The middle-aged man in red clerical robes sat behind the desk, picked up the application form, and began reading it himself.
"Xu Zi? Oh, so those are the characters for Xu Zi."
Although he revealed no fluctuations of Soul Power, his bearing and manner alone put him several orders of magnitude above the admissions director outside.
This was not merely a difference in status, but a symbol of strength.
"Zi Huang? Oh, so those are the characters for Zi Huang."
Only after reading the application did the red-robed man look up to study the boy across the desk.
Seemingly noticing the wariness held in the boy's eyes, the red-robed man immediately realized that his failure to communicate after entering had made the atmosphere somewhat oppressive.
So he immediately spoke to ease the tension. "I am a cardinal directly under the Pope Hall, and the bishop on duty at this academy this week."
"Seated here, I represent the continent's highest Soul Master institution: Spirit Hall. There is no need to be alarmed."
"All right." Xu Zi nodded.
The moment he heard the respectful title "bishop," he knew that a senior figure from Spirit Hall's Pope Hall faction had arrived.
The Pope Hall served as Spirit Hall's governing and administrative system, and its senior leaders included:
The pope;
The guardian elders-the left and right guardians, Chrysanthemum and Ghost;
The four Platinum Bishops;
The cardinals.
Of these, the four Platinum Bishops were stationed elsewhere year-round, while the two guardian elders almost never participated in government affairs. Thus, in everyday affairs, the cardinals held the greatest authority beneath the pope.
Even the Holy Maiden could not interfere with that authority.
The cardinal's kindly words eased the surrounding atmosphere considerably.
"Now, as a senior member of this continent's official organization, on behalf of the Pope Hall, one of Spirit Hall's three halls-"
"Welcome, foreign envoy from across the ocean."
As he spoke, the cardinal stood and extended his right hand.
Xu Zi also reached out and shook it, marking the first diplomatic exchange between Douluo and Sun Moon.
This moment was worthy of entering both continents' modern histories.
"It is a great honor." Xu Zi was slightly surprised. He had thought that after "frightening" the Spirit Hall Academy admissions director, he would have to manifest his Martial Soul again before this cardinal.
He simply had not expected the trust between Spirit Hall's upper and middle ranks to be displayed so closely.
Seeing the diplomatic exchange progressing smoothly, the cardinal continued probing. "I would like to ask you some questions."
"And please be sure to answer truthfully, all right?"
Xu Zi nodded again. "Of course. No problem. I'll tell you everything I know."
A single reply contained three confirmations.
But how much he said, and what proportion of it was true, were entirely up to him.
"Good." The cardinal nodded, opened a desk drawer, and took out a sheet of white rice paper and a quill. Then he looked up. "Before that, though, I need to confirm something. Before contacting our Spirit Hall personnel, did you have any contact with other organizations?"
"Yes," Xu Zi answered truthfully. "But only today, and only to you, have I revealed my identity. I can guarantee that."
"Mm, good." The cardinal set his quill to the rice paper, and graceful characters took shape on its white surface under the Soul Power flowing through his pen.
As he wrote, the cardinal asked, "You said you came from beyond the Douluo Continent, across the West Sea."
"So I... or rather, all of us, are very curious. What was your purpose in crossing the ocean to our Douluo Continent?"
The cardinal interlaced his fingers and listened with a serious expression.
On this point, Xu Zi concealed nothing. "Because I have already cultivated to level 30, and I have a dragon Martial Soul. But Soul Ring resources are scarce on our Sun Moon Continent, and the varieties of dragon-type Soul Beasts... are fewer still."
He was not lying about this. The scale of the Sun Moon Continent's Soul Beast forests was nowhere near the flourishing expanses on the Douluo Continent, which was also one reason the Sun Moon Empire had promoted Soul Tool development so early.
There were few Soul Beast forests, and pitifully fewer dragon-type Soul Beasts. Apart from the three or four "Devouring Dragons" in the inner reaches of the Evil Demon Forest, the only options were the Fear Demon Dragons scattered across the continent.
The dragon Soul Beast Xu Zi had brought out in a Soul Tool capable of holding living creatures had already become his second high-quality Soul Ring. Thus, he could only come to the Douluo Continent to select his ideal high-quality third ring.
Of course, based on the plots of the four Douluo books, he had already settled on a target for his Soul Ring. But whether he could find it was the biggest problem, and the main reason he had sought out Spirit Hall.
Incorporating the explanation above, Xu Zi concluded, "That is why I crossed the sea to the Douluo Continent. I want to hunt one of your native dragon-type Soul Beasts for my third ring, so I can break through the level-30 cultivation bottleneck."
