Farack Royal Palace, Feng Clan's side residence.
Feng Cang slowly rose to his feet, feeling the Level 85 Soul Power within him, vast as an ocean.
His old eyes reddened again.
At his age, he had been stuck at a bottleneck for twelve years. He had thought he could only wait for death, yet who could have imagined that he would spring back to life like a withered tree blooming anew?
And not only had his Soul Power broken through, his Martial Soul was showing signs of evolution!
If he continued following the path laid out in the booklet, then forget Level 85—
the door to Level 90, to becoming a Titled Douluo, had already swung open to him!
"What a tremendous opportunity... This is a great fortune I, Feng Cang, and the entire Feng Clan have earned over eight lifetimes!"
Feng Cang looked up at the sky and sighed.
He suddenly remembered what he had done the previous night.
That lousy booklet, which he had casually tossed into a corner of his ring and dismissed as a child's game.
Feng Cang wished he could slap himself twice more.
"Guards! Summon everyone at once!"
He spun around, and his shout exploded across the courtyard.
"Notify all the Feng Clan's core elders and stewards in Farack City!"
"They must reach the main hall of the side residence within the time it takes an incense stick to burn!"
"Anyone who's even half a step late will be punished by clan law and expelled from the Feng Clan!"
The guard delivering the order shuddered and scrambled out.
The old man, who usually wore a cheerful smile, was in such a temper today that he was like a powder keg.
An incense stick later.
In the main hall of the Feng Clan's side residence.
The doors and windows were shut tight. Soul Power barriers that Feng Cang had personally set up surrounded the place.
Six middle-aged men stood in the center of the hall.
They were all the Feng Clan's core forces in the Farack Kingdom. The weakest among them was a Soul King. There were even two Soul Emperors and a Soul Saint.
At that moment, the six men looked at one another, not daring to breathe too loudly.
The aura of Feng Cang, seated in the place of honor, was simply too terrifying.
The invisible pressure made their knees tremble.
"C-Clan Head. What... what is this...?"
The Great Elder swallowed and ventured a question.
Feng Cang said nothing.
"Vrrm—"
A violent green gale swept through the hall.
Two yellow, two purple, and four black Soul Rings rose from beneath Feng Cang's feet, shining brilliantly.
At the same time, the shadow of a Two-Headed Gale Demon Wolf appeared behind him. Its silver fur and faintly opening third eye exuded a fearsome aura that made their hearts quail.
"Hiss—!"
The hall filled with sharp intakes of breath.
The six elders' eyes nearly bulged from their heads.
"Level 85?!"
"Clan Head, your... your Martial Soul has changed color?!"
Several elders trembled with excitement and dropped straight to their knees.
"Heavens bless the Feng Clan! The Clan Head is mighty!"
Looking at the elders kneeling before him, Feng Cang snorted.
"Heavens bless the Feng Clan? Nonsense!"
He slapped the table and shouted sternly.
"This wasn't a blessing from heaven! It was a gift from a person!"
The elders froze, exchanging bewildered looks.
A gift from a person? Who in the world could grant a Soul Douluo the opportunity to rise two levels and evolve his Martial Soul?
Feng Cang ignored their shock.
With extreme care, almost reverently, he took an exquisite Purple Jade Box from his robes.
He had gone to the Farack royal treasury just moments ago and shamelessly begged for this finest-quality jade box.
Feng Cang gently opened it.
Inside lay the shabby booklet, a few sheets of paper crudely bound together.
"Open your eyes and take a good look, you fools!"
Feng Cang pointed at the booklet, his voice filled with irrepressible fervor.
"The reason I broke through the bottleneck that had held me for twelve years and reached Level 85—"
"was all thanks to this booklet!"
The Great Elder paused and glanced at the crude paper.
"Clan Head, is this... a secret manual left behind by some reclusive expert?"
"A reclusive expert?" Feng Cang sneered.
"Xue Yao wrote this for me himself before he left last night!"
The six elders were dumbfounded, their minds buzzing.
Young Master Xue Yao?
That eight-year-old child?
An eight-year-old child had casually scribbled a few sheets of paper, and they had let an 83rd-level Soul Douluo break through two levels?!
Who the hell would believe that?
"Clan Head, you... you aren't joking, are you?" the Second Elder stammered.
"Impertinent!"
Feng Cang abruptly stood up. A wave of violent Soul Power pressed the Second Elder flat against the floor.
"Do I look like I'm joking with you?!"
Feng Cang's eyes were bloodshot as he pointed at the elders on the floor and berated them.
"You bunch of frogs at the bottom of a well!"
"Yao'er's level is beyond the reach of you ordinary mortals!"
"This booklet he gave me points straight to the source of the wind element's laws! A single page could stir up a storm of blood across the Douluo Continent!"
Feng Cang took a deep breath, calming his excitement.
He lifted the Purple Jade Box in both hands, his expression turning solemn.
"Starting today, this booklet is the Feng Clan's highest and most closely guarded secret!"
"Any non-core disciple who so much as looks at it will have their eyes gouged out! Anyone who leaks even half a word will have their entire family wiped out!"
