An immortal-grade herb, the Cockscomb Phoenix Sunflower.
A potent, pure-yang tonic herb, it was suited to soul masters with fire-type martial souls or fire attributes.
This immortal herb could dramatically improve the quality and temperature of flames, with miraculous effects on stimulating bloodlines and promoting martial soul evolution.
Chen Zhuo knew Qian Renxue's martial soul inside and out.
The divine-grade six-winged angel martial soul.
It was one of the two strongest divine-grade martial souls of the era.
It came with the Angel Domain upon awakening, along with innate rank twenty soul power.
It possessed two ultimate attributes: ultimate light and ultimate holiness.
It also possessed divine fire, a pseudo-ultimate flame.
Later, after Qian Renxue became a god.
Her divine fire would transform into solar true flame, the same flame wielded by the divine beast, the Three-Legged Golden Crow, reaching the ultimate level.
Any single trait of this divine-grade martial soul would leave other soul masters struggling to breathe.
But look at Qian Renxue.
Even after becoming a god, she still could not defeat Sea God Tang San, despite both being First-Level Gods.
Attaining the Sea God's throne with a blue silver grass martial soul? What a perfect match.
Sure, I totally kept a straight face.
Twenty years undercover in an enemy nation, all that painstaking effort, only to become a useless god who could not beat anyone.
In the end, her godhood shattered, and she died of old age in the mortal world...
Alas!
How pitiful. How lamentable.
Chen Zhuo's impression of Qian Renxue was neither good nor bad.
It matched the essence of who she was.
She was neither a ruthless overlord nor a knight who upheld the golden spirit.
A good person or a bad one? She could not commit fully to either.
So, with no absolute conflict of interest between them at present, Qian Renxue was someone he was very willing to work with.
"Aren't you afraid I won't bear to part with that national treasure?"
"Or that I'll take your gift but refuse to give you the treasure?"
Chen Zhuo's actions greatly surprised Qian Renxue.
"I trust you."
Smiling, Chen Zhuo pushed the jade box containing the immortal herb toward Qian Renxue.
He also explained the herb's origins and how to consume it.
With this Cockscomb Phoenix Sunflower, Qian Renxue might gather all three ultimate attributes within herself before she even became a god.
Then, fighting opponents two or three major realms above her would be as effortless as eating and drinking.
The Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud was essentially part of the Sea God's Heart, with a strand of the Sea God's inheritance consciousness hidden inside.
He only needed to make sure it never fell into Tang San's hands.
As for whether Qian Renxue gave it to him.
Or when she gave it to him.
Honestly, Chen Zhuo did not care at all.
Besides, for a woman like Qian Renxue, whose heart held "the knight's path and the angels' glory."
She would not break a promise she had made.
"Very well! I guarantee that before I ascend the throne, the national treasure will not fall into anyone else's hands."
Qian Renxue did not ask Chen Zhuo about the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud's secret.
Though deeply interested in immortal herbs, she did not ask how many other herbs that seized the wonders of heaven and earth he possessed.
She simply put the Cockscomb Phoenix Sunflower away.
Beside her, Porcupinefish Douluo swallowed.
I want an immortal herb too!
But Chen Zhuo had neither become his disciple nor asked anything of him. Thick-skinned as he was, he had no idea how to bring it up.
"Your Eminence Ci Xue, I currently have no immortal herbs suitable for you."
"But I do have a Red Sand Lotus. Consuming it grants resistance to fire poison, so it should suit your pufferfish martial soul reasonably well."
He casually gave away a top-grade herb, simply to sow the seeds of goodwill.
Chen Zhuo did not mind such trifles.
"If you don't want this disciple, I'll be first in line to take him!"
Porcupinefish Douluo nudged Snake Lance Douluo with his elbow.
This young fellow really knows how to conduct himself, he thought.
He had taken quite a liking to him too.
Little did he know that Snake Lance Douluo was already Chen Zhuo's man.
Everything happening here was merely an act.
If Dugu Bo represented his family backing, then Snake Lance Douluo was his backing within Spirit Hall.
If it truly became necessary.
Chen Zhuo would not mind becoming Spirit Hall's Holy Son.
Aside from borrowing its influence, he also wanted to visit Spirit Hall's treasury.
There was something inside that he wanted.
If he could find it, it would, at the very least, allow Main God Space to refine a fourth-tier potion.
"There's one more thing I'd like Your Highness to help me with."
"To act as an intermediary."
Chen Zhuo told Qian Renxue that he and two friends all wanted soul rings from beasts with dragon bloodlines.
