"We struck gold! Dai Tianfeng, oh, Dai Tianfeng. Not only are you wearing a green hat, you even personally delivered the future greatest female assassin of your Star Luo Empire right into my hands. This Pope is truly grateful to your whole family!"
I'll find a chance to thank Zhu Wanying properly later...
Qian Xunji was enthusiastically applauding himself in his mind. The more he looked at the little girl, the more he liked her.
Without Tang San, that cheat of a male lead, and his romantic entanglements, without Dai Mubai, that scumbag, holding her back,
Zhu Yan was now a flawless blank slate, one who could be trained into Spirit Hall's ultimate assassin!
"Your Holiness... is level nine really that bad?" Seeing that Qian Xunji had been silent for so long, Zhu Yan nervously tugged at the hem of her clothes.
"Bad? No, it's practically perfect!"
Qian Xunji put away the crystal ball, his face lighting up with deep satisfaction.
He walked over to Zhu Yan and crouched down again, looking straight into her eyes with his deep, dark gaze.
"Zhu Yan, your big sister was right. No one in this world can be relied upon. Only power can be your one and only support. Today, I'll give you not only power, but also a stage where you can trample the Star Luo Empire beneath your feet!"
Qian Xunji's voice suddenly rose, brimming with unquestionable authority.
"From now on, you are no longer the Zhu Family's young lady in the Star Luo Empire, someone who could be sent off for a political marriage at any moment. Your name will be carved into Spirit Hall's highest sanctuary!"
He held out his broad, warm hand in front of Zhu Yan.
"Are you willing to take me as your master?"
A personal disciple of the Pope?
Zhu Yan was utterly stunned.
Though she was only six, she understood all too well the weight those words carried.
They meant she would receive the finest resources on the entire continent and hold a lofty status above countless others. She would no longer be a pawn for others to manipulate.
She remembered her eldest sister's despairing tears, and the Star Luo Emperor's savage face...
Zhu Yan didn't hesitate for a moment.
"Thud—"
The six-year-old girl dropped decisively to her knees, her tender forehead striking the cold floor tiles.
"Your disciple, Zhu Yan, pays her respects to Master!"
Her voice was still childish, but it held the resolve and determination of someone cutting off the past.
"Hahaha! Good, good! My dear disciple, get up!"
Qian Xunji laughed as he helped her to her feet, feeling thoroughly pleased.
He'd sold off his first troublesome disciple, Bibi Dong, and in return gotten a little cat with a clean slate and a deep-seated hatred for the Star Luo Empire.
As for whether she'd become a second ungrateful wretch, it didn't look that way for now. And if she did turn out that way someday, he could just kill her.
"Guards!"
At Qian Xunji's command, Yue Guan, who had been waiting outside the hall, hurried inside.
"Your subordinate is here. Congratulations, Your Holiness, on taking such an excellent disciple!" Yue Guan's face, more beautiful than a woman's, was wreathed in a fawning smile. He knew that any girl accepted as the Pope's personal disciple would become a core member of Spirit Hall one day.
"Yue Guan, take Yan'er to the rear palace of Pope Hall and let her choose the best bedroom. From today onward, everything she needs for food and lodging is to be arranged to Spirit Hall's highest standards.
"Also, go to Spirit Hall's treasury and select the finest medicinal bath ingredients suited to an agility-type Soul Master. Start building her foundation tonight!"
Qian Xunji issued his orders with grand generosity, the very picture of a wealthy, overprotective fanatic.
"Your subordinate obeys!" Yue Guan replied respectfully.
"Go on. First, go with Elder Yue to take a bath and have a good meal. He'll teach you a meditation method suited to you. Once you reach level ten, your master will personally take you to obtain your First Soul Ring!" Qian Xunji ruffled Zhu Yan's little head.
"Thank you, Master!" Zhu Yan's eyes reddened again, but this time it wasn't because she felt wronged.
It was because she truly felt that Spirit Hall, called a den of demons, wasn't anything like the place her family had made it out to be.
Watching Zhu Yan leave with Yue Guan, Qian Xunji could no longer suppress the villainous grin tugging at his lips.
"Does this count as playing a round of 'raise your own assassin'?"
Qian Xunji stretched lazily and returned to sit on the Pope's throne.
"Bibi Dong's become a nuclear bomb in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, Yu Xiaogang's become a clown and a ticking time bomb,
"and Zhu Yan's become my personal disciple... I've already stirred the early plot of Douluo Continent into a complete mess."
A month passed in the blink of an eye.
Inside the private training chamber in the rear palace of Pope Hall, Spirit City,
"Bang!"
A muffled boom rang out as a petite black figure shot through the air like an arrow loosed from its bow, performed a sharp somersault, and landed steadily in front of Qian Xunji.
Six-year-old Zhu Yan wiped the fragrant sweat from her forehead. Her face, which had once been a little pale, now glowed with healthy color.
Over the past month, Qian Xunji had trained her as if she were Spirit Hall's future chief assassin.
Every day, Yue Guan had concocted new medicinal baths for her. The pain was enough to make an ordinary adult Soul Master cry for their mother, but this stubborn little Star Luo cat had gritted her teeth and swallowed it all, without letting out so much as a whimper.
Was there something wrong with how the Zhu Family raised its children? How were they all so good at enduring pain?
The payoff for that hellish torment was astonishing.
That very morning, nourished by the medicinal baths and driven by her own fierce determination, Zhu Yan had broken through her bottleneck and reached level ten.
"Master, I've reached level ten!" Zhu Yan tipped up her little face, excitement shining in her obsidian-black eyes.
"Nicely done. You haven't let your master down."
Qian Xunji smiled with satisfaction and ruffled her smooth, short black hair, then summoned the system in his mind.
He now had nearly two hundred thousand Subversion Points to his name. Getting his personal disciple a First Soul Ring was barely a drop in the bucket!
"System, exchange for a hundred-year Adaptive Soul Ring!"
[Host purchase request detected: hundred-year Adaptive Soul Ring] [1,000 Subversion Points deducted. Exchange successful]
As the system's prompt sounded, Qian Xunji reached into the air with his right hand and grabbed. A mysterious sphere, glowing with a gentle yellow light and seemingly filled with swirling starlight, appeared in his palm.
"Master, what's that?" Zhu Yan stared curiously at the sphere. She could feel her Nether Civet Martial Soul stirring with longing inside her.
"It's a treasure I've kept up my sleeve: an Adaptive Soul Ring."
Qian Xunji crouched down, his expression turning solemn.
"Yan'er, remember this. From today on, if anyone asks where you got your First Soul Ring, you can only say that your master took you to the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest to hunt a Shadow Cat Demon.
"As for this light sphere, even if someone holds a knife to your throat, you must never breathe a single word about it. Understood?"
Before you continue