"...In the end, I reached an agreement with him. He'll help me complete my god-making plan, and he even promised to reunite me with Bingbing. Hehe."
"Too bad your big bro... ahem! Too bad your big sis can't cry, or I'd be shedding rivers of tears!"
A languid voice faded away within Huo Yutong's Sea of Consciousness.
After listening to the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's explanation, Huo Yutong had more or less pieced together the whole story.
"I think I understand."
Huo Yutong nodded.
"But, Sister Tian Meng, who's Bingbing?"
Tian Meng had now become her Wisdom Soul Ring and entered her Sea of Consciousness. That meant this supposed "reunion with Bingbing" would involve letting this "Bingbing" enter her body too.
Naturally, Huo Yutong was curious.
"Bingbing is my true love, my dream!"
"I even turned into what I am now for her!"
"To tell you about Bingbing, I have to start two hundred thousand years ago..."
As he introduced the lover of his dreams, Tian Meng assumed human form.
The enormous, pale, plump Ice Silkworm vanished, replaced by a tall blond figure wearing a hood and loose, pajama-like clothing, with a decidedly languid air and a woman's appearance.
He even yawned.
"A three-hundred-and-ninety-thousand-year-old Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion?! Your natural predator? And you're in love with her?!"
Huo Yutong looked like an old man squinting at his phone on the subway.
Was... was that right?
"You don't understand. That's what we call love!"
Tian Meng thrust out his ample chest and lifted his chin.
True love could transcend gender and species!
In fact, he had taken on this appearance specifically because the Radiant Dragon King had told him the Ice Empress liked females!
Members of the Ice Silkworm Clan were initially sexless, generally differentiating into males and females only when they were about to reproduce.
He had once become male precisely because the Ice Empress was female.
Had he known earlier that the Ice Empress didn't like men, he would have differentiated into a female long ago!
Still, it wasn't too late to find out now.
For certain powerful beings who primarily cultivated their minds, the spirit was the true foundation; the physical body wasn't nearly as important.
Besides, his body had probably already been chomp-chomp-chomped by the big dog.
The Emperor Auspicious Beast had been craving his shed husk for a long time...
"All right, little Yu Tong, you should head out. Time flows differently in the Sea of Consciousness than outside, but we shouldn't keep that lord waiting."
Tian Meng waved, and the scenery before Huo Yutong instantly blurred.
"Oh, you're awake."
"The surgery was a success. You're a cute little boy now."
"Huh?!"
At those words, the girl instantly snapped awake and instinctively reached down.
"All right, I'm done teasing."
El couldn't help laughing. He shook his head and asked,
"How do you feel now?"
"I feel great."
Huo Yutong looked around and found that the Soul Beasts that had appeared earlier were all gone. They must have left.
"My first soul ring gave me four soul skills: spiritual detection, spiritual sharing, soul shock, and simulation..."
"Good. That's what I agreed on with Tian Meng beforehand."
El had already discussed with Tian Meng which soul skills he needed to provide as her first soul ring.
Of the original story's four skills, spiritual detection and spiritual sharing could stay. Those two skills did more than scout and share one's field of vision.
Based on his deductions and experiments, with further development, spiritual sharing should eventually be able to produce an effect similar to Unlimited Void, or even go a step further to perform brainwashing and personality replacement.
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was simply too pathetic to manage such delicate operations.
As for soul shock and mental interference...
Put plainly, mental interference meant using one's own spiritual power to influence someone else.
Like a certain God King's blue silver entanglement, this skill didn't actually require a soul ring at all. It was one of the basic applications of spiritual power.
Early on, the most it could do was muddle someone's consciousness and cause them to misjudge things like distance.
But could anyone really perceive their surroundings accurately and activate soul skills after being hit by soul shock?
Besides, mental interference had far too many superior alternatives and equivalent substitutes. Swapping it for simulation was better; at least that was useful for survival and disguise early on.
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was pathetically weak. A million years old, and he didn't have a single soul skill with a special mechanic.
He had neither knowledge nor strength. A million-year-old who couldn't beat a hundred-thousand-year-old.
He might as well rename himself the Sky Dream Ice Maggot.
If this world didn't have a rule forbidding beasts from becoming gods, El suspected Tian Meng would still get utterly humiliated by a ferocious beast even after becoming a divine beast.
After taking another mental jab at Tian Meng,
El gently raised his hand, and an illusory sheet of brilliant golden parchment suddenly appeared in it.
