"Swish~ swish~"
Inside Notting Academy, a little boy with short, tousled black hair was sweeping the corridor outside Dorm Seven.
A closer look revealed a troubled expression on his face.
"Ugh, what on earth is going on? After obtaining my First Soul Ring, I clearly reached level 13."
"But a month has passed, and instead of rising, my cultivation has fallen. Yesterday, it even dropped below level 12."
"Even Teacher can't figure it out."
A month had passed since Tang San became Yu Xiaogang's disciple and obtained his First Soul Ring.
The ambitious Tang San had been doused with a bucket of cold water.
At some point, the Soul Power he painstakingly gained through cultivation had begun to disappear for no apparent reason.
He was even losing more than he could earn.
By his original calculations, he should have broken through to level 14 in a month. Instead, he had fallen all the way to level 12.
After asking Yu Xiaogang, Tang San had received an answer only after his teacher had thought it over carefully: perhaps his body was absorbing Soul Power to nourish his Second Martial Soul.
The explanation seemed reasonable, but Tang San had found that after a month, the Clear Sky Hammer had not changed at all.
That meant the theory could not possibly be right.
Six-year-old Tang San was on the verge of going gray before his time.
Just as Tang San sank into thought, a head with rabbit ears poked out of the dormitory.
"Tang San, we can go to Spirit Hall to collect our allowance today. Let's go together!"
"Sure, Xiao Wu!"
Sweeping the corridor had originally been Xiao Wu's task, but she had helped him finish his work-study cleaning duties during those days of Soul Hunting.
In return, he had promised to take care of her work-study duties for the rest of the year.
After putting the broom away, Tang San immediately followed Xiao Wu toward the Notting City Branch Hall.
For Tang San, even one Gold Soul Coin was still very important.
He needed money for the materials to make all those Hidden Weapons.
Not far away, a young man weeding the academy flowerbed watched the two leave, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
Lu Xian was a man who, like Tang San, possessed the soul of a thirty-year-old.
The difference was that in his previous life, he had been nothing more than a wage slave on Blue Star. After dying from overwork and all-nighters, he had unexpectedly arrived in the Douluo Continent.
As luck would have it, when he awakened his Martial Soul at six, his Innate Soul Power was only level one. His Martial Soul was an unknown Silver Light Orb whose purpose he couldn't make heads or tails of.
There were plenty of people like him awakening their Martial Souls every year, so naturally, no one paid him any attention.
After trying and failing to make progress time and again, Lu Xian had given up any hope of becoming a powerful Soul Master.
He later enrolled at Notting Academy as a work-study student. If he stuck it out long enough, perhaps he could become a guard at the main gate.
It was the very post where he had mocked Tang San, who had nearly been killed by Tang San's Sleeve Arrow.
His work-study position also gave Lu Xian, an orphan, a way to make a living.
Six years had passed, and he had only just reached level 10. He had accepted his mediocrity. At nearly twelve, he was still only level 10; even if he obtained a Soul Ring, he would never stand out.
After a while, he planned to use the money he had saved as a work-study student to find someone who could help him get a Ten-Year Soul Ring. After that, he would just coast through life at the academy.
But plans never kept pace with change. An ordinary cleaning job in the Back Mountain turned his life upside down.
Halfway through the job, Lu Xian was leaning on his broom to rest when he released his Martial Soul to investigate.
That all-too-familiar Silver Light Orb suddenly enveloped the broom he was leaning on.
What amazed him even more was that a white Ten-Year Soul Ring quietly appeared above the Silver Light Orb, while the broom in his hand vanished without a trace.
"..."
"Did... did I become a Soul Master?"
Fortunately, the Back Mountain was rarely visited. Otherwise, he would definitely have been treated like a freak.
Thrilled by the Soul Ring he had obtained, Lu Xian immediately released his First Soul Skill.
Looking at the broom that had reappeared in his hand, Lu Xian fell into thought.
"What the hell? What use is a broom Soul Skill?"
"Does it make me sweep floors more cleanly?"
Grumbling all the while, Lu Xian finished cleaning the Back Mountain and returned to his dorm in a huff.
Having forgotten that the broom had become his Soul Skill, he put it back where it belonged and went to sleep in a fit of anger.
The next morning, Lu Xian got up and realized the broom was no longer in the corner.
"Crap, I forgot the broom had become my Soul Skill. What do I do now?"
Fortunately, another work-study student had only taken it to do some cleaning. It was returned by noon.
While everyone else was having lunch, Lu Xian quietly drew the broom back into his Martial Soul.
As soon as he did, a stream of pure Soul Power flowed back into his body.
He summoned the broom again and stared at it, utterly baffled.
"What's going on?"
Suspecting there was more to it, Lu Xian didn't put the broom away. Instead, he returned it to the corner.
A few days later, he finally understood what the broom was for.
It could absorb the Soul Power of whoever used it.
And the stronger the user, the more Soul Power it could siphon.
It was like a god, reaching out unseen to grant him Soul Power that would have taken him months of cultivation to earn on his own.
Over the next few months, he also figured out the full purpose of the broom—or rather, his Martial Soul.
He could use the broom as a medium to place his consciousness inside it.
Not only could it absorb the user's Soul Power without limit, it could also use his Martial Soul to bind the broom's soul to theirs.
After the binding, the broom gained a special ability and could be bound to only one user.
From then on, the bound user would gain twice as much Soul Power through cultivation with the broom, and it would no longer siphon off the Soul Power they earned.
Lu Xian called it a win-win.
But this method had one requirement: the cultivator had to hold the broom.
Once he learned what it could do, he began searching the academy for his first lucky candidate.
After lying low for months, he finally found the broom's perfect host.
Watching Tang San kneel at the academy gate, Lu Xian couldn't help thinking that his luck had finally come.
He had quietly placed the broom in a corner of Dorm Seven.
For a while, most of the work-study students in Dorm Seven had touched the broom, and Lu Xian had managed to resist the urge to make Little Rabbit its first person to be bound to.
He waited until Tang San returned from Soul Hunting. Only then did the broom finally welcome its first host.
There was no denying that the future Divine King Tang was exceptionally talented.
The Soul Power the broom received from Tang San in a single day was worth dozens of days of previous gains.
The downside was that after the binding with Tang San was complete, no one else could give Lu Xian Soul Power by touching the broom.
There were gains and losses. Lu Xian didn't care about this drawback in the slightest.
That was because he had already finished laying the groundwork. He was about to use the broom to subject Tang San to his first round of psychological manipulation.
There wasn't a trace of joy on Tang San's face as he collected the new month's allowance. The problem of his disappearing Soul Power still hadn't been solved.
He didn't know whether his talent would ever bear fruit.
He didn't want to become a fallen genius.
After eating dinner with his mind full of worries, Tang San went to the corner to retrieve the broom and continue his cleaning duties.
Just as Tang San's thoughts raced, searching for a way out of his predicament, a gentle voice appeared in his mind.
"Young man, still wondering why your Soul Power is disappearing?"
"Who?"
Before you continue