Soul Power, Rank One

The martial soul awakening ceremony had ended, but the mockery had yet to die down.

"Rank-one soul power? Hahaha! What a disgrace to White Tiger Duke's Manor!"

"That's what I thought. What kind of talent could some bastard who can't even show his face possibly have?"

Huo Yuhao kept his head lowered, turning a deaf ear to the pointing and murmuring around him. He perfectly played the part of a devastated, timid, helpless boy.

The Duke's wife, Zhu Ruyi, approached him with graceful steps. With her luxurious sleeve embroidered with golden phoenix patterns, she gently brushed away dust that did not exist from his shoulder.

"Good boy, don't be sad. It doesn't matter if your soul power is low. Just stay in the manor and behave from now on. As long as I have food to eat, you won't go hungry."

Her voice was so gentle it seemed capable of dripping water, yet Huo Yuhao felt a bone-chilling cold.

Go on, keep acting.

He sneered inwardly, but forced an expression even uglier than crying onto his face. He looked exactly like a pitiful wretch whose dreams had been crushed by reality.

Only he knew that the declaration of "rank-one soul power" had sounded like heavenly music to him!

At the moment his martial soul awakened, an immense spiritual power that no one else could detect had surged through his sea of consciousness like an awakening beast, stirring up towering waves.

His martial soul was not some useless trash martial soul at all.

It was the Spirit Eyes.

An exceptionally rare body martial soul, scarcely even recorded in ancient texts. It was only because his body was too frail and malnourished that his soul power had amounted to merely rank one.

Not a single person present recognized its value.

That was tremendously beneficial to his plans going forward.

Looking "utterly despondent," Huo Yuhao turned around and silently headed toward the small courtyard in the most remote corner of the Duke's Manor amid discussions filled with either sympathy or disdain.

Passing through the rock gardens and around the corridors, he deliberately kept his head down and staggered along.

Then, the world before his eyes suddenly became somewhat different.

An odd sensation came from his eyes, as though he had put on a pair of high-tech X-ray glasses.

Subconsciously, he glanced at a guard standing nearby on watch.

The next second, his breath caught.

The guard's clothes, skin, flesh, and blood peeled away layer by layer before his eyes, leaving behind only a ghastly white skeleton and... a poisoned dagger hidden against his chest.

What the hell?

Huo Yuhao was shaken to the core and hurriedly withdrew the ability.

Suppressing the turmoil in his heart, he continued forward as if nothing had happened while secretly pushing the power of his Spirit Eyes to the limit.

This time, he "saw" even more clearly.

One behind the rock garden to his left. One atop the corridor on his right. There was even one in a pavilion a hundred meters behind him!

A full three guards had him firmly locked down in a triangular formation.

This was not protection. This was goddamn round-the-clock surveillance with no blind spots!

His situation was a hundred times worse than he had imagined!

"Creak—"

Huo Yuhao pushed open the dilapidated wooden door and returned to his crude room, which was practically comparable to a woodshed.

He slid the bolt into place behind him and leaned against the door, his heart pounding wildly.

Calm down. I have to stay calm.

He took a deep breath and activated his Spirit Eyes martial soul once more.

This time, he targeted the room he was in.

Vision Penetration!

The mottled plaster, bluish bricks, and packed-earth structure within... everything became incomparably clear.

His vision continued to deepen, passing through the walls. He saw the neighboring room, the tangled drainage pipes underground, and even a secret chamber deep within the manor that he had never visited!

The entire architectural layout of White Tiger Duke's Manor was rapidly taking shape in his mind as a three-dimensional map.

This ability was practically a divine skill for infiltration and reconnaissance!

Just as he was about to withdraw the ability, an unusual structure caught his attention.

It was inside the wall directly opposite the head of his bed.

The arrangement of the bricks there was subtly different. Inside was a hollow space.

A hidden compartment!

Huo Yuhao's heart skipped a beat. He immediately rushed over to the wall and, following the structure he had "seen" with his Spirit Eyes, began feeling around and knocking on it.

"Tap, tap, tap."

Three long, two short.

"Click."

With a soft sound, a wall brick slowly sank inward, revealing a pitch-black opening.

