The Only One

Papal Palace, inner study.

Candlelight illuminated the entire room. Qian Shengyuan sat behind a broad desk, several secret reports from different channels spread out before him.

With a pen in his right hand, he signed his name at the end of a document. Then he set the pen down, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes briefly.

For the past six months, Spirit Hall and every major force across the continent had been doing the same thing.

Trying to replicate Li Long's record of obtaining a five-hundred-year first soul ring.

The results had been unanimous.

Failure.

Qian Shengyuan opened his eyes and picked up the topmost report to read it again.

This was a report submitted by Spirit City's directly affiliated experimental team. Three months ago, he had personally ordered them to select five youths with innate soul power of at least rank seven and physical conditions exceptional for their age, then have them attempt to absorb five-hundred-year soul rings under strict supervision.

Of the five, four showed signs of meridian collapse during absorption. Though the process was forcibly interrupted, their foundations were damaged, and they were still recuperating.

The remaining one lasted the longest, but he had not endured even half an incense stick's worth of time. Afterward, his soul power had dropped by a rank.

He put down that report and opened the second.

This information had come from a covert agent in the Heaven Dou Empire. The imperial family had secretly recruited a group of commoner youths for the same experiment. Three had died in total, and the rest had all been crippled.

The Star Luo Empire had been a little more cautious. They had only conducted two rounds of experiments, but they had still paid the price of two cripples.

As for the independent soul masters, Qian Shengyuan let out a cold laugh.

With no one organizing them, bold individuals had tried it on their own. Over the past six months, at least seven or eight cases of people exploding to death had been reported throughout the continent. The most absurd had been a man in a Soto City tavern who got drunk and bragged that he could do it too. He ran straight to the Soul Hunting Forest, killed a five-hundred-year soul beast, sat down to absorb its ring, and that was the end of that.

He pushed all the reports together, tapped them twice with his fingertips, and said softly, "The four-hundred-and-twenty-three-year limit really isn't something just anyone can break."

When word of Li Long successfully absorbing a five-hundred-year soul ring had spread half a year ago, Qian Shengyuan had initially planned to raise the official safe limit for a first soul ring from four hundred and twenty-three years to five hundred.

After all, someone had succeeded. That proved five hundred years was achievable. As the authoritative institution of the soul master world, Spirit Hall should have updated its standards and guided future generations toward greater progress.

But he had quickly rescinded that decision.

The reversal had not been announced. Instead, an internal secret order had been issued, voiding all the new standard documents that had been prepared for distribution to branch halls across the land and restoring the old four-hundred-and-twenty-three-year standard.

The reason was simple: Li Long's success did not mean others could succeed as well.

Before a reproducible method was found, rashly raising the standard would be equivalent to encouraging low-level soul masters to throw away their lives.

Spirit Hall did not need to pile up corpses to verify the truth.

Qian Shengyuan rubbed the bridge of his nose and stored the reports deep in a drawer.

Just as he was about to rise and rest, a light knock came from outside the study.

"Come in."

A servant pushed open the door and bowed. "Your Holiness, the Notting City branch hall submitted its final supplementary registration for the tournament today. One person completed registration only this morning and was entered before the deadline."

Qian Shengyuan frowned. "Registered on the last day? Who?"

"Li Long, an ordinary deacon of the Notting City branch hall. Ten years old. Current soul power rank: twenty. No second soul ring."

The study fell silent for two seconds.

Qian Shengyuan's frown did not ease, but a distinct flicker passed through his eyes.

He repeated the key details. "Rank twenty? That Li Long from Notting City?"

"Yes."

"What rank was he half a year ago?"

The servant had prepared the file in advance. He flipped a page and answered, "The registration records from half a year ago show rank thirteen."

From rank thirteen to rank twenty—seven ranks in half a year.

Qian Shengyuan leaned forward slightly in his chair, not even noticing the movement himself.

He stared at the document page in the servant's hand, his thoughts racing.

Innate soul power rank three, seven ranks in half a year.

That included crossing the first clear hurdle in soul master cultivation—the threshold from one ring to two rings.

At ten years old, with one-ring cultivation and no second soul ring, that meant he had forcibly cultivated his soul power from rank thirteen to rank twenty through meditation alone, without a soul ring breakthrough.

That speed would have been considered fast even for someone with innate soul power rank seven. For someone with innate soul power rank three...

"A late bloomer?"

Qian Shengyuan murmured the term.

As Pope, he had seen countless geniuses and countless flashes in the pan. Yet the fate of a late bloomer truly existed in the soul master world, though it was exceedingly rare.

They began with low innate soul power and showed nothing remarkable early on. But after reaching a certain point, they suddenly accelerated, as if something had cleared their meridians. They surged ahead in the later stages, catching up to and even surpassing those who had blossomed early.

Only a handful of late bloomers had been recorded in history, but every one of them had ultimately reached great heights.

Qian Shengyuan's gaze darkened as another possibility occurred to him: a fortuitous encounter.

"Or perhaps... he obtained something we don't know about."

He spoke so quietly that even the servant did not hear him clearly.

Going from rank thirteen to rank twenty in half a year could not be explained by hard work alone. His innate rank-three foundation was there for all to see. He must have relied on some external aid.

Medicinal baths?

Some heavenly treasure?

Or some other method.

Qian Shengyuan did not investigate further, at least not yet.

He raised his head and looked at the servant. "He registered to compete?"

"He did, in the one-ring division."

"The one-ring division..." Qian Shengyuan's lips shifted faintly. "With one ring against one ring, I'm afraid no one will be able to stop him. There is another rule in the tournament: as long as the opponent agrees, one may apply to fight opponents from higher divisions—two-ring or even three-ring. It depends on whether he chooses to do so after winning the one-ring division."

But he also understood that the tournament divisions were determined by one's current number of soul rings.

Although Li Long had only one ring, rank-twenty soul power already placed him among the best in his age group.

Not having a second soul ring was certainly a weakness, but his opponents would not gain much of an advantage because of it.

After all, the boost from that five-hundred-year first soul ring was right there. That two-hundred-percent increase in strength and defense alone was more than ninety-nine percent of the one-ring division could handle.

"Luck? Or does he truly have something special..."

Qian Shengyuan rose and walked to the window.

From here, he could see the White Stone Square before the Papal Palace. Figures could vaguely be seen moving through the night.

His gaze rested in the direction of the square. He could not actually see anything, but he was looking farther beyond it.

At the spot on the arena tomorrow.

"Independent soul masters died. The empires were crippled. Even our own people tried, and none succeeded."

"Yet he succeeded."

"And then he charged to rank twenty in another half year."

Qian Shengyuan withdrew his gaze, returned to the desk, and took out a separate dossier from the bottom of the drawer.

The cover of this dossier differed from every other file. Only one number was written on it: 037.

He opened it. Inside was a portrait.

A ten-year-old boy, his features still carrying childishness, yet his eyes were far too steady for a child.

Qian Shengyuan looked at the portrait in silence for a while. Then he closed the dossier and returned it to the bottom of the drawer.

"Let's see how you fight tomorrow."

He blew out the candle on the desk, and the study sank into darkness.

Outside the window, the statue of the Six-Winged Angel atop the Papal Palace still glimmered with a silvery-white radiance, silently overlooking all of Spirit City.

Deep in the night, lights still shone from the windows of countless inns. The young soul masters who had come from all across the continent were meditating and regulating their breathing, polishing their martial souls, or tossing and turning in their beds.

Behind one such window, Li Long was also seated cross-legged with his eyes closed.

That night, no one slept very deeply.