Xiao Mu: Gu Yue, I am your elder

Gu Yue perceived Xiao Mu's thoughts, and the gaze she directed toward him carried a hint of malice.

Xiao Mu remained completely oblivious, or perhaps he noticed but chose to pretend he hadn't.

Leng Yaozhu withdrew her gaze and looked at Xiao Mu. "What brings you to the Spirit Pagoda?"

"I'm here to buy a Soul Spirit!" Xiao Mu's tone was frank.

Behind Leng Yaozhu, Gu Yue rolled her eyes in silence. Here he goes again. Does this guy really need to buy a Soul Spirit?

There is definitely some ulterior motive here.

"Do you intend to absorb a Soul Spirit?" Leng Yaozhu asked, puzzled.

"No, any Soul Spirit will do. I'm just taking a look," Xiao Mu replied.

"Then you can just use the lottery machine." Leng Yaozhu didn't care about the fifty thousand; the cost was negligible anyway. "Just follow me."

She turned and walked toward the depths of the hall, her silk shawl fluttering gently behind her. Xiao Mu followed, with Na'er close behind, while Gu Yue walked at the very end, her eyes fixed firmly on Xiao Mu's back.

Passing through two corridors, Leng Yaozhu pushed open a door. The room was not large, and in the center stood a lottery machine.

The machine was entirely silver-white and three meters tall. At the top was a transparent glass dome, inside which dozens of balls were neatly arranged—white ones made up the vast majority, while yellow ones were few and far between.

Below the glass dome was the delivery slot, with a red button embedded on the side.

Xiao Mu walked up to the machine, reached out to touch the casing, and roughly understood the principle.

It was a simple physical structure. The white balls were undoubtedly weighted to stay at the bottom, making them the easiest to drop, while the lighter yellow balls remained in the upper layers.

Naturally, the weight of the white balls could be adjusted based on the quality of the Soul Spirits, and the same applied to the yellow ones.

Coupled with the physical resistance of the turntable, the probability was even lower.

Sure enough, the lottery was the biggest rip-off.

Xiao Mu didn't mention the mechanics; no sane person bets on probability. If you can avoid gambling, do so—it's bad for your health, especially when you know the game is rigged.

Leng Yaozhu leaned against the door frame, arms crossed. "Go ahead."

Xiao Mu nodded, his hand glowing faintly as he secretly performed a task.

Using his less-than-proficient Martial Soul ability, he applied downward and upward forces to the yellow and white balls, respectively.

Xiao Mu pressed the button.

A sound of gears turning emanated from within the machine, and the balls inside the glass dome began to churn. A yellow ball rolled out from the pile, slid down the track, and dropped into the delivery slot with a thud.

Leng Yaozhu raised an eyebrow slightly. The yellow ball represented a century-old Soul Spirit, and its drop rate was set extremely low; an ordinary person might not win one even after a hundred tries.

Although she wasn't privy to the inner workings, she was well aware that this machine had been tampered with. It was the most deceptive thing in the Spirit Pagoda.

This kid hit the jackpot on his first try. Quite lucky.

In reality, he had simply added a bit of gravity to the lightest ball and applied a downward force.

Xiao Mu reached into the delivery slot, fished out the yellow ball, and tossed it in his palm. There was no surprise or smugness on his face.

After all, he had obtained it by cheating.

How could a normal person win? He didn't know the exact odds, but he roughly estimated that the probability of a century-old Soul Spirit appearing was similar to getting a five-star drop in the original game.

"Big sister, this was just pure luck. How could anyone be that lucky!"

He said awkwardly to the others.

"Who says so? Brother, your luck is the best!" Na'er said excitedly. "Don't you win the grand prize every time you buy a lottery ticket?"

Xiao Mu chuckled. "That's because you're the lucky one."

He hadn't forgotten that Na'er was a Lancer; he needed to hedge against this luck, or he would easily end up suffering a setback.

