What the Heck, a Six-Year-Old?

Fortunately, Tang San finally managed to use the ordinary hammer to conceal the fact that he possessed twin martial souls.

"Next."

Su Yuntao's voice pulled him back to reality.

Su Mo took a deep breath.

Success or failure hinged on this single moment.

Golden light surged, and he could feel something awakening within his body.

An aura that felt entirely out of place in this land slowly emerged.

A phantom condensed behind him.

It caused everyone in the vicinity to hold their breath.

It was a martial soul unlike any other, one that had never appeared before.

It was an old man!

The old man was dressed in simple, ancient robes, wearing a scholar's cap. His face was benevolent, and his eyes were filled with wisdom.

He stood quietly behind Su Mo, his hands tucked into his sleeves.

There was no pressure, no fluctuations of spirit power, yet he gave off an incredibly steady and reassuring presence.

The wooden house fell silent for a moment before erupting into a flurry of discussion.

"What kind of martial soul is that? I've never seen it before."

"A beast soul? But who has an old man as a martial soul? And it doesn't fit the criteria for a body soul either, does it?"

"The strength of a martial soul is closely related to its category. This old man martial soul, even if it isn't a trash soul, can't be very strong."

Tang San glanced at Su Mo's martial soul, then looked away, paying it no mind.

The knowledgeable Su Yuntao did not think highly of this martial soul either. He had seen such phantom-type martial souls before, and their strength was usually tied to the strength of the phantom itself. As far as he could see, this old man didn't even possess spirit power!

Old Jack couldn't help but shake his head. Su Mo was even more pitiful than Tang San; if he could, he really wanted to give the work-study student quota to Su Mo.

But these were all children he had watched grow up; he couldn't break the rules out of personal bias.

Among everyone present, only Su Mo recognized the identity of the phantom old man.

It was none other than the Most Holy Sage, the Teacher of Ten Thousand Generations, the Heaven-Sent Literary Saint from his past life—Confucius!

Unfortunately, these titles were almost useless in the Douluo world, where martial arts were revered and strength was supreme.

It was practically a trash soul.

Though disappointed, Su Mo did not lose heart. As long as he had spirit power, there was a possibility of becoming a spirit master.

Besides, having bowed to the statue of Confucius while following his old headmaster in his past life, he could barely be considered half a student.

He took a deep breath, composed himself, and bowed solemnly.

"Student Su Mo, greets the Master."

This bow was for his past life, for the Most Holy Sage who had shaped his spiritual world.

The very instant he bent his waist:

"Why is it that in this world, there exists a trace of my bloodline?"

The voice did not enter through his ears; it exploded directly in the depths of his soul!

Su Mo felt his vision blur, and the scene of the surrounding ancestral hall faded away like a receding tide.

He found himself standing above the clouds, with a rolling sea of clouds beneath his feet and the vast starry sky overhead.

And before him, the originally gentle statue of Confucius was undergoing a world-shaking transformation.

The statue expanded at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning into a hundred-foot giant!

The simple robes transformed into a brilliant golden holy garment, and the benevolent face became incomparably majestic. Those once-gentle eyes slowly opened, within which stars seemed to be born and die, and civilizations rose and fell.

The Sage looked down at him, his gaze piercing through flesh and blood to look directly into the depths of his soul, penetrating Su Mo's past, present, and future.

"Interesting."

The holy voice rumbled, each word causing Su Mo's soul to tremble.

"You sacrificed yourself to save another; this is Benevolence."

In Su Mo's mind, the moment he used his body to shield Lin Xiaowu as he fell flashed by.

"In your past life, you followed your heart to do what you believed was right; this is Righteousness."

He saw flashes of himself returning to his alma mater to teach, living on a meager salary while doing his utmost to send every child to university.

"In a foreign world, you bowed upon seeing my image; this is Propriety."

He saw flashes of himself respecting his elders and cherishing his teachers.

"At six years old, you knew how to read, could write books to earn money, and could educate others; this is Wisdom."

He saw flashes of the vast sea of books in his past life's library, the lines of ink written by his hand in this life, and the shining eyes of the children as they listened to him tell stories.

"At six years old, you already understood how to earn money to save your mother; this is filial piety."

Images flashed through his mind: staying up late to copy books, leading the Big Black Ox through the streets to rent them out, and his mother's gentle smile as she sat in the wheelchair he had built for her.

"Facing a sea of fire, you still chose to run against the current; this is courage."

He saw the towering flames of the library and the moment he had plunged into the smoke to save others.

A glimmer of satisfaction flashed in the Saint's eyes.

"Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, filial piety, and courage—you possess them all!"

"Not bad, I fancy you!"

The sudden shift to colloquial language caught Su Mo off guard, but the changes that followed left him no time to think.

"Since you carry my bloodline, I shall bestow upon you my peak divine ability—the Saintly Body of Virtue."

"I hope you will spread my knowledge and the path of virtue throughout this world, to educate all under heaven."

As the final word of the Saint's voice fell, the hundred-foot giant transformed into endless holy light, surging into Su Mo's body with a roar!

"Boom!"

In the ancestral hall of the real world, everyone witnessed a miraculous sight: the previously gentle phantom of the old man suddenly erupted with a brilliant golden light too dazzling to look at!

Within the radiance, the phantom transformed into a golden torrent, madly pouring into Su Mo's small, thin body.

"Hmph!" Su Mo let out a muffled groan of pain.

His body began to change violently within the golden light; his bones cracked like thunder, and his muscles bulged like rising rock!

The six-year-old child's frame expanded at a terrifying speed, his clothes shredded into fragments in an instant.

His height shot up crazily.

One meter five, one meter eight, two meters, two meters two!

When the golden light slowly dissipated, the ancestral hall fell into a deathly silence.

Su Yuntao instinctively took a step back, tilting his head up, his pupils contracting violently.

He stood one meter eight tall, considered burly even in Notting City.

But now, his line of sight reached only the other's chest.

What kind of body was this?

Two meters two tall, with shoulders nearly as wide as the hall's door frame. Every muscle was like refined steel tempered a thousand times, clearly defined yet brimming with explosive power, with a faint golden luster flowing beneath the skin.

And most shocking of all, on that back as broad as a door panel, the bulging, ferocious muscles naturally formed an ancient seal script character.

"Virtue"!

But this "Virtue" character lacked any scholarly weakness. It was like a battle flag, a brand, or a declaration left by some primordial beast, filled with a primitive, overwhelming sense of power.

Yet, atop this terrifying physique sat a face.

A face belonging to a six-year-old child.

Round cheeks, clear, large eyes, and lips slightly pouted from pain and shock.

This face formed an absurd, visually jarring contrast with the muscular giant body below.

"Waa... waaaaah!" A child finally couldn't hold it in anymore and burst into loud, terrified sobs.

The crying was like a lit fuse; the children screamed and scrambled toward the exit, throwing the ancestral hall into chaos.

Su Yuntao's Adam's apple bobbed as he stared fixedly at that childish face, his voice sounding dry and foreign: "Old Jack... you, say it again, how old is Su Mo?"

Old Jack was also stunned, trembling as he replied, "Six, six years old, My Lord Deacon, Su Mo just turned six this year..."

"Six years old?" Su Yuntao pointed at the wall of muscle, his voice rising an octave. "This is a damn six-year-old?!"