack has been delivered."
"Would you like to open the newbie gift pack now?"
Su Chen opened his eyes.
He took a deep breath.
"Open it."
Su Chen silently issued the command.
A pale blue, translucent screen, visible only to him, slowly unfolded before his eyes.
A blind box radiating dazzling golden light appeared in the center of the screen.
The blind box shook violently in midair.
Then it shattered with a crash.
Three streaks of light shot out.
They transformed into three gold cards, face down on the screen.
The cards flipped over one after another.
Shimmering words appeared on their faces.
"Congratulations, host! You have received a divine cultivation technique: Chaos God-Demon Art."
"Congratulations, host! You have received a growth-type space storage soul tool: Void Ring."
"Congratulations, host! You have received a supreme-grade body-refining pill: Marrow Cleansing Pill."
Su Chen looked at the three rewards on the screen.
A glint flashed in his eyes.
The newbie gift pack the system had given him contained nothing flashy or unnecessary.
Every reward was a core resource he desperately needed right now.
They made up for every shortcoming he had at this stage.
The Soul Master cultivation system on Douluo Continent was extremely crude.
The vast majority of Soul Masters could only build up Soul Power from the ambient energy around them through basic seated meditation.
This method of cultivation was terribly inefficient.
Even the Spirit Hall and the Upper Three Sects—
the advanced meditation methods they had mastered—
in essence, only accelerated the absorption of energy from their surroundings.
They had no idea how to compress the Soul Power within the body.
Nor did they know how to use cultivation techniques to widen the meridians.
Su Chen possessed Innate Full Soul Power at level twenty.
The amount of Soul Power in his body was countless times greater than that of his peers.
If he used the ordinary meditation methods of the Spirit Hall,
he would be completely unable to control this violent energy within him.
On top of that, he possessed two completely opposing attributes: Ultimate Light and Ultimate Darkness.
Without intervention,
the two forces would sooner or later clash violently within his body.
Qian Daoliu hadn't been exaggerating when he warned that Su Chen could die from his body exploding.
Back then, Bibi Dong had also relied on painful methods to barely suppress the backlash from her Twin Martial Souls.
The Chaos God-Demon Art perfectly solved this problem.
Su Chen issued a command in his mind to extract the first reward.
The first gold card transformed into countless ancient golden characters.
They became a streak of light and surged straight into Su Chen's Sea of Consciousness.
The Million-Year Head Soul Bone immediately radiated a gentle pulse.
Its powerful spiritual force instantly analyzed and absorbed the massive flood of information.
The technique's circulation paths and cultivation formulas were deeply etched into Su Chen's memory.
Su Chen closed his eyes.
He began following the circulation route of the Chaos God-Demon Art,
and drew on the Soul Power lying dormant within his body.
The Innate Full Soul Power scattered throughout his limbs and bones began to flow in an orderly manner.
The technique forcibly split it into two streams.
One transformed into pure light energy
and flowed along the meridians on his left side.
The other transformed into profound darkness
and coursed along the meridians on his right.
The two forces eventually converged in Su Chen's dantian.
They didn't collide.
Guided by the technique, they formed a slowly rotating black-and-white Taiji vortex.
With each rotation,
the Soul Power in Su Chen's body was refined another degree.
His originally colorless Soul Power gradually took on an interwoven golden-and-black hue.
Its density rose dramatically at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Half an hour later,
Su Chen exhaled a mouthful of stale air.
He could feel his control over his Twin Martial Souls had reached an entirely new level.
Nurtured by the technique, his meridians had also grown more resilient.
Su Chen opened his eyes.
He turned his attention to the second reward on the screen.
He willed it into being.
The second card disappeared.
An antique ring of dark silver, with no unnecessary ornamentation, landed in his palm.
It was the Void Ring.
Su Chen slipped it onto the index finger of his left hand.
The ring shrank on its own,
fitting the contours of his finger perfectly.
Then,
a flash of light passed over its surface.
It sank beneath his skin.
It was completely invisible to the naked eye.
Su Chen directed a strand of tangible spiritual force into the ring.
Inside was a vast cube, one hundred meters long, wide, and high.
The laws governing the space within were remarkably stable.
It could store any lifeless object.
A storage soul tool of this caliber—
there wasn't another one like it anywhere on Douluo Continent.
The storage soul tools still in existence on the continent were mostly badly damaged.
Their spaces were tiny.
Even twenty cubic meters was considered priceless.
The Void Ring was extremely difficult to detect.
It could keep Su Chen from drawing a death sentence while traveling simply because his possessions were on display.
Su Chen was very satisfied.
He looked at the final card.
This was the most crucial reward in the newbie gift pack.
The Marrow Cleansing Pill.
Su Chen extracted the pill.
A pure white medicine the size of a longan appeared in his hand.
A faint halo rippled over its surface.
A refreshing medicinal fragrance instantly filled the room.
Just smelling it
made Su Chen feel the circulation of his blood and Qi speed up several times over.
The system's description appeared clearly on the screen.
"Marrow Cleansing Pill. Removes impurities from the mortal body and remolds the bones and meridians. Greatly increases the body's strength and resilience, breaking through the limits of the human physique at its source. Provides the host with the ideal physical foundation for absorbing Soul Rings beyond their age limit."
Su Chen looked at the white pill in his hand.
His gaze grew razor-sharp.
According to Spirit Hall's records,
the Soul Master World on Douluo Continent had long been dominated by the so-called Ten Core Competitiveness Theories.
