Feeling the majestic soul power surging within his body, Marquis Kongwen's desire for the Void Netherstone grew heavier and heavier.
Thinking back to how he rose from humble beginnings, with innate soul power as high as level nine at age six, reaching Soul Emperor at thirty-one, and being conferred the title of Marquis Kongwen by the Heaven Dou Empire, now, at not even forty-six years old, he was already a Level 83 Soul Douluo!
Achieving Titled Douluo was merely within arm's reach for him, and he would definitely attain it within ten years.
Now, the appearance of the Void Netherstone brought him even stronger confidence; as long as he had sufficient Void Netherstones, he was confident he could achieve Titled Douluo within three years.
Over the next period, Marquis Kongwen headed to the Soul Hunting Forest to search carefully for Void Netherstones, spending nearly half a year thoroughly scraping the outer regions of the forest clean.
The hundred-year and thousand-year soul beasts killed along the way were countless, and the commotion was so great that it even attracted the investigation of Spirit Hall.
In order to avoid drawing attention and to digest his resources, he cultivated inside the marquis manor's secret chamber for a full two years.
Two years later, not only had his cultivation realm stepped into Titled Douluo, but he had also basically figured out the uses and origins of the Void Netherstone and Void Marrow.
The Void Netherstone fragments harvested back then numbered up to a hundred pieces, varying in size. The Void Netherstone was a treasure, but not all Void Netherstones contained Void Marrow, and those that did were very much in the minority.
Just like him opening around a hundred pieces of Void Netherstones, he had only obtained a little over thirty clusters of Void Marrow.
He discovered that as long as a spatial-attribute soul master absorbed enough Void Marrow, it could promote martial soul evolution.
Just like how he absorbed enough Void Marrow, he vaguely sensed that he was only lacking a single opportunity away from martial soul evolution.
Thinking it over and over, he felt that the opportunity would appear on his final soul ring.
This Void Netherstone had a long history, having already appeared before Spirit Hall was founded.
In this era, the belief in the Angel God was spread far and wide, and he guessed that this Void Netherstone was likely not an earthly item, but came from legendary deities.
Now Marquis Kongwen was lacking a single soul ring to truly reach Titled Douluo.
Ordinary ten-thousand-year soul rings could no longer satisfy him. Fortunately, his wife was the Heaven Dou Emperor's most doted-upon youngest daughter.
Thus, Marquis Kongwen colluded with his wife to inform the Heaven Dou Emperor of his need for a hundred-thousand-year soul ring.
Although the Heaven Dou Emperor felt surprised at his rapid cultivation, he still agreed to his request.
They reached an agreement that the soul ring belonged to him, while the soul bone would be left for the next emperor!
At this time, the Heaven Dou Imperial Family's inherited Martial Soul had not yet degenerated. Its inherited Martial Soul, the Emerald-Feathered Swan, was a lower-tier Martial Soul of the super soul beast Emerald Swan, and its healing and amplification abilities surpassed even the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda.
Yet at this time, the Star Luo Empire's strength was not weak, for not only was the Star Luo Imperial Family's Martial Soul Fusion Skill powerful, but the Star Crown Sect also possessed numerous powerhouses.
Comparing the two, Heaven Dou's powerhouses and national strength were weaker. With frequent frictions along the borders of the two empires, the Heaven Dou Empire urgently needed an insider who could hold down the fort.
"Under the support of the entire Heaven Dou national strength, a hundred-thousand-year Heavenly Music Beast was successfully hunted for him in the eastern realm of the Star Dou Forest within three months!"
After absorbing the soul ring, Marquis Kongwen not only successfully ascended to the peak as a Level 92 Titled Douluo, but his Martial Soul also evolved into the Void-Tone Immortal Flute, which came with its own innate domain!
It was only a pity that Marquis Kongwen already had children long ago; otherwise, such a Martial Soul could have been passed down!
His deeds of achieving Titled Douluo at under fifty years old spread across the entire Douluo Continent.
Amidst the rapturous attention of the masses in Spirit City, he was honored with the title of Void Pattern Douluo!
Having attained Titled Douluo, Marquis Kongwen steadily lay low while returning to his old line of work.
He then initiated scavenging operations in the Soul Hunting Forest.