The elders shuddered and answered in unison.
"And one more thing!"
"From now on, any core member qualified to read this booklet—"
"must bathe and change before opening it!"
"Then, facing in the direction of Heaven Dou City, they must bow three times and kowtow nine times before Yao'er's name!"
"Anyone whose kowtow doesn't ring out, or whose heart isn't sincere, will be stripped of the right to read it, have their cultivation crippled, and be expelled from the clan!"
Utterly strict! Utterly domineering!
But not one of the six elders thought it excessive.
After witnessing Feng Cang's breakthrough, their eyes, too, now burned with a frenzied yearning.
If they could just look at the booklet, they would gladly bow and kowtow—or even eat vegetarian food and pray to Buddha every day!
"Yes! We obey the Clan Head's decree!"
The six elders kowtowed in perfect unison, their foreheads striking the floor with a loud thump.
Feng Cang nodded in satisfaction.
But he felt it still wasn't enough.
Xue Yao's kindness to him was too great. So great, Feng Cang felt that following the rules alone could never express the Feng Clan's loyalty.
"Great Elder," Feng Cang suddenly called.
"This subordinate is here." The Great Elder hurriedly lifted his head.
"Go. Find a piece of the finest Ten-Thousand-Year Lightning-Struck Wood."
A nearly fanatical faith glimmered in Feng Cang's eyes.
"Hire the finest craftsman to carve a longevity tablet for me."
"Have it inscribed: 'Benefactor of the Feng Clan, the divine seat of the supreme Viscount Sky Wind, Xue Yao!'"
The Great Elder paused.
"Clan Head, carving a longevity tablet is fine, but... where should we put it?"
"Where?" Feng Cang shot him a look as if he were an idiot.
"Of course it goes in the Feng Clan's ancestral hall!"
Hiss—
The elders drew in another sharp breath.
The ancestral hall! That was where the Feng Clan enshrined its ancestors!
Xue Yao was an outsider—and an eight-year-old child at that. Putting his tablet in the ancestral hall went completely against the clan's ancestral rules!
"Clan Head, th-this may not be appropriate."
The Great Elder forced himself to speak up.
"After all, Young Master Yao isn't of the Feng Clan's bloodline. If we put his tablet in the ancestral hall, the spirits of our ancestors may..."
"Silence!"
Feng Cang waved a hand, cutting him off.
He sneered at the elders, whose thinking was mired in old ways.
"Our ancestors?"
"I'm telling you, even if the first ancestor of the Feng Clan crawled out of his grave, he'd have to politely call Yao'er his benefactor!"
"Without Yao'er's booklet, the Feng Clan might enjoy a few more decades of glory at most. Once I die, we'll be reduced to a second-rate power!"
Feng Cang pointed toward the ancestral hall, his words ringing with conviction.
"Young Master Yao has bestowed the supreme Dao upon our Feng Clan."
"His tablet won't just be placed in the ancestral hall. It will be placed at the very top! Beside the tablet of the Feng Clan's founding ancestor!"
"From now on, during the festivals when we worship our ancestors, we must worship Yao'er first, then pay our respects to our ancestors!"
"If anyone disagrees, step forward now. I'll personally send him to join our ancestors!"
Under Feng Cang's iron-fisted suppression, and with the temptation of that divine booklet, the last of the six elders' worldly scruples were smashed to pieces.
"The Clan Head is wise!"
"Young Master Yao has done the Feng Clan the kindness of remaking us! He deserves incense offerings from every generation of the Feng Clan!"
The elders immediately changed their tune, kowtowing like pounding garlic.
That evening.
In the Feng Clan's makeshift ancestral hall in Farack City.
Incense smoke curled through the air.
Feng Cang held a brand-new longevity tablet, carved from Ten-Thousand-Year Lightning-Struck Wood, and reverently placed it at the very top of the offering table.
Beside it stood the tablet of the Feng Clan's first clan head.
Feng Cang gathered all the Feng Clan's core members in Farack City.
Several dozen people in all.
They knelt in a dense mass before the tablet.
"First bow!"
Feng Cang called out.
Dozens of people kowtowed in unison, their foreheads striking the blue-stone tiles with a dull thud.
"Bow again!"
"Third bow!"
As they completed the three bows and nine kowtows, Feng Cang lifted his head and looked at the tablet inscribed with Xue Yao's name.
At last, his heart felt at ease.
From that moment on, the Feng Clan was no longer an alliance that did business for money, nor was it a band of mercenaries in the Farack Kingdom.
The entire Feng Clan had become Xue Yao's most frenzied and devoted cult of believers!
At a single word from Xue Yao,
these lunatics, brainwashed by divine theories, would dare to charge the Pope Mountain of Spirit Hall with blades in hand, without the slightest hesitation!
At that very moment, Xue Yao was lying against a soft cushion, sleeping soundly.
He had no idea that the little "picture book" he had casually tossed aside
had smashed its way into the continent and forged a fanatically devoted clan that worshipped him.
Before you continue