The first thing Lin Qingzhou saw was a pitch-black cave. The passage was so narrow that only one person could squeeze through sideways. He swallowed nervously, steeled himself, and ventured inside.
The cave stretched deep into the darkness. Moisture slicked the walls, and a chill hung in the air. A faint glimmer showed in one corner. He slowly made his way over, bent down, and picked up a black cultivation manual that looked ancient.
His fingertips traced the mottled patterns on the cover, and four bold, forceful characters met his eyes.
Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art
He suppressed his excitement and hurriedly flipped through a few pages. When he understood what the art could do, his breathing instantly quickened.
The rules of the art were simple enough: as long as someone willingly and wholeheartedly offered themselves as a sacrifice to the cultivator, they could serve as a living furnace, offering up their Martial Soul and Innate Soul Power in their entirety. The recipient would then gain a Martial Soul or have their talent elevated to a higher level.
Lin Qingzhou's chest heaved. His cheeks flushed uncontrollably, and he clutched the rough stone wall beside him so tightly his fingers hurt. In the deathly silent secret realm, each thump of his heartbeat rang especially clear.
Still uneasy, he flipped through the manual again. In the corner of the somewhat tattered first page, he found a name.
"Feng Qingyun."
"I, Feng Qingyun, failed in my attempt to reach godhood and have left behind this book of mine on defying fate and rewriting destiny. May whoever is fortunate enough to find it treasure their journey."
"Looking back to those days, I didn't even have Innate Soul Power when I stumbled upon this book. My beloved sacrificed herself to protect me."
"Haha, how laughable. Those people from Shrek actually branded me an Evil Soul Master, even after I became the strongest on the continent."
"I only wanted to slaughter an entire empire's worth of people to resurrect her. Why did those bastards from Shrek have to stop me!"
"Heh, perhaps this is karma. In the end, I still failed, even though one foot had already crossed into the divine realm. In the end..."
"Lan Ling'er, I'm coming."
After reading the first page, which seemed to be a sort of diary, Lin Qingzhou fell silent. It seemed this book had been left behind by an Evil Soul Master.
"But if his account is true, then the value of this manual is simply unimaginable."
At the thought, his breathing grew heavier, and his gaze began to grow unfocused as he sank into a long silence.
In this manual, he had found the only hope of awakening a Martial Soul.
He had been born on Douluo Continent, yet had no Martial Soul from birth. On the surface, he seemed to have accepted this fact with composure, but deep down, he had never let go of his longing to possess a Martial Soul.
Only by using this art to defy fate and change his lot could he truly gain a foothold in this world, where Martial Souls reigned supreme.
But however beautiful the dream, reality was as harsh as stone.
Lin Qingzhou had no parents, no family in this world, and no close friends he could confide in. He simply couldn't find anyone who could meet the requirements for a sacrifice.
He took a deep breath, tucked the manual tightly against his chest, and forced down all his panic and turmoil. Then he turned and headed back, pondering how to leave the secret realm.
"What am I supposed to do..."
At dusk, Lin Qingzhou sat at his desk, his face clouded with worry and his brow furrowed tight.
Lin Qingzhou had no way of verifying whether the Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art was genuine, but he had looked into that Evil Soul Master.
According to the history of the Sun Moon Federation, there really had been a man named Feng Qingyun. The accounts of his story almost perfectly matched the claims in the Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art, differing only in perspective.
The manual was very likely genuine, and the benefits it promised were tremendous.
He longed for power, not only because he lived on Douluo Continent, but also because he could feel it clearly: every night, he was dragged into that battlefield and repeatedly killed and tormented more and more often. He was close to breaking.
Faced with this sole hope, Lin Qingzhou had once entertained an idea: buy a child on the black market who was about to awaken their Martial Soul.
The black market existed in this world, after all. In the original story, even Na'er had nearly been kidnapped and sold. It wasn't hard to imagine.
But the thought had made him hesitate for a long time. If he really did it, how would he be any different from those utterly inhuman Evil Soul Masters?
But at the time, he truly had no idea how much longer he could hold on. Every night, he was dragged into a living hell and made to endure inhuman torment. He had no idea when his mind might finally collapse.
At the thought, his eyes dimmed at once. His right hand, hidden beneath the desk, clenched into a fist. When he looked up again, the calm that usually rested on his face was gone, replaced by a measure of ferocity.
"To hell with morality! I have no idea how I ended up in this world, I can't become a Soul Master, and every night I have to suffer like this!"
"This is my only chance. I absolutely can't let it slip by!"
He didn't want to keep pretending to be a good person. He just wanted to try this method as soon as possible and see if it could solve his problem once and for all.
Besides, he had some savings. Though he didn't know the exact prices on the black market, they should be enough to buy a child.
But the next problem came right on its heels.
Though his soul belonged to an adult, this body was still only six years old.
And he was a stranger in this place, with no connections at all. He didn't even know where the black market was. If he really wanted to carry out this plan, he'd have to wait until he was an adult.
Besides, on Douluo Continent, very few people could awaken a Martial Soul and become Soul Masters.
Especially among the orphans sold on the black market, ninety-nine percent were ordinary people without any Soul Power.
In Lin Qingzhou's eyes, the Soul Master system on Douluo Continent was nothing but a rigid class hierarchy, no different from the caste system of the Brahmins.
When both parents were Soul Masters, their children were highly likely to inherit Soul Power. Soul Masters married one another, and their descendants' aptitudes were refined generation after generation, until a fixed pattern of inheritance had taken shape.
The odds of a few gifted Soul Master prodigies appearing in the slums were pitifully small.
Buying a child was, in plain terms, a gamble: a bet that the child would have Soul Power and good aptitude.
Lin Qingzhou let out a long sigh. Though the art had offered him a glimmer of hope, he hadn't let it go to his head. He knew perfectly well that with his current abilities, he couldn't pull it off. He would have to think of something else.
Either he could slowly gather information and find a way into the black market, or he would have to take a different approach.
His fingers tapped unconsciously against the desktop as he sank into thought, not saying a word for a long time.
Suddenly, as if a thought had struck him, his eyes lit up.
"Na'er!"
Wasn't Na'er the perfect candidate? He could keep her by his side right now, and before Di Tian and the others found her, slowly coax her until she willingly offered herself as a sacrifice.
She was a Silver Dragon King's pure-blooded descendant. If he could really receive her sacrifice, Lin Qingzhou didn't dare imagine the result. It would send him soaring to the heavens in a single leap.
At the thought, his whole body began to tremble uncontrollably, and his breathing grew more and more rapid. The pen in his hand slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the desk.
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