Jiang Yuandong, a deacon of the Nording City Spirit Hall, had lived for fifty-out years and presided over more than thirteen hundred spirit awakening ceremonies.
He had seen Flame Dragon Spirits spew blazing fire, powerful beast spirits capable of whipping up storms, and had even been fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of a legendary variant branch of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tower.
Yet he had never seen—someone open a tear in the sky while awakening their spirit.
Of course, that came later.
Right now, sunlight leaked through the gaps in the training ground's dome, shattering into golden specks across the floor.
Six-year-old children lined up in a crooked queue, and their chattering noise made Jiang Yuandong's temples tighten in throbs.
In past awakening ceremonies, he never showed up in person.
He was a level-56 Soul King, a presence who could make the entire Nording City shake with a stomp of his foot, and he had no business presiding over an initiation rite for a bunch of snot-nosed brats.
This year was different, though.
Word had it that among this batch of new students were collateral descendants of a high aristocracy from the Heaven Dou Empire, and their spirit might well be a top-tier tool spirit.
Because of this, Jiang Yuandong had specially changed into a brand-new gray robe, and the emblem on his cuff representing his identity as a fourth-rank elder of the Spirit Hall had been polished until it shone brightly.
"First one, come up."
A chubby boy was pushed onto the awakening stage, his hands trembling as he pressed them against the huge crystal ball.
A flash of blue light, and the phantom of an iron hammer surfaced above his head.
Jiang Yuandong glanced at the soul power detector.
Level three.
"Tool spirit, innate soul power level three, with a certain potential. Next," he announced blandly.
The second child took the stage, the crystal ball lit up with a red glow, and the phantom of a fire fox leaped out, tiny wisps of flame still wrapping around its tail.
Jiang Yuandong straightened his body.
A beast spirit, and a fire attribute at that, with level-five innate soul power.
"A good sapling," he rarely spoke an extra sentence. "Go back and tell your family that you can be sent to intermediate soul master academy to try it out next year."
A buzz of envy immediately sounded in the queue.
The next few were all utterly unremarkable, until that aristocratic scion walked onto the stage.
He wore brocaded garments with a jade belt, his chin held very high, much like a proud peacock.
The crystal ball burst with golden light.
The phantom of a golden short blade hovered in midair, light flowing across the edge, and an aura of sharpness rushed toward them.
"Golden Blade Spirit! Level-seven innate soul power!"
Jiang Yuandong stood up and clapped three times.
Level seven—in a small place like Nording City, having one appear in ten years could be considered burning high incense.
"As expected of aristocratic blood," Jiang Yuandong stroked his beard, his mood quite good.
"Next."
At the end of the line, complete silence reigned.
Jiang Yuandong frowned and looked over, discovering that another child was still standing at the tail of the line.
He was completely different from those other excited, nervous, and curious six-year-old children.
Quiet.
Quiet to an excessive degree.
The boy wore an old, washed-out cotton coat, the cuffs a fraction too short, revealing two sections of thin, skinny wrists.
His hair was somewhat messy, blocking half his face, and the single eye that was exposed had a very pale color, resembling thin ice congealed on a winter river, lacking even a trace of warmth.
His assistant hurried over, flipped through the registration book, and reported in a low voice: "Elder, his name is Su Chen. He's an orphan adopted by an old herb picker outside the city, with no family background."
The youth who had just awakened the Golden Blade Spirit glanced back and let out a scoff of laughter.
"An orphan runs over to awaken too? Don't waste the elder's time, go roll back and plant your herbs."
Several children nearby also chimed in with mocking laughter.
Su Chen paid no attention to anyone's gaze.
He took strides and walked toward the awakening stage.
His pace was neither fast nor slow, every step planted very steadily, and that slight sound of footsteps actually appeared exceptionally clear in the empty training ground.
Jiang Yuandong looked at him a couple more times.
A certain indescribable intuition caused this veteran elder who had presided over more than thirteen hundred awakening ceremonies to catch a whiff of an unusual flavor.
It was just like that instant of suffocating dullness right before a storm arrived.
"Both hands, place them up," Jiang Yuandong reined in his focus and said routinely.
Su Chen pressed his palms onto the crystal ball.
The next second, the crystal ball exploded.
It did not light up, it did not flash, but--exploded.
Golden fragments shot out in all directions. Jiang Yuandong's body reacted faster than his brain, and a Soul Power barrier deployed instantly, blocking the fatal shards flying toward the children.
His martial soul, the Gray Shadow Wolf, stimulated itself from within him without even being summoned, and five spirit rings—yellow, yellow, purple, purple, and black—spun wildly.
The full Soul Power of a level-56 Soul King was passively maxed out in this single instant!
It was not that he wanted to release it.
It was that his martial soul was terrified, desperately trying to protect itself out of control!
An indescribable aura surged wildly from the six-year-old child's body.
Jiang Yuandong's first reaction was not shock, but suffocation.
It felt as though an invisible mountain was pressing down heavily on his chest.
No, not a mountain.
Mountains had boundaries, but this aura had no end.
The sky above the martial arts arena changed color.
Dark clouds rolled in from all directions at an unnatural speed, as if forcibly clenched together by an invisible, giant hand.
Thunder rumbled deep within the clouds, one crash after another.
