Nuoding City.
A small border city situated where the Star Luo Empire and the Heaven Dou Empire met.
Inside the Spirit Hall Branch in this small city, a martial soul awakening ceremony was being held for children who lived in Nuoding City and had just turned six.
And our protagonist, Li Ye, was naturally among them.
However, Li Ye was not from this world, but an ordinary young man from Blue Star.
As for the reason, it was naturally that same familiar recipe.
Our protagonist, Li Ye, had encountered a little girl crossing the road, then a large truck had come barreling along, and then there had been no "then."
After arriving in this world, Li Ye had adopted the attitude that, since he was here, he might as well settle in. He did his best to play an innocent child, living an ordinary life with his parents in this world.
Alas, being the protagonist's parents really was a high-risk occupation. They really were either both kings or both corpses!
That was right. Li Ye's parents in this world had been two fairly powerful Soul Masters. Both were quite talented, having cultivated to the Soul King rank in their thirties.
Unfortunately, they had met their deaths while hunting Soul Beasts to obtain their fifth Soul Rings.
Since both of them were Soul Masters who had come from Nuoding City, after their deaths, Li Ye, who was only four, had been taken in by Ma Xiunuo, the head of Nuoding City's Spirit Hall Branch.
After suffering the loss of both parents, Li Ye had once cried so hard that he fainted. To keep Ma Xiunuo and the Spirit Hall deacons who cared about him from worrying, Li Ye had put on a mask called happiness. He hid all his sorrow and grief in his heart, showing nothing but happiness in front of others.
Because the children from many nearby villages needed their martial souls awakened recently, most of the branch's deacons had been sent out.
And Ma Xiunuo was getting on in years and did not have much energy to awaken the martial souls of so many children.
Wasn't that a stroke of luck? The famous Grandmaster of martial soul theory, Yu Xiaogang, happened to have come to Spirit Hall on some business.
Ma Xiunuo: "I'm terribly sorry, Grandmaster, but I'll have to trouble you to do a little work for us. We can't handle your business for nothing, can we?"
And so, the poor sucker Yu Xiaogang was dragged and coaxed into his post by Ma Xiunuo.
And our equally unfortunate protagonist, Li Ye, happened to be in the line whose awakenings Yu Xiaogang was helping with.
Watching Luo Sanpao constantly wagging his rear beside the children undergoing their awakenings, Li Ye was on the verge of tears.
He frantically begged the people beside him to trade places with him, for no other reason than that every child Luo Sanpao had nudged had no damn soul power, and their martial souls were outrageously useless too.
Perhaps they had noticed this as well, because not a single one of the children Li Ye begged was willing to trade places with him.
Yu Xiaogang naturally saw the children's reactions. He dearly wanted to say that what martial soul they awakened and how much soul power they possessed were determined at birth and had absolutely nothing to do with who helped them awaken.
But faced with a group of innocent, ignorant children, how could he bring himself to say it? How could he bear to destroy their last shred of hope?
Just as Yu Xiaogang was about to tell Ma Xiunuo that he was unsuited to this work, Li Ye stepped before him with grim determination in his eyes.
Seeing this child with his unusual bearing, Yu Xiaogang's fighting spirit instantly flared.
Although this child looks young, his eyes and bearing are very different from those of the other children. Perhaps he can awaken a good martial soul.
After pondering briefly, Yu Xiaogang decided to finish awakening Li Ye's martial soul first and leave everything else for later.
"All right, hold out your right hand. Feel your martial soul with your heart, then slowly release it," Yu Xiaogang said, looking at Li Ye with a calm expression.
Hearing Yu Xiaogang's words, Li Ye closed his eyes as though resigning himself to his fate, but inwardly, he desperately pleaded with every immortal and Buddha.
Taishang Laojun, Jade Emperor, Buddha, Guanyin Bodhisattva, Queen Mother of the West... lend me a hand, please!
Huh? Why do I feel two different presences trying to come out of my body?
After praying to all the immortals and Buddhas, Li Ye suddenly sensed the martial souls within his body.
Normally, however, there should only have been one presence, yet he sensed two.
But Li Ye, who had read Douluo Continent thoroughly, immediately realized what was happening: he had twin martial souls.
Because his parents' martial souls had been of similar quality-one a spear and the other a sword, both tool martial souls-and had undergone beneficial mutations when passed down to Li Ye, he had awakened two martial souls that had mutated into top-tier martial souls at once.
Within moments, Li Ye had decided which martial soul he should reveal to everyone.
The next instant, Li Ye decisively released the spear in his right hand, while keeping the sword in his left hand tightly clenched in his palm.
Naturally, Li Ye's little maneuver did not escape Yu Xiaogang's discerning eyes. However, he said nothing and instead carefully examined the martial soul in Li Ye's right hand.
"This martial soul is a warfire spear, but it doesn't quite look like one. Wait, could it have mutated?" At this thought, Yu Xiaogang's voice grew considerably louder.
An ordinary warfire spear had a black shaft, with red flame patterns only on its spearhead. Only when soul power was used to attack would flames emerge from the tip.
Li Ye's spear, however, had a dark gold shaft covered in blood-red patterns, and some sort of dragonlike creature was depicted on its spearhead.
Most importantly, an aura of slaughter mingled with dark power would occasionally emerge from Li Ye's spear, only to be swallowed at the crucial moment by the lava-like, blood-colored flames within its shaft, as though the spear were sealing a demon with its flames.
Although Yu Xiaogang dearly wanted to examine Li Ye's martial soul closely, he had not forgotten the most important task at hand.
"Come, child. Withdraw your martial soul, then put your hand on this crystal ball to test your soul power," Yu Xiaogang said slowly, forcibly suppressing his excitement.
"Mm."
Li Ye merely nodded without any objection. After all, he wanted to know the state of his innate soul power too, even if doing this would let others see it.
Yet the moment Li Ye placed his hand on the crystal ball used to test soul power, countless cracks instantly appeared across it, as though it could not withstand his soul power. Then it shattered into fragments, scattering over Yu Xiaogang's hand.
"It seems this testing ball must have deteriorated with age. It's all right. I saw your soul power just now-innate level eight. Very good." Just as the people around them turned puzzled looks toward Li Ye, Yu Xiaogang immediately stepped forward to gloss it over.
Hearing Yu Xiaogang's explanation, no one except Ma Xiunuo noticed anything amiss. They were merely astonished that Li Ye was actually a peerless genius.
Ma Xiunuo naturally understood what Yu Xiaogang intended by saying this, but he had no intention of simply handing his precious grandson over to him. At the very least, he had to investigate whether Yu Xiaogang had the financial means to nurture his darling grandson. Even if Li Ye was only his adopted child, he still had to take responsibility for him to the end.
For the remainder of the time, because Ma Xiunuo was still there, Li Ye could not leave. He could only sit behind Ma Xiunuo and watch Yu Xiaogang and the few deacons in the hall awaken the other children's martial souls.
Before you continue