On the Eve of the Semifinals

The next day.

Li Ziming was awakened by Mu Ye early in the morning and called downstairs to assemble. Once the guards Zhenhua had prepared for him had gathered, he followed Mu Ye to the competition venue.

Although Li Ziming knew that, after he had exposed his Eight-Star forging abilities at the Skysea Grand Tournament yesterday, the major factions would certainly send their higher-ups to probe and recruit him, he had still underestimated the twists and turns in those old foxes' minds. He had not expected them to be so troublesome, leaving him without even enough time to recover from the strain of forging.

Thus, on the way to the Skysea Grand Tournament, Li Ziming could not help yawning.

Seeing this, Mu Ye teased him. "What's this? Our Eight-Star Saint Craftsman didn't rest well?"

"Uncle Mu, please stop teasing me. Who knew those old foxes would be so hard to deal with? They kept spouting the same empty platitudes and even wanted to introduce me to potential marriage partners. If you hadn't arrived in time, I probably still wouldn't have gotten away."

"Hahahaha, young man, you have to endure the trouble you brought upon yourself, even if you have to cry through it. Still, I thought those girls they introduced to you were pretty good. Aren't you going to consider it?"

"Forget it. Everyone knows what they're after. Their abacus beads were practically flying into my face. I'm not that foolish." Li Ziming curled his lip.

Mu Ye nodded approvingly. "Mm, not bad, kid. You haven't gotten carried away."

"Enough about that. Uncle Mu, weren't you planning to take on a disciple? Why aren't you looking for Zuo Qiu Lun? Don't let someone else snatch him away in the end."

"Don't worry. I arranged for disciples to keep an eye on him. No matter how impatient I am, I still need to see that child's strength and background.

"Besides, I'm the mighty sect master of the Body Sect, a peerless powerhouse qualified to sit at the same table as the master of War God Hall. Would I rush over to take in a disciple? How embarrassing would that be!

"Once that kid finishes his match, I'll show him what I can do. Then he'll bow his head and beg to become my disciple. Wouldn't that make for a fine tale? Hahahahaha!" The more Mu Ye spoke, the harder he laughed.

"Fine. As long as you're happy."

Before long, the group arrived at the competition venue.

Today was the semifinals of the Skysea Grand Tournament's individual competition. Thanks to Li Ziming's star appeal, the tournament's popularity had climbed once more. Teachers and students from the various academies, along with the spectators in the stadium, all waited eagerly for the first finalist to emerge.

"Dear viewers, welcome to the Skysea Grand Tournament! After several days of fierce competition, the individual event is nearing its end. The four contestants who have entered the final stage are,

"the peerless genius contestant Zhou Mingyu from the Tianhai Spirit Pagoda.

"Contestant Zuo Qiu Lun, whose origins remain a mystery and whose combat power is extraordinary,

"as well as contestant Lie Hongchen from the Sun-Moon Royal Soul Master Academy, and contestant Qian Gu Fengjin from the Qian Gu Family, both young Spirit Kings."

The match was about to begin. Zuo Qiu Lun had been scheduled for the first round, making him the first of the four individual-event competitors to fight.

His opponent was Lie Hongchen, a five-ring Spirit King with the Three-Legged Golden Toad Martial Soul. It was said that he was also a Level-Five Soul Engineer.

"Kid, do you think he can win this one?" Mu Ye asked Li Ziming as he watched the two onstage.

"Don't worry, Uncle Mu. He'll definitely win."

As he looked at the silent Zuo Qiu Lun standing on the stage, he could not help recalling how much effort they had put into creating Zuo Qiu Lun's avatar.

When Liu Tianran had been constructing his fourth avatar, Zuo Qiu Lun, one question had occupied his thoughts for a long time: what kind of Martial Soul should he give him?

He had considered giving him, like the earlier avatars, an elemental tool-type Martial Soul with outstanding attributes, but he always felt that would be a waste of this opportunity.

After all, he already had Li Ziming and Zhou Mingyu, two combat-oriented elemental tool-type Martial Souls with top-tier attributes, as well as a healing Soul Master like Xie Jiayun, whose top-tier life-attribute Martial Soul was the Tree of Life.

