The Golden Dragon King's First Seal

Tang Wuling pointed at Old Tang, her voice carrying thirty percent shock, thirty percent realization, and forty percent complicated so that's how it is.

All the mysteries seemed to have found a reasonable explanation at that moment.

If her biological father was the legendary Sea God Tang San, then her origins, her martial souls, and the inexplicable seals within her all made sense.

All her confusion seemed to be strung together by an invisible thread, pointing in the same direction.

"Me... Sea God Tang San?" Confusion appeared on Old Tang's face. His brows furrowed slightly, as though the name was both familiar and strange to him, as though something churned deep within his memories yet never rose to the surface.

"That's right! Only a legendary god could have such abilities, right?" Tang Wuling said with absolute certainty.

Over the past few years, following Qi Ji around every day had broadened her mind considerably.

Whenever Qi Ji had nothing better to do, he loved telling her all sorts of random stories and theories—history, the layout of various powers, martial soul theories. Tang Wuling might have listened absentmindedly on the surface, but she remembered everything worth remembering.

At the very least, in terms of intelligence, she was far superior to the barely literate Tang Wulin from the original work.

"A god? Perhaps." Old Tang nodded slowly, his gaze settling on the phantom of the golden giant dragon.

"After all, I know that the Golden Dragon King is a soul beast at the God King level. Sealing it within my body really is something only a god-level being could accomplish."

"No wonder... now it all makes sense." Tang Wuling lowered her head to look at her hands. The questions that had once baffled her endlessly suddenly became clear.

"No wonder my second martial soul, though merely a weak Soft Bone Rabbit, could form Twin Martial Souls with a top-tier martial soul like the Golden Dragon. If my mother was a Divine Beast-level Soft Bone Rabbit... that would be the only possibility, wouldn't it?"

There were many reasons for the birth of Twin Martial Souls. Either two completely unrelated martial souls combined, or two complementary martial souls enhanced each other.

But regardless of the situation, they shared one prerequisite—the quality of the two martial souls had to be close, and the difference could not be too vast.

If the disparity between the two martial souls was too great, Twin Martial Souls could never be born. The higher-level martial soul would completely suppress or even devour the lower-level one, making coexistence impossible.

Tang Wuling's Soft Bone Rabbit martial soul was not weak, but compared with the Golden Dragon, the progenitor of strength, the gap between them should have been like heaven and earth.

Yet she happened to possess both martial souls at once and wielded them as easily as her own limbs—this question had plagued her for a long time, and now she finally had an answer.

So her Soft Bone Rabbit was extraordinary as well: a Divine Beast-level Soft Bone Rabbit. Though its bloodline could not compare to the Golden Dragon's, it was still the bloodline of a god, with enough status to coexist with the Golden Dragon.

"I really didn't expect this... I'm actually a god's daughter." Tang Wuling could not help but sigh, her tone carrying an indescribably complicated feeling.

She had been found by the roadside as a child and raised in an ordinary family. To suddenly be told that her biological father was the legendary Sea God felt as unreal as a dream.

She steadied herself, then looked up at Old Tang with a more serious expression. "Old Tang... let me ask you something. Did your original self tell you anything?"

"There are many things I don't know." Old Tang shook his head, and the confusion on his face did not seem feigned.

"I only know that I came to help you master the Golden Dragon King's power. Who I am, where I came from, who your father is... I don't remember any of that. There is only one command in my memories—protect you and guide you."

He did not even know what Sea God Tang San was. To him, that name was no different from an unfamiliar symbol.

"Then... can't this seal be opened?" Tang Wuling turned and pointed at the outermost seal around the Golden Dragon King, which was already on the verge of collapse.

"It looks like it's almost broken already. There shouldn't be any problem, right?"

"This..." Old Tang's gaze lingered on the seal for a moment, as though he were carefully sensing its strength and the fluctuations of Soul Power within Tang Wuling's body.

After a long while, he nodded, a hint of approval in his voice. "Child, you are much stronger than I imagined. You can indeed open this first seal on your own now. According to my original calculations, you would have needed medicinal herbs to assist you in safely absorbing it. But it seems your body is already strong enough to withstand it."

"As long as I can absorb it." Tang Wuling nodded, not dwelling too much on her true identity.

Since she was here, she would make the best of it. So far, being a god's daughter had brought her neither benefits nor losses.

Rather than agonize over whose child she was, she might as well think of ways to grow stronger.

And this so-called Golden Dragon King seal might be the key to catching up with Qi Ji and surpassing that bitch Gu Yuena.

"Then I'll absorb it." Tang Wuling rolled her wrists and casually waved at Old Tang. "Old man, stand guard for me."

Old Tang's brows furrowed instinctively.

As Tang San's divine consciousness, he vaguely felt that the form of address "old man" was somewhat inappropriate—wasn't it a little unfilial for a child to speak to her parent that way?

But as the consciousness Tang San had left behind, his memories contained no clan rules or complicated conventions concerning seniority and respect. There was only the purest affection and desire to protect this child.

Though the address made him instinctively uncomfortable, he ultimately said nothing and merely nodded in silence.

"Alright."

After receiving Old Tang's promise, Tang Wuling turned around and pressed both hands against the first seal, which was on the verge of collapse.

A faint tremor came from the seal, like a sheet of ice beginning to crack.

Tang Wuling lowered her head to sense it, pondering how she should break it open.

Her super intelligence told her it was time to use super strength.

So she grabbed the edges of the seal with both hands and yanked hard.

The glowing patterns on the seal flashed violently a few times, and cracks spread at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Tang Wuling gritted her teeth and exerted strength through both arms, pulling backward like a raging bull. The seal let out crisp cracking sounds in her hands.

"Break for me—!"

Tang Wuling used every last bit of brute strength in her body and finally tore the seal straight off the Golden Dragon King in the most violent and direct way possible.

In an instant, a vast torrent of golden energy surged from the gap left by the shattered seal, flooding into every limb and bone of Tang Wuling's body like a burst dam.

Golden light surged wildly through her body, tempering her meridians, bones, and flesh. Every inch of her body was being washed over and transformed by the Golden Dragon King's power.

But compared to Tang Wulin, who had needed to risk his life at Rank One just to barely absorb this essence, Tang Wuling was now far stronger than he had been then.

Her Rank 29 Soul Power, body already tempered by the Golden Dragon martial soul, and Mental Power far beyond that of her peers allowed her to absorb all the essence from the first seal with almost no effort.

No one knew how much time passed before Tang Wuling slowly opened her eyes.

Three purple Soul Rings quietly circled her body, each radiating deep, stable fluctuations of Soul Power.

She had already been only one step away from Rank 30. After absorbing the Golden Dragon King's essence, that surging power not only helped her break through the final bottleneck, but even stabilized her cultivation in one go, allowing her to stand firmly at Rank 30.