Ma Xiaotao couldn't help glaring at him. "Why drag me into this when I've done nothing?"
"Dragon God Douluo wouldn't have let you come here so recklessly. He must have given you some way to protect yourself. Was it Senior Dragon?"
As if he'd just thought of something, Yang Hao reached out and rummaged through her belongings. Soon, he pulled out two Soul Tools. One was tiny, like an ornament. If you didn't look closely, you'd never realize it was a Storage Soul Tool.
When she saw the hidden Storage Soul Tool that had been found on her, Zhang Lexuan struggled to get it back. But Feng Ling had her pinned down, and she could only watch helplessly.
"Is this some kind of token?"
He took something from the tiny Storage Soul Tool: a wine cup. It looked ordinary and wasn't a Soul Tool.
"Now, here's the question: why did you come to infiltrate our Holy Spirit Cult? And why did you become an Evil Soul Master?"
Yang Hao toyed with the wine cup as he stared intently at Zhang Lexuan.
Zhang Lexuan pressed her lips together and said nothing. She wouldn't talk, much less betray Senior Dragon.
"I don't need you to tell me. I can figure it out. That Dragon Emperor Douluo must have passed some information to his close friend, Dragon God Douluo."
"Looks like I guessed right. I knew Senior Dragon couldn't be trusted."
Seeing Zhang Lexuan's pupils shift with emotion, Yang Hao knew he'd guessed correctly. The problem really did stem from Dragon Emperor Douluo.
"Beautiful Sister, I'll go report this to Teacher. Those two aren't people we can deal with ourselves."
After speaking to the grim-faced Feng Ling, Yang Hao left with the wine cup.
Ma Xiaotao looked anxiously at the boy walking away, then at Sister Lexuan, who'd been captured. She could only stay behind and hope Teacher wouldn't be too rough.
"What happened to your face?"
Ye Xishui frowned at the scarred skin on her disciple's face, already healing rapidly.
How could anyone dare hurt Hao'er in the main altar?
"I'm fine."
"Teacher, do you recognize this?"
Yang Hao handed her the wine cup.
Ye Xishui looked puzzled. She examined it for a while, then her expression changed as she remembered something.
"Why do you have this wine cup?"
It was an ordinary cup, but she remembered it. The three of them had shared one last gathering together.
"Dragon God Douluo from Shrek Academy arranged for his great-grandson's wife to infiltrate our Holy Spirit Cult. Senior Dragon must have leaked some information. Dragon God Douluo gave her this as a last resort to save her life."
Yang Hao reported everything honestly, without hiding or embellishing anything. There was no need.
"I haven't even gone after you, yet you've sent someone after me. Well done. Very well done."
Ye Xishui was furious, then suddenly realized something.
"Was the injury on your face caused by Mu En's people?"
A terrifying killing intent and soul pressure erupted. At that moment, Ye Xishui seemed to become the woman she'd once been—the true King of Evil Soul Masters.
She cared deeply for this disciple, even cherished him. It wasn't just because he'd brought her the chance to become a god. He reminded her so much of herself back then: the same tragic past, the same Martial Soul caught between good and evil, the same helpless entry into the Holy Spirit Cult, the same fate of becoming its leader's disciple and a figure like the Holy Son or Holy Maiden.
Everything felt like her past playing out all over again.
Looking at this disciple was like looking at her younger self. She didn't want anyone to hurt him. It was a way to make up for the regrets of her own past; she wanted to see him live a different life.
Now someone had hurt him. How could she not be furious?
"I'm fine, Teacher."
Yang Hao simply said he was fine. After all, he was a sweet, good boy—so good it made people's hearts ache.
"Crack!"
"Mu En!"
Ye Xishui crushed the wine cup in her hand. She was truly furious.
Mu En, you've gone too far!
"Teacher, don't be angry. We gained quite a lot this time."
"I examined her. She has five Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bones, four of them with evil attributes. She's a genius in her own right, too. She managed to absorb a 100,000-year Soul Ring for her Eighth Soul Ring. In the future, she might even become a Limit Douluo."
Yang Hao shifted the conversation to Zhang Lexuan, emphasizing that she was a genius and an important figure.
"A 100,000-year Soul Ring and five Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bones. He's certainly willing to spend."
Ye Xishui sneered, her anger rising again.
Ever since Old Ghost Zhongli died, she hadn't gone after Mu En or Shrek. She'd stayed here on the Sun Moon Continent.
Back then, when Old Ghost Zhongli had wanted to kill those two, she'd even intervened to stop him. She'd even borne Old Ghost Zhongli a child. I, Ye Xishui, owe you, Mu En, nothing. You're the one who owes me a life.
And now Mu En had targeted and schemed against her, even using this wine cup as a trump card.
So despicable. So shameless!
"Sure enough, she's that loser's descendant. Cut from the same cloth."
Bibi Dong's Divine Thought appeared, and she too felt disappointed.
Mu En's actions were far too similar to that loser's back then. That loser had once come to her shamelessly, asking her to find a way to resolve the conflict between Tang San's Twin Martial Souls. He'd even claimed Tang San wouldn't become an enemy of Spirit Hall.
But Tang San had been their Spirit Hall Empire's sworn enemy. In the end, Tang San had destroyed their Spirit Hall Empire.
Now that loser's descendant was just as shameless. I was so foolish back then.
"Your Majesty, Zhang Lexuan's original Martial Soul was the moon, a top-tier Martial Soul. She also had Innate Full Soul Power. Now she's transformed her Martial Soul into the Evil Martial Soul Evil Moon, and she has five Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bones. Once she hunts for her ninth Soul Ring, she'll gain a sixth Soul Bone.
