Then once you stand, don't kneel again

Huo Yuhao nodded heavily. He was indeed upset.

But Huo Yun's next words struck him like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. "Good. I thought you were going to keep disappointing me all day."

"I-I-I... what did I do that disappointed you?" Huo Yuhao's mind went blank. How had he disappointed his mother? What had he done? What was going on?

"Do you still remember what kind of person I hoped you would become?" Seeing his utterly bewildered expression, Huo Yun asked with a stern face.

"Never let down your guard against others, but never harbor the intent to harm them. Be independent, strong, confident, self-respecting, and loving toward yourself." Of course Huo Yuhao remembered that.

"Then do you understand what those words mean?" Huo Yun continued.

"..." Huo Yuhao fell silent. He only knew that Huo Yun wanted him to become someone like that. He recognized and understood those ten Chinese characters, but he really had no clear idea what such a person was like.

"To put it simply, self-respect means openly accepting your true self. Accept yourself as you are now, whether you have flaws or not. This is me. This is my dignity, my spirit.

"Being strong means having a clear plan for your life, knowing what you want, what you want to obtain, and what path you want to take in the future, rather than wandering aimlessly through this world.

"Independence means not thinking of relying on others for everything, not taking every gust you hear as wind and every patter as rain. Have your own judgment and your own thoughts.

"Self-love means not caring about what others think of you. You should pay more attention to your own heart and do what you enjoy, rather than catering to others by doing things you dislike.

"Confidence means believing you can do it. When faced with difficulties, never bow your head and never admit defeat. Dare to take responsibility for your mistakes and correct your course. That confidence must come from faith in your own abilities, not vanity or feelings of inferiority." This time, Huo Yun did not make Huo Yuhao guess, but gave him the answer outright.

Then came the settling of accounts. "Now let's talk about what you did during that one meal today. How many of those things did you do well?

"Just sensing the arrogance in their bones affected you. They hadn't even said anything or expressed it, yet it affected you so much that you lost your appetite. That's a lack of self-respect.

"Their looks reminded you of your weak past self and made you feel you were still who you were back then. You forgot that you're now the only person on the entire Douluo Continent with triple martial souls! A top-tier body martial soul, a god-level martial soul, the origin spirit eyes-the Eye of Destiny! A god-level martial soul, the Holy Necromancer! In the future, you'll have a third god-level martial soul. With martial souls like yours, they couldn't envy you enough.

"My dear son, with all of that, you should be the one looking down on them. Why care about those tactless looks? You don't even have a proper understanding of yourself.

"In fact, your feelings of inferiority are part of the reason too. You lack confidence. You're not confident? You think you've left your past behind, yet you still feel you're back in your days at the Duke's Mansion.

"Next, you failed to love yourself this time. Why care what attitude they have toward you? What you usually enjoy is sitting with your Sister Strawberry and Sister Lexuan, chatting and listening to them tell you about interesting things that have happened at the academy lately, and about soul masters. Isn't that what you love doing?

"Then why let others affect you? Sit there and chat openly with those two. Just talk. This is what I love doing. Even if they don't have time to talk to you, that's fine. Couldn't you sit there and enjoy the food? Couldn't we eat and drink well, cultivate at night, become strong as soon as possible, and resurrect your birth mother?

"Just tell me, how many of those five things did you fail at today?"

"I... I'm sorry. I disappointed you." Hearing those words, Huo Yuhao lowered his head even further. Just as Huo Yun had said, this time he really had lacked confidence, self-respect, and self-love.

That's right. Why should I care what Ma Xiaotao and the others think of me? Their arrogance is their business.

He had grounds for pride too. He was this plane's favored one, the child of destiny.

On that point alone, Ma Xiaotao and the others could envy him all they liked. His very first soul ring was a million-year soul ring. That alone had already put him ahead of past soul masters by who knew how many times.

"But I feel you've disappointed yourself even more, my child. Normally, Mommy doesn't want you to look down from on high at the other people in this world just because you think you're the child of destiny. I gave birth to all of you. You live in this world, and you're equals.

"But precisely because you're equals, you should at least be able to see yourself as someone standing on this earth just like them. Yet you haven't even done that.

