The Hongchen Siblings' Admiration for the Snow Empress, and the Holy Spirit Cult's Scheme!

Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Academy.

Ever since Snow Empress had formally enrolled under the name Snow Maiden.

This cool, strikingly beautiful young girl had quickly become one of the most talked-about people at the academy.

What truly shocked Xu Tianyao, however, was not the commotion she caused, but her terrifying speed of cultivation.

In just one short month, Snow Maiden had successfully condensed her First Soul Ring, and her Soul Power had surged all the way to level fifteen.

Ordinary Soul Masters often needed years to reach level fifteen after awakening their Martial Souls.

For Snow Maiden, though, it all seemed to come naturally, without the slightest effort.

According to her, when she had once undergone a tribulation to take human form, she had condensed her origin power into seven Ice Cores and sealed them inside her body.

Now that she had begun cultivating anew as a human, those seven Ice Cores were like seven inexhaustible sources of energy, constantly supplying her with the purest origin Soul Power to absorb and refine.

The Ice Cores were not only the foundation for her eventual return to her peak, but also the greatest reason her cultivation speed far surpassed that of ordinary people.

All Xu Tianyao could do was marvel: as expected of the Snow Empress, who had once stood at the peak of the Far North. Her reserves were terrifyingly deep!

Snow Maiden's arrival had also brought a great deal more liveliness to the entire Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Academy.

Especially in Xu Tianyao's class.

Meng Hongchen had long been engaged to Xu Tianyao. This was no secret in the academy—or, for that matter, throughout the Sun Moon Empire.

On top of that, Xu Tianyao was the youngest duke in the history of the Sun Moon Empire, with a highly distinguished status.

So even though the boys in class admired Meng Hongchen, none dared show it.

But Snow Maiden was different.

She was a new transfer student.

Her identity was mysterious, and her talent astonishing.

More importantly, that ethereal, unsullied bearing and nearly flawless beauty were enough to make any boy unable to look away at first sight.

Even Xiao Hongchen was no exception.

He was famous around the academy for doting on his younger sister. Before Snow Maiden appeared, it seemed that Meng Hongchen was the only girl in his world.

But after meeting Snow Maiden, the usually arrogant, peerless young genius seemed to have been bewitched.

During class, he kept glancing toward where Snow Maiden sat.

After class, he came up with every excuse imaginable to strike up a conversation.

He gave her little Soul Tools, shared his cultivation insights, and showed her around the academy...

He tried almost every approach he could think of.

He even set aside his usual imperious attitude and went out of his way to ingratiate himself with her, all in the hope of getting her to sit beside him.

Unfortunately, all his efforts were doomed to come to nothing.

Snow Maiden had come to the human world to complete her cultivation anew.

And she had chosen this class because Xu Tianyao was here.

In this unfamiliar human society, Xu Tianyao was one of the few people she could trust.

So, apart from Xu Tianyao and Meng Hongchen, she hardly ever made contact with anyone else.

When it came time to choose seats, she sat beside Meng Hongchen without the slightest hesitation.

That choice completely shattered Xiao Hongchen's last remaining hopes.

What left Xu Tianyao even more at a loss for words was this:

Meng Hongchen seemed to like Snow Maiden even more than Xiao Hongchen did.

The two unbelievably beautiful girls were practically inseparable.

They whispered to each other during class and wandered around hand in hand after class.

Sometimes they even insisted on sitting together at meals.

No one knew what they talked about.

All Xu Tianyao knew was that Meng Hongchen now spent far more time with Snow Maiden than with him.

At the thought, he couldn't help feeling a little helpless.

The Hongchen siblings really were cut from the same cloth.

One couldn't take his eyes off a pretty girl.

The other couldn't take her eyes off one either.

The only difference was that one pursued her openly, while the other openly stuck close to her.

Still, it did leave Xu Tianyao with more time to himself.

With no one bothering him, he devoted even more energy to researching Soul Tools.

As his research progressed, he gradually noticed some changes in himself.

More precisely, they were changes brought about by the External Eye Bone from the Cold Moon Snow Falcon.

As his cultivation continued to improve, that hundred-thousand-year External Soul Bone began to reveal its true power.

To Xu Tianyao's delight, ever since his Sea of Consciousness had been opened, not only was his total spiritual power far greater than that of Soul Masters his age, but it also grew much faster.

His vision had undergone an even more fundamental transformation.

This was especially true when he activated the eye-bone skill, Spatial Analysis.

In his eyes, the entire world seemed to turn into countless fine spatial lines.

The movement of Soul Tool core arrays, the patterns of Soul Power flow, the tiniest changes in the structure of metal...

Nothing escaped his notice.

With this almost-cheating power of observation, his understanding of Soul Tools advanced by leaps and bounds.

The benefits he had gained from the Cold Moon Snow Falcon's sacrifice also began to fully manifest over time.

After absorbing his third Soul Ring, Xu Tianyao had taken the time to test his Soul Power.

The result startled even him.

Level thirty-six.

He was only four levels away from becoming a Soul Ancestor.

At his current rate of cultivation, he would have a chance to challenge the level-forty bottleneck in about a year at most.

Becoming a Soul Ancestor before the age of ten.

Such a record had never appeared in the history of the entire continent.

His spiritual power and Soul Power foundation, far beyond that of ordinary people, also gave him even more astonishing talent on the path of Soul Engineers.

Under the alternating guidance of Xuan Ziwen and Kong Deming, two top Soul Engineers,

he had advanced through the Level 1 and Level 2 Soul Engineer examinations in a single month.

Before leaving for an exchange at Shrek Academy, he had even successfully made a Level 3 Soul Ray Gun entirely on his own.

When word got out, all of Mingde Hall and the Soul Guidance Department of Sun Moon Royal Academy were shaken.

It meant that the Sun Moon Empire had produced the youngest Level 3 Soul Engineer in its history.

The royal family chose not to hide such a genius.

Quite the opposite.

Xu Tianran even personally ordered that some of Xu Tianyao's information be made public.

In no time, a string of dazzling titles began spreading across the continent: youngest duke, possessor of Twin Martial Souls, nine-year-old Soul Elder, Level 3 Soul Engineer...

The Dou Ling Empire, the Heaven Dou Empire, the Xingluo Empire, and even Shrek Academy all added Xu Tianyao to their highest-priority watch lists.

The intelligence agencies of the major powers kept gathering information about him. They not only studied him, but even plotted to assassinate him.

After all, everyone understood.

If a genius like him were allowed to grow up unhindered, he could very well change the balance of power across the entire continent.

Among these undercurrents and competing powers,

there was also a monstrous force hidden in the darkness that had set its sights on Xu Tianyao: the Holy Spirit Cult!

With the covert support of the Sun Moon Empire's government, the Holy Spirit Cult was now growing at a remarkable pace.

Xu Tianyao, a gifted and still very young prince of the Sun Moon Empire, was naturally among their targets for recruitment.

If they could bring such an important prince of the Sun Moon Empire into the Holy Spirit Cult, it would undoubtedly bring tremendous benefits to the cult's future.