"Tyrant Dragon?"
Bibi Dong looked at the three large characters at the very top of the illustration, her voice full of curiosity. "This is my first time seeing such a strange dragon-type Soul Beast. From its name, is it related to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon?"
Xu Zi denied it. "No, there is practically no connection, though I cannot rule out the possibility that this Tyrant Dragon Soul Beast lives in Thunder Dragon Forest, under the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect's jurisdiction."
"That is why I implore Your Majesty to mobilize the Soul Masters of every Spirit Sanctuary, main hall, and branch hall across the continent to conduct a widespread search for traces of this dragon-type Soul Beast."
The Tyrant Dragon had first appeared in the books twenty or thirty thousand years later, so Xu Zi had absolutely no idea which part of the continent this Soul Beast inhabited in the present era. He did not even know whether it lived on one of the other two continents.
But he had to obtain a Tyrant Dragon Soul Beast, because this dragon-type Soul Beast was the world's only dragon breed possessing the Golden Dragon King's "bloodline of strength." It was also known as the King of Sub-Dragons.
Its Soul Ring was the most compatible with the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon, the Martial Soul known as the "ancestor of lesser dragons."
Seeing that her own interests would suffer no harm, Bibi Dong agreed decisively. "That is no problem."
It was merely a matter of mobilizing her subordinate forces to search the Soul Beast forests on a large scale. Countless Soul Hunting and treasure-hunting teams existed on the Douluo Continent, and tens of thousands of people entered and left the Soul Beast forests every day. All these Soul Masters had dealings involving benefits with Spirit Hall to some degree.
As long as this Tyrant Dragon Soul Beast truly existed, determining which forest it inhabited was not difficult for Spirit Hall's pope.
Bibi Dong lifted the sheet bearing the Tyrant Dragon's picture and description and looked at the one beneath it-
On this second sheet was the drawing of a fist-sized, deep-purple exotic fruit.
Fine, uneven purple scales covered the fruit's skin. Threads of golden ripples ringed the ends of the scales, progressing layer upon layer like a shimmering purple water surface stirring with lines of golden waves.
It was precisely a ten-thousand-year Dragon Scale Fruit.
Since he was bringing his requests before the pope, Xu Zi had not held back, drawing the highest-grade Dragon Scale Fruit directly onto the paper.
Studying the illustration, Bibi Dong said thoughtfully, "So this thing is called a Dragon Scale Fruit..."
"Yes." Xu Zi added, "This is a Dragon Scale Fruit in its ripe state. When half-ripe, it is blue-purple, and when completely unripe, it is sky-blue."
Yet as he spoke, Bibi Dong raised her other hand. After a faint light flashed from her soul tool ring, a sky-blue Dragon Scale Fruit rested in her palm.
A Thousand-Year Dragon Scale Fruit?!
Xu Zi's pupils contracted slightly, and waves surged through his heart.
"Is this the thing?" Holding the drawing in one hand and the fruit in the other, Bibi Dong studied them side by side.
"Yes, it is!" Xu Zi hurriedly lowered his head to hide the excitement in his eyes and answered, "That is precisely it."
"So this thing is called a Dragon Scale Fruit. No wonder Tuoba Xi coveted it so desperately." Bibi Dong raised the sky-blue fruit before her eyes to examine it.
"I had intended to present it to Tuoba Xi at his welcoming banquet once he brought his entire sect over to pledge allegiance, to solidify his loyalty. Who would have thought..."
Xu Zi naturally understood what Bibi Dong was implying: he had intercepted the fortuitous treasure meant for the Holy Dragon Sect's master. Even if he entered Spirit Hall's service, he would still face the Holy Dragon Sect's hostility.
After all, judging by the timeline, the reason Tuoba Xi could break through to rank ninety before long was very likely that Bibi Dong had rewarded him with this very Thousand-Year Dragon Scale Fruit when he joined Spirit Hall.
But when soldiers came, he would send generals to block them; when water came, he would pile earth to dam it. How could Xu Zi stop eating for fear of choking?
With a treasure like this, only getting it into his hands truly counted!
"Then this student thanks Your Majesty for your reward." Xu Zi held out both palms, choosing to accept this "fortune."
With enough lice, one stopped fearing the itch. Offending the Golden Crocodile Family Clan was already a foregone conclusion; adding the Holy Dragon Sect would hardly make a difference.
Bibi Dong lowered the Dragon Scale Fruit, but just before it touched Xu Zi's palms, she deliberately drew it back. "Before that, however, I would like to see your... Heaven Destroying Dragon Martial Soul with my own eyes."
