Development

Your Martial Soul was unusually special: it was Pure Wind. Wind was almost everywhere. Even the faintest movement of air counted as part of it.

In your wind form, you were virtually invincible. Unlike Invincible Golden Body, though, your invulnerability let you ignore nearly any attack that did not cover a wide area.

Dugu Bo held back while fighting you and never used his full strength. After testing you, he concluded that a Soul Douluo posed almost no threat. Even some Titled Douluo without powerful wide-area attacks would struggle against you. Your true combat strength was already comparable to an ordinary Titled Douluo's. You were still somewhat behind Dugu Bo, a level ninety-five Super Douluo, but he believed that gap would disappear once you became a Soul Douluo.

You enjoyed the thrill of growing stronger, but you did not lose yourself in it. First, you visited Vast Sea City. Its lord was still alive, though his son had been crushed to death when the lord's residence collapsed five years earlier.

You casually sent the lord to join his son. Then you dumped those bandits into a host club—one that served men exclusively.

Next, you returned to Nuoding City to check on Yu Xiaogang. Six years had changed him greatly. He... he had a swollen belly, as though he were pregnant, and his face had grown much more haggard.

After briefly looking into it, you were stunned. The headmaster of Nuoding Academy had gotten together with Yu Xiaogang. They had then hired a special healing-type Soul Master to turn Yu Xiaogang into a woman physically.

What enraged you was that the headmaster had killed dozens of innocent female students over the years.

You were furious. This had started because of you, and you felt you could not stand by. Your conscience would not let you ignore it.

In the end, you chose the cruelest way to avenge the girls who had died so unjustly: you turned the headmaster into a human torso. You dealt with most of the others involved as well. You had intended to deal with Yu Xiaogang too, but feared it might make later events spiral beyond your control. Besides, you suspected the Asura God was watching Tang San at all times. You spared Yu Xiaogang for now, planning to act later if the circumstances allowed it.

Your decision was sound. Tang San was a transmigrator brought to this world by the Asura God, who watched him constantly. If you had attacked Yu Xiaogang, you would most likely have drawn the god's attention.

In the tenth year of the Simulation, after nearly five years, you finally finished using every Immortal Herb you knew of and could use. Your overall foundation reached 311%.

Once your foundation passed 300%, your Martial Soul evolved again. The improvement was enormous. Although all your Soul Skills were fused away and your Soul Power fell back to level ten, you had become part of the wind in the truest sense.

You could drive the wind, command it, and absorb it. Far from declining, your combat strength rose to an extraordinary degree.

For a moment, you suddenly understood what wind meant. Wind was freedom, a bridge to a new world, and what all intelligent beings yearned for most.

That feeling vanished as quickly as it came. Your level was still too low to truly glimpse the essence of wind. You had seen only a corner of it.

Yet even that glimpse had nearly drawn you in completely.

When your Martial Soul finished evolving, pale green Soul Rings rose one after another from beneath your feet. There were two in all, formed from the remaining energy.

Soul Beasts were no longer necessary for you. You needed only to absorb the wind between heaven and earth, in every sense of the word. Once you gathered enough energy, you could form another Soul Ring on your own.

When Dugu Bo saw you, he briefly wondered whether his senses were failing him. He could see you standing there, but to his perception, you were a drifting gust of wind, nothing like a person.

You did not tell Dugu Bo about your current condition. Your next step was to travel the continent, establish a force of your own, gather faith, and prepare early for godhood.

You appointed Dugu Bo the grand elder of your future organization. At level ninety-seven, he faced almost no threats on the Douluo Continent outside Spirit Hall and those Ferocious Beasts.

Dugu Bo hesitated at first. He was used to living freely and disliked being tied down. He agreed only after you told him that all he needed to do was lend your organization his reputation.

In the eleventh year of the Simulation, you began traveling the continent and building your church along the way. You had yet to settle on a name, so you used West Wind Church for the time being. You could change it later if you thought of something better.

Under your management, West Wind Church developed steadily. With Dugu Bo's support as well, branches soon sprang up across the land.

You did not demand grand buildings. You gave West Wind Church only three requirements: it had to house at least five hundred people without crowding them; it had to provide food to struggling poor people at set times at least twice a day; and no one could take property belonging to the church. Anyone was free to come or go.

Those three rules were simple, with plenty of loopholes and uncertainties. But West Wind Church had never been meant to restrict people. You only wanted its branches established everywhere—the more, the better.

Before leaving each branch, you left behind a Wind Elemental Clone to keep watch. With mental power approaching the Divine Origin Realm, this placed little burden on you.

In the fifteenth year of the Simulation, West Wind Church was flourishing. It had 137 churches within the Heaven Dou Empire.

But a problem soon emerged. You had money, but not an unlimited amount. You could not keep subsidizing West Wind Church forever.

After much consideration, you decided to make West Wind Church part business and part church. Its branches would connect to form trade routes. Those who worked on them would pay a fixed amount to the church and keep the rest of what they earned.

The fixed contribution was small enough that others were unlikely to covet this modest venture. Letting workers keep the remainder would motivate them, but it could also breed corruption.

Unable to think of a better solution for the time being, you returned to Dugu Manor in Heaven Dou City to speak with Dugu Bo.