That good-for-nothing Yu Xiaogang, who had been driven from his family after being rejected by his fiancée,
had relied on the confidential information he plagiarized from the Spirit Hall
to cobble together a rigid theory that only applied to low-level Soul Masters.
Yu Xiaogang had declared
that the upper limit for a First Soul Ring was four hundred and twenty-three years.
This theory had made countless geniuses across the continent timid from the very beginning.
They didn't dare to try and break through their limits.
They treated Yu Xiaogang's fabricated information as absolute truth,
and wasted the innate potential of their Martial Souls.
As someone who had crossed over into this world,
Su Chen knew all too well how absurd this theory was.
The essence of absorbing a Soul Ring
was the Soul Master's body and spiritual power bearing the violent energy left behind by a dead Soul Beast.
As long as the body was strong enough
and the spiritual power resilient enough,
absorbing a Thousand-Year Soul Ring beyond one's limit wasn't out of the question.
Even taking a Soul Ring from a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast as one's First Soul Ring
wasn't absolutely impossible.
The reason Tang San's First Soul Ring came from a Datura Snake that was barely four hundred years old
was simply that his body was too weak.
Even though he had cultivated the Tang Sect's Mysterious Heaven Skill from a young age,
it couldn't change the fact that he came from a remote village and had been malnourished for years.
Su Chen would never follow such a mediocre, conventional path.
He possessed Twin Martial Souls of the highest divine level.
If his First Soul Ring came from an ordinary Hundred-Year Soul Beast that was only four hundred years old,
it would be an insult to his supreme talent.
It would also be a tremendous waste of resources.
His goal was crystal clear.
His First Soul Ring had to come from a powerful Thousand-Year Soul Beast, even if that meant surpassing the usual limit.
He had tangible spiritual power provided by the Million-Year Head Soul Bone.
The spiritual shock from a Soul Beast's remnant soul posed no threat to him.
The only weakness he still lacked the means to overcome
was his frail six-year-old body.
The Marrow Cleansing Pill was the perfect tool to make up for it.
Su Chen didn't swallow the pill in a hurry.
He stood up and walked to the bed.
He reached out and tugged the brass bell beside it.
Its clear chime rang down the corridor outside.
A few seconds later,
someone gently knocked on the door.
The respectful voice of the high-ranking maid who had brought Su Chen here earlier came from outside.
"Young Master Su Chen, what can I do for you?"
Su Chen walked to the door.
He issued his orders through the wooden door.
"I'm going into seclusion for deep cultivation. From this moment on, no one is to enter the Cloud Condensing Pavilion. Even if His Holiness the Pope sends someone to inquire, make them wait outside. Without my permission, no one is to set foot in this room. Anyone who disobeys will bear the consequences."
Su Chen's tone was cold and left no room for argument.
The maid outside the door froze for a moment.
She immediately lowered her head and replied.
"Understood. I'll tell the Temple Knights on the perimeter to step up their guard right away. I won't let so much as a fly inside."
He listened to the footsteps outside grow fainter and fainter.
Su Chen turned and walked back to the bed.
He took off his shoes.
Then he sat cross-legged on the soft fire fox fur cushion.
The room was very quiet.
The conditions here were luxurious.
The floor was covered with an entire fire fox pelt.
Fire-Attribute Crystals that could automatically regulate the temperature were set into the walls.
The air was filled with the faint, delicate fragrance of high-grade Soul-Calming Incense.
Su Chen wasn't dazzled by the luxury before him.
He understood perfectly well.
The internal factional struggles within Spirit Hall were ruthless.
Today, Bibi Dong had been willing to confront Qian Daoliu head-on for his sake.
She had even directly appointed him as her personal disciple.
And granted him enormous privileges.
All of it was because he had displayed incomparable value.
If his growth failed to meet the expectations of the higher-ups,
or if something went wrong while cultivating his Twin Martial Souls,
everything he had today would be taken away in an instant.
On the Douluo Continent, where the strong preyed on the weak,
one's own strength was the foundation of all power.
And the process of marrow cleansing and bone reforging would certainly be anything but easy.
He had to ensure he was in an absolutely safe, undisturbed environment before undergoing this transformation.
The Night-Shining Pearl in the room gave off a soft, cool glow.
Su Chen closed his eyes.
He adjusted his breathing.
Then he brought himself into peak condition.
He raised his right hand.
Without hesitation, he put the white Marrow Cleansing Pill into his mouth.
The pill melted as soon as it touched his tongue.
In an instant, it turned into a sweet, warm stream that slid down his throat and into his stomach.
Once it reached his stomach,
the warm stream didn't immediately erupt with violent energy.
Instead, it slowly spread like warm water,
flowing through his bloodstream to every limb and bone.
At first, Su Chen felt warm all over,
as comfortable as if he were soaking in a hot spring.
But that comfort lasted only three breaths.
The pill's effects erupted completely.
In an instant, the gentle warmth turned into scorching magma.
The searing energy raced wildly through every blood vessel and meridian in his body.
Su Chen clenched his teeth.
He gripped the trouser legs over his knees with both hands.
A violent tearing sensation surged from deep within the muscles and bones all over his body.
He felt as if every inch of his bones were being smashed apart with a heavy hammer,
then melted down at high heat and reforged.
This transformation, a complete rebirth, was brutal.
There was no shortcut, no way to cheat the process.
Cold sweat instantly soaked through his thin clothes.
It poured from his forehead in great drops, striking the fur cushion.
But he didn't let out even a single groan.
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