Breaking Through Ten Levels in a Row, Awakening the Qingqiu Bloodline; the Star Dou Great Forest Kneels in Welcome

"Take her to the Cultivation Room!"

Bibi Dong's voice came from behind them, clipped and decisive.

She covered her right hand, which was still giving off wisps of black smoke, and strode over to Hu Liena, pressing her left hand against her shoulder.

Supporting Hu Liena, Bibi Dong hurried through the passage in the inner sanctum of the Pope Palace. After passing through three sealed checkpoints, they arrived at the Holy Maiden's private Cultivation Room, deep in Spirit City.

The Spirit Hall had spent a century constructing this Cultivation Room. Ancient fox-clan totems covered its walls, and a top-grade Spirit Gathering Array had been laid across the floor.

Just how dense was the spiritual energy?

An ordinary Soul Master who stepped inside could feel spiritual power pouring into their pores with every breath.

Xie Yue had arrived ahead of them and was activating the array.

The instant the Spirit Gathering Array lit up, the spiritual energy in the Cultivation Room doubled in concentration.

The long-dormant fox-clan totems on the walls lit up as well, their pale purple glow interweaving with the array's light.

Hu Liena was helped onto the cushion in the center of the Cultivation Room, where she sat cross-legged.

The Primordial Spirit Bead inside her body slowly revolved at the center of her brow. With each turn, it released a wave of warmth that flowed through her meridians and into every limb and bone.

Wherever that energy passed, it was as though an invisible pair of hands were cleaning her body, inch by inch. Impurities were stripped away, foul qi expelled, and the channels through which her Soul Power flowed gradually widened.

Hu Liena urged her cultivation technique to its limits, guiding the energy along its prescribed route.

Before long, she noticed something.

The things buried deep in the foundation of her Martial Soul—the remnants of evil she had picked up in the Capital of Slaughter and thought she had long since fully absorbed—were being peeled away layer by layer by the Primordial Spirit Bead's power.

With each layer stripped away, her mind grew clearer.

The feeling...

It was like someone wiping away years of dust from a window, piece by piece, until daylight poured in from outside, unobstructed.

The Cultivation Room's door slowly closed from the outside.

Xie Yue stood outside, both fists braced against the door. He pressed his forehead against it too. The door was cold, and that helped him calm down a little.

He stood there for a moment, then took a step back and began pacing.

Three steps to the left, three steps to the right.

By the tenth round, he stopped. Bibi Dong had emerged through the side door of the Cultivation Room.

Xie Yue immediately went to meet her. He was just about to ask a question when he saw Bibi Dong's right hand. All five fingers were swollen beyond recognition, and dark bruises showed between them.

"Teacher, your hand—"

"Just a superficial injury."

Bibi Dong tucked her right hand into her sleeve and leaned against the stone wall of the passage, five paces from the Cultivation Room's door.

Neither near nor far.

Xie Yue opened his mouth, then swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue. He moved to Bibi Dong's side and leaned against the wall too.

The two of them stood guard outside in silence.

Not a sound came from inside the Cultivation Room. The heavy stone door shut out everything. Yet Xie Yue's heart remained suspended.

What his younger sister was going through now was entirely beyond his understanding.

Martial Soul Evolution, bloodline awakening, a surge in Soul Power—any one of those would be enough for a Soul Master to boast about for a lifetime. And all of them had descended upon Hu Liena on the same day, at the same moment.

What was the price?

What did that Shen Yichen want from his sister?

The more Xie Yue thought about it, the more agitated he became. His fists clenched and loosened, clenched and loosened.

Bibi Dong hadn't said a word.

Her gaze rested on a copper nail bearing a fox-clan totem, set into the Cultivation Room's door. She hadn't looked away for a long time.

She had personally confirmed the Primordial Spirit Bead's effects. When it had touched her just now, Dao Qi had surged into her body through her right hand, forcibly purifying her the instant it encountered Rakshasa corruption.