But dragon-descended beasts were far too difficult to find.
It would be ideal if they could visit the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's secret realm.
"You want places in the Thunder Dragon Nest?"
The Heaven Dou Empire, for instance, had Soul Hunting Forests where soul beasts were raised in captivity.
That went without saying for ancient sects like the Upper Three Sects, which had existed for over ten thousand years.
Without exception, each controlled its own unique supply of soul beasts.
These were the so-called "secret realms."
Qian Renxue had learned from her grandfather that Spirit Hall also had its own exclusive secret realm.
Was it called the "Angel Sanctuary"? It was located deep beneath Spirit City.
But some unknown mishap had caused the sanctuary to be closed off long ago.
Even members of the Qian Family could no longer enter.
After Spirit Hall lost its ancestral secret realm.
It designated the Lost Grand Canyon, now commonly called "Death Canyon," as a forbidden zone.
Successive Popes and elders would hunt for soul rings in this paradise of soul beasts under Spirit Hall's exclusive jurisdiction.
That woman's ninth soul ring.
The hundred-thousand-year Death Spider Emperor had been hunted in Death Canyon.
Generally speaking, these secret realms were reserved for the direct descendants of their owners.
Outsiders were never allowed inside.
What made the Heaven Dou Empire troublesome was that two of the Upper Three Sects, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, were its allies.
Especially the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.
It had even entrusted its prodigy, Yu Tianheng, to Heaven Dou Royal Academy for training.
This further strengthened the bond between the two allies.
At its core, they were huddling together for warmth against the threat of Spirit Hall.
As Heaven Dou's crown prince, if she were willing to pay a steep price, she might well secure places in the Thunder Dragon Nest.
"I'll do my best."
According to Qian Renxue's intelligence, that old dragon Yu Yuanzhen, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's leader, was terribly stubborn and almost impossible to approach.
His younger brother, Yu Luomian, however, knew how to get things done. He might be worth contacting.
"Then I'll await Your Highness's good news."
Chen Zhuo cupped his fist in thanks.
They exchanged pleasantries for a while longer before the visitors returned to the palace.
"Terrible news! Master! Young miss!" A gatekeeper rushed in to report that something had happened to the Ye Family.
Dugu Yan's expression shifted slightly.
What other Ye Family could there be in Heaven Dou City besides the Nine Heart Begonia Ye Family?
She hurriedly asked what exactly had happened.
"I heard that the Ye Family's head, Lin Chuan, had an accident while hunting for a soul ring in the Star Dou Great Forest."
"By the time they brought him back, he was beyond saving."
After hearing this, Dugu Yan turned toward Dugu Bo and Chen Zhuo and said urgently, "I'm going to check on the Ye Family."
By then, the entire Ye residence was already awash with weeping.
The family head had passed away.
In other great families, losing the person in charge would merely make the coming days more difficult.
With foundations accumulated over hundreds or thousands of years, they would not collapse outright.
But for the Ye Family, the sky had fallen!
That was because, although the mistress of the household was the world's foremost healing soul master, she could not hold up the entire Ye Family.
The nine heart begonia was a martial soul without any offensive power.
Nor was it like other support martial souls, which could gain offensive soul skills if forcibly given power attack soul rings.
No matter what soul beast's ring was added to a nine heart begonia, or how many rings its wielder cultivated, its soul skills had only one effect-group healing.
Thus, even though Ye Xi possessed the cultivation of a seven-ring Titled Douluo.
Her actual combat strength could not match even a one-ring Battle Soul Master.
What was more, the nine heart begonia had a martial soul defect that restricted its inheritance to a single line.
At most, only two nine heart begonia inheritors could exist in the same era.
This defect in their family martial soul was as terrifying as a curse.
After Ye Lingling's martial soul awakened, Ye Xi's mother reached the end of her life.
If Ye Lingling had a child in the future, once that child awakened their martial soul at six, Ye Xi would pass away from the backlash of the nine heart begonia martial soul, even without illness or misfortune.
The family's numbers had dwindled.
Every generation's nine heart begonia inheritor had no choice but to seek a powerful Battle Soul Master to rely upon.
Lin Chuan was the husband who had married into the family in Ye Xi's generation.
Ye Xi had once dreamed that, when her husband became a Soul Douluo, their Ye Family would no longer fear any family in Heaven Dou.
She had never imagined things would turn out like this.
With Lin Chuan gone, how were she and her fatherless daughter supposed to survive?
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