A Turkey Turns into a Ph...oenix?

Ma Hongjun froze as he clung to Xu Linjiu's leg.

"Y-Your Excellency, wh-what do you mean?"

"Nothing."

Xu Linjiu looked at Ma Hongjun and placed a hand directly atop his head. A familiar chill began gathering in his palm.

"Stop!"

A hoarse cry suddenly came from behind him.

Yu Xiaogang somehow found the strength to struggle up from the ground. "He's still a child! Come at me if you want to do something!"

Xu Linjiu's hand paused as he turned to look at Yu Xiaogang. "A child?"

He slowly rose to his feet and walked toward Yu Xiaogang step by step.

"Now you know he's a child? Tang San is a child too, but when you wanted to use him as an experiment for your martial soul theory, why didn't you think about that?"

"I... I wasn't using him as an experiment."

"Yes, you weren't using him as an experiment."

Xu Linjiu cut him off. "You just believed there was absolutely nothing wrong with your theory, so you planned to find a talented child to prove yourself. If it worked, the credit would be yours. If it failed, you could always find another one."

"N-No, it wasn't like that!"

"Whether it was or not, you know perfectly well."

Xu Linjiu straightened up and kicked him flying to the side before turning back toward Ma Hongjun.

He had already wasted enough time on Yu Xiaogang.

He pressed his palm onto Ma Hongjun's head again, and the chill abruptly intensified.

"Now it's time to get down to business."

A layer of white frost instantly formed over Ma Hongjun's hair and brows. His lips turned purple from the cold. "Y-Your Excellency... I-I was w-wrong... p-please..."

Before he could finish, a vast surge of ultimate ice soul power poured from Xu Linjiu's palm, flooding wildly into Ma Hongjun's body like a burst dam!

The cold swept through his meridians, freezing even his blood into icy fragments wherever it passed.

Ma Hongjun shook violently. Fine frost seeped across his skin, and even his breath became white mist.

Deep within him, the Evil Fire Phoenix martial soul sensed a lethal threat. The evil fire hidden within it was instantly enraged, erupting from the depths of the martial soul and colliding head-on with the invading ultimate ice!

Ultimate ice and evil fire fought madly within his body.

Ma Hongjun's entire body alternated between freezing and burning. One half of him was scorched red, while the other was frozen blue.

The two forces used his body as their battlefield, tearing into each other with savage ferocity. The pain sent him rolling across the ground and screaming miserably, his cries so shrill that even Xiao Wu could not bear to watch and turned her head away.

Xu Linjiu's expression did not change as he continued increasing the flow of soul power.

The Evil Fire Phoenix was ultimately just a mutated martial soul. No matter how powerful its evil fire was, it remained an ordinary element. Compared to Xu Linjiu's ultimate ice, its quality was far inferior.

After only a few breaths of deadlock, the evil fire began retreating steadily.

Ultimate ice seized the advantage and gave chase, following the evil fire like a starving wolf and tearing into it frantically, devouring the last remaining sparks bit by bit.

It did not take long for the final seed of the phoenix's evil fire to be mercilessly crushed by ultimate ice.

Ma Hongjun's screams gradually weakened, and the feverish red heat faded from his body. From that moment on, the Evil Fire Phoenix no longer existed in this world.

Xu Linjiu slowly withdrew his hand and stepped back two paces, silently watching him.

The next instant, extreme cold erupted outward from Ma Hongjun's body. Icy blue mist sprayed from his pores, condensing into thick ice crystals around him.

In just a few breaths, an enormous icy blue egg as tall as a person stood where he had been.

Under the sunlight, a curled human silhouette could faintly be seen within it.

Everyone at the edge of the field stared in stunned disbelief.

Xiao Wu tilted her head, her gaze fixed tightly on the ice egg.

Tang San could not help stepping forward. "Teacher... wh-what is this?"

"Nothing. Just a little experiment."

Xu Linjiu looked at the ice egg before him, feeling somewhat surprised himself.

This situation had already completely exceeded his expectations.

About the time it took for an incense stick to burn, a crisp sound suddenly came from the surface of the ice egg.

A crack appeared at the top of the egg, then rapidly spread across its entire shell.

Crack!

The ice egg split open, and a figure slowly emerged from within.

When that figure fully appeared, the entire field fell silent.

Ma Hongjun—or rather, someone who no longer looked much like Ma Hongjun.

He had grown considerably taller. His once round body had become lean and slender, and the fat on his cheeks had receded, revealing delicate features.

His skin had become much fairer, while his hair had changed from red to icy blue, falling smoothly over his shoulders.

He looked down at his hands, then touched his face. When he opened his mouth, his first words sent a shiver through everyone present.

"Eh? Why does... this one feel so strange?"

His voice had become much sharper, its ending rising slightly with an odd affectation.

Ma Hongjun pinched his cheek, tilted his head, blinked his now icy blue eyes, and looked over his new body again. Then he suddenly let out a cry, cupped his cheeks with both hands, and stomped his feet shyly.

"Why did this one turn out like this?"

A deathly silence filled the plaza.

Tang San's mouth hung open, his eyes nearly falling out of their sockets.

Xiao Wu stood stunned for two seconds before suddenly turning and clutching Tang San's arm. She lowered her voice in terror. "Little San, did you hear that? H-He... why did he start talking like that?"

"I heard it..." Tang San swallowed with difficulty.

Yet Ma Hongjun seemed utterly unaware of everyone's reactions. He raised his hand, and with a turn of his palm, a crystalline phantom of a martial soul appeared.

It was still a phoenix with its head held high and wings spread wide, but its entire body was formed of ice crystals, radiating bitter cold. There was not the slightest trace of evil fire left.

"Wow~ It's so pretty!"

Ma Hongjun looked at the Ice Phoenix in his palm. "Why did this one's martial soul become like this? But it's way prettier than that awful fire that burned people before!"

Yu Xiaogang was completely dumbfounded by the scene. "The Evil Fire Phoenix? It evolved? Impossible, this is impossible! It violates every fundamental principle of martial soul theory!"

But Ma Hongjun was not listening to him at all.

He raised a hand and held his fingers in a delicate pose, repeatedly examining his fair, slender fingers beneath the sunlight. A satisfied smile curled his lips. "Oh my~ This skin is so much better than before~"

Then he turned to Xu Linjiu, his eyes carrying three parts gratitude, three parts bashfulness, and four parts indifference. "Your Excellency~ You turned this one into this~"

He twirled a lock of hair around his fingers and gave it a light toss. "You have to take responsibility for this one~"

Tang San: "..."

Xiao Wu: "..."

Yu Xiaogang: "..."

Xu Linjiu: "..."

Xu Linjiu's eye twitched violently.

He had only wanted to try destroying that disgusting martial soul. Who could have known that, by a strange twist of fate, it would instead evolve into an Ice Phoenix—and even change Ma Hongjun's entire personality?

Seeing that Xu Linjiu remained silent, Ma Hongjun twisted his body again and lightly poked Xu Linjiu's shoulder with a delicately posed finger. "What's wrong? Not saying anything? Are you shy?"

Xu Linjiu drew a deep breath and silently stepped back. Rings of invisible Inner Focus ripples enveloped Ma Hongjun.

"Your Excellency, what are you doing~"

Before he could finish speaking, Ma Hongjun suddenly collapsed to the ground and fell unconscious.

Only then did Xu Linjiu raise a hand to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead. The current Ma Hongjun was far more terrifying than a Soul Sage!