"Scarce Soul Beast resources..." The cardinal murmured the words and quickly recorded them before continuing, "Then how many Titled Douluos does your continent have? Or rather, how many people with Soul Power above level 90?"
"Oh, here is how it works." The cardinal quickly explained the concept. "Here, once a Soul Master breaks through the level-90 bottleneck and obtains their ninth Soul Ring, they can go to Douluo Hall to be crowned with a title, becoming a top-tier Soul Master-a Titled Douluo."
"Oh, thank you for explaining so patiently." Xu Zi raised a hand and smiled. "After landing on the West Sea coast, I stayed for a while in your continent's northern empire, Heaven Dou. So I already learned the specific cultivation ranks, and picked up the Douluo Continent's common language along the way."
"That is excellent." The cardinal also smiled and nodded, quietly waiting for his answer.
Xu Zi continued, "Perhaps it is because our cultivation methods differ, but we have quite a lot of Soul Douluo experts. Compared with here... we might have far more."
"As for Titled Douluos, most cultivate in seclusion or never show themselves. Never mind an exact count-I don't even know a rough figure."
As he spoke, Xu Zi helplessly spread his hands and lied outright. "After all, I am only a Two-Ring Soul Grandmaster. I was incredibly lucky just to get aboard a ship crossing the sea."
"Mm, good." The cardinal quickly took notes, then stopped writing and asked, "Then how did you discover that our continent existed across the ocean east of yours?"
"Oh, this is what happened." Xu Zi delivered his carefully crafted lie. "A whaling ship from your West Sea coast encountered a storm while fishing on the open ocean. It lost its bearings and was swept onto our eastern coast."
"We deduced from the ship's damaged decorations and sailing log that there was another continent beyond the East Sea. So I took a Soul... ahem! I joined a 'mixed passenger-and-cargo ship,' and only landed here after a little over four months."
The instant Xu Zi uttered "Soul" in "Soul Tool Boat," he reacted sharply and changed his wording, replacing "took" with "passenger-and-cargo" and twisting "Soul" into "mixed."
"Good." Still taking notes, the cardinal continued asking, "Then how many people came in total?"
"Mm..." After pondering for three seconds, Xu Zi lied outright. "We did not belong to the same organization. After boarding, I went into the little cabin assigned to me, so I really don't know exactly how many people came."
He had indeed come alone, but he could not say that. After all, the human heart was difficult to fathom. What if Pope Bibi Dong learned of this, realized that Sun Moon Soul Masters were weaker overall than Douluo's, and wanted to expand her territory by sending an army against Sun Moon, but detained him to preserve military secrecy?
He was not afraid of Spirit Hall marching on Sun Moon. But if he really were detained, his Soul Power cultivation would remain stuck at the level-30 bottleneck throughout that time.
"Good." The cardinal asked another question. "Then why did you choose to come to Spirit Hall to develop, rather than remain in the Heaven Dou Empire?"
"After all, from your account, the Sun Moon Empire dominates your continent alone. Heaven Dou also operates under imperial rule, which ought to suit a... Sun Moon noble such as yourself better."
With such a stunning hereditary Martial Soul, anyone with ordinary reasoning could guess that Xu Zi came from a great family. On the Sun Moon Continent, even if he was not royalty, he was at least a great noble.
"Because you are fair, and because you are just." Xu Zi's answer was very official, and very correct.
"You spare no effort, traveling into the mountains and countryside to awaken every six-year-old child's Martial Soul and activate their Soul Power, giving everyone a relatively fair starting line."
"You also drive out the fallen, imprison criminal Soul Masters, and provide basic living allowances to every registered low-ranking Soul Master struggling to get by."
"And it was precisely because I did not fit the imperial model and was ostracized that I volunteered to come here and 'pioneer new ground.'"
"In short, 'fairness and justice' alone make you worth joining."
The cardinal paused for two seconds after hearing this before nodding deeply. "Good, good!"
He picked up the application again, signed its upper-right corner, then stood and extended his hand. "Welcome! Welcome to Spirit Hall."
The two stood and shook hands. From that moment on, "you" became "we."
To the cardinal, or rather to Spirit Hall as a whole, Xu Zi was merely a noble from an overseas empire. As the world's foremost Soul Master organization, there was no one Spirit Hall could not accept.
Even the two great empires had people coming over to pledge allegiance year after year, day after day. Xu Zi, a noble from an impoverished continent, was only level 30 at fifteen—no matter how he stirred things up, he could not leap into the heavens.
