The dorm room.
To keep anyone from disturbing him, Xiao Zi told Dai Huabin to spend the night in the city and return the next morning.
After sending his Soul Slave away, he summoned the Destruction Scepter's First Soul Ring again. Brilliant golden light instantly filled the room, and he sealed all four walls with angel divine power to prevent anyone outside from eavesdropping-Mu En, specifically.
Then he took out the ten-thousand-year whale glue and the Soul Ascension Pill, intending to consume both that night and reach rank thirty in one fell swoop. As for which to take first, after careful consideration, Xiao Zi picked up the former.
Whale rubber could cleanse filth and purge impurities from the meridians, with its effectiveness increasing in proportion to its age. Consuming it would greatly strengthen his physique, making his subsequent attempt to break through the bottleneck faster as well.
He drew on the flames within the Angel God Ring. Ultimate fire blazed fiercely, slowly melting the whale rubber in his palm.
The dorm room was sparsely furnished, and urgent circumstances called for expedient measures. Xiao Zi did not find a separate bowl to catch it. Instead, once the black impurities on the surface melted away, exposing the golden core while it was still solid, he swallowed it straight down.
A real man had to gulp it down in one go to show the true mettle of a hero!
The whale rubber filled his mouth with a strong fishy taste, slid down his throat, and went straight into his stomach. With no time to ease into it, it soon exploded into a fierce torrent of heat in his belly, while a faint fragrance wafted back through his nose.
The energy within ten-thousand-year whale glue was astonishing. A single piece filled his abdominal cavity, and thick currents of heat spread through every limb and bone.
Qian Renxue had sacrificed her lifetime of power to rebuild his body, yet Xiao Zi's physical condition was still terrible. Otherwise, Luo Feng would not have waived his Quasi-Martial Artist test and sent him straight into actual combat.
Although the whale rubber could not repair his damaged soul or restore its missing parts, it was enough to nourish his frail flesh, improving his physical condition to at least several times what it had been.
The soothing warmth gradually turned scorching. Hot currents surged through his eight extraordinary meridians, washing away the impurities inside them as sweat poured from his entire body. A strange reddish-brown color replaced his fair complexion, staining even his clothes before spreading outward and soaking into the sheets.
With all the ten-thousand-year whale glue in his stomach, Xiao Zi picked up the Soul Ascension Pill with his other hand and swallowed it in one gulp as well, while the medicinal potency was at its peak and the losses were still minimal.
Another torrent of energy quietly arrived, matching the ten-thousand-year whale glue in its ferocity, if not surpassing it. The Soul Ascension Pill won through sheer volume, making his body swell after he swallowed it. The two currents merged into one and charged toward the bottleneck.
They truly deserved to be called treasures of heaven and earth. Driven by these two forces, his meridians widened at an astonishing speed, while his frail body greedily absorbed their nourishment. This was the ideal moment to absorb the medicinal ingredient and the pill. Complementing one another, the ten-thousand-year whale glue and the Soul Ascension Pill exerted their effects to the fullest.
At the same time, Xiao Zi circulated Five Hearts Facing the Sky at full power. The cultivation art from a higher plane delivered a dimensional blow, rapidly refining the medicinal potency like a high-temperature forge and accelerating his absorption of the whale rubber and the pill.
Looking inward, he saw that his eight extraordinary meridians had expanded to their limit. Nourished by the medicinal effects, his bones were no longer brittle and had acquired a crystalline, translucent protective sheen.
Crack!
With that crisp sound, the rank-thirty bottleneck broke. He had encountered almost no resistance; everything fell into place as naturally as water flowing into a channel. Part of the excess soul power became energy that continued to raise his cultivation, while the rest fed back into its host, transforming his body.
The dorm room had long since become a red-and-gold ocean of energy. The Angel God Ring revolved overhead, sealing in every disturbance without allowing even the slightest trace to escape.
Immersed in the pleasurable heat, Xiao Zi activated the Five Hearts Facing the Sky Secret Art to circulate his soul power. But as the medicinal effects continued to spread, something strange happened.
Whale rubber had one well-known effect: it was an intensely potent tonic of pure yang energy. Even an ordinary adult man could not withstand the effects of excessive yang energy, much less someone who had consumed an entire piece of ten-thousand-year whale glue along with a Soul Ascension Pill. The side effects of that excess began to manifest.
In his previous life, Xiao Zi had been a champion of pure love. As the exalted Destruction God King who ruled the Divine Realm, he had naturally never lacked admirers, and he was a normal man as well. Now that he had descended into mortality in this life, he lacked the self-control he had possessed as a God King and soon could no longer sit still.
His eyes turned red, and his body swayed as though he might collapse at any moment. He tore at his clothes, which were soaked layer after layer with dark-red sweat that ran down the bedding and dripped off it.
"Xiao Zi, are you all right?"
Sensing that something was wrong, Qian Renxue called to him repeatedly from the Sea of Consciousness, trying to bring him back to his senses.
Yet he turned a deaf ear and kept doing as he pleased. When she saw the sculpted lines of his muscles and that magnificent physique, as though it were heaven's most beautiful creation, Qian Renxue blushed despite herself and hid off to one side.
Throughout all the time she had known Xiao Zi, she had always regarded him as an unattainable God King. Even after his fall into the mortal world, he was not someone she could dare dream of. But at this sight, alluring ripples stirred across the lake of her heart, and all her composure and restraint were swept away!
Only then did she realize that even a mighty Supreme God King had the seven emotions and six desires, no different from an ordinary person.
After her initial bewilderment, Qian Renxue, who had weathered great storms, quickly collected herself. No matter what, she would not stand idly by. Having existed in the human world for twenty thousand years, she knew the secrets between men and women like the back of her hand, earning herself the nickname "veteran driver"-self-proclaimed.
"From the moment I chose to sacrifice myself, I was yours..." Qian Renxue used Out-of-Body Soul and reached out to touch his forehead gently.
Xiao Zi, who had been panting with bloodshot eyes, gradually quieted and sank into the deepest slumber.
Guided by the wills of its host and his Soul Spirit, the Sea of Consciousness simulated a vast ocean interwoven with gold and purple. Qian Renxue and Xiao Zi held each other tightly as they immersed themselves in the cool lake water. This was no ordinary water, but a "cooling medicine" formed from angel divine power.
After a long while, Xiao Zi seemed to calm somewhat. His limbs wrapped around her waist, gradually tightening their hold.
Qian Renxue paused for only a moment before accepting what was happening. Rather than showing any panic, she took the initiative and moved to meet him.
Another strange scene unfolded. Two entirely different colors, one purple and one gold, shot into the sky. The once sharply divided ocean began to merge and converge, while the two currents of soul power continually produced strange forms.
Under this influence, Xiao Zi's destruction divine power and Qian Renxue's Six-Winged Angel divine power guided each other and fused. The dominant force shifted constantly, each containing the other within itself.
Had someone knowledgeable been present, they would have recognized this as a Martial Soul Fusion Skill. Unlike its usual form, however, this one existed without physical bodies, solely through the mingling of souls.
The harmony between their souls allowed them to skip the adjustment phase, bringing their fusion progress to 100% in an instant. There was no sluggishness or obstruction; everything flowed with perfect smoothness.
Qian Renxue was the only one conscious. She guided the fused soul power down toward the deepest reaches of the Sea of Consciousness.
The Sea of Consciousness gradually grew calm again. Only the occasional surging fluctuations of mingling soul power revealed that the fusion was still continuing.