When they heard that, the tense atmosphere that had filled Listening Rain Pavilion instantly turned strange.
Then a burst of unrestrained laughter erupted throughout the hall.
"Hahaha! Little Milk Baby?"
"I thought Shi Hao was some great heaven-blessed prodigy. Turns out he's just a country bumpkin who still can't be weaned!"
A plump, well-fed merchant laughed so hard that tears nearly streamed from his eyes. He slapped the table with his thick palm.
"Mr. Su, this is the protagonist you said would one day trample the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths beneath his feet?"
"A country bumpkin who's three years old and still won't let go of his jar of beast milk?"
"That's too funny!"
"In our Heaven Dou City, any family with even a little standing feeds its children precious Hundred-Year Soul Beast meat from the moment they're born. They also make medicinal meals from gentle herbs that strengthen the body and cleanse the marrow!"
"And yet this kid survived by drinking a few gulps of unprocessed wild animal milk, rank with a gamey stench?"
"Even if he survives that kind of crude feeding, he'll grow up to be a useless waste who can't even awaken a Martial Soul!"
Several young Spirit Masters in the crowd, who fancied themselves highborn, shook their heads repeatedly, their eyes full of condescending contempt.
"That's too low-level."
"I thought that old village chief would bring out some legendary treasure. But this is all?"
"If a poor child like that, who can't even get decent nutrition, came to our academy, he wouldn't even qualify to serve us tea!"
In an inconspicuous corner,
Tang San listened to the jeers around him and grew even more convinced of his own superiority.
He turned to look at Xiao Wu, who was listening intently beside him, and spoke with the smug air of someone imparting wisdom.
"Xiao Wu, did you hear that?"
"That's the difference between commoners and Spirit Masters."
"A child from some poor, remote village without even the basic resources for cultivation, raised on wild animal milk—his body would already have been ruined by that crude food."
"My teacher's Ten Core Competencies of Martial Souls makes it perfectly clear: the nutrition a child receives before awakening a Martial Soul at six directly determines their Innate Soul Power."
"A baby who grew up eating garbage like that is bound to have blocked meridians and weak blood and Qi."
"Forget trampling the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths. The odds of him awakening even half a level of Innate Soul Power are next to none!"
After saying that, Tang San folded his arms and looked at Su Chen on the raised platform with scorn.
"This Storyteller is so determined to give his protagonist a tragic background that he's completely disregarded common sense and the iron laws of the Martial Soul world."
"His story is full of holes. What a joke."
Yet, faced with the mockery from the crowd below, Su Chen had no interest in arguing back.
He simply watched them revel in their scorn, as if he were enjoying a show.
Beast milk from the Great Wilderness was low-level?
Not nutritious enough?
Su Chen sneered inwardly.
If these country bumpkins knew that many of the beasts the people of Stone Village hunted for milk carried thin traces of Primordial Remnant bloodlines—that any one of them could crush their so-called Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts—would they still be laughing?
"Snap—"
Su Chen closed his folding fan and tapped the table lightly. The crisp sound seemed to hold a kind of magic, drawing everyone's attention back to him.
"Honored guests, please don't rush. Allow me to explain in detail."
"Life in the Great Wilderness is cruel. The people of Stone Village know all too well that tears and weakness are useless if they want to survive this desolate land, surrounded by Ferocious Beasts."
"Only strength—absolute physical strength—is their sole means of survival!"
"So in Stone Village, everyone, young and old, male and female, tempers their bones and trains their bodies."
"Every morning, when the first rays of sunlight fell upon the withered Willow Tree at the entrance to the village, a group of children from Stone Village would begin their day's training in the clearing outside the village."
At this point, Su Chen's pace gradually slowed.
"They don't study flashy spells, nor do they practice the Soul Skills you speak of, which require Soul Rings to use."
"They train only one thing: strength!"
"A few great cauldrons, forged from pig iron and bronze, stood in the center of the clearing."
"Mottled birds and beasts were carved into their sides, lending them an ancient, desolate air."
"The little monkeys, only five or six, or seven or eight years old, trained bare-chested, their muscles taut as little rocks."
"Their morning practice was to lift those incredibly heavy bronze cauldrons straight above their heads!"
Many Spirit Masters in the teahouse pursed their lips in disdain.
Lifting cauldrons? That was it?
What kind of cultivation method was that? Wasn't it just the backbreaking labor done by workers at an ordinary blacksmith's shop?
Crude and uncouth!
In the eyes of their noble Spirit Masters, only meditating to absorb Soul Power counted as an elegant and exalted path of cultivation.
But just as everyone was about to start mocking him again, Su Chen's unhurried voice rang out once more.
"And those bronze cauldrons the children used for their morning practice..."
"The lightest weighed a thousand jin."
"The heaviest weighed ten thousand jin!"
At that, Listening Rain Pavilion fell utterly silent.
The Spirit Masters who had been sneering just a moment earlier now froze as if they'd seen a ghost.
A thousand jin? Ten thousand jin???
For five- or six-year-old children to use in their morning training???
"Bullshit!!"
This time, the first to leap to his feet wasn't one of the hot-tempered Battle Soul Masters in the front row. It was Tang San, who had been sitting in the corner, priding himself on his wisdom!
Tang San could no longer maintain his lofty composure. He slammed a hand on the table and sprang up, his eyes fixed on Su Chen.
"Su Chen!"
"You can exaggerate your stories, but there has to be a limit! Do you really think you can fool every one of us?"
Tang San's sudden shout immediately drew every eye in the room.
But instead of backing down, he thrust out his chest, took a big step forward, and loudly refuted him.
"My teacher, Yu Xiaogang, has carefully studied the limits of the human body!"
"Before awakening a Martial Soul or having their body transformed by their First Soul Ring, a five- or six-year-old child can wield no more than forty or fifty jin of physical strength!"
"Even a child born with divine strength could manage only a little over a hundred jin!"
"Even a teenage Battle Soul Master who had awakened a Beast Martial Soul and gained their first Hundred-Year Soul Ring could manage only a few hundred jin of pure physical strength at most!"
"To lift something weighing over a thousand jin through sheer physical strength would take at least a level-thirty Soul Elder, or even a level-forty Soul Ancestor who specialized in strength!"
At this, Tang San sneered repeatedly, as if he'd caught Su Chen in his biggest lie.
"And now you're telling us that a group of five- or six-year-old commoner children, who haven't even awakened their Martial Souls and can only drink wild animal milk every day, can casually lift bronze cauldrons weighing thousands of jin?"
"A lie that violates human anatomy and the basic principles of Martial Souls is utterly absurd!"
"You're just spouting nonsense to make ignorance your gimmick!"
Before you continue