At the words of God King Tang San, Xu Yuan was utterly speechless.
A six-year-old at level ten, killing a Hundred-Year Soul Beast?
And without knowing anything else, no less.
Why not just ask me to fly to the heavens? This was beyond ridiculous.
Xu Yuan lowered his head and absently rubbed the hem of his clothes, as if caught in a dilemma. "But... I heard Soul Beasts are all really fierce. I'm just one person..."
"With my guidance, you have nothing to fear." God King Tang San cut him off, his tone brimming with unshakable certainty. "Besides, hunting Soul Beasts is a necessary step on the path to becoming a Soul Master. If you don't even have that much courage, how can you hope to become a top Soul Master?"
[I have to push him. Hothouse flowers never amount to anything. Only after facing life-and-death battles will he grow faster. And only by making him hunt Soul Beasts himself will he depend more on my guidance—and be easier to control in the future.]
Xu Yuan jerked his head up, his eyes shining with newly kindled determination. He clenched his fists tight. "You're right, sir! I can't be afraid! I'm willing to give it a try if it means becoming a powerful Soul Master!"
Seeing him so fired up, God King Tang San's blue apparition gave a slight nod. The blue light around him seemed to brighten a little. "Good. Tomorrow, I'll tell you the exact location and what to watch out for. You can set out three days from now."
God King Tang San continued, "But before that, you need to go somewhere."
"Where?" Xu Yuan asked at once, his eyes filled with just the right amount of curiosity and obedience.
It was as if God King Tang San could tell him to do anything, and he would do it without hesitation.
"That place is..."
Over an hour later, inside the mountain cavern's Secret Chamber.
Xu Yuan looked at the Blue Silver Grass in the center of the chamber and asked curiously, "Martial Soul, sir, why is there a Blue Silver Grass plant here?"
God King Tang San's blue apparition drifted in front of the Blue Silver Grass. He was about to say something when he was startled to discover a wisp of his source power within it.
Yet he couldn't reclaim that wisp of source power, leaving God King Tang San utterly baffled. He had no idea why.
God King Tang San came back to himself and said, "Don't worry about it. Just do as I say next."
Xu Yuan nodded to show he understood.
Following God King Tang San's instructions, Xu Yuan pressed a certain spot on the stone wall.
With a ding, a dark object dropped from above and, by a stroke of bad luck, hit Xu Yuan right on the head.
But what happened next was astonishing: Xu Yuan's head was completely unharmed. He didn't have so much as a scratch.
God King Tang San: "????"
That box weighed a full two hundred pounds. If it hit someone on the head, they might not die, but there was no way they'd come out looking completely unharmed.
Could there be something special about Xu Yuan's body?
Xu Yuan was stunned too. He instinctively felt the top of his head, then looked confused. "Huh? It doesn't hurt..."
To Tang San, that perfectly timed, innocent bewilderment only made the whole thing seem even stranger.
He floated closer. His blue palm brushed lightly over Xu Yuan's head as a stream of Soul Power entered and carefully examined his bones and meridians.
[Strange. His body's no different from an ordinary person's. Why did that happen?]
God King Tang San's blue apparition hovered before Xu Yuan, his brow furrowed. The blue light around him wavered faintly with confusion.
He examined Xu Yuan three times, but his bones, meridians, and even the flow of his blood and qi were no different from those of an ordinary six-year-old child. At most, his Soul Power was a little purer. There was nothing special about him that could explain how he'd withstood a two-hundred-pound Mysterious Box.
God King Tang San even wondered whether his remnant soul's senses were failing him. He extended his blue palm again, gathering purer Soul Power at his fingertips before cautiously probing Xu Yuan's crown.
This time, he examined him in even greater detail, missing neither the density of each bone nor the resilience of a single hair. But the result was still utterly ordinary.
"Have you... eaten anything unusual recently?" God King Tang San asked. There was a faint urgency in his voice, as though he were searching for a reasonable explanation.
Xu Yuan blinked and tried to remember, then shook his head. "No. I eat whatever Grandpa Village Chief gives me. The most I do is dig up some wild vegetables in the hills now and then."
He was telling the truth.
As an orphan, he'd always eaten simply. He was lucky if he got enough to fill his stomach, let alone anything unusual.
But this only made things seem even stranger to Tang San.
Countless suspicions churned through his mind, but none of them held up.
In the end, he could only attribute it to exceptional talent.
Xu Yuan crouched down and opened the black box on the ground.
The lead box had opened only a crack when an incomparably surging aura rushed out through the gap, instantly making the space around them feel as though it had frozen.
Inside the lead box was an object: a right leg bone.
The entire bone was a clear, crystalline blue-gold.
Strangest of all, it gave Xu Yuan a feeling of life, as though the right leg bone itself were alive.
"Absorb this Soul Bone," God King Tang San said.
Xu Yuan came back to himself and nodded to show he understood. He took out the blue right leg bone and pressed it against his right leg.
A faint hum rang out. Xu Yuan felt his right leg tremble slightly, then a cool sensation quietly seeped into it from all directions.
The crystalline blue Soul Bone vanished without a sound, turning into countless streams of blue-gold air that swirled around his right leg.
Cool. Comfortable. Not the slightest resistance.
Meanwhile, in Holy Soul Village.
As Tang San prepared lunch, he thought about his Twin Martial Souls.
He didn't understand what having Twin Martial Souls meant, but his instincts told him they were incredibly powerful.
Looking at the water and rice in the pot—the rice was pitifully sparse—Tang San came back to himself and sighed. He wondered when he'd finally get to eat a proper bowl of rice.
He hadn't eaten rice in ages. The last time had been when Old Jack brought some over.
Just as Tang San was wondering when he'd get to eat rice again, he felt something hit him on the head.
Everything suddenly went black. It felt as though countless bees were buzzing and crashing around inside Tang San's skull. He lost his balance and toppled forward with a thump.
Scalding steam blasted against him, bringing waves of burning heat.
His face plunged straight into the boiling rice porridge. The heat at the bottom of the pot seared his cheeks and forehead through the thin rice broth.
"Ugh!"
The pain brought Tang San halfway back to his senses, but the suffocation and burning pain struck together, leaving him unable even to cry out. He could only struggle helplessly in the scalding liquid for a moment before losing consciousness completely.
His small body lay slumped beside the pot, half his face submerged in the porridge, motionless.
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