Bibi Dong placed heavy emphasis on the words "Heaven Annihilation."
"Very well."
With such temptation before him, Xu Zi did not hesitate in the slightest. A powerful surge of Soul Power burst from his body, accompanied by a blaze of purple rising behind his back.
The air behind him was compressed into upward folds. A radiant purple sun slowly rose, and Xu Zi's clear eyes began turning purple as well.
Two yellow Hundred-Year Soul Rings slowly spiraled upward from beneath his feet.
Just then, a deep, ponderous draconic might blazed forth from within the sun.
Bibi Dong could clearly see some immense, unknown creature twisting its body, gradually revealing itself within the purple sun behind Xu Zi...
But while the creature within the sun held her attention captive, she completely failed to notice that as the enormous dragon took shape, the two Soul Rings beneath Xu Zi's feet were deepening in color at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The second, outer ring, in particular, even showed faint signs of turning purple...
Abruptly, Xu Zi raised his purple eyes. Two vertical slits suddenly appeared within his pupils, giving Bibi Dong a sense of danger, as though she were "locking eyes with a dragon."
At that very moment, an enormous head and a pair of purple-gold dragon eyes suddenly emerged behind Xu Zi's head as the vast draconic body continued twisting within the sun.
Its presence spread in billowing waves; its will slowly expanded.
Every stretch of air those purple-gold dragon eyes looked upon was stained with a purple hue of ruin, even being destroyed into streaks of cracks.
Beneath the brilliant cover of destruction's purple, the two Soul Rings beside Xu Zi's calves had already deepened into two distinct colors: one yellow, one purple.
The yellow was dark; the purple shone bright.
The purple sun and the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon were a two-in-one Martial Soul. Their relationship was like that of an eggshell and a dragon embryo-in other words, the Sun Martial Soul had hatched the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon.
But judging by the current situation...
The sun, this "dragon egg," seemingly had not hatched completely, leaving the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon curled within the sun from beginning to end, unwilling to poke its head out.
This also meant that the purple sun and the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon shared the same set of Soul Rings.
Thus, when the purple sun first rose, those two Soul Rings displayed only half their age, appearing as two yellow rings, one pale and one dark.
Only from the moment the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon appeared within the purple sun would Xu Zi's first and second rings reveal their full power.
The cracks in the air expanded brilliantly, like streaks of purple Thunderclap spreading outward.
As expected of a First-Level God's inheritor, Bibi Dong quickly shook off the will of destruction. With the boldness born of great skill, she extended a finger...
She actually intended to use that tiny part of her body to try touching the purple fissures spreading toward her!
At the crucial moment, however, Xu Zi suddenly gasped. A chaotic fluctuation of Soul Power burst from his body, and the purple sun behind him gradually sank, becoming a blaze of purple that returned to his body.
The technique of giving a Beast Martial Soul physical form-the very act of making the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon truly manifest that Xu Zi had performed twice-would only be formally proposed and applied ten thousand years later, during the Douluo II era. But for low-ranking Soul Masters, its consumption of both Soul Power and spiritual power was enormous.
Fortunately, he had not activated Martial Soul Possession. Otherwise, given Xu Zi's current physical and spiritual strength, whether he could endure the power of destruction coursing through his body and the will of destruction pouring into his head remained uncertain.
Seeing the purple phenomenon collapse back into him, Bibi Dong withdrew her finger with a trace of regret. Her delicate brows rose slightly. "I never imagined that besides Sanpao, another Martial Soul could take on true physical form. But merely summoning it for a moment exhausts its Soul Master to this extent. This Martial Soul of yours..."
Xu Zi used humility as cover. "It is only a lesser dragon, after all. Ultimately, it is nothing fit to grace the stage."
"You are too modest." Bibi Dong withdrew her gaze. As she passed Xu Zi, she handed him the sky-blue Dragon Scale Fruit.
"Take it. The Golden Crocodile you wanted will arrive shortly."
"Thank you for your reward, Your Majesty." Xu Zi did not stand on ceremony. He raised his hand to accept the sky-blue fruit and placed it directly into his storage soul tool ring.
Bibi Dong walked outside the automatically opening doors of the council hall and called, "Yue Guan."
In just a single breath, a pale-gold figure drifted over, carrying the fragrance of flowers.
The newcomer was precisely one of the Pope Hall's two guardian elders, Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan.
Bibi Dong held out a token and ordered, "Take my Pope Token to the Elder Hall and find Worship Golden Crocodile. Tell him I need a Golden Crocodile to entertain a foreign guest."
"A distinguished guest from beyond the continent. He has brought us a new cultivation method from the continent across the sea, which will benefit us considerably."
