Youheng understood that perfectly well. Devouring his other self was the shortest path to growing stronger quickly. A trace of icy killing intent flashed through his eyes, but reason soon suppressed it.
"I want to eliminate this threat as soon as possible too. But, Sister Snow Empress, he's still a Battle Soul Elder above rank thirty, with a top-tier Evil Shadow Demon Tiger Martial Soul. On the surface, I'm only a food-type Soul Master in the teens. My chances of winning a head-on fight aren't good. And an ambush... on his turf, that would be extremely risky too."
"A food-type Soul Master isn't necessarily incapable of defeating a Battle Soul Elder!" There was a hint of pride in the Snow Empress's voice. "Don't forget your first Soul Skill, the Snow-Soul Ice Condensation Pill! After taking it, you'll gain the 'Snow-Soul Ice Body' state, making you largely immune to physical attacks, imbuing your attacks with ultimate ice, and greatly enhancing your control over the ice element! That alone gives you formidable abilities to defend yourself and strike back!"
"More importantly..." The Snow Empress's tone grew solemn and enticing. "I can begin teaching you right now—the supreme technique with which I, the Snow Empress, reigned across the Far North for seven 100,000 Years: Emperor's Palm: Great Cold Without Snow!"
"Emperor's Palm... Great Cold Without Snow?" Dai Youheng's gaze sharpened. Of course he knew how powerful this supreme technique had been in the original story. It abandoned dazzling displays of light and shadow, concentrating the chill of ultimate ice entirely within the palm. Whatever it touched crumbled; whoever it struck was beyond saving. It was a terrifying killing move!
"Exactly!" the Snow Empress confirmed. "With my personal guidance and the amplification from the Snow-Soul Ice Condensation Pill, as long as you practice diligently and grasp even thirty percent of its essence, killing a Soul Elder with a single palm strike while he's off guard will be no difficult feat!"
A keen light flickered in Youheng's eyes as he swiftly weighed his options. The Snow Empress's plan was indeed highly feasible.
He drew a deep breath and nodded. "All right! I'll listen to you, Sister Snow Empress! Starting today, I'll train hard in Emperor Palm: Great Cold Without Snow!"
He turned his gaze toward the White Tiger Duke's Mansion once more, his eyes cold and sharp.
"Still, judging by that fellow's personality and the way he acts, I think that even if we don't make a move... sooner or later, he'll bring about his own destruction. All we need to do is... wait patiently, or... fan the waves at the right moment."
Hunting required patience. And patience was the one thing a hunter never lacked. He raised his teacup and drained the slightly cool tea, as though what he swallowed was not tea, but his other self's fate.
Inside an upper-class room at an unremarkable yet sufficiently quiet inn in Star Luo City.
Dai Youheng slowly opened his eyes. The faint fluctuations of soul power lingering around him receded into his body like a tide. He sensed the increasingly abundant soul power in his dantian, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.
"Rank seventeen."
Only a little over three months had passed since he awakened in the Far North. Through his own cultivation, his soul power had already risen by two full ranks.
For a genius with innate full soul power, that pace might not have amounted to much. But for someone who had only truly begun cultivating at fourteen, already late to the starting line, it was quite astonishing.
His cultivation method was rather unusual. It was not the meditation method commonly used on the Douluo Continent, but an unnamed art forcibly implanted deep within his soul by the "strange hand" that had snatched him from another world.
When he practiced this art, the soul power within his body circulated in a wild yet efficient manner, carrying a faint trace of a beast's domineering greed as it ravenously seized the vital energy of heaven and earth. Yet it was utterly different from every Soul Beast cultivation method the Snow Empress knew, brimming with the alien air of another world.
After cultivating this art, he could easily enter a state of deep inner vision. When his consciousness sank into his dantian, he could clearly see not only the Fate-Reversing Heavenly Demon Pill floating silently there, radiating an ominous and powerful aura, but also the Seven Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring resting upon it, as heavy as a mountain.
He could also see the cool, otherworldly figure dwelling deep within the soul ring.
She was not the Snow Empress Huo Yuhao had encountered in the original story, who had assumed the form of a little girl after losing too much of her power.
Because the sacrificial process had been relatively complete, although she had lost much of her power, the essence of her soul had been perfectly preserved by the hundred-thousand-year snow lotus. The Snow Empress who now appeared in his inner vision still possessed the appearance befitting the sovereign of ice and snow who had ruled the Far North for nearly seven hundred thousand years.
She was a breathtakingly beautiful, mature woman, tall and slender, with a face that could topple nations, silver hair cascading like a waterfall, and skin of ice over bones of jade. She radiated an utmost chill that stood proud against snow and frost, along with noble majesty. Merely floating there in silence, she seemed to be the center of the entire world.
"Your progress is acceptable." The Snow Empress's cool voice sounded directly within his consciousness, carrying a barely perceptible hint of approval. "Though this cultivation art of yours is strange, its efficiency in absorbing energy does far exceed ordinary meditation methods. It is simply too domineering. If you cultivate it over the long term, you must guard your mind carefully and not let its beastly nature taint you."
"Don't worry, Sister Snow Empress. I know my limits," Dai Youheng replied.
He rose and walked to the window, directing his gaze toward the White Tiger Duke's Mansion once again as his brows knitted almost imperceptibly.
He had not spent these three months idling. Apart from cultivating, he had devoted most of his time to using his low presence to secretly observe that other "self."
The results, however, had left him somewhat helpless.
That lovesick lapdog's movements were monotonous to an appalling degree.
He was either wallowing in self-pity or indulging in unrealistic daydreams in his secluded courtyard at the White Tiger Duke's Mansion, or tirelessly lingering near the Star Luo Imperial Palace, trying to find an opportunity to see Xu Jiujiu again. Only occasionally did he venture into the city to buy little gifts intended to win her favor.
The Duke's Mansion was heavily guarded, with not only a large number of guards but powerful experts stationed there as well. The Star Luo Imperial Palace was even more of a dragon's pool and tiger's den, teeming with experts and guarded with extreme vigilance.
Commit murder in either of those places? That would be courting death. Dai Youheng was confident, but never blindly so. His low presence had never failed him against ordinary people or even average Soul Masters, but it might not conceal him completely from truly powerful experts.
He had already tested it. His low presence was not absolute "invisibility." As long as he actively and forcefully drew someone's attention-for instance, by suddenly shouting or deliberately bumping into them-others could still notice him.
This state was more like being "overlooked" on the level of the rules themselves, rather than physically disappearing.
In those remote little towns, he could use this ability to "rob the rich and aid the poor" as he pleased-or, rather, satisfy his own selfish desires-because those places had, at most, a few city lords or mercenary leaders at the Soul Ancestor or Soul King level. It was difficult for them to see through his abnormality.
But what sort of place was this? The capital of the Star Luo Empire!
The empire's Worship Hall stood right here, with who knew how many old monsters at the Titled Douluo level hidden inside! How keen was a Titled Douluo's spiritual perception? Their understanding of energy fluctuations and abnormalities of the soul went far beyond that of ordinary people.
What if one of those worshippers detected the soul fluctuations of the two "Dai Youhengs," sharing the same origin yet strikingly different?
Then things would really get interesting!
Before you continue