The python thrashed, and starlight blazed.
The ink-black chain arched its length like a giant python driven into a rage by pain.
With an explosive crack through the air, the ink-black chain lashed at her like a whip. Ye Xinglan hurriedly touched the ball of her front foot to the ground, shifted her weight onto her rear leg, and raised the Stargod Sword to block the blow. The tremendous force exceeded what she could withstand, sending her petite body stumbling backward.
People needed time to react, but under Xu Qingjia's control, the Soul Lock Chain did not pause for an instant. His powerful spiritual strength effortlessly overcame its inertia, and the ink-black chain thrust forward, coiling around Ye Xinglan's body like a python.
From her calves to her arms, it bound her tightly.
Ye Xinglan felt a bone-piercing chill seep from the chain, as though it reached straight into the depths of her soul. It was a terror that provoked instinctive physical revulsion in any living creature, pinning her body down like nails while forbidden law power restrained her soul power.
The enhancement from her first soul skill was forcibly dispelled. Even her martial soul scattered into specks of starlight, its manifestation impossible to sustain.
The chain binding Ye Xinglan supported her body, keeping her from falling.
"How did that feel?"
Xu Qingjia raised his hand, dismissing the Soul Lock Chain with a crisp snap of his fingers.
"The gap is huge." His childhood sweetheart looked dejected.
Her Sword God Star seemed to have done absolutely no damage to Xu Qingjia's chain.
The gap between low-level soul masters was indeed small, but that was in comparison to the gap between each level among high-level soul masters. For low-level soul masters themselves, it was still difficult to bridge through skill alone.
"That's because I had the advantage of a soul bone." Xu Qingjia gently stroked Ye Xinglan's little head. "If I'd absorbed a hundred-year soul spirit, the Soul Lock Chain definitely wouldn't be this sturdy."
This was not merely a difference in soul power and spiritual strength, but also a difference in soul spirits and soul rings. The soul skills of a thousand-year soul ring and a hundred-year soul ring were bound to differ considerably.
Ye Xinglan shook her head. The dejection in her clear eyes turned to resolve. "Whatever the reason, a gap is a gap. But Xu Qingjia, I'll work hard to catch up to you!"
Xu Qingjia smiled faintly at her words, continuing to stroke his childhood sweetheart's head. "All right."
Then he abruptly changed the subject. "But Xinglan, what do you think the winner's prize should be this time?"
Xu Qingjia remembered pinching his childhood sweetheart's cheeks last time.
"Um." Ye Xinglan's little face flushed.
"A-aren't you enjoying your prize right now?"
An enticing blush spread across Ye Xinglan's little face. A glimmer of determination flashed through her beautiful blue eyes, as though she had made some momentous decision. Rising onto her tiptoes like an adorable, proud little golden kitten, she gently nuzzled her head against Xu Qingjia's palm.
Xu Qingjia blinked.
His proud childhood sweetheart had turned into a docile little kitten?
"That won't do." Xu Qingjia smiled and gently shook his head. "I haven't even said what I want yet. How can that count?"
Ye Xinglan's eyes went blank for a moment.
Xu Qingjia stepped forward, his masculine presence washing over her. His teasing tone carried a hint of mischief. "You aren't trying to wriggle out of it, are you, Xinglan?"
"W-who's trying to wriggle out of anything!" Like a kitten whose tail had been stepped on, she tried hard to put on a stern face. Yet that blush refused to fade, only growing more vivid.
"Then tell me, what prize do you want?"
Xu Qingjia stepped back and looked his childhood sweetheart up and down.
Unfortunately, those words had come at the wrong time.
"How about this?" Xu Qingjia said. "Until you beat me, Xinglan, you have to keep calling me big brother. If you beat me, then I'll call you big sister."
Big sister?
Ye Xinglan imagined Xu Qingjia calling her big sister.
Hehe~
"Okay!" Ye Xinglan instantly felt brimming with motivation.
"Then let me hear you call me big brother first, Xinglan." The amusement in Xu Qingjia's eyes deepened.