A huge black vortex appeared in the sky above Nording City, rotating slowly, with a wisp of inexpressible, eerie light leaking from its center.
Behind Su Chen, it lit up.
Jiang Yuandong narrowed his eyes, trying his best to see clearly what was inside that light--
That was a throne.
A huge throne composed of dark gold light floated quietly in midair, three feet behind Su Chen.
Above the back of the throne floated nine mysterious ring-shaped empty slots, arranged in an arc as if waiting for something to fill them.
The first slot was glowing, the golden light pulsing on and off at an increasingly rapid frequency.
Jiang Yuandong's brain completely crashed.
He searched through everything he had learned in his life, running all known martial soul classifications through his mind--beast martial souls, tool martial souls, mutated martial souls...
None.
Even in the highest archives of Spirit Hall, there was absolutely no martial soul that looked like this!
This... what is this...
His voice squeezed out from his throat, so dry that even he felt it was unfamiliar.
He remembered one thing.
Soul Power! He hadn't tested the Soul Power yet!
Jiang Yuandong trembled as he fished the Spirit Hall's special Soul Power measuring device out of his sleeve.
The moment the needle drew near Su Chen, it went completely crazy.
It surged straight to the bottom, hit the end, bounced back, surged to the bottom once more, and bounced back again.
After repeating this three times, the needle snapped, firmly jammed at the highest scale, motionless.
Innate Full Soul Power.
Level ten.
Clatter.
The Soul Power measuring device slipped from Jiang Yuandong's trembling hand and crashed to the ground.
He opened his mouth, his voice completely out of tune, "In... Innate... Full Soul Power. Level ten."
The entire audience fell dead silent.
Even those six-year-old children stopped crying, pinned firmly in place by that invisible pressure, not daring to draw a single breath.
That golden-bladed boy's face was as pale as a sheet of paper.
However, the true terror had only just begun.
The first slot of the Void Throne flared brightly!
Black light shot into the sky!
A spirit ring slowly descended from the center of the black vortex in the sky.
It was black.
A ten-thousand-year spirit ring.
Spinning, it settled with absolute precision onto Su Chen.
Jiang Yuandong's voice cracked completely, carrying a sob:
Automatic spirit ring attachment! He didn't even kill a spirit beast! The spirit ring came to him on its own!
He did not know that at this very instant, at the edge of the Star Dou Great Forest thirty miles outside Nording City, an arrogant ten-thousand-year Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bear had collapsed to the ground without warning, its eyes still carrying a daze, but its essence had already been forcibly extracted by a god-level mighty force spanning across space.
The black spirit ring stabilized on Su Chen's body and began to spin.
The ground of the martial training grounds cracked.
It was not a single crack, but ten.
Ten dark golden lights shone through the cracks, and the hard floor tiles warped piece by piece, shattering and turning into powder.
The instant the first Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bear stepped out from the cracks, Jiang Yuandong's Gray Shadow Wolf martial soul whimpered and completely shrank back into his body.
One.
Two.
Three.
Ten.
A full ten!
Each one exceeded three meters in height, dark golden metallic scales covered their entire bodies, and the dreadclaws on their forelimbs, longer than a human forearm, reflected chillingly cold light.
Ten ten-thousand-year Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bears stood in two rows quietly behind Su Chen.
The ground of the martial training grounds continued to shatter under their heavy pressure, web-like cracks spreading from the center all the way to the surrounding walls.
"Crack--"
Huge cracks visible to the naked eye appeared on the wall.
The pressure of ten ten-thousand-year spirit beasts was released simultaneously at this moment.
That was not an attack directed at anyone; merely their existence alone was enough to crush everything.
In the group of newcomers, the children collapsed to the ground one after another.
Some were crying, while others could not even cry and directly rolled their eyes and fainted.
The golden-bladed boy's legs went soft, and with a thud, he knelt on the ground as a foul-smelling liquid rapidly seeped out from his crotch.
Jiang Yuandong's legs shook like a sifting sieve, and he leaned desperately against the awakening stone platform behind him so that he did not end up kneeling as well.
His teeth chattered wildly, and he forced the words out between his teeth one by one:
"Ten... ten-thousand-year... Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bears... ten of them..."
The Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bear was one of the ten great fierce beasts of the Star Dou Great Forest!
A single ten-thousand-year individual was enough to make all the Soul Masters in Nording City join forces to fight bitterly for three days and three nights!
Yet right now, there were ten here.
Ten legendary fierce beasts stood like the most loyal guards behind a six-year-old child.
In their dark golden vertical pupils, there was not the slightest bit of ferocity; instead, they were as docile as domestic dogs waiting for their master to pet them.
The wind stopped.
The thunder dispersed.
The huge black vortex in the sky also slowly dissipated.
Sunlight fell once more, shining upon Su Chen and upon the ten metallic giant beasts behind him, casting ten massive shadows that blotted out the sky.
Su Chen raised his head.
He glanced at Jiang Yuandong—this strongest Soul Master of Nording City whose face was pale at the moment, his lips trembling, while the five spirit rings inside his body remained as quiet as cicadas in winter.
Su Chen's expression did not change at all, as if he were simply asking about an insignificant trivial matter.
"Is this martial soul... qualified?"
Inside the martial training grounds, a dead silence reigned, with no one answering.
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