Even though Golden Crocodile Douluo was unwilling ten thousand times over,
Qian Daoliu, the Great Enshrined, had already spoken, so he could only hold his nose and hand the Golden Crocodile Clan's ancestral body-tempering method over to Bibi Dong.
Once Bibi Dong turned and left with it, Golden Crocodile Douluo looked at Qian Daoliu, frustrated by his lack of resolve.
"Big Brother, that woman has already become a force to be reckoned with! Now you're even having us give her secret methods to help her disciples grow. How is that any different from raising a tiger that will bring us trouble?"
"When the young mistress returns and wants to reclaim the papal throne that belongs to the Angel Clan, I'm afraid it will only be harder than ever!"
Golden Crocodile Douluo felt that their big brother was excellent in every respect, except that he conducted himself a little too much like a gentleman.
In his eyes, Qian Daoliu's gentlemanly ways had even become somewhat pedantic.
He had been like this with Tang Chen back then, and later, when Qian Xunji fell and Bibi Dong took power, he was still the same.
As Spirit Hall's staunchest hawk,
if he were the one calling the shots in Spirit Hall,
a gentleman's agreement? There would be no such thing!
If he did not uproot the Clear Sky Sect entirely, he would be letting down his own Golden Crocodile King Martial Soul.
And that was without even mentioning the absurd things Bibi Dong had done back then!
She wanted to become Pope?
Killing the mother and keeping the child would already have been the greatest mercy he could show her!
Yet, faced with Golden Crocodile Douluo's complaints, Qian Daoliu merely raised his head calmly and gazed at the enormous Six-Winged Angel statue above the great hall.
His voice held neither sorrow nor joy, and his eyes were filled with devotion to the Angel God.
"Second Brother, you know as well as I do that Xiao Xue is the one our Qian Family has awaited for generations."
"Before I help her open that final door, Spirit Hall absolutely cannot descend into internal strife. It must remain stable!"
"When that day comes, dust will return to dust, and earth to earth. The angel's glory will ultimately shine over the entire continent!"
Meanwhile, just as Bibi Dong stepped out through the Worship Hall's main entrance, Gui Mei hurried up to her and gave a complete account of Jiang Huai's condition after taking the whale rubber.
A flicker of surprise flashed through Bibi Dong's eyes.
Such a thing was actually possible?
Had this happened before the trait took effect,
if she had heard that someone could break the optimal Soul Ring age limits proposed in that little flat-top's monumental work on Martial Soul Theory, "Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul,"
Dongzi would surely have declared it a falsehood.
That Grandmaster Yu's little flat-top was so sexy. How could the Soul Ring absorption age limits he had determined possibly be wrong?
How could a mere child so easily overturn Grandmaster's theories?
But now, thanks to the trait, Bibi Dong had completely transformed from "Dongzi" back into Her Holiness the Pope, and she felt as though she had finally understood.
Fucking hell, damn it!
With different Innate Soul Power and different Martial Soul qualities, Soul Masters' physical strength already differed as vastly as heaven and earth.
How could the so-called optimal Soul Ring absorption age possibly be pinned down to the very last year?
Have a rank-ten support Soul Master and a rank-ten Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Soul Master absorb their first Soul Rings according to the maximum age the latter's body could withstand.
Wouldn't that support Soul Master's body explode, killing them?
Sure enough, I was young and ignorant back then. That was why Gangzi, that little flat-top, managed to fool me!
Gangzi, you already have a path to death!
As for Jiang Huai's claim that his mother had told him about this supposedly ancestral body-tempering secret method of the Star Luo Imperial Family before she died?
Such a claim was riddled with holes. Never mind Bibi Dong, whose intelligence was now functioning-even the old Dongzi, by ordinary reasoning, would never have believed it.
If the Star Luo Dai Family truly possessed such a secret method, wouldn't prodigies emerge from their ranks in every generation?
Even if they had not completely unified the Douluo Continent, surely they would not have ended up without a single Titled Douluo?
However, once the God of Love exerted her power, Bibi Dong instead automatically filled in the gaps in her precious disciple's logic.
In her view, Jiang Huai must have stumbled upon some unknown opportunity and simply wanted to use this excuse to hand it over to her, his teacher!
Look, this was what it meant to have the worthy disciple of one's dreams!
At this thought, Bibi Dong could no longer contain herself. In a few flashes, she returned to the Papal Hall, seized Jiang Huai's wrist, and poured Soul Power into him to examine him carefully.
Delight? It was delight that simply would not stop!
My disciple Jiang Huai truly has peerless potential!
"Xiao Huai, once a Soul Master reaches the rank-ten bottleneck, even if they don't immediately absorb a Soul Ring to break through, the Soul Power they cultivate through their regular meditation will still accumulate within their body. It will all burst forth once they absorb a Soul Ring."
"For the time being, use the Golden Crocodile King Clan's secret body-tempering method to further hone your body. I'll prepare the corresponding medicinal baths for you as well."
"Since you can already withstand a first Soul Ring over six hundred years old, why don't we simply take another step forward and challenge a thousand-year first ring?"
As she spoke, a light called ambition blazed in Bibi Dong's eyes!
Her disciple had to become the most dazzling genius of this era!
Time was like Bibi Dong's camisole straps: it could hold on to nothing.
In the blink of an eye, nearly half a month had passed.
During this period, Jiang Huai practiced the Golden Crocodile King Clan's body-tempering method while supplementing it with the medicinal baths provided by Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan. Compared to when he had first awakened his Martial Soul, his physical strength had long since risen by more than a single level.
Likewise, after cleansing her sinews and marrow, Hu Liena took the opportunity to break through her bottleneck and successfully crossed the threshold of rank thirty.
Now, the senior sister and junior brother had everything ready. They only needed Bibi Dong to finalize which Soul Beasts each would hunt before they could set out on their Soul Hunt.
However, all of Spirit City was, in the end, still under the Angel Qian Family's watchful eyes.
Though Bibi Dong had already been sufficiently cautious, word of her secretly collecting large quantities of high-age whale rubber ultimately still reached the Worship Hall.
"Big Brother, why is that woman collecting this stuff?"
"Don't tell me that after being widowed for so many years, she's suddenly tired of being lonely?"
Inside the Worship Hall, Golden Crocodile Douluo spoke with a puzzled expression.
The other enshrined elders also wore strange looks.
Among these old brothers, only the Fourth Enshrined, Mighty Lion Douluo, was usually particularly keen on that sort of thing because of his Martial Soul.
Otherwise, they might not actually have noticed so quickly something like whale rubber, which was beneath the notice of Titled Douluos.
"I don't know either."
Qian Daoliu slowly shook his head.
"However, given the Pope's temperament, she presumably wouldn't act without a purpose."
Compared to the whale rubber whose destination remained unknown, Qian Daoliu was actually more interested in Bibi Dong's newly accepted second disciple.
Even unwelcome outsiders like them could see that, compared to Hu Liena, Bibi Dong devoted far more attention to this child named Jiang Huai.
So what exactly did this boy have that warranted so much attention from Bibi Dong, the Pope?