He reached inside and felt a cold iron box.

When he opened it, he found a stack of yellowed manuscripts and an ancient black pendant strung on a red cord.

They were his mother's belongings!

Huo Yuhao's hands trembled as he unfolded the manuscripts.

His mother's elegant handwriting came into view, but what it recorded was not any warm daily life—it was a shocking account of secrets within the manor.

"March 7th. Zhu Ruyi sent blood swallow's nest. After consuming it, I often felt fatigued in the afternoons."

"April 15th. Dai Huaheng met secretly with the Second Prince. The captain of the guards was present."

"May 20th. Zhu Ruyi visited again. In her words, she probed whether I had hidden 'that thing.' She hid a blade behind her smile and was deeply calculating. I must be on guard."

Every entry, every detail, was his mother's careful observation of the manor's internal power structure and her suspicions about Zhu Ruyi's true nature!

So his mother had noticed the danger long ago!

She had not died of illness. She had been silently plotted against, step by step, until she was pushed into the abyss!

An indescribable grief, fury, and killing intent surged madly from the depths of Huo Yuhao's heart.

He clenched the manuscripts tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.

Just then, his fingertips accidentally touched the ancient pendant.

"Buzz—!"

An indescribably strange energy, like a celestial river pouring down from the nine heavens, surged wildly through his fingertips and into his brain!

Boom!

Huo Yuhao felt as if his head were about to explode. The world before him was instantly swallowed by endless white light.

When he "opened" his eyes again, he found himself in a grand, pure-white hall stretching infinitely into the distance.

There was nothing here—absolute silence, absolute rationality.

[Thought Palace, activated.]

A vast, emotionless voice echoed in his mind.

The next moment, all the information in his mind regarding his mother's manuscripts, as well as everything he knew about this world, was broken down into countless flashing streams of data that rapidly processed, reorganized, and analyzed themselves within the hall.

[Intelligence Entry: Mother's Manuscripts]

[Related Individual: Zhu Ruyi]

[Behavioral Analysis: Regular visits, gifts of medicinal soups, verbal probing]

[Logical Deduction: Chronic poisoning, probability 97.8%]

The icy conclusion pierced through the last shred of his fantasy like a sharp sword.

Immediately afterward, even more information was brought into the analysis.

[Power Analysis: White Tiger Duke's Manor]

[Core Conflict: Succession dispute]

[Variable: Huo Yuhao (illegitimate son, Level One soul power, threat level 0.1%)]

High-speed simulated deductions began within the hall.

[Simulated Scenario One: Huo Yuhao reveals the talent of his Spirit Eyes martial soul]

[Deduction Result: Threatens Dai Huaheng's position in the line of succession -> Zhu Ruyi initiates an elimination plan -> Huo Yuhao's survival rate falls below 1%]

[Simulated Scenario Two: Huo Yuhao maintains the "good-for-nothing" persona]

[Deduction Result: Regarded as a useless pawn, temporarily safe, gains time to develop.]

So that was it!

The identity of a "good-for-nothing" was his greatest shield at present!

The moment he showed any hint of brilliance, what would follow was certain to be a devastating, fatal disaster!

He had to continue being a top-tier schemer, quietly accumulating strength in the shadows.

The night gradually deepened.

Huo Yuhao lay on his bed with his eyes tightly shut, yet his Spirit Eyes pierced through layer after layer of walls and precisely locked onto the Duchess's chambers.

He saw Zhu Ruyi whispering with one of her trusted confidants.

They were too far away for him to hear clearly.

But he concentrated his spiritual power to the utmost and poured it into his Spirit Eyes.

Fragmented voices, like radio signals, entered his mind.

"...That little bastard... his martial soul has awakened... He'll be a problem eventually..."

"Rest assured, Madam. He's just a useless boy with first-rank soul power. It would be far too easy to arrange an 'accident' for him."

"Mm. Make sure it's clean."

Huo Yuhao abruptly withdrew his Spirit Eyes, his entire body drenched in cold sweat.

An accident?

What a fine accident!

He slowly sat up and looked at his childish palm in the ghastly moonlight spilling through the window.

Then his five fingers suddenly clenched, curling into a tight fist.