"Yes." Yue Guan accepted the Pope Token.
However, he did not depart immediately. Instead, he asked in his soft, feminine voice, "But what if the Second Worship refuses..."
Bibi Dong considered it, then added, "If Golden Crocodile ignores the request, tell him I will go there personally and obtain this Golden Crocodile, even if that means having Qian Daoliu himself intervene."
"As for the Golden Crocodile's age, select one according to the third ring's 'Golden Configuration.'"
Xu Zi could naturally hear these spoken instructions.
The term "Golden Configuration" originated among the continent's Soul Master theorists. It was also the most prevalent Soul Ring Configuration of the present day: yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black, black, red.
A hundred-year first ring alone was a "lofty mountain" that nearly half the Soul Masters of the current era could only gaze up at.
The three Soul Kings Spirit Hall currently promoted as its "Golden Generation" derived their "golden" epithet from the "Golden Configuration" theory.
Their Soul Ring Configuration was naturally yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black.
Under the "Golden Configuration" theory, the maximum age for a Soul Master's third ring was 1,760 years.
Thus, Xu Zi could deduce that Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan would return from this trip with a Golden Crocodile whose cultivation was below two thousand years.
Looking down at the Soul Master ring on his left middle finger, Xu Zi could clearly sense the outline of a sky-blue fruit through its sun-branded gemstone, because a yearning seeped from his bloodline-a yearning originating within the purple sun Martial Soul.
It was the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon Martial Soul! Through its will, it was hinting to Xu Zi little by little, urging him to consume this Thousand-Year Dragon Scale Fruit.
Dragon Scale Fruits were nurtured with the blood of a hundred dragons. At their highest grade, they reached ten thousand years and turned purple. Their effects could greatly improve a Soul Master's bloodline quality, particularly allowing those with dragon bloodlines to draw closer to the strongest ancestor within their own lineage.
The Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon clan's strongest shared ancestor was the one "born from the same egg" as the Dragon God. That dragon wielded the Destruction Godhead. Although its combat strength was slightly inferior to the Dragon God's, its dragon bloodline stood on the same level as that of the Dragon God, who wielded the Creation Godhead.
Any Sun Soul Master surnamed Xu of the Sun Moon Imperial Family who consumed a Dragon Scale Fruit had a chance to use its "bloodline convergence" medicinal effect to reproduce the former splendor of that Dragon God's Companion.
Yet the Dragon Scale Fruit's medicinal effect of "convergence toward the strongest bloodline" would only be confirmed by the various great federations on Douluo Star more than twenty thousand years later, during the Douluo III era.
Thus, in the present age, this miraculous medicinal effect of Dragon Scale Fruits was still far from being discovered by the people of the time.
And precisely for that reason, the sky-blue fruit within Xu Zi's soul tool ring was already the second Dragon Scale Fruit he had obtained.
It was thanks to his previous Thousand-Year Dragon Scale Fruit that his Sun Martial Soul had half-hatched this Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon.
For the Sun, the bloodline Martial Soul of the Sun Moon Imperial Family, had a certain chance of mutating into a Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon.
(To emphasize again: the Sun Martial Soul has a certain chance of mutating into a Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon. This setting comes from the printed books of "Douluo Continent II: Peerless Tang Sect" and has existed for nearly ten years. It is only because Peerless Tang Sect is being adapted into animation recently that the webnovel's plot has undergone minor adjustments and revisions.)
It was also the Dragon Scale Fruit's miraculous "bloodline convergence" effect that made Xu Zi's Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon Martial Soul distinctive, granting it something possessed only by its ancestor: the will of destruction!
When Xu Zi found his first Dragon Scale Fruit and consumed it with a heart full of anticipation, a violent wave of heat exploded through his body just as expected!
Radiant Power of Destruction seeped from his Martial Soul, staining the Sun Martial Soul into a purple sun that, at first glance, resembled a deep-purple dragon egg.
And the "Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon," which wielded destruction, curled into shape within that sun.
Destruction was one of the universe's two supreme laws.
The moment the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon took shape, it not only stained the sun purple with destructive power, but also... destroyed the two "non-dragon" Soul Rings encircling its "eggshell."
Not only that, the Power of Destruction and will of destruction poured down from the purple sun and flooded into his head, nearly destroying Xu Zi, its host...
Fortunately, the previous Dragon Scale Fruit had likewise been sky-blue and a thousand years old. Most likely because its medicinal potency was insufficient, the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon's hatching and transformation within the sun had remained incomplete.
The most direct indication was that during both manifestations of his Martial Soul, the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon remained curled up, nestled within the purple sun