He also had no plans to create an Auxiliary System Soul Master avatar at this point. As an Auxiliary System Soul Master himself, he knew that within those major factions, even highly talented Auxiliary System Soul Masters found it difficult to gain the attention and wholehearted cultivation of the upper echelons during their early development.

After all, when most factions chose successors, they required an heir whose combat power could support the faction's future. No matter how outstanding an Auxiliary System Soul Master might be, even if they received cultivation and attention, at most they would be placed beside the faction heir to "study alongside the crown prince," trained as a second-in-command.

Soul Master factions like the Nine Treasures Glazed Sect, where Auxiliary System Soul Masters held the reins, were absolute anomalies among anomalies.

Rather than calling it a sect, it was more accurate to call it an alliance of multiple families centered around the Ning Family.

Its survival to this day relied on the powerful amplification of the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda Martial Soul, the formidable sect retainers recruited by its masters over the past ten thousand years, and the lingering prestige of Ning Rongrong and her husband becoming gods twenty thousand years ago.

However, with the disappearance of the God Realm and the emergence of Battle Armor in recent years,

the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda Soul Masters, restricted to only seven rings of cultivation, had suffered a severe decline in status and prestige when compared to the exceptional amplification effects of other support-type Martial Soul Masters wearing Four-Word Battle Armor.

Moreover, in a family faction, outsiders found it difficult to reach the core upper ranks. Therefore, Liu Tianran gave up on that idea, at least for the time being.

But if he created another avatar with the same role as the others, it would be somewhat counterproductive for Liu Tianran, whose resource reserves had only just entered their initial stage.

In the end, to solve this problem, Liu Tianran could only begin searching through biographies and records of powerful figures from Douluo Continent, hoping to find a suitable Martial Soul choice for his fourth avatar.

However, during his research, Liu Tianran discovered a pattern. During the eras of Douluo One and Douluo Two, most powerful figures on the continent had beast-type Martial Souls. But ever since the appearance of Spirit Souls ten thousand years ago, Soul Masters' demand for spiritual power had risen. As their research deepened, the proportion of tool-type Martial Soul users among the powerful began to increase rapidly.

Benefiting from the development of spiritual power cultivation methods, experts who followed the path of spiritual intent began to emerge. Tool-type Martial Soul powerhouses also developed their own Martial Soul intents and domains, increasing their combat strength and, in turn, their share among the powerful.

Over the past several thousand years, the enhancements Battle Armor brought to Soul Masters had further compensated for the physical frailty of tool-type Martial Soul users, causing their proportion among the powerful to explode.

Yet throughout this evolution, one type of Martial Soul Master had remained especially unique: Body Martial Soul Masters. Long before Spirit Souls appeared, the Body Sect had already begun researching the application of the physical body and spiritual power. Even Huo Yuhao's foundational research into spiritual power had been summarized, at least in large part, from the Body Sect's achievements.

This allowed Body Martial Souls to adapt remarkably well to the benefits brought by changes in the times. Furthermore, their use of blood essence, spiritual power, and the physical body could be called the most professional of all. This was precisely what Liu Tianran needed. His avatars did not lack blood essence; what they lacked was a method to fully bring that advantage into play.

However, because the Body Sect had been badly damaged and gone into seclusion in the previous era, coupled with the difficulty of inheriting Body Martial Souls, it appeared somewhat weakened—yet it was still terrifyingly powerful.

In this era, they would not be suppressed by the Dragon King Bloodline either. They might not be tier zero, but they had never fallen out of tier one.

Flowing water does not compete to be first; it competes to flow without end.

The only thing limiting Body Soul Masters was whether their blood essence and spiritual power met the required standard. Mu Ye was a prime example. Because he was obsessed with Mecha and spiritual power, he had long been unable to break through to Super Douluo, yet his combat power could still reach the level of a Limit Douluo.

But for Liu Tianran, that was the easiest thing in the world.

Thus, Liu Tianran directly raised the blood essence and spiritual power of Zuo Qiu Lun, a four-ring Soul Ancestor, to an extraordinary level. He fused a piece of Heavenly Refined metal into his body, determined to forge a Body Martial Soul Master without a single weakness and let the world see whether raw strength had ever declined.