After Xu Zhiyuan stated the terms of the wager, Xiao Ran did not respond immediately. He first turned his gaze to Xiao Cheng, without the slightest trace of urge or worry in his eyes, but a simple question: do you accept?
Xiao Cheng met his father's gaze for a fleeting second, gave a slight nod, and did not hesitate.
Fifty-ninth rank versus eightieth rank, separated by the major hurdle of a Soul Saint, a full twenty-one ranks of soul power gap. In the cognition of any normal soul master on the Douluo Continent, such a fight could be directly described with the four words "courting humiliation." Yet Xiao Cheng knew very well in his heart that the weight of his fifty-ninth rank was far from something surface numbers could measure.
During the Federation-wide Grand Tournament, his combat power without wearing battle armor was already enough to rival a normal Soul Saint. Now that the Azure Dragon Tribulation had successfully weathered four tribulations—four transformations, four temperings, each being a foundation exchanged by walking a tightrope on the edge of life and death—his actual combat power was far more terrifying than his level indicated.
The Wind Tribulation strengthened his aura and the connection to his limbs and bones, comprehensively enhancing his reaction speed and physical coordination, turning every trace of airflow anomaly on the battlefield into his intuition.
The Water Tribulation endowed his soul power with a swamp-like swallowing and dissolving property; when opponents' offensives landed on him, they inherently carried a sense of stifling "futility."
The Earth Tribulation greatly enhanced his physical defense, with digestion, anti-poison, and anti-erosion capabilities far surpassing those of the same tier, making him thick-skinned enough to be called a humanoid shield.
The Fire Tribulation endowed him with surging, furnace-like blood qi, which not only had an