"Um." Ye Xinglan's cheeks turned so red they could have dripped blood. Strong-willed since childhood, she had never used such a coquettish form of address. She was so mortified that she wished she could find a crack in the ground to crawl into, but she always kept her word. Biting her lip, she called out in a voice as faint as a mosquito's hum, "B-big brother."
The two continued their daily sparring.
Ye Xinglan used the practical combat to hone her swordsmanship.
Xu Qingjia, meanwhile, trained his control over his spiritual strength.
Once their soul power was exhausted, they stopped to rest.
"My body still can't react fast enough," Ye Xinglan said, reviewing the fight. "Compared with your mental control over the Soul Lock Chain, I'm always quite a bit slower. And then there's the age of our soul spirits. The gap between a thousand years and a hundred years is just too hard to bridge."
The former required skill; the latter required greater spiritual strength.
Although the Spirit Ascension Platform could increase a soul spirit's age, her current spiritual strength could not support a more powerful soul spirit.
"Do you have any ideas, Xinglan?" Xu Qingjia expertly massaged his childhood sweetheart's arms.
Ye Xinglan blinked her clear eyes. "I've heard the Tang Sect has some powerful cultivation arts. Among them are the movement art Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track and the Purple Demon Eye, the only art on the continent for cultivating spiritual strength."
"The Tang Sect..."
A bunch of lawless arms dealers.
The Tang Sect's first decline had resulted from the clash between soul tools and hidden weapons back then. More advanced technology had replaced the hidden weapons of the old era. Perhaps stung by their technological backwardness, they had placed great emphasis on technological development ever since. Across all three continents, their heavy industry ranked among the best, even judging only by what they revealed publicly, and they had extensive cooperation with the Federation military.
But Xu Qingjia, who had read the original story, knew there was more to it.
Beneath Heaven Dou City lay the true headquarters of the Tang Sect, with a full sixteen enormous arms factories.
The relationship between Shrek and the Tang Sect was even closer than anyone in the Federation imagined. Shrek Academy held shares in practically all of the Tang Sect's businesses, including those arms factories at its headquarters, which Shrek Academy and the Tang Sect had built together.
An almost imperceptible chill flashed through Xu Qingjia's eyes.
There were some debts he would personally collect one day.
Xu Qingjia said, "Once you join the Tang Sect and learn its arts, it won't be easy to leave."
"?" Ye Xinglan's eyes remained clear.
"I know those sorts of arts too," Xu Qingjia said softly.
Rather than joining the Tang Sect, she might as well join his Xu Family.
"Huh?" Ye Xinglan was surprised.
She had never heard that the Xu Family had those too.
Then Ye Xinglan shook her little head like a rattle drum. Her gaze was earnest as she looked
at Xu Qingjia. "No, those are your family's cultivation arts. I'm an outsider, so I can't learn them. Besides, if you pass them to me without permission, the Xu Family will definitely blame you."
"It's fine." Xu Qingjia gently shook his head. "Wouldn't that be solved as long as you weren't an outsider?"
The Xu Family had combat techniques, but those were related to the Sun Moon and Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon martial souls, developed and compiled by the family's ancestors. The cultivation arts he meant had nothing to do with those. They came from Electrolux.
Still, he would have to ask that senior's opinion and see whether he would permit him to teach them to someone else.
The supernatural system in the world of Throne of Seal was far richer than the one on the Douluo Continent. Even if he could not obtain Electrolux's true teachings, he could pay a price and request some footwork and combat techniques for the knight profession, warrior profession, or assassin profession, along with some elementary, intermediate, and advanced magician meditation methods. In the eyes of such a mighty figure, these things were no more than children's toys, so it should probably be possible.
He needed to learn a few things himself, too.
He could hardly have the stats without knowing how to bring their power into play.
Weren't these things better than the cultivation arts in the Tang Sect's hands?
That Purple Demon Eye could only be cultivated for a short while when the sun rose.
This was the true worth of the saying: an elder at home was a treasure in the family!