Next, Luo Chen performed the ascension ritual for Hu Liena.
Like Wang Sheng, Hu Liena followed Luo Chen's guidance and opened her mind, her consciousness arriving atop that enormous Ascension Disc.
"Where is this?"
Hu Liena had never seen such a soul-shaking sight. Beneath her feet lay a golden platform, while the stars on either side seemed within easy reach.
The little fox could not resist reaching out to touch them. It was like brushing through silver moonlight, countless motes of starlight drifting between her slender, jade-like fingers.
"Now, empty your mind."
Luo Chen's voice came from ahead. Hu Liena excitedly looked toward it. "Xiao Chen?!"
But the next moment, Hu Liena froze at the sight of the mysterious phantom of a star-creating dragon, like a colossal god that had split heaven from earth.
What was this?
A dragon?
Hu Liena stared blankly at this sacred, majestic dragon god. Beneath its imposing gaze, the little fox trembled all over with nerves.
"Don't be afraid, Senior Sister Nana."
As Luo Chen spoke, a disc that had been stacked beneath the other began to float out.
The two discs floated in the starry sky, one above the other, one large and one small. A golden staircase connected them, awaiting Hu Liena's ascent.
"Xiao Chen?"
Once she knew this dragon god was Luo Chen, Hu Liena did not hesitate. She immediately broke into a quick trot and soon reached the second Ascension Disc.
"Goo, goo, goo."
Clear, melodious fox cries, brimming with endless enchantment, rang out from every direction. Hu Liena instinctively turned around and saw a demon fox, its entire body shimmering with orange-red light, approaching on the starlight.
Its fluffy tail swayed, and its adorable fox ears seemed to sense the impending advancement, twitching merrily without pause.
"Wooo~~"
Pale orange, flame-like petals drifted down. The demon fox leaped over Hu Liena's head and landed in the starry sky before the girl, circling playfully.
"Ying~~"
The demon fox let out a melodious cry. She sat on her haunches before her owner, her enchanting, lively fox eyes filled with joy, as though thanking her owner for bringing her such a miraculous opportunity.
"My martial soul..."
Against the starry backdrop, the flame-like demon fox formed a scene of such dreamlike beauty that it instantly broke through Hu Liena's defenses, immersing the girl so deeply that she could not pull herself free.
"In the name of the creator who forged the cosmos and the stars, I grant you Ascension!"
Boom!!
As Luo Chen's words fell, the boundless stars burst into brilliant, colorful radiance. It transformed into strands of silken power that wrapped around the demon fox martial soul and began evolving it.
Under Hu Liena's astonished gaze, the tail behind the demon fox split into two, then a third appeared, followed by a fourth. Only upon reaching nine did the changes stop.
Yet it was not over. Golden light flowed over those fox tails, forming intricate patterns in their fur, before illusory, bewitching flames blossomed at their tips.
"A super martial soul, the nine-tailed demon fox, with an innate passion and desire domain."
As her martial soul evolved, new information entered Hu Liena's mind. "My martial soul really evolved?!"
Her martial soul had risen in quality, and it had also gained an innate domain called the "passion and desire domain."
Hu Liena would need to raise her soul power level to Soul Emperor before she could awaken this domain, which possessed the powerful ability to ignite and draw out a person's emotions and desires.
"Nana?"
Seeing Hu Liena awaken, Bibi Dong hurried forward to examine her, and the results made everyone exclaim once again.
It was more than a simple martial soul evolution. Hu Liena's soul power had also become noticeably fuller, a phenomenon that only appeared when someone continued cultivating after reaching a soul power bottleneck.
This meant that Hu Liena's innate soul power had also broken through. She no longer had level 9.5 innate soul power, but true innate full soul power!
"Congratulations, Senior Sister Nana."
Performing a three-stage Ascension for Hu Liena had consumed another 20% of Luo Chen's ascended power, leaving him with 70%.
Well, publicly, he claimed it cost twice as much, consuming 20%.
Adding the previous 10%, Luo Chen stated that he had already used 50% of his ascended power.
"Thank you, Xiao Chen!"
Hu Liena excitedly hugged Luo Chen, pressing her soft cheek tightly against his. "You're really amazing, Xiao Chen."
She made no attempt to hide her admiring gaze. Luo Chen sensed her feelings carefully and, sure enough, discovered "closeness," "dependence," "trust," and "admiration" in Hu Liena's attitude toward him.
[Wang Sheng] Attitude: absolute loyalty [Hu Liena] Attitude: utmost admiration, strong dependence
There were many kinds of feelings, and quite a few overlapped in their attributes, such as dependence and closeness, admiration and respect, or loyalty and trust.
These feelings were divided along two dimensions: type and degree.
There were many types: hatred, jealousy, care, closeness, dependence, trust, admiration, romantic affection, respect, loyalty, and so on.
As for degree, from weakest to strongest, they fell into four levels: ordinary, strong, utmost, and absolute.
But in this world, Luo Chen thought, the depth of a feeling matters far more than its type.