Relying on his strength as a Titled Douluo at this time, the inner-region ten-thousand-year soul beasts were far from being a match anymore.
His massive slaughter of soul beasts ultimately provoked the two beast kings of back then. However, due to his soaring strength, when Marquis Kongwen wanted to escape, the two beast kings could do nothing to stop him!
Through five years of such killing and escaping, apart from the mountain-sized Void Netherstone at the center, there were no more Void Netherstones left in the Soul Hunting Forest.
Spirit Hall maintained a certain level of protection and concern toward soul beasts, consistently prohibiting soul masters from wantonly slaughtering low-tier soul beasts. Furthermore, as a Titled Douluo, Marquis Kongwen's movements attracted public attention.
At first, Spirit Hall assumed Marquis Kongwen was killing beasts to harvest bones, so they gave him some face and only issued a warning.
Having completed his scavenging, Marquis Kongwen also took advantage of the warning to lie low for a period of time.
Thus he hid away in seclusion to cultivate for fifteen years!
With the enthronement of the Heaven Dou Empire's new emperor and the death of its chief enshrined, the Star Luo Empire seized the opportunity to launch an invasion, and the armies of the two empires broke out into a fierce war at Changning Pass. Due to the imperial family lacking high-tier combat power, nearly a quarter of their territory was captured by the enemy forces.
Therefore, they had no other choice than to invite out Marquis Kongwen, who had been cultivating in seclusion for fifteen years.
After emerging from seclusion, Marquis Kongwen descended directly onto the battlefield of the two armies. With his Level 98 soul power, he shook the entire Douluo Continent, relying on a single Ethereal Flute Melody to forcefully kill a Titled Douluo of the Star Crown Sect, thereby driving back the hundred-thousand-strong army of the Star Luo Empire.
He immediately led the troops to reclaim the territory of the Heaven Dou Empire, his momentum completely unstoppable.
From then on, he saved the Heaven Dou Empire from peril!
Marquis Kongwen's Level 98 soul power became an object of probing for various factions across the Douluo Continent.
The various factions had long since known that Marquis Kongwen had not absorbed a hundred-thousand-year soul bone for his ninth soul ring.
With his innate soul power talent of level nine, not to mention how many levels he could rise within twenty years, anyway in this lifetime it was absolutely impossible for him to reach level 98.
In response, the various factions began investigating Marquis Kongwen's movements over the past thirty years in order to acquire the secret to his rapid soul power advancement.
After investigating this way and that, they discovered his bizarre actions in the Soul Hunting Forest.
At this, the various factions dispatched scouts to conduct an in-depth investigation of the entire Soul Hunting Forest.
They wouldn't have known if they hadn't checked, but checking gave them a fright. Eighty percent of the dispatched scouts were killed by the two hundred-thousand-year beast kings, and the remaining scouts brought the intelligence back.
The various factions felt shocked that two hundred-thousand-year soul beasts existed at the center of the Soul Hunting Forest!
Yet the major factions, still having failed to discover the secret, were extremely annoyed. They united to pressure Marquis Kongwen.
Among them, Spirit Hall's Great Enshrined, Qian Yuchen, the number one person in the soul master world, issued a challenge to Marquis Kongwen.
The two of them set an Angel Pact before the Angel God Statue, agreeing that the loser would hand over the secret, while the victor would have Spirit Hall help keep the secret.
In the end, the Level 98 Marquis of Void Pattern, together with the assistance of a Level 91 imperial family ancestor, fought Qian Yuchen together in the skies above Spirit City.
"The result was that the two of them suffered a miserable defeat at the hands of Qian Yuchen!"
Compelled by the influence of the pact, Marquis Kongwen decided to go all out and simply spread the secret to the entire continent.
Because Spirit Hall's strong intervention left the various factions with no hope, it turned out to be an unexpected windfall.
In response, powerhouses at the Titled Douluo level across the entire Douluo Continent mostly entered the Soul Hunting Forest to plunder Void Netherstones.
Due to Marquis Kongwen's previous scavenging, numerous powerhouses turned the entire forest upside down yet still discovered no Void Netherstones.
They could only cast their gazes toward the Thorn Dragon Group, which possessed the two hundred-thousand-year beast kings.
Marquis Kongwen was also among them, but what the various powerhouses did not know was that he had also hidden a crucial secret!