Bai Xiao spent an entire day practicing without pause, and he had already become able to wield his Cell Martial Soul with perfect ease.
He could constantly switch between "Martial Soul Release," "Martial Soul Possession," and "Body Martial Soul."
Bai Xiao's Cell Martial Soul could even transform his Martial Soul into any Martial Soul with a cellular structure.
It could be said that, in the Douluo Continent at this time, Bai Xiao's Martial Soul was likely the Martial Soul with the greatest potential for development on the continent.
Early the next morning, the sun had only just risen, and a faint golden radiance blanketed the Blue Silver Grass.
From the entrance of Holy Soul Village, one could see a small figure traveling alone into the distance.
He walked down the little path leading from Holy Soul Village to the outside world.
Slowly, he made his way deeper toward the forest.
A gray robe concealed his entire body. Beneath the slit of the hood at the front, only a pair of blue eyes could be seen.
This was how Bai Xiao had looked when he first arrived at Holy Soul Village a year ago. Now, dressed like this once more, he walked out of Holy Soul Village.
Beneath the gray robe were clothes that did not match one another. They were mismatched because Bai Xiao had stripped every piece from a different corpse.
Some were coats stripped from old beggars who had starved to death.
Some were belts taken from the corpses of adults who had died of illness.
Some were ribbons found on the mangled corpses of young girls.
Some were little vests picked up near the skeletons of children.
Some had been selected from heaps of corpses...
Bai Xiao remembered the original owner of every garment, as well as the place where he had found it.
Most of the owners of these clothes had been complete strangers to Bai Xiao. Only a few were people whose names he could more or less remember.
Some had died helping Bai Xiao, some had died because of him, and some were merely people he had known—yet Bai Xiao had witnessed their deaths.
Using the needles and thread he occasionally obtained, along with his clumsy sewing skills, Bai Xiao stitched them together and made his first functional battle suit, "The Past."
Unlike the fear and unease he had felt when he first put on this garment, Bai Xiao's heart was now as still as an ancient well.
The dead had passed on. Only the living still carried their pain and faith onward.
The only thing Bai Xiao could be grateful for was the more than year of peaceful days he had spent in the little village of Holy Soul Village.
Those happy days of living half-fed and half-starved still shone like gold in his memories in the years to come.
When Bai Xiao had first arrived in the Douluo Continent, he had not a penny to his name and could not understand the language. He could only pretend to be deaf and mute, wandering alone without purpose.
He had gone hungry for a long time before understanding the law of the jungle in the Douluo Continent.
Fortunately, in a grove on the outskirts, he had luckily found the corpse of some unlucky fellow and traded the clothes stripped from it for his first meal.
How ironic! Bai Xiao had nearly starved to death in the fantasy world he loved, yet survived through the very act he had once despised most.
He understood then: the Douluo Continent was the romance of the strong and the hell of the weak.
Bai Xiao still remembered that day when he had found a broken dagger while searching a corpse.
That day, he laughed. He laughed as he cried.
Later, he met many people, and many nonhumans.
He had struggled to escape from the jaws of Soul Beasts in the Star Dou Great Forest, and he had picked up rotten fruit beneath a small town's fruit shop to fill his stomach.
He had witnessed fierce battles between Soul Masters, and he had worried over the next day's lunch.
While Bai Xiao lived in Holy Soul Village, he had never thrown away the things he had obtained from searching corpses.
During his wandering days, these things had become some of the few things he could rely on to survive.
Bai Xiao had always hidden them beneath the bed in his little grass hut.
When he had first arrived in Holy Soul Village, he often had nightmares. He dreamed that darkness was rising from beneath the bed and Devouring him. He roared in the dream, yet could not hear even the slightest sound.
When he jolted awake, he found himself gripping the dagger he used for self-defense tightly in his hand, while cold sweat soaked his forehead and back.
"Now, the life of an ordinary person is over."
Bai Xiao clenched his fists tightly and raised his head to look toward the distant crossroads. With firm steps, he headed in the direction from which he had first come to Holy Soul Village.
This time, he was no longer afraid, no longer lost.
This time, he would set foot on this road once again with an entirely new identity, in a new way.
The world of Soul Masters, the path of Transcendence, would shake the continent.
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