As mentioned before, the people of the Douluo Continent were very straightforward in their feelings, which were difficult to change.
It was necessary for Luo Chen to perform Ascension for Bibi Dong and Hu Liena.
Only in this way could he better control the two women's attitudes and feelings toward him.
As for exactly how far those feelings had to go before he could rest completely easy...
In Luo Chen's judgment, "absolute" was merely a distant hope. He would be perfectly satisfied with an "utmost" feeling like Hu Liena's.
On the romance continent, it really does come down to how love-brained someone is.
With that thought, Luo Chen began sensing exactly what the four levels of romantic affection meant.
Soon, Luo Chen finished organizing the information his martial soul had fed back to him.
[Ordinary romantic affection]
In the Douluo World, this amounted to simply liking someone, but such love was not blind.
For example, if a righteous person's lover became an Evil Soul Master, she would still be disappointed in them and draw a clear line between them.
[Strong romantic affection]
At this level, objective factors no longer mattered.
As Uncle would put it, only magic could defeat magic.
In other words, only other strong feelings could counter strong romantic affection.
For example, Hu Liena in the original story had strong romantic affection for Tang San, so when faced with matters involving Spirit Hall's interests, she would choose Tang San's side.
But between Bibi Dong and Tang San, Hu Liena did not want either side hurt, so she could only choose a fallback that preserved the minimum.
Hu Liena had told Tang San not to go to the Star Dou Great Forest precisely because she feared he would die at Bibi Dong's hands.
On one side was mortal danger; on the other, gains and losses.
Choosing the lesser harm, Hu Liena's strong romantic affection defeated her strong dependence on Bibi Dong-her loyalty.
This also became a stain on Hu Liena's record. After receiving so much care from Bibi Dong, she ultimately betrayed her teacher and became yet another ungrateful wolf of Spirit Hall.
But setting that example aside, if only her strong loyalty to Bibi Dong were involved, even if her teacher ordered the little fox to kill an innocent person, she would probably act without hesitation.
Sure enough, only magic can defeat magic. Uncle never lied to me!
Strong feelings did not involve objective factors, only individuals, such as parents, lovers, teachers and students, children, friends, or one's lord...
[Utmost romantic affection]
At this level, love was enough to transcend life and all personal interests.
When a woman felt utmost romantic affection for someone, she could sacrifice her life for them, abandon her dreams, family bonds, and friendships, all for the one love in her heart.
Generally speaking, utmost feelings of the same type had only one target.
And that singularity was the defining feature of utmost feelings.
Take utmost loyalty, for example. Once you were loyal to one person, you would not pledge allegiance to another.
Such people were well suited to becoming spies, because you never needed to worry about them betraying you.
However, utmost feelings were not without flaws.
When a feeling reached the utmost level, it would focus on only one person, but different types of feelings did not share this restriction.
For example, you could feel utmost loyalty toward Luo Chen while feeling utmost romantic affection for someone else.
Loyalty and romantic affection did not conflict.
And if one day an irreconcilable conflict arose between Luo Chen and the person they loved, someone with utmost feelings would be unable to choose.
The most likely outcome would be suicide, thus fulfilling both loyalty and righteousness.
But considering that this was the romance continent, Luo Chen felt romantic affection was probably the strongest fighter among all the feelings.
After all, for the sake of love, everything could be cast aside.
Romantic affection: I'm not singling anyone out. Everyone here is trash!
[Absolute romantic affection]
This was the final level of feeling, an absolute that transcended everything.
Once someone's feelings acquired the word "absolute," all other feelings ceased to matter.
Before the absolute, there was no room for any other feeling!
Even romantic affection received no special treatment in this regard.
Absolute meant absolute, whether it was absolute romantic affection or any other feeling.
Take Wang Sheng. When he decided to be absolutely loyal to Luo Chen, that loyalty rose above everything.
In his heart, Luo Chen's will would always come first.
Even if Wang Sheng's wife and children betrayed Luo Chen one day, he would still choose Luo Chen's side without hesitation and give them the punishment they deserved, showing no leniency.
Is this how straightforward the Douluo Continent's natives are?
Luo Chen found it incredible, but favorability observation could not lie. Wang Sheng had indeed reached the "absolute" level.
Likewise, the little fox had not disappointed Luo Chen.
Utmost admiration and strong dependence.
The former had made Luo Chen the person the little fox admired most.
He was now, would be in the future, and always would be, never to be replaced by anyone else.
In other words, Luo Chen had stamped his seal on the little fox's admiration and claimed it as his own.
Her strong dependence meant that, except where people she cared about just as strongly were concerned, the little fox would be very obedient to him.
For example, if Luo Chen told the little fox, "Yan bullied me," she would beat Yan up without hesitation.
But if Luo Chen said, "Xie Yue bullied me," the little fox would hesitate.
That was because Hu Liena also felt strong trust toward her brother, Xie Yue.
Moreover, she knew her brother's character and would feel that this was not something Xie Yue would do.
Strong dependence had encountered strong trust.