Xiao Mu spun the yellow ball one last time on his fingertip before flipping his hand to store it in his storage Soul Tool.

This was something he would study in the future. Once he reverse-engineered the construction of the Artificial Soul Spirits, he could overthrow the Spirit Pagoda.

As he thought this, he decided to order Zero to take this opportunity to hack more data and laboratory footage from the Spirit Pagoda.

Once he returned to Shrek City and built his laboratory, the first thing he would research would be... well, he should probably start with fission.

If he encountered danger, Shrek Academy would take the heat.

He would provide remote guidance, though he needed to upgrade the Federation's communication technology to achieve zero latency.

He patted the storage Soul Tool containing the Soul Spirit ball and looked up at Leng Yaozhu with a smile.

"Thank you, beautiful lady."

"It's nothing, it's not worth much." Leng Yaozhu didn't mind; she had no ill will toward this child.

"By the way, I remember you helped the Federation upgrade their communication technology."

"I did?"

"Then do you know what's going on with the lack of signal here in the Spirit Pagoda? It seems like even the Tang Sect headquarters and Shrek Academy have no connection now."

"I do!"

"What's the situation?"

Xiao Mu thought carefully for a moment before saying, "I didn't get what was mine, so I revoked the authorized technology. You were using it for free before; now that you have to pay, it's perfectly reasonable."

Leng Yaozhu was stunned for a moment, then asked, "Are you talking about... the Soul Bone?"

"That's right." Xiao Mu sounded righteous, "I can choose not to want it, but you cannot choose not to give it to me!"

Leng Yaozhu pondered; the value of a thousand-year Soul Bone compared to the current losses of the Spirit Pagoda was almost equivalent to a ten-thousand-year Soul Bone.

It would have to be at least fifty thousand years to start, after all, from this era onwards, every ten-thousand-year increase in a Soul Bone's age was a different tier of value.

A Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone was even more of a priceless treasure.

"When will you be over it?" Leng Yaozhu was speechless. Although Qiangu Dongfeng was being sanctioned now, the Leng family shouldn't be implicated as well.

"That depends on Qiangu Dongfeng's attitude. I've been waiting for nearly three months, and I've only seen him once. At the time, he didn't even look at me properly," Xiao Mu recalled.

Of course, this was the truth; Qiangu Dongfeng had been beaten so badly he couldn't open his eyes, so there was no way he could have looked at Xiao Mu.

Hearing this, Leng Yaozhu couldn't help but feel that Qiangu Dongfeng must have lost his mind. The other party was, after all, the Vast Sea Douluo, the Divine Pen Douluo, someone whom a whole host of Douluos in the Federation wanted to protect.

Although his behavior was a bit extreme, he was still just a child, so it was understandable.

After all, in a child's world, there was no worldly wisdom; rules took up a much larger share.

Moreover, why would you talk about worldly wisdom with this kid? With his talent, he would at least be a Super Douluo in the future.

Gu Yue stepped forward and stood beside Leng Yaozhu. Upon hearing Xiao Mu's words, she frowned slightly and suddenly spoke up: "Are you not afraid of the Spirit Transmission Douluo?"

The current Pagoda Master of the Spirit Pagoda, the Spirit Transmission Douluo, was someone who truly stood at the pinnacle of the continent.

Xiao Mu turned his head to look at her and chuckled.

"Afraid of what! Sooner or later, I will settle the score for him not giving me that Soul Bone. When I have the strength, every time I see his grandson, I'll give him a beating."

As these words fell, a young man undergoing special training at the Spirit Pagoda headquarters couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine, as if he had been targeted by some ferocious beast.

Xiao Mu suddenly thought of something else and said, "Gu Yue, I call your teacher 'Sister,' so I should be your elder. What should you call me!"

"Xiao Mu, don't go too far." Gu Yue's face flushed with embarrassment.

"That's right, Gu Yue, what should you call me?" Na'er suddenly realized that this was a chance to annoy Gu Yue, and she had to get involved one way or another.

"You two!"