A flicker of understanding passed through Bibi Dong's eyes. She slowly leaned back in her seat, a cold curve lifting at the corners of her lips:
"Looks like Spirit City is getting livelier and livelier."
Bibi Dong looked toward Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo, her tone carrying an unquestionable command as she addressed them:
"Yue Guan, Gui Mei, investigate that young man's background. Remember, do not alert him."
"Yes, Your Holiness!"
Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo exchanged a glance, then vanished from the hall in an instant.
Hu Liena watched the direction in which they had left, her eyes filled with curiosity and shock as she spoke to Bibi Dong:
"Teacher, could that young man... really be a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Title Douluo?"
Hu Liena's voice trembled uncontrollably, her fingertips absentmindedly twisting the tassels of Bibi Dong's papal robe.
The words "seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Title Douluo" echoed through her mind again and again, her heart seeming to be clenched by an invisible hand.
Tang San, a fourteen-year-old Soul King, was already enough to overturn common sense, but he had Twin Martial Souls and the foundation of the Clear Sky Sect. She could still console herself over that.
But now, a boy younger than her had already reached the pinnacle of the soul master world—a realm countless soul masters could never touch in their entire lives.
And she, a twenty-year-old level fifty-one Soul King, had once been the "brightest pearl of the Golden Generation" in her teacher Bibi Dong's eyes, the benchmark of Spirit Hall's younger generation.
"Am I really a genius?"
The thought slithered into her mind like a venomous snake, and Hu Liena's face instantly went pale.
She recalled her teacher's pleased gaze during every assessment and the reverent looks of other soul masters. At that moment, they all