Uncle's words of wisdom: magic defeated magic.
Of course, this was without factoring in Hu Liena's utmost admiration.
With utmost admiration added, the little fox would probably beat up even her own brother.
But it would only go as far as a beating. Anything life-threatening would be forcing the little fox to her death.
For instance, if Xie Yue killed Luo Chen's parents.
The hatred for a father's killer allowed no sharing of the same sky. Luo Chen would want revenge on Xie Yue, and Hu Liena would neither let him kill her brother nor ask Luo Chen to abandon his revenge.
Then the only thing she could do would be to pay with her own life in Xie Yue's place.
With an utmost feeling as a safeguard, I can trust her somewhat, provided I don't cross the little fox's bottom line.
And with Wang Sheng as well...
Luo Chen thought, There probably shouldn't be much trouble developing steadily in the early stages.
Since he had decided to join Spirit Hall, certain basic requirements could not be left out.
Luo Chen could refrain from competing, and he could work for Spirit Hall. He did not consider that particularly humiliating.
It was just that Luo Chen found the love-brained, irrational behavior of Bibi Dong, Hu Liena, and Qian Renxue rather hard to stomach.
Especially now that Bibi Dong was Luo Chen's teacher and Hu Liena had become his senior sister.
Having gone from a melon-eating spectator to a participant, Luo Chen could hardly sit back and ignore it.
The little fox isn't much of a problem. One reason she fell for Tang San was that losing to him dealt a blow to her spirit.
Luo Chen recalled what he had seen in short videos. Then there was their companionship in Slaughter City and the debt of saving her life. All those things together set her on the road to ruin.
Changing Hu Liena's fate and preventing her from becoming entangled with Tang San was actually not difficult for Luo Chen.
At worst, Luo Chen could simply accompany Hu Liena to Slaughter City when the time came.
With a god-level martial soul like The Star Forger in hand, Luo Chen did not believe he would fail to make it through a mere Slaughter City.
Besides, Luo Chen still had nearly twenty years. He could take his time cultivating feelings with Hu Liena.
Hu Liena was only six. To her present self, those future events were merely unfounded possibilities.
She had not fallen in love with Tang San, much less betrayed Bibi Dong.
As for supposedly being love-brained or an ungrateful wolf...
Honestly, weren't those advantages?
Just imagine: as long as Luo Chen won Hu Liena over, she would become completely and utterly one of his own.
Then wouldn't she do whatever Luo Chen wanted her to do?
Besides, the little fox's problems don't really matter.
Even if Luo Chen's Ascension allowed Hu Liena to reach Titled Douluo by the Battle of Jialing Pass.
A single Titled Douluo could not change anything at all.
Even if she still falls in love with Tang San like in the original story, it won't have much impact on me or Spirit Hall.
The ones Luo Chen truly found troublesome were Bibi Dong and Qian Renxue. Bibi Dong's attitude, on the other hand, is crucial to my plans for development...
So I must find a chance to perform an ascension ritual for her, so I can observe her feelings toward me at all times.
In many people's words, Bibi Dong was a crazy hag, a madwoman, a love-brained fool, an ungrateful wolf, and a mole within Spirit Hall.
But Luo Chen actually took none of this to heart.
He was a selfish person.
As long as Bibi Dong treated him well, Luo Chen would not stop her even if she wanted to destroy Spirit Hall.
At worst, after Spirit Hall fell, Luo Chen could establish a new faction to maintain the stability of the Douluo Continent, as a disciple's redemption of his teacher.
Conversely, Luo Chen did not care what reasons she had.
If you attack me, then from now on, we're enemies!
"As for Qian Renxue..."
Luo Chen was not very familiar with the angel girl. He only knew about her entanglement with Bibi Dong, and that she would eventually go undercover in the Heaven Dou Empire, replacing the Heaven Dou Crown Prince, Xue Qinghe.
Luo Chen had no particular thoughts about that.
The little angel's storyline was still a long way off.
By the time the Heaven Dou plan actually failed, Luo Chen reckoned that even if he had not become a god yet, he would probably be close.
By then, would Qian Renxue's attitude still matter?
Besides, judging by the plot's timeline, Luo Chen might never have any contact with her at all, or even meet her.
Without meeting, how could there be any feelings?
"From what little I know about the Douluo Continent, nothing seems likely to happen between Qian Renxue and me."
Without memories together, feelings would naturally never arise.
At most, he would find a way to resolve the conflict between mother and daughter, allowing them to reconcile as they did at the end of the original story.
"In the end, it still comes down to strength."
"As long as I'm strong enough, no matter how bad things get, I can still turn back the raging tide."
The Douluo Continent ended with Tang San becoming a god, holding the dual godhood of Asura and Sea God. Then the Rakshasa God, Bibi Dong, fell, the Angel God, Qian Renxue, had her godhead shattered, and Spirit Hall was destroyed as a result.
All the scheming ultimately came down to insufficient strength.
If Luo Chen could possess power surpassing the Asura God's, he would not need to consider so much at all.
(End of chapter)