Kong Deming turned around and looked at the young man before him, speaking slowly.
"Because I prepared the Soul Ring for your First Martial Soul many years ago."
Xu Tianyao was slightly taken aback. "You prepared it?"
Kong Deming gazed at the distant sky, which looked like a sea of fire.
A trace of reminiscence flashed through his aged eyes.
"Do you know why I brought you thousands of miles to this volcano group?"
Xu Tianyao ventured, "Because there are many fire-attribute Soul Beasts here?"
Kong Deming shook his head, then slowly uttered four words.
"Red Sun Golden Crow."
Hearing those words, Xu Tianyao's eyes widened. "A Golden Crow?!"
The Golden Crow.
It was the divine bird said to symbolize the sun in legend.
Even in the records of various ancient texts, it appeared only rarely.
Many scholars even doubted whether this Soul Beast truly existed.
Yet now, Kong Deming was telling him that there was a Red Sun Golden Crow here!
No wonder his grandfather had insisted that he cultivate the Sunlight Martial Soul first.
No wonder he had spent such a long time and countless treasures tempering Xu Tianyao's physique to this degree.
The goal had been to make him compatible with this Red Sun Golden Crow.
After all, there was probably no Soul Beast in the world better suited to the Sunlight Martial Soul than the Red Sun Golden Crow.
Kong Deming smiled faintly, as if Xu Tianyao's reaction had been exactly what he expected.
"When I came here years ago to search for rare mineral deposits, I discovered it by chance."
"I haven't disturbed it all these years."
"I thought that if one of my descendants awakened a sun-type Martial Soul, I'd leave this opportunity for them."
"Now it seems fate had its own plans."
"In the end, this opportunity has fallen into your hands."
Xu Tianyao was overcome with excitement. He was just about to say something to thank him,
when Kong Deming suddenly lifted his head, a flash of brilliance bursting from his eyes.
"Found it!"
The next moment, he swept his right hand.
A Level 9 Soul Guidance Ray Gun of intricate design appeared in his palm, its muzzle aimed at the sky.
A dazzling golden beam instantly tore through the heavens.
A tremendous boom thundered across the entire volcano group.
Startled, the flock of Red Sun Divine Birds scattered in every direction.
Fiery feathers filled the sky, which seemed to have erupted into a rain of fire.
And the instant the flock parted,
a figure more dazzling than all the divine birds was revealed.
It was a divine bird wreathed from head to toe in golden flames, its wings spread several meters wide.
Its entire body radiated light as blazing as the sun.
Even amid the flock of divine birds, it stood out like the bright moon among the stars, so brilliant it was impossible to ignore.
"Just as I thought—it's here!"
Kong Deming's eyes blazed with brilliance.
He stamped his foot, and the space around him suddenly twisted violently.
The next second, he had vanished from where he stood.
High in the sky, the Red Sun Golden Crow seemed to sense danger and let out a sharp, piercing cry.
Then it turned into a streak of golden light and fled at lightning speed, looking like a tiny fragment of the sun.
But its opponent was the empire's greatest Soul Engineer, a man who had mastered the spatial properties of the Silver Moon Martial Soul to perfection.
"Come here!"
Kong Deming's aged yet domineering voice exploded through the air.
His terrifying spiritual power swept across the world like a net cast over heaven and earth.
The space within a radius of several thousand meters seemed to be sealed off.
The Red Sun Golden Crow felt its body grow heavy, and its flight slowed sharply.
Then a great hand wreathed in Soul Power descended from the sky.
It seized the bird by force!
No matter how the Red Sun Golden Crow struggled or unleashed its True Sun Fire, it couldn't break free of the hand's grip.
In the end, Kong Deming held it firmly in his palm.
Watching this, Xu Tianyao felt a fire burning in his heart.
Was this the strength of the Sun Moon Empire's foremost expert? Was this the power of a Titled Douluo?
With every gesture, he wielded such might that heaven and earth changed color and all things trembled.
People laughed at Douluo for being the floor tiles of fantasy worlds, but at least it was still fantasy. Xu Tianyao, for one, was quite satisfied.
Kong Deming tossed the half-dead Red Sun Golden Crow down in front of Xu Tianyao.
Xu Tianyao looked at the creature on the ground, its wings spanning a full ten meters. The sight was a tremendous shock.
It was so huge that it stood several stories tall.
"Tianyao, kill it. Soul Beasts and humans are locked in a struggle to the death. That's the law of nature. You mustn't show mercy."
Seeing Xu Tianyao hesitate to strike, Kong Deming assumed the six-year-old had been frightened by the enormous Soul Beast's murderous aura. He immediately urged him on.
Kong Deming's words snapped Xu Tianyao back to his senses. He took out his Level 4 Soul Guidance Ray Gun, aimed it at the head of the Pure Yang Golden Crow, and pulled the trigger.
A beam of explosive energy struck, instantly blasting the thousand-year Soul Beast's head apart. Viscous blood splattered across the ground, and a purple Soul Ring slowly rose into the air.
Xu Tianyao stared intently at the purple Soul Ring. He immediately sat down beside the corpse, circulated his Sunlight Martial Soul, and drew the ring toward it.
First Soul Ring, here I come!
As the purple Soul Ring slowly settled around Xu Tianyao, a vast, blazing sun rose over the sea of mountains, pouring out ten thousand rays of light.
The dazzling Red Sun Golden Crow from moments earlier had somehow appeared in his Sea of Consciousness.
The Golden Crow didn't resist much. It spread its wings and wrapped them around itself, then merged into the enormous sun like a dazzling little sun.
Xu Tianyao felt every cell in his body cheering. An extreme sense of comfort left him intoxicated.
This was the leap in the level of life itself. This was what cultivation felt like.
Two hours later, a clear Golden Crow cry rang out across the entire Southern Marsh Volcano Group.
Xu Tianyao slowly opened his eyes. His first Soul Skill was Sunlight Scorching Light!
A purple Soul Ring rose from Xu Tianyao. Then a searing heat gathered between his hands, instantly erupting into a scorching red beam that shot toward a distant rock. It melted the rock and blew apart a small mountain.
Sunlight Scorching Light: a high-temperature energy beam; a long-range offensive Soul Skill with tremendous destructive and penetrating power, and an added burning effect.
With Xu Tianyao's current Soul Power reserves, he could use it a maximum of five times a day.
Kong Deming looked at the melted rock and the shattered mountain. Stunned, he sank into deep thought.
Such destructive power, such heat—could this be Ultimate Fire?
That was right. Even now, Kong Deming still didn't know that the Sunlight Martial Soul naturally possessed the Ultimate Fire attribute.
His attention had been elsewhere this entire time: on how to solve the problem of the Sun Moon Martial Souls being unable to cultivate simultaneously.
The Sunlight Martial Soul was an upper-level form of the Sun Martial Soul, and the Sun Martial Soul's flames already came infinitely close to Ultimate Fire. So of course the Sunlight Martial Soul possessed Ultimate Fire!
The belated realization only made him happier. He now felt that this child was like a treasure trove—the more he uncovered, the more fascinating and valuable he became!
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