A Smooth Path Could Still Invite Disaster; Only Defying the Current Could Attain the Age-Transcending Art

Douluo Continent, Fasinuo Province, Notting City.

Inside the reception room on the first floor of Spirit Hall.

"Lin Mo, these are the Martial Soul certificate and work-study student certificate you asked for."

The young man, dressed in a Spirit Hall deacon's uniform, handed over the two certificates he had prepared in advance.

His eyes were filled with undisguised envy as he looked at the child.

"Thank you, Soul Grandmaster Su Yuntao." Lin Mo eagerly reached out and accepted the two certificates.

He opened them and checked them over. Once he had confirmed that all the information recorded on them was correct, he carefully put them away.

"I'm grateful for your help, Soul Grandmaster Su Yuntao."

Lin Mo thanked Su Yuntao again.

Su Yuntao waved a hand.

Lin Mo didn't linger. He turned, pushed open the reception room door, and left Spirit Hall.

The sunlight outside was a little dazzling.

Squinting, Lin Mo recalled the map in his mind, then headed toward Notting Academy.

Not long after Lin Mo left the room, Sisi, the woman at Su Yuntao's side, sensed that something was off about him and asked:

"Yuntao, what's wrong? You seem to care a lot about that child named Lin Mo."

"Of course I do."

Su Yuntao said listlessly, "Remember what I told you before?

A while ago, I went to an orphanage to help the eligible orphans awaken their Martial Souls, and I happened to meet another special genius with Innate Full Soul Power..."

At that, Sisi's eyes lit up. "Could that child be the one you meant? Then what's his Martial Soul?

Don't tell me it's another Trash Martial Soul like Blue Silver Grass?"

"Not quite."

Su Yuntao shook his head, a hint of confusion appearing in his eyes.

"His Martial Soul seems to be a mutated Beast Martial Soul, but I can't say for sure what it is..."

As he spoke, he couldn't help recalling the scene from a month ago, when he had awakened Lin Mo's Martial Soul at Notting Orphanage.

The circumstances surrounding Lin Mo's Martial Soul Awakening had been extremely unusual.

When he awakened, the scene was nothing like that of an ordinary Beast Martial Soul Soul Master, whose Martial Soul phantom appeared directly behind them. Nor was it like that of a Tool Soul Master, whose physical Martial Soul coalesced in their hand.

Instead, Lin Mo's entire body glowed.

If Su Yuntao hadn't personally tested Lin Mo and confirmed that he had Innate Full Soul Power, he would have begun to suspect that Lin Mo had no Martial Soul at all because of a Martial Soul Mutation.

He had presided over the Martial Soul Awakening ceremonies of many children, but this was the first time he'd encountered such a bizarre case.

"Still, the quality of his Martial Soul shouldn't be weak," Su Yuntao added.

"Of course."

Sisi pursed her lips, her tone laced with envy as if it went without saying. "That's Innate Full Soul Power, after all. It's far stronger than the second- or third-level Innate Soul Power you and I have."

But then a note of regret crept into Sisi's voice. "What a pity he came from an officially run orphanage."

Spirit Hall and the two great empires had long ago reached an agreement: Spirit Hall could recruit talent directly from the two empires, but that didn't include people of such special backgrounds who were, in a way, connected to the official authorities.

The empire wouldn't allow a child like Lin Mo, with such good talent, to be recruited into Spirit Hall as soon as he awakened his Martial Soul.

"Yeah." A trace of regret entered Su Yuntao's voice as well.

If he could recommend a genius with Innate Full Soul Power to join Spirit Hall, his standing would be a great help to his future promotion.

Spirit Hall had always been generous with rewards for deacons who discovered talent, especially when it came to a genius of the caliber of someone with Innate Full Soul Power.

Unfortunately, the empire's authorities had long guarded against this and laid down that damned agreement.

It left Su Yuntao especially frustrated.

Watching a road straight to the heavens slip through your fingers was a terrible feeling!

While Su Yuntao lamented his bad luck, Lin Mo, on his way to Notting Academy, was in exceptionally high spirits.

His name was Lin Mo, and he was an orphan.

He was also a transmigrator.

In his previous life, he had gone head-to-head with the Great Transporter and, unfortunately, lost.