"Since you've received the benefits, let's sign the contract."
"The terms are all written here. If you find no problems, leave your mark on it with your spiritual power."
This contract scroll, something never before seen on the Douluo Continent, was what El had previously asked Electrolux to help him create.
The Douluo Continent did have contractual power, but its contracts were merely oaths sworn upon one's martial soul or the deity one worshipped. They were binding, but inflexible.
In a sense, they were more like "bindings" than true "contracts" with defined terms.
That kind of "binding" contract didn't meet El's requirements.
"Mm."
Huo Yutong gave it a cursory glance, then followed the instructions and left her mark on it.
At the same time, a binding force from somewhere beyond perception descended upon her.
She understood that if she violated the contract, she would suffer a severe punishment.
That would probably be death.
Of course, the reverse also held true.
"Excellent, Daughter of Destiny."
El felt that same binding force. His expression turned solemn, his crimson-gold dragon eyes filled with a sovereign's majesty.
The Radiant Dragon King touched a finger to the Daughter of Destiny's forehead.
His voice rang out like mighty bells, his solemn proclamation echoing through both their souls:
"With this sacred contract as our witness, from this day onward, you and I shall share our souls.
I shall not violate my covenant, nor alter the words that have passed my lips:
The fallen stars shall once more rise high in the heavens!"
"And you shall be one of them.
-I shall bear witness to you, just as you shall bear witness to me."
As his voice echoed, the solemnity slowly faded from El's face. His smile returned, and he became that pretty, seemingly easygoing child again.
All that time spent composing his lines hadn't gone to waste. The effect was pretty good.
Cool as hell! Right?
Loyalty +1, approval +1.
Watching little Huo's shocked, excited expression, as though some incredible connection really had formed between them, El silently nodded to himself.
"Then we're on the same side now. My name is El. Just call me by my name."
"I... I'm Huo Yutong..."
Although little Huo thought he probably already knew her name, she introduced herself anyway.
"Then I'll call you Yu Tong from now on."
From now on, you're my distant cousin, with twin martial souls, soul power a little above rank twenty, and a soul ring configuration of one yellow and one purple."
"Huh? Rank twenty? Me?"
Huo Yutong blinked and pointed at herself.
She didn't ask why; she simply felt she might not be able to pull it off.
Simulation could indeed disguise the number and color of her soul rings, as well as the aura of her soul power. But if she actually faced a proper soul power test, simulation couldn't conjure something out of nothing.
Of course, El knew that too.
He held out his hand. Resting in his palm was a round, translucent, deep-blue scale, shimmering like rippling water.
Huo Yutong instinctively took it.
She discovered that merely touching the scale drew a continuous stream of ambient energy from the world toward her.
Holding it noticeably improved both her perception of energy and her cultivation speed!
"This is my reverse scale as Xeno'jiiva."
El explained, "Carrying it will increase your cultivation speed and your sensitivity to ambient energy in nature."
"Even without cultivating, your cultivation will slowly increase."
"Of course, most importantly, it can act as a soul power storage device. When necessary, you can draw on the soul power stored in it beforehand, just like a soul tool."
"With this, you'll have enough to pass yourself off as a Soul Grandmaster."
No matter how one looked at it, this was a treasure!
"Thank you..."
El waved it off. This was a necessary expense.
Besides, the scale also let him sense little Huo's location and general condition to a certain extent. It served as a monitoring device.
"So, El, where are we going next?"
Huo Yutong placed the scale against her body. She had intended to find a cord and hang it over her chest, but unexpectedly, the moment it touched her skin, it automatically concealed itself beneath it.
She tried pressing the spot. It felt completely normal.
Had she not personally placed the scale there, even she would have thought nothing had happened.
"Shrek Academy."
"But I don't know the way. We'll need a guide..."
El was, at heart, hopeless with directions.
In these six years, his only trip outside the Star Dou Great Forest had been when he and Di Tian infiltrated the White Tiger Duke's Mansion to confirm the timeline and their position within it.
"Let's get our stories straight first. Our guides should be arriving soon."
Closing his eyes briefly to sense his surroundings, El detected two approaching figures.
The aura of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon...
The Tang Sect's last two cats, one big and one small: Bei Bei and Tang Ya, who enjoyed playing teacher and student.
They were his chosen guides, and his foot in the door for claiming kinship with Mu En.
Before you continue