In that brief moment, she had clearly felt a sliver of the corruption that had plagued her meridians for decades being stripped away.

Only a sliver.

Yet it had cleared thirty percent of the meridians in her entire right arm.

If... if she could use the Primordial Spirit Bead properly, just once?

The thought had barely surfaced before she crushed it.

The bead wouldn't accept her. The rejection in its Dao patterns was perfectly clear—this was for Hu Liena. Anyone else who touched it would get a beating.

Bibi Dong closed her eyes.

Inside the Cultivation Room, the passage of time grew indistinct.

Hu Liena had no idea how long it had been. Perhaps one day, perhaps two.

All she knew was that the Primordial Spirit Bead within her was still releasing energy, and her Martial Soul was undergoing a complete transformation.

In her mental world, the Demon Fox had taken on an entirely different form.

Its red fur had vanished completely, replaced by pure white, without a single speck of another color.

Its ears had grown longer and more graceful, trembling faintly in the wind of her mental world. Six snowy-white tails swayed slowly behind it, each radiating a faint violet-gold halo.

And Hu Liena's Soul Power kept rising.

Level 76.

Level 78.

Level 80.

Soul Douluo.

Her breathing remained so steady that it hardly seemed as though she were breaking through. There was no bottleneck, no obstruction. The Primordial Spirit Bead's power crushed every barrier in its path.

Level 82.

Level 83.

Level 84.

It stopped.

The flood of energy finally slowed. The Primordial Spirit Bead spun three last times at the center of her brow, then fell silent.

Her mental power had also multiplied several times over these three days.

Every fluctuation in the Cultivation Room's spiritual energy, every line etched into the wall's totems, even the scrape of Xie Yue's shoes against the floor as he paced outside—all were crystal clear to her.

Far away, in the Star Dou Great Forest.

The instant Hu Liena's bloodline awakened, every fox-type Soul Beast in the core region prostrated itself on the ground.

Millennium Demon Foxes, century-old spirit foxes—even cubs less than ten days old curled up in their nests, all facing Spirit City as they let out low whimpers.

By the Lake of Life.

The Sky Azure Bull Python, Daming, raised its massive head once more.

Its vertical pupils reflected the direction of Spirit City, and it couldn't suppress the shock in its eyes.

"The Qingqiu bloodline... has fully awakened."

The Titan Giant Ape, Erming, crouched beside it, scratching the back of his head with a bewildered look on his face.

"Wasn't the ancient Qingqiu clan wiped out ages ago? How can its bloodline still awaken?"

Daming didn't answer.

Its vertical pupils slowly narrowed as it stared at the distant horizon. After a long while, it finally spoke.

"How many more cards does that Celestial Master have up his sleeve?"

On the night of the third day.

A muffled sound came from inside the Cultivation Room's door.

Xie Yue practically leaped to his feet. He had kept watch outside for three days and nights, dozing against the wall a few times and calling that sleep. Now his eyes were bloodshot, but he was almost bursting with excitement.

Bibi Dong opened her eyes as well.

The stone door slowly slid open, and a figure emerged from within.

Six snowy-white fox tails swayed gently behind her, while long fox ears poked out from her hair, their tips a translucent pale pink.

Faint violet-gold light shimmered in her eyes.

It was still the same face, the same person.

But her presence had changed completely.

Her original bewitching allure now carried something difficult to describe—not coldness, not arrogance, but a kind of... holiness that seemed to emanate from her very bones.

Hu Liena raised her right hand, clenched it into a fist, then relaxed it.

Her level-84 Soul Power flowed steadily through her meridians, so abundant that it seemed ready to overflow.

A flicker of delight crossed her eyes. Then she lowered her gaze and silently let out a breath.

"Shen Yichen..."

She softly murmured Shen Yichen's name, her heart filled with curiosity.

She wanted more and more to know what kind of person this Celestial Master she had never met really was.