The Spirit Pagoda's Soul Master Quality Assessment Center, on the seventy-third floor.
The room was spacious and bright, its walls inlaid with streamlined Soul Guidance patterns. Several floating screens surrounded them.
"Before we choose a Soul Spirit for you, we need to assess your physical and mental condition." Leng Yaozhu stood before the main console, her wine-red hair gleaming faintly beneath the Soul Guidance Lamp.
"Your mental strength in particular—it determines what level of Soul Spirit you can bear. Generally speaking, an initial mental strength of one hundred points makes you a genius among ten thousand."
Luo Yang nodded.
He was curious, too. After receiving the Plane Blessing and being nourished by the purification of undead, just how strong had his body become?
At Leng Yaozhu's direction, he went through the tests one by one.
Blood Eight stood quietly to the side.
Three minutes later, the tests were over.
Line after line of clear data appeared on the largest central screen.
Then—
Silence.
More than ten seconds of dead silence, so profound that a pin could have been heard dropping.
Leng Yaozhu stood frozen. Her usually unreadable scarlet eyes were wide with shock as she stared at the data on the screen.
Even Blood Eight, who had been mentally prepared, drew in a sharp breath. For the first time, astonishment showed on her cool, beautiful face.
Several lines of bold golden text on the screen were especially glaring.
"263 points, mid-stage Spirit Connection Realm innately..." Leng Yaozhu murmured, repeating the test result. Her voice was hoarse.
What did 263 points of mental strength mean?
Among Soul Masters who awakened top-tier mental-type Martial Souls, an innate score of 150 points was already the mark of a peerless genius. And Luo Yang, who had yet to obtain a single Soul Ring, was only six years old—and had nearly twice that!
His physical ability was even more terrifying.
An A+ rating, on par with an outstanding Soul Elder.
What did that mean? It meant he could match a three-ring Soul Master with nothing but his physical strength!
This talent wasn't merely the stuff of a future Limit Douluo. It was the makings of a god!
Leng Yaozhu's breathing quickened. She suddenly turned to Luo Yang, strode over, and crouched in front of him, clasping his shoulders with both hands.
Something burned deep in her scarlet eyes: shock, elation, and a fervor bordering on obsession.
She was determined to have this child!
Luo Yang felt a little unnerved by the way she was looking at him.
He knew that look all too well.
Black Empress had looked at him that way, and Blood Eight sometimes wore a similar expression. It was the look of a hungry wolf spotting fresh meat, or a collector discovering a priceless, one-of-a-kind treasure.
He hadn't even awakened a Succubus Martial Soul. Why was everyone trying to get their hands on him wherever he went?
"Aunt Leng," he asked cautiously, "is... there something wrong with the data?"
"Wrong? There's far too much wrong with it!"
Leng Yaozhu smiled, her smile dazzling enough to make one's eyes swim.
"It's enough to rewrite every record since the Spirit Pagoda was founded!"
"I've seen so many so-called geniuses—the ones from Shrek, the War God Temple, the great clans... But standing before you, every last one of them pales into insignificance!"
Mental strength was divided into clear realms.
Spirit Origin Realm (below 100 points), Spirit Connection Realm (100–500 points), Spirit Sea Realm (500–5,000 points), and so on.
Mental strength in the Spirit Connection Realm meant that a Soul Master already had the foundation to absorb a Thousand-Year Soul Spirit!
And the truly terrifying part was that this was the mental strength of a six-year-old child who hadn't even obtained a single Soul Ring!
As for his physical ability...
Children from great clans, raised on rare delicacies and gentle medicinal baths to temper their bodies, might stand out among their peers. But strength like this was unheard of.
Luo Yang smiled faintly.
It was the innate instinct of his Martial Soul: every time he purified an undead, it nourished his mental strength and Soul Power.
Before this, purifying the soldiers in those undead legions had given him a great deal of mental strength and Soul Power.
And because he had crossed over from another world, his mental strength had been extraordinary to begin with. He felt there was still room for it to grow.
Blood Eight had recovered from her shock. She folded her arms, the corners of her mouth lifting.
The little cabbage she'd raised was the juiciest in all the world!
Leng Yaozhu took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.
"Your mental strength is enough to bear a Thousand-Year Soul Spirit. Your physical ability is far beyond anyone your age. So next..."
