The fabricated Sea God

[After finishing your friendly conversation with Qian Renxue and the others, you began trying to condense your own soul core. Over the years, you had discovered that you could break through without one, but its absence also left you short of power when unleashing certain powerful abilities.]

[Condensing a soul core was a troublesome process. You had no experience, and even Snow Empress and Ice Empress could not guide you.]

[Although they had soul cores too, theirs had formed naturally after they became hundred-thousand-year soul beasts, rather than through deliberate effort. As such, they could offer you no useful help.]

[You repeatedly tried to connect the soul power within your body, linking it together into a vortex before compressing it, much as you normally commanded, used, and compressed wind. Yet the two processes were fundamentally different. A soul core meant compressing invisible, intangible soul power into a visible, solid object that you could touch and feel. It was not like a wind vortex, which you could see but which would either explode when touched or let your hand pass straight through.]

[In this era, when knowledge of cultivation was at its scarcest, you could only work out how to condense a soul core through painstaking trial and error. Every failure sent a small shock wave of soul power through your body, forcing you to recuperate for ten days or half a month before continuing.]

[It hurt terribly, but you kept pushing forward through trial and error. Only you could manage this. Had Qian Daoliu tried to condense a soul core, his first failure would have left him half dead, his second barely alive, and his third six feet under.]

[As a wind spirit yourself, failing to condense a wind element soul core did not injure you too badly. The real cost was the time needed to slowly figure it out.]

[You kept refining your soul core condensation method through trial and error. Watching you broke Snow Empress's heart. She wanted to tell you that you were already strong enough and did not need to rush so desperately. Every time she saw blood pouring from your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, it felt as though needles were piercing her heart.]

["Snow Empress, you don't understand. Having a soul core and not having one are completely different things. Only once I have a soul core will I truly stand at the pinnacle of this world. Once my strength is invincible, I can take revenge." You spoke your true feelings. All these years, aside from traveling for fun and working, you had devoted your efforts to avenging Su Wu.]

[To you, Su Wu was you. If you would not avenge yourself, who else could avenge Su Wu?]

[Unable to talk you out of it and unwilling to hit you herself, Snow Empress turned to Ice Empress. "Bing'er, could you help me? Knock him out."]

[Ice Empress had initially been reluctant to agree, but the perks Snow Empress offered left her walking on air. "Leave it to me. It's only little Su Ming. I can take him down easily."]

[Ice Empress talked tough, then you beat her into a foldable screen—even while injured from your failed attempt to condense a soul core.]

[Ice Empress sank into gloom. She could not understand why you had suddenly become so powerful. Were soul beasts that took human form really that strong? She began wondering whether she should take human form too, only to remember that ferocious beasts could not do so. That made her even sadder.]

[In the twelfth year of the simulation, you left Ice Empress and Snow Empress to look after the West Wind Church. You had some business to attend to on Sea God Island.]

[The journey to Sea God Island was quick for you, at least compared with searching for the Sun Moon Continent.]

[Finding Sea God Island and reaching it took you three days in total.]

[You had come for one reason alone: to see whether you could awaken the Sea God's nine trials through the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud.]

[You beat Sea Horse Douluo half to death, then held the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud in one hand and pressed the other against the awakening stone pillar.]

[A beam of red light shot into the sky from the pillar. You had awakened the red-level eight trials. Your first trial was to give the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud to Tang San within five years. Failure meant death. Your reward was the fresh air of Sea God Island.]

[You wanted to curse. Were you out of your mind or something? Why should you deliver a cheat to Tang San?]

[Although you feared death, you still had some backbone. The very next day, you returned to the Douluo Continent, wrapped the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud in dog shit, and smashed it onto Tang San's head. You hit him hard, but not hard enough to threaten his life.]

[Tang San was knocked unconscious and received the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud. You completed your first trial, and your second trial began.]

[Your second trial left you even more speechless. The Sea God wanted you to sacrifice yourself to Tang San. Yes, sacrifice yourself. The time limit was five years, and failure meant death. The reward for completion was still the fresh air of Sea God Island.]

[Looking at the Sea God's second trial, you could not stomach it for even a moment. First, you threw the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud into the Lake of Life at the heart of the Star Dou Great Forest. Then you shipped Tang San off to the Sun Moon Continent to serve as breeding stock.]

[The partners you chose for Tang San were each more powerfully built than the last. Every one of them was a muscular hunk.]

[Your actions enraged the Sea God. He inflicted divine punishment on you, trying to brand you with a Thought Imprint.]

[At first, you were terrified. But then you sensed that this attack from the Sea God's divine sense had only just reached the spirit abyss realm. Your own spiritual power had already reached the late stage of that realm, so you had nothing to fear from his divine sense's attack.]

[Once you confirmed that the Sea God's divine sense was nothing but a half-baked presence on the Douluo Continent, you ignored the divine trials outright. You left Tang San on the Sun Moon Continent to keep breeding with the black guys, while you headed to Sea God Island to capture Xiao Bai, the Demon Soul Great White Shark.]

[You had no interest in sharks. You only wanted to taste what a ferocious beast-level shark was like.]

[While capturing Xiao Bai, however, you ran into Bo Saixi, the Sea God's high priestess. She attacked the moment she saw you, and you did not hold back either. You hurled a level-20 typhoon that you had been storing up for days straight at Sea God Island.]

[In your eyes, things that worshipped the Sea God did not deserve to be called living beings. What was this nonsense about your actions amounting to the indiscriminate slaughter of innocents?]

[Bo Saixi was furious and desperately wanted to chase you. But Sea God Island mattered more than a single ferocious beast.]

[Bo Saixi abandoned the pursuit. Then you hurled the other eight level-20 typhoons you had stored up at the island as well. Clearly, your hatred of Sea God Island was anything but ordinary.]

[Bo Saixi was only a Limit Douluo. Even with the power to control the sea, she could not face nine level-20 typhoons at once.]

[In the end, the Sea God's divine sense had to intervene personally before the storm finally subsided.]

[Seeing this, you fled with Xiao Bai at once. As long as you survived, there would always be another chance. The next time you came, you planned to store up something even bigger as a gift for Sea God Island.]

[The Sea God desperately wanted to attack you, but you had already escaped beyond the sea's reach. Although the Divine Realm's rules allowed him to protect his followers as part of his duties, they did not permit him to keep intervening indefinitely. The power the Divine Realm could project into the lower world was limited, with a maximum strength no greater than that of a Third-Level God.]

[The Sea God wanted to kill you, but the power of a Third-Level God was nowhere near enough.]