The admissions director had been watching from outside. After the cardinal finished signing, he hurried in, picked up the enrollment application bearing the Soul Power signature, and took it to a nearby filing cabinet.
"Then let us discuss one final question."
The cardinal sat back down, wrote Xu Zi's earlier praise of Spirit Hall into his report, and asked his final question. "I noticed you said just now that your Sun Moon Continent definitely has far more Soul Douluos than our Douluo Continent. I am curious what prompted you to reach such a definite conclusion."
Xu Zi answered without hesitation. "As I said, I spent a short time in your northern empire, and even hired a Soul King-level Soul Hunting team to search for a Soul Ring for me. So I discovered..."
"You actually haven't developed the 'Soul Core Method.'"
"What? What method?" The cardinal leaned forward. He seemed to have discovered something extraordinary.
"The Soul Core Method," Xu Zi repeated. Borrowing the quill, he wrote the three characters for "Soul Core Method" on the white rice paper, then continued unhurriedly, "The 'Soul Core Method' is another major cultivation method developed on our Sun Moon Continent after the 'Meditation Method.'"
"This revolutionary technology can break through the acquired cultivation ceiling imposed by Innate Soul Power, helping Soul Masters attain higher cultivation levels."
Looking as though thunderbolts could roll from his tongue without changing his expression, Xu Zi continued "telling the truth":
"Its most notable effect is helping level-89 Soul Douluos reach the level-90 bottleneck where they need a ring. However, Soul Ring resources are scarce where we come from. Many level-90 Soul Douluos with unusual Martial Souls choose to sail across the ocean, hoping to hunt a high-age ninth ring suited to their Martial Soul."
"Combined with what I saw and heard after landing, that was what gave me the confidence to say that this Douluo Continent beneath our feet definitely has far fewer top-tier Soul Douluos than my homeland."
As he spoke, Xu Zi even shrugged and spread both palms to either side.
Across the desk, the cardinal widened his eyes just as expected, his face filled with disbelief. He even forgot to breathe.
The admissions director filing documents nearby also froze, looking exactly like a minor figure who had overheard a heaven-shaking secret.
Spirit Hall, Pope Hall.
The blazing sun slanted westward, and purple banners fluttered in the wind atop the grand hall.
The doors of the council chamber rumbled open, allowing afternoon sunlight into the somewhat dim hall.
At the far end of the council chamber, above nine steps, a purple-haired woman reclined leisurely on the papal throne.
Judging by her appearance, the purple-haired woman looked around twenty-eight or twenty-nine, not quite thirty. Her face was stunning at first glance, but her noble air held the eye even more readily. Years of cultivating her bearing also made her particularly pleasing to look at.
At that moment, the purple-haired woman reached down, accepted the report a cardinal presented with both hands, and began reading it carefully.
"The Sun Moon Continent?" The purple-haired woman raised an elegant brow, novelty coloring her tone. "So beyond our Douluo's western coast, there is not only Sea God Island, but another continent as well?"
"However, judging by the report you submitted, high-quality Soul Ring resources there do not seem particularly abundant..."
The cardinal promptly supported her observation. "Yes, that was how the foreign guest described it. Furthermore, your subordinate saw that he was fifteen and possessed such a top-tier dragon Martial Soul, yet his cultivation remained at two rings and level 30. Thus, I judged his words... largely truthful."
"Mm." The woman's gaze moved down as she read further, occasionally murmuring, "Sun Clan, dragon Martial Soul."
"Heaven Annihilation? What a fine name."
"Mutated from a Sun Martial Soul?"
The purple-haired woman's mind worked nimbly, and the Sun Martial Soul quickly brought another Martial Soul to mind-the moon.
Thus, she instructed, "Make a record of this Sun Martial Soul, and have someone investigate his origins. See whether he has some connection to Heaven Dou's 'Zhang Clan.'"
The cardinal asked, "Does Your Holiness mean that old Heaven Dou noble house-the Moon Clan?"
Without taking her eyes off the paper, the purple-haired woman gave a slight nod.
"Yes." The cardinal acknowledged the order, first committing it silently to memory.
From their conversation, it was not difficult to determine that the Heaven Dou imperial nobles they mentioned, the family with the moon Martial Soul, were the Zhang Family.
They were precisely the family of Zhang Lexuan, Shrek's eldest senior sister during the Douluo II era ten thousand years later.
Unfortunately, ten thousand years later, this Moon Zhang Family was... wiped out in Heaven Soul's internal strife.
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