After obtaining the Blue Silver Emperor Right Leg Bone, Yang Fan's Soul Power rose by three levels, all of them making up for his Innate Soul Power deficiency.
In the original story, when Tang San obtained this Soul Bone, his Soul Power didn't increase by even one level. It only nourished his meridians and helped him open the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
Yang Fan didn't have the Mysterious Heaven Skill and knew nothing about the body's meridians, so opening the Eight Extraordinary Meridians was out of the question. But the Soul Bone had nourished and restored most of his Martial Soul's innate deficiencies.
Combined with a First Soul Ring that surpassed the Grandmaster's supposed maximum age limit, he had now become a Soul Master with Innate Soul Power at level six and Soul Power at level fifteen.
A Soul Bone could actually be this miraculous.
No wonder a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone was known as one of the three greatest treasures of a Soul Master.
What was more, this Soul Bone came with two skills: Flight and Spring Breeze Blows and Regenerates.
One came from the Blue Silver Grass Clan's seed dispersal, the other from the Blue Silver Emperor's abundant Life force.
Yang Fan was pleasantly surprised by the improvements the Soul Bone had brought him. At first, he hadn't expected much from it.
In the Douluo series, this Soul Bone was undoubtedly the worst performer.
Other Soul Bones were either mechanism monsters like Ice Explosion Technique or stat monsters like the Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear. Soul Bones that simply granted future abilities ahead of time, like Flight and Life force, weren't very appealing. If Soul Beast age limits in Douluo I hadn't been so conservative, this Soul Bone would hardly have deserved a place among the protagonist's signature gear.
Only after absorbing it did Yang Fan realize that on the surface it was a Soul Bone, but in reality, it was the essence of an Immortal Herb.
In the original story, its effect on the Martial Soul hadn't been obvious because the protagonist had already awakened the Blue Silver Emperor Bloodline and had developed a tolerance after using several Immortal Herbs. But for a Soul Master with innate deficiencies, this was a powerful tonic.
Though it occupied a Soul Bone slot, it wasn't in either of the two most important positions: the head or torso. If he ever found a more suitable one, he could just replace it. Wasn't that exactly what Spring Breeze Blows and Regenerates was for?
He'd even wondered whether he could exploit a bug and turn the Soul Bone into a reusable Immortal Herb, but he was quickly disappointed.
Just like with other Soul Bones, those extra improvements only came with the first absorption. If it changed owners afterward, it wouldn't trigger that energy surge again; it would only provide the Soul Bone's basic attributes.
That made sense. If Soul Bones could be passed down perfectly, why would there be so few Titled Douluo among the royal families and sects? Apart from External Soul Bones, ordinary Soul Bones dropped when their owners died.
A complete set of Ten Thousand Year Soul Bones could turn a good-for-nothing into a genius, or a genius into someone with the makings of a god.
Yang Fan sorted through what he'd gained from his training and couldn't resist poking Ah Yin by the window.
The Blue Silver Grass leaves swayed, looking a little bashful.
"Are you the Blue Silver Emperor or a bashful plant?"
Yang Fan teased her.
"Bad!"
Through the Heart of Eros in his sea of consciousness, Yang Fan could clearly sense Ah Yin's emotions.
"Your Soul Bone absorption went so smoothly this time. You must have helped, right? You didn't even think about secretly informing Tang Hao. Have you made up your mind?"
Before cultivating, Yang Fan had feared Ah Yin might run off, so he'd briefly told her how Tang Hao had plotted against her and how her son had been possessed by a transmigrator, leaving her to process it herself.
The method of earning her trust was simple: reveal that he was a transmigrator.
If you found an ant in your house, it wouldn't be strange if two appeared later, or even a hundred.
"I'll go see for myself. I'll also keep your secret."
Ah Yin had thought about it for a long time before replying to Yang Fan like that.
After her mind awakened, the one who'd sacrificed her had only wanted her power, and her beloved child had been possessed by an outsider. It had been a devastating blow for Ah Yin.
Yang Fan wasn't in a hurry. Breaking through Ah Yin's defenses wouldn't be easy.
But as long as he kept her close, he'd have his chance.