After a spell of chaos, he opened his eyes again and discovered that he had transmigrated to a world called Douluo Continent.

When he was three, memories of his past life had gradually begun to awaken.

After figuring out what had happened to him, Lin Mo calmly accepted reality.

Since he was here, he might as well make the best of it.

Then he waited patiently for the day his Martial Soul would awaken.

A month ago, Su Yuntao had come to Notting Orphanage on behalf of Spirit Hall to hold a Martial Soul Awakening ceremony for the eligible children there.

Lin Mo had been the only one among them to awaken Soul Power, and what's more, he had the exceptionally rare Innate Full Soul Power.

Naturally, Su Yuntao had wanted to recruit him into Spirit Hall, but the Heaven Dou Empire's authorities had already reached an agreement with Spirit Hall.

Even if Spirit Hall wanted to recruit children who had grown up in an orphanage funded by the state, it had to wait until they had completed their studies at a junior academy and gained some ability to make their own decisions.

Besides, any orphan from Notting Orphanage who awakened Soul Power was eligible to study at Notting Academy as a work-study student.

The empire's authorities didn't want to simply sit back and let Spirit Hall recruit talent with such impunity.

Lin Mo himself didn't particularly care whether he could join Spirit Hall.

His Martial Soul was too special!

Even Spirit Hall most likely didn't have what he wanted. The Body Sect of ten thousand years later might be another matter.

A full-body Body Martial Soul!

That was the powerful Martial Soul Lin Mo had awakened thanks to his Innate Full Soul Power talent. It was just a pity he'd been born in the wrong era!

The moment Lin Mo figured out what his Martial Soul was, his feelings had been complicated.

On the one hand, he was thrilled to have awakened a powerful Martial Soul. On the other, he was dismayed that in this era, research into Body Martial Souls was practically nonexistent.

Compared with other, more conventional Martial Souls, the greatest advantage of a Body Martial Soul was that it could undergo a Second Awakening, and even the more powerful Third Awakening!

But the Body Secret Art that allowed for a stable Second Awakening was in the hands of the Body Sect, which wouldn't appear until ten thousand years later.

That was why Lin Mo had been sighing over being born in the wrong era all month.

If he had been born ten thousand years later, then with his Innate Full Soul Power and full-body Body Martial Soul, all he'd have to do was join the Body Sect, and he'd be a sure bet for sect leader!

What a pity... he'd been born at the wrong time!

Before a Body Martial Soul completed its Second Awakening, the boost it gave its host was weaker than that of a conventional top-tier Martial Soul.

Only after completing the Second Awakening could it surpass them across the board.

But fortunately, Lin Mo was a transmigrator, and he had an advantage others didn't!

If the heavens hadn't brought forth my great Lin Mo, the Douluo world would have languished in endless night!

Cheat, come!

Unlike a conventional Body Martial Soul, his had gained an additional innate Martial Soul talent upon awakening, one called Inversion of Three.

As a seasoned anime fan, Lin Mo knew all about Inversion of Three.

It was the inherited cultivation art of the Three-One Sect in The Outcast.

It was no exaggeration to call it the Three-One Sect's signature technique.

A smooth path could still invite disaster; only defying the current could attain the age-transcending art!

The ancestors of the Three-One Sect believed that after a person was born, their innate primordial qi transformed into their limbs and bones.

If they could reverse-refine their own limbs and bones back into innate primordial qi, they could ascend to immortality. Thus, they created the cultivation art known as Inversion of Three.

The art had three stages in total.

The first stage filled the entire body with true qi and transformed the flesh and skin on the surface into qi. Those who mastered it gained not only tremendous physical strength, but also the power of dragons and tigers in every gesture, as well as an astonishing capacity to recover.

The second stage could transform the bones, internal organs, and blood into qi. When injured, the practitioner could circulate qi to repair the damage.

The third stage was a theoretical realm within Inversion of Three.

The Three-One Sect believed that once someone reached the third stage, they could complete the transformation into qi perfectly, gain the power to reach heaven and earth, and then ascend to immortality.

Having just awakened the Inversion of Three talent, Lin Mo was currently at the threshold of the first stage: qi-flesh transformation.

Of course, since he was in Douluo Continent, he didn't have true qi. The power used for qi-flesh transformation was naturally his Soul Power.