"So I hope you can change from someone kneeling on the ground and looking up at them into someone standing proudly on the ground, meeting their eyes as an equal.

"You've been kneeling a little too long. Stand up from now on, all right?"

As she spoke, Huo Yun drew on her power to lift Huo Yuhao's head.

To put it plainly, Huo Yuhao was caught up in some mental self-consumption. This mainly had to do with his background, just like his sensitivity to their arrogance.

Simply put, he had not adjusted to his new identity. He was no maid's son now, but a son of the plane with boundless potential.

Huo Yuhao might not remember certain lessons merely from hearing them. He had to experience them before he would know what to do.

Take his admiration for Shrek, for instance. He had better things right here, so what was there to admire about Shrek? And taking a vice dean of Shrek's Soul Tool Department as his teacher? Was he looking down on his mother, or on his teacher Electrolux?

So it came back to the same thing: he had not adjusted to his identity. He had placed himself in the dust, seemingly without noticing what kind of power lay hidden around him.

"Mm." Huo Yuhao nodded firmly. At that moment, everything became clear to him, because he realized he no longer needed to care about all those irrelevant things. Wasn't living his present life well enough?

"Then once you stand, don't kneel again! Sort out your feelings, and let's get going. It's time to cultivate. I've discussed it with your teacher Electrolux. First, build your foundation and master your first martial soul-your innate martial soul, the spirit eyes, and the Eye of Destiny. Once you reach rank twenty and obtain your second soul ring and final martial soul, he'll officially begin teaching you the Holy Necromancer's necromancy and light magic." Seeing that she had achieved her goal, Huo Yun moved on to the next step.

"All right." Huo Yuhao nodded again and, without lingering, strode back to his room.

He looked around to make sure no one was watching his room before taking out the two soul tools he had finished making that day.

As for his emotions, he had already settled them-or rather, he had sorted out his feelings on the way back.

"First, let's prepare the Heavenly Treasures. Take the century-old fire soulgrass, century-old ice soulgrass, firm spirit tree fruit..."

Although they were short one Class Seven soul tool, that did not matter. The remaining two were enough for Huo Yuhao's current cultivation.

Setting the juicer on the table, Huo Yuhao followed Huo Yun's instructions and took the spiritual ingredients out one by one from the Storage Soul Tool Di Tian had given him.

One or two of them might only sell for several hundred or a thousand Gold Soul Coins on the market, but Huo Yuhao put in a full twelve kinds of spiritual ingredients. And these were merely the materials for a single portion of the cultivation treasures Huo Yun had prepared for him.

The powers and medicinal properties of these natural treasures complemented one another.

They would produce a medicine gentle enough for Huo Yuhao to absorb and capable of supporting his cultivation for a long time.

This single portion alone would fetch at least tens of thousands of Gold Soul Coins outside, and it was the sort of thing that money might not even buy.

Fortunately, the Star Dou Great Forest was vast enough. Di Tian and the others had spent time gathering a year's worth of materials for Huo Yuhao.

He processed the twelve Heavenly Treasures as Huo Yun instructed, put them into the juicer, and switched it on to begin juicing.

As the juicing began, Huo Yuhao continuously fed soul power into the juicer with one hand to keep it running.

But as the blades sliced through the Heavenly Treasures inside, the juices of the various spiritual fruits gradually mixed, and bursts of explosive noise began coming from the blender.

Huo Yuhao let go almost the very next instant, because the blender abruptly turned red and scorching hot. Then the redness on the cup vanished, replaced by a layer of frost.

Fortunately, the soul power stored inside kept it running. After that, it turned brown.

The ice- and fire-attribute Heavenly Treasures already possessed a rudimentary spirituality. Their attributes were opposing extremes to begin with, so putting them together would inevitably provoke a fierce reaction of rejection.

Within a sealed container, that originally intense rejection would instantly turn into an attack-an indiscriminate attack on everything within that enclosed space.

Through these attacks, the other natural treasures were repeatedly tempered and fused together. Not only did they neutralize the energy of the two attributes, but they also fused many originally incompatible natural treasures, such as ice soulgrass and fire soulgrass, harmonizing them while further drawing out the energy within.