"With two 100,000-year Soul Rings and six fully matched Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bones, her talent is quite extraordinary.
"But with talent and strength like hers, she'll be difficult for us to control. Your Majesty, would you be interested in her?"
Yang Hao made his suggestion while he had the chance. The Holy Spirit Cult's methods couldn't control her perfectly, but this former Rakshasa God was different.
She was a god, and one skilled in manipulating souls. She could even bring the dead back to life. Controlling one person would be easy for her. Even if God King Tang didn't descend in person, he'd probably have trouble undoing it.
"Oh? I'll go take a look."
Bibi Dong's Divine Thought grew interested and drifted away.
Chapter 38: Martial Soul Core
"Teacher, I'm going to cultivate."
Seeing Ye Xishui staring distractedly at the shards of the wine cup in her hand, her face tinged with sadness, Yang Hao tactfully left the main hall and went to cultivate in his own side hall.
Getting someone to see through another's schemes called for just the right touch: a subtle influence, applied over time. If you made it too obvious, it could backfire.
That was one of the principles of an actor's self-cultivation, and one of the rules of the art of tea.
Since Long Xiaoyao had chosen to betray us, he couldn't blame me.
Yang Hao had long regarded Long Xiaoyao as a potential enemy. He wasn't one of them to begin with; he'd joined the Holy Spirit Cult only because of Ye Xishui.
On top of that, given his relationship with Mu En and his connection to Yan Shaozhe, there was a good chance he'd betray them in the future, just as in the original story.
They had to prepare for that in advance!
"Xiaoyao, did you ever think this might happen?"
Ye Xishui murmured, disappointment filling her heart.
A simple spy was nothing. But he'd attacked Hao'er. That was something she absolutely couldn't tolerate.
She'd placed so many hopes on that child. She would never allow anyone to hurt him.
"This was the first time, and it will be the last."
"Xiaoyao, don't push me!"
The extreme emotions she'd suppressed for years surged up, and Ye Xishui's eyes turned faintly red. She wouldn't let anything like this happen again.
Leaving aside Ye Xishui's grief and anger, Yang Hao had made his preparations on the other side. He decided to try following the Path to Godhood.
Zhang Lexuan's situation was only a minor interruption for him. It wasn't worth worrying about, and it certainly wouldn't affect his cultivation plans.
Over the past three years, he hadn't only studied the Vajra Dharma Body. His own cultivation and the Path to Godhood had been the main focus. Researching the Vajra Dharma Body had just been something to occupy his mind when he got tired of studying the Path to Godhood.
After three years of study, research, and deduction, he'd finally made some progress. Now it was time to try it himself.
He took out a hundred Milk Bottles and set them beside him. They contained Soul Power he'd poured into them over the past three years—more than a thousand times his own Soul Power.
Milk Bottles were rare among the Three Great Empires of Douluo, but easy enough to obtain in the Sun Moon Empire. And he was the Holy Son of the Holy Spirit Cult now; he only had to ask.
Holding the Demon Blade Martial Soul, Yang Hao guided his Soul Power into it. He then directed the Martial Soul Origin to converge with the Soul Tool core in the blade's body—the core of the Tyrant Tiger Soul-Refining Blade from his previous life—to form a Martial Soul Core.
He'd gotten the idea from the Soul-Devouring Spider Leg Bone. Back then, the Gold of Life's power had repelled the evil attribute of the Soul-Devouring Spider Leg Bone. Its Soul Core had grown unstable and intangible, so he'd fused it into the core of the Nine-Turn Soul-Changing Instrument, forming a new Chaos Soul Core.
This proved that a Soul Core could fuse with a Soul Tool core. After all, Soul Tool cores were modeled on Soul Beast cores.
Now he needed to fuse the Origin of his Martial Soul with the Soul Tool core to form a Martial Soul Core.
This wasn't the kind of Soul Core human Soul Masters used, the Soul Power Core. Instead, it was modeled on the Origin Soul Core of Soul Beasts.
A human Soul Master's Soul Core was formed by simply condensing Soul Power. It didn't incorporate the Origin power of a Martial Soul, so human Soul Master Soul Cores didn't produce Soul Skills.
A Soul Beast's Soul Core, on the other hand, was formed by condensing its Origin power, so it had Soul Skills—or rather, innate abilities. When a Soul Beast died, the power of its Soul Core evolved into a Soul Ring and Soul Bone, carrying its innate abilities with it.
Even transformed Soul Beasts should have been guiding the power of their Soul Cores to form Soul Rings and Soul Skills.
Yang Hao now planned to take the Soul Beast's Soul Core as his model, condense the Origin power of his own Martial Soul into a Martial Soul Core, and try following the cultivation path of Soul Beasts.
In the Douluo World, there were two cultivation systems: the human Soul Master system and the Soul Beast system.
Compared with the Soul Beast system, which was more independent and complete, the human Soul Master system had a flaw: Soul Masters needed Soul Rings to break through. Otherwise, they'd get stuck.
Yang Hao wanted to see if he could make this path work.
With his Golden Finger boosting his comprehension, he kept making fine adjustments as Soul Power poured in, helping the Martial Soul Origin fuse with the Soul Tool core.
That wasn't all. He also drew out the Origin power from the Tyrant Tiger Soul Bone in the Demon Blade and fused it into the Soul Tool core.
His Martial Soul Origin was too weak to condense on its own. He needed outside help.
A Soul Bone was a fusion of a Soul Beast's Soul Core and part of its body. As long as he separated and gathered this Origin power, he could condense it into a Soul Core.
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