The Evil Spirit Orca pod retreated at full speed. The seawater they depended on for survival had become a forbidden zone around the young man.
A pale golden light radiated from Xiao Mu's body as he lowered his head and looked at his hands. His left palm glowed dark gold, while his right glowed black and purple.
One represented reconstruction; the other, disintegration.
"I really like this ability," he said, unable to suppress his excitement. He raised his right hand and curled it toward the orca pod.
Disintegration began. The elements rearranged themselves in his palm, attempting to condense into a new substance.
But every attempt failed.
"This takes a frightening amount of mental power!" He realized he still couldn't use this move to synthesize anything, so he would have to settle for the simplest application.
He changed the direction of reconstruction, and the strain on Xiao Mu's mental power eased sharply. This time, he wasn't changing the water's chemical properties, but its physical state.
The temperature plummeted.
It took only a single breath for the water to go from liquid to solid.
A white sheet of ice spread out from beneath his palm, fanning toward the orca pod. It grew thicker and wider, freezing so quickly that it seemed someone was unfurling an endless white blanket across the sea.
The Evil Spirit Orca pod fell into chaos. The lead orca lashed its tail, trying to retreat, but the ice moved faster.
The Evil Spirit Orcas struggled to break free, but strengthened by the power of disintegration, the ice was harder than steel. Their struggles only made it groan and crack.
The ten-thousand-year Evil Spirit Orca at the front couldn't help but feel alarmed. "How did this human's ability change? And that Soul Power—it froze everything within a radius of fifty meters!"
The temperature continued to fall. The ice began to expand, squeezing the Evil Spirit Orcas' bodies.
Under Xiao Mu's control, the icicles grew stronger and stronger, gradually piercing the orcas' skin. Drops of blood stained the ice red.
The towering waves froze in place, their crests congealing into an ice wall dozens of meters high, still frozen in the shape they'd held while surging.
The arcing waves reared high, their foamy crests turned to ice crystals that refracted the sunlight into a rainbow of colors.
At that moment, the entire world seemed to have been paused. The whole furious sea was locked in a single instant.
Xiao Mu emerged from the ice and stepped onto the frozen crest.
"They couldn't even withstand nine percent expansion?"
His tone was mild. There was no mockery or pity in it, just the flat, factual delivery of someone recording the results of an experiment.
Mu Ye descended from the air and landed on the frozen wave. His boot struck the ice with a crisp clack.
He glanced at the Evil Spirit Orcas entombed in the ice, then at Xiao Mu.
"Looks like your Martial Soul Second Awakening succeeded. Was it a golden awakening? Did you gain any new abilities?"
"I can disintegrate matter." Xiao Mu raised his right hand, palm down, and aimed it at the ice beneath his feet. Black light flashed at his fingertips, and a palm-sized chunk of ice vanished without a sound, replaced by a puff of white vapor that the sea breeze scattered. "For example, I can turn ice into gas."
"A transformation between matter's solid, liquid, and gaseous states?" Mu Ye ventured, drawing on his rudimentary knowledge of physics.
But he still underestimated Xiao Mu's ability. The ice had indeed vaporized, but it hadn't become water vapor. It had become oxygen and hydrogen.
"More or less. The ability is versatile and practical. At the very least, I can already ignore most defenses." Xiao Mu's left hand flashed as he tried to recombine the vapor he had just disintegrated into ice.
A translucent crystal formed in his palm, its crooked edges tinted yellow. It wasn't ice, but some kind of sulfur-containing compound.
He frowned and tossed the failed product into the sea.
"Judging by your physical condition, that was at least a golden awakening. Remember, use it sparingly." Mu Ye patted Xiao Mu's shoulder. "This thing consumes your life force."
"I know." Xiao Mu hadn't used it much, either. Three minutes of use cost him a hundred and eighty seconds of his lifespan—a slightly bad deal.
This ability was somewhat like healing and annihilation, a variation of his parents' abilities.
It placed an even greater burden on his mental power, and it seemed my mental power was restricting its control over microscopic properties. Once my mental power reached a certain level, I might be able to control disintegration and reconstruction at the quantum level.
When that happened, I would take control of the order of this world. I would be a god!
Xiao Mu was almost certain that his Martial Soul could undergo the legendary Martial Soul Third Awakening as well.
Only a handful of disciples from the Body Sect could achieve that.
As far as he remembered, the only one who had managed it was Mu Ye's eldest disciple, A Ruheng.
Xiao Mu lowered his right hand, and the black light in his palm slowly faded. "Sect Master Mu Ye, we should head back, too. Na'er will start worrying if we don't."
"True. The Evil Spirit Orcas can wait. We'll come back later. Once we're back, I'll boil down some whale oil for you, and there'll be Whale Rubber to eat, too. At your age, it shouldn't have any side effects."
Mu Ye nodded. Soul Power spread beneath his feet, enveloping them both as they sped toward the island.
Hearing Mu Ye mention Whale Rubber, Xiao Mu recalled its side effects. It was probably a lot like Viagra. It had originally been used to treat heart disease, and its side effect was, well, that.
On the island, Na'er stood atop a reef, her silver eyes fixed on the horizon without a blink.
She spotted two dark specks flying toward her, climbed down from the reef, and ran across the sand to the water's edge.
Mu Ye landed, and Xiao Mu followed, stepping onto the beach. He glanced at Na'er, lifting his chin slightly and pressing his lips tightly together, but his eyes were a little red. That wall of waves had clearly frightened him.
She threw herself into Xiao Mu's arms. "Brother, are you all right? Are you hurt?"
"Relax. Your brother just drank too much dihydrogen monoxide, ate a little sodium chloride, and got some hydrogen oxide on his skin. I guess I'm hooked now—I can't live without it." Xiao Mu patted Na'er's little head.
"Huh? Brother, can you quit?" Na'er looked worried. "You're not going to die, are you?"
Xiao Mu tapped Na'er on her little head. "Aren't these things listed in the catalog in my lab? I drank some water and ate some salt. How could anything happen to me?"
Na'er covered her head and listened to Xiao Mu's explanation, looking a little aggrieved. What kind of terms were those? Wasn't he just fooling her, a helpless ordinary person?
Still, the words sounded awfully familiar. Hadn't he fooled Gu Yue like that before?
Gu Yue was just as foolish as I am, so it was fine.
"You can make do on the island tonight. I'll take you back to Heaven Dou City tomorrow. You're not in any hurry to get back to school anyway."
Mu Ye explained, "Tonight, I'll prepare some whale meat for you and find a few other ingredients. Then I'll arrange a feast for you in Heaven Dou City."
Meanwhile, in Heaven Dou City.
Gu Yue was still there. In no hurry to return, she stood in a Heaven Dou Spirit Pagoda laboratory, watching the creation of Artificial Soul Spirits through the glass.
The liquid in the cultivation tank glowed a deep blue, and an unformed Soul Spirit slowly turned within it.
Leng Yaozhu stood behind her, the deep blue light reflected in her red eyes.
"Not in a hurry to go back?" Leng Yaozhu asked. "The semester has already started."
"It's fine. As long as I return before the Sky Sea Alliance Grand Competition, which affects the academy's honor, there won't be a problem." Gu Yue's voice was calm. She also knew the main purpose behind establishing Class Zero.
She wanted to first understand how Artificial Soul Spirits were made, from the underlying principles to the production process, and learn every step. Only by understanding it all could she truly help the Soul Beast Clan.
She had no idea that someone was about to come to the Spirit Pagoda to freeload a Soul Spirit and take it back to reverse-engineer it.