And the blender continued churning, making the mixing energies increasingly violent.

Fortunately, this soul tool had been forged from exceptionally sturdy metal. Otherwise, the clashing energies of the Heavenly Treasures inside would have destroyed the entire soul tool.

Although he was confident, Huo Yuhao still could not help worrying a little as he watched the blender shake violently, looking ready to explode at any moment. If it exploded, never mind cleaning up, even explaining it would probably be troublesome.

Fortunately, the explosion Huo Yuhao imagined never happened. After shaking for about a minute, the blender's movements grew smaller and smaller until it finally settled down.

"Is it done now?" Huo Yuhao watched the now-motionless blender for quite a while before asking.

"More or less. Wait another ten seconds, and the energy inside will settle completely and finish fusing. Then you can drink all the medicine inside in one go.

"Tian Meng, there's too much energy in there. Yuhao definitely won't be able to absorb it all at once. You know how to seal the excess energy, right? Don't forget to leave an opening so Yuhao can absorb it slowly. That energy should last him more than a month," Huo Yun said.

"Of course. Leave it to me." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's voice rang out. Whatever else might be said, he was at least a million-year soul beast, and his capacity was tremendous.

He might not measure up in quality, but in quantity, he feared absolutely no one.

Counting down silently, Huo Yuhao judged that enough time had passed and opened the blender. The next second, a faint fruity fragrance drifted out.

The scent was like some kind of fruit and smelled particularly appetizing. Just one whiff made Huo Yuhao feel as though all his pores had opened, leaving his entire body wonderfully comfortable.

Without the slightest hesitation, Huo Yuhao poured it all out, leaving not a single drop. The natural treasures inside had now become a white liquid, with what seemed to be a multicolored shimmer within the white.

After pouring everything out, Huo Yuhao even checked to make sure not a single drop remained, then downed the entire bowl of liquid in one gulp.

It smelled faintly fruity, and drinking it was also rather like drinking fruit: sweet, and once swallowed, it slid straight down his throat.

A warm sensation instantly spread throughout Huo Yuhao's body, making him feel indescribably comfortable.

"All right. Clean up, and then you can begin practicing your spiritual power," Huo Yun reminded him. The nourishing Heavenly Treasures she had prepared for Huo Yuhao were not meant for him to absorb all at once to raise his cultivation, but to support him during cultivation.

In other words, Huo Yuhao had to absorb the energy slowly, rather than trying to eat himself fat in a single mouthful.

"Mm." Huo Yun had already explained these steps to Huo Yuhao.

After finishing the drink, Huo Yuhao looked at the other spherical soul tool, the one intended for training spiritual power.

Of course, their spiritual power cultivation differed from ordinary training. This spherical soul tool was meant to train control over spiritual power.

Huo Yuhao could inject spiritual power into this soul tool and then manipulate it with his mind.

Without using his hands, he could try lifting the soul tool with his spiritual power.

Since spiritual power was originally a formless, colorless existence, under normal circumstances, never mind lifting an iron ball, even lifting a twig required spiritual power of extremely high quality.

According to Huo Yun's explanation to Huo Yuhao, spiritual power was divided into the Spirit Origin Realm, Spirit Connection Realm, Spirit Sea Realm, Spirit Abyss Realm, and Spirit Domain Realm. These were the heights mortals could reach. Beyond them lay the gods' Divine Origin Realm.

At present, Huo Yuhao's spiritual power was in the Spirit Connection Realm: the heart and spirit connected, and thought arrived where intent reached!

At this realm, he could destroy a twig from a distance, but he could not yet lift one. The reason was his insufficient control.

The spherical soul tool was meant to help Huo Yuhao practice controlling his spiritual power.

Simply activating this soul tool required Huo Yuhao to condense his spiritual power to a certain degree. To lift it, he would have to condense his spiritual power to the point of forming something like strands of hair.

Of course, that was a figure of speech. But if he could lift the spherical soul tool, then Huo Yuhao would indeed be capable of compressing his spiritual power into threads without a soul tool. At that point, the power unleashed by one unit of his spiritual power might surpass ten ordinary units from someone else.

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