Xu Tianyao raised his head and stared blankly at Kong Deming's weather-beaten old face.
Divine favor? Heh, what a joke.
His third brother sat as securely as a fisherman waiting for a catch, and Douluo Planet had already become someone else's backyard. How could he expect the gods to favor him?
Unless he was willing to become his brother's dog.
"Elder Kong, has our Sun Moon Empire ever had a god?" Xu Tianyao suddenly asked.
"There have never even been any gods here. How am I supposed to earn their favor?"
"Because of my Martial Soul? The Sun Moon Twin Martial Souls? But if I remember correctly, our empire's history has had ancestors with the Sun Moon Twin Martial Souls before."
Xu Tianyao smiled bitterly and shook his head.
Seeing that he didn't seem to be pretending, Kong Deming believed him a little more.
He had only asked casually, after all. Anyone would be curious about someone with an unprecedented innate Soul Power of level fifteen.
If there really was something to it, then it would be a blessing for the Sun Moon Empire. If not, it didn't matter.
With a wave of one hand, Kong Deming made Xu Tianyao feel as if the world were spinning around him.
When he came to, he found himself in a laboratory filled with precision instruments.
At the far end of the laboratory was a lounge. Kong Deming was sitting there, sipping tea and reading a book.
When he saw that Xu Tianyao had woken up, Kong Deming smiled slightly and pointed to a chair beside the lounge, motioning for him to sit.
Xu Tianyao did as he was asked. Even now, he still had no idea what Kong Deming wanted.
The most likely possibility was that he wanted to take him as a disciple. After all, Xu Tianyao seemed to have a strong connection with him. Kong Deming also appeared to possess the Sun Moon Twin Martial Souls, though Xu Tianyao didn't know why he had never cultivated his Sun Martial Soul.
Just as Xu Tianyao had guessed, Kong Deming had urgently emerged from seclusion after being roused by the disturbance caused by Xu Tianyao's Martial Soul Awakening.
So he had immediately sought out the emperor to learn everything about Xu Tianyao, and only then had he decided to take him as his disciple.
After all, Xu Tianyao was still young, had such exceptional talent, and shared such a strong connection with him. Wasn't this the perfect time to build a bond and lay a solid foundation?
Kong Deming set down his teacup and opened both hands. Before Xu Tianyao, he released all of his Martial Souls for the first time.
The sun and the Silver Moon.
To Xu Tianyao, Kong Deming's sun seemed somewhat different. Its radiance and quality both seemed inferior to those of his sister, Xu Tianzhen.
Seeing the astonished look on Xu Tianyao's face, Kong Deming finally spoke.
"You must be surprised. That's right, old man and you are alike. We both have Twin Martial Souls, and both possess the Sun Moon Twin Martial Souls."
"But unlike you..."
"My Twin Martial Souls are nowhere near as good as yours. My Sun Martial Soul even has a fatal flaw, which makes it impossible for me to cultivate it."
"A fatal flaw? Elder Kong, what do you mean?" Xu Tianyao's heart tightened, and he hurriedly pressed him for an answer.
Kong Deming smiled and withdrew his Martial Souls.
"What do I mean? I mean that you and I must have the same problem."
"The problem of being unable to cultivate the sun and moon together."
At this, Kong Deming sighed. "Back then, I awakened the Sun and Silver Moon Twin Martial Souls, just like you. I discovered the problem as soon as I began cultivating."
"The sun and the Silver Moon—one yang, one yin. They seem as if they should complement each other, but in reality, they repel each other and cannot fuse. So in the early stages, there was no way to cultivate them both at once."
"I realized there was a problem, but no matter how many records I consulted or how many seniors I asked, I couldn't find a solution."
A wistful look flickered in Kong Deming's eyes. "At the time, I thought that if I couldn't cultivate both Martial Souls as my main focus, I might as well choose one. Once I became stronger, perhaps I could use my own strength to balance the two powers."
"But the idea was beautiful, while reality was cruel!"
A bitter look flashed across Kong Deming's eyes. "I chose the Silver Moon Martial Soul as my main one. It was relatively gentle, and its ice and spatial attributes were a great help in my research into Soul Tools."
"I cultivated that way all along. Relying on the properties of this Martial Soul, I achieved great success in Soul Tools. And it turned out that my method was indeed correct: sealing one Martial Soul and focusing on cultivating the other was the only way to keep making progress normally."
"But after I had gained enough power and reached a bottleneck, I tried to take another step forward by drawing on my Sun Martial Soul. That was when I discovered the enormous trap hidden in all this."
"What trap?" Xu Tianyao hurriedly asked. He had a vague guess, but didn't dare trust it.
If that guess was true, wouldn't he face the same problem as Kong Deming?
Kong Deming glanced at Xu Tianyao, then summoned his Sun and Silver Moon Martial Souls once more.
Under Xu Tianyao's gaze, he tried to merge the Soul Power of the two Martial Souls. But things didn't go smoothly.
As soon as the two Martial Souls fused, they became difficult to control. In the end, they exploded outright.
And this was only an experiment in which their Soul Power clashed outside the body.
If this happened inside him—if he cultivated both Martial Souls normally, filling his body with two completely different kinds of Soul Power—wouldn't his body simply explode?
Xu Tianyao's guess had been right. This was precisely the problem Kong Deming wanted to explain.
He had encountered it in his youth, and even after becoming the empire's strongest expert, he still hadn't found a solution.
Worse, he had already cultivated one Martial Soul to nearly its full potential, which only made the problem more severe and more difficult to handle.
Now, whenever he used the Soul Power of his Sun Martial Soul, the Silver Moon Martial Soul inside him would grow agitated, and his Soul Power would begin to run amok.
He had tried for many years, but had remained stuck at that first step, unable to advance.
He had come up with several theories, but each of them required him to act differently from the very beginning of his cultivation. At this point, he clearly no longer had that chance.
Xu Tianyao's arrival, however, had given him that chance.
Xu Tianyao himself couldn't overcome the problem, and in the end, he would most likely take the same path Kong Deming had.
But if Xu Tianyao followed Kong Deming's theory and combined Soul Tools with medicinal herbs to balance the attributes of his Soul Rings, then he might be able to solve the problem.
Once he solved it, there was no telling how bright his future would be.
And when he became strong, he might even be able to use his balanced Soul Power to resolve Kong Deming's own predicament.
Perhaps his research into Soul Tools could advance even further, reaching new heights—even the divine level—and making him the first person in the history of the continent to become a god through Soul Tools.
That was why Kong Deming had come here at once, told him so much, and wanted to take him as his disciple.
"Your Sunlight and Moon Martial Souls simply cannot be cultivated together. If you cultivate them both at once, the two completely different kinds of Soul Power will collide inside you, and you'll explode."
"But if you choose to cultivate one and seal away the other, then setting aside how much your potential will be diminished, you'll still face the same problem when you have enough strength to take up that Martial Soul again."
"In other words, you'll have to give up the advantage of your Twin Martial Souls and completely abandon one of them."
Before you continue