She walked to the opposite wall and pressed her palm against it.
Ripples spread across the wall like water, revealing an enormous circular screen behind it.
The screen lit up, displaying a dazzling virtual landscape.
Forests, deserts, glaciers, volcanoes... Countless Soul Beast apparitions darted through every kind of ecosystem.
The Vermilion Clear Ice Toad breathed out freezing mist, the Silver Shadow Beast tore through space, and the Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear roared at the sky...
"This is the Spirit Pagoda's Soul Spirit simulation space," Leng Yaozhu explained. "We've done our best to recreate the habitats where the Soul Spirits lived, so we can keep them active."
She paused, her tone tinged with reverence. "This is a legacy left by the first Pagoda Master, Spirit Ice Douluo. The Soul Spirit System changed the entire civilization of Soul Masters."
Blood Eight nodded slightly.
But Luo Yang gazed at the screen, his expression complicated.
The Soul Spirit System truly was a groundbreaking innovation.
But had it really saved the Soul Beasts?
After Huo Yuhao ascended to the Divine Realm and lost control of the lower world, the Spirit Pagoda gradually changed.
What had begun as a mutually beneficial pact became one-sided exploitation. The Soul Beasts' lot hadn't improved because of it.
Who was to blame? The Spirit Pagoda's greed? The depravity of human nature? Or... Tang San, who had been pulling the strings behind the scenes?
Of course, Huo Gua's original intentions had definitely been good. He'd wanted to use Soul Spirits as a bond and build a bridge between Soul Masters and Soul Beasts, so they could live in peace.
"Luo Yang, next we'll choose a suitable Soul Spirit for you." Leng Yaozhu's voice brought him back to reality.
She went to the console, her hands moving like phantoms.
The images on the screen flashed by rapidly, then settled on a colossal creature.
It stood over ten meters tall, its body covered in dark golden fur and its muscles bulging like blocks of granite.
Most terrifying of all were its arms, which reached down to its knees. They were absurdly thick, as if the slightest swing could tear a mountain apart.
Its face was savage, and its blood-red eyes burned with an unyielding will to fight. Its overall form resembled the Titan Giant Ape, but its aura was more ancient and more savage.
"A mutated Titan Giant Ape." Leng Yaozhu's voice held a note of admiration. "Tests show that a trace of the ancient Golden Behemoth's bloodline flows through its veins."
"Golden Behemoth?" Blood Eight raised an eyebrow.
"A ruler of ancient times. Legend says it fed on dragons." Leng Yaozhu looked at Luo Yang. "This Soul Spirit is one of the most precious specimens in our headquarters' collection. It retained its full battle will, making it an Unyielding Soul Spirit. To form a pact with it, you must first crush its will."
Blood Eight nodded in satisfaction.
The Titan Giant Ape was already one of the most powerful clans at the peak of the Soul Beast hierarchy. After a hundred years of cultivation, it could fight an ordinary Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast. And the potential and power of this mutated creature, with its Golden Behemoth bloodline, were beyond question.
If she hadn't already filled all her Soul Ring slots, she might have been tempted herself.
"What do you think?" Leng Yaozhu asked Luo Yang, her scarlet eyes full of anticipation.
In her eyes, this was the perfect choice.
Golden Behemoth bloodline, a top-tier strength-type Soul Spirit, paired with Luo Yang's terrifying physical ability. If he succeeded, his starting point would be beyond imagination.
Blood Eight looked at Luo Yang, too.
The room fell quiet. Only the golden giant ape's apparition on the screen silently radiated its oppressive presence.
Under Leng Yaozhu's expectant gaze, Luo Yang stared at the mighty Golden Behemoth apparition and pondered for a moment.
Then he slowly shook his head.
Leng Yaozhu froze.
"Are you... worried you'll fail? Or do you think it's too strong to control?"
She was a little disappointed.
She was a little disappointed. Could this child have peerless talent but lack the conviction every strong person needed?
If that was the case, then no matter how gifted he was, he was destined never to become strong.
Blood Eight furrowed her brow slightly, too.
However.
Luo Yang lifted his head and looked at the roaring beast on the screen. Calmly, he said something that left both women frozen.
"No."
"I just think—"
"It's too weak."