He'd been excited when he first transmigrated to this world, especially after learning that it was Douluo—a world that wasn't too dangerous, yet offered the possibility of immortality.
Year after year, day after day, loneliness had inevitably accompanied him, an orphan raised by everyone in Shambhala Village.
It had been especially bad four years ago, when his Martial Soul Awakening revealed that he was a good-for-nothing, worse than Yu Xiaogang. He'd truly felt like giving up on everything.
Fortunately, there was always a way out. A five-hundred-year-old First Soul Ring, a hundred-thousand-year-old First Soul Bone, the Heart of Eros—the foundation for becoming a god. Everything told him that immortality wasn't beyond his reach.
And now that he had Ah Yin, he had a companion, too.
A gentle girl who wouldn't run off—in every way, the perfect girlfriend, except for that damned Tang Hao in her past life. But her past life was her past life. Was the reborn Ah Yin really the same Ah Yin?
Rather than Ah Yin, she was more like a daughter who'd inherited Ah Yin's memories.
Of course, for now that was only Yang Fan's one-sided thought. Ah Yin had no idea this transmigrator's mind was such a tangled mess.
A few days later, big news came from the neighboring Holy Soul Village.
Someone had smashed the waterfall upstream from Holy Soul Village to pieces.
Literally smashed it. A gigantic hammer imprint had been left at the scene, with rubble scattered everywhere, some of it blocking the waterway.
To protect the crops in their fields, the surrounding villages had all pitched in to clear the waterway.
Yang Fan was one of those working on it.
Was this the strength of a Titled Douluo?
People liked to joke about Douluo's low fantasy ceiling, but even that level of power was unimaginable to modern people.
Thankfully, he'd covered his tracks and staged a scene that only an expert could have created. Otherwise, given Tang Hao's temperament, it wouldn't have been impossible for him to slaughter all the nearby villages and towns.
With Tang San and Hu Liena not yet on the scene and Tang Chen reduced to a puppet, Bibi Dong and Tang Hao were the most notorious killers on the continent. Bibi Dong was still lying low as she plotted her revenge, but Tang Hao's reputation as a god of slaughter had been blazing across the land five or six years earlier.
By day, he cleared the waterway. By night, he cultivated and grew closer to Ah Yin. Just like that, a week passed.
The waterway was cleared, and the waterfall—with its hammer imprint still visible—became a new attraction.
After some discussion, Holy Soul Village, Shambhala Village, Grass Chicken Village, and the other villages named the previously unknown waterfall Title Waterfall.
In their eyes, only a Titled Douluo could have such tremendous power.
They had to admit, their wild guess had hit the mark. And it wasn't just any Titled Douluo, but the Clear Sky Douluo, the one hunted by Spirit Hall.
"One man smashed Spirit Hall to bits! I'm Tang Hao. Remember that."
Perhaps the power Ah Yin had sacrificed was why he wasn't in a hurry to capture Xiao Wu, instead letting her grow close to his strange son as he tried to recreate his own experience.
...Was Tang San later so rough on Huo Yuhao because of the power Xiao Wu sacrificed, too?
Without the burden of keeping watch over Ah Yin, Tang Hao had now turned all his attention to Xiao Wu. Yang Fan had reached this conclusion by observing the area: while clearing the waterway, he often went to Shambhala Village to find people to repair his tools.
If Tang Hao had still been around, Old Jack wouldn't have gone out of his way to seek help elsewhere. It seemed nine times out of ten that Tang Hao had left Holy Soul Village to focus on raising Tang San.
Yang Fan wondered whether Tang Hao would interfere with the experiments the Grandmaster conducted on Tang San.
A perfectly good support-type Martial Soul with top-tier Life force had been turned into a poison-type one focused on control.
He probably wouldn't... If he'd really wanted to interfere, he wouldn't have stood by and done nothing in the original story. Nor would he have let Tang San obtain an offensive Soul Skill when helping him form his Soul Ring.
With Ah Yin in hand and Tang Hao gone, Yang Fan wasn't in the least bit anxious. He planned to hide in plain sight, stay in this backwater, grow closer to Ah Yin, and start his first transmigration as soon as possible.
He just didn't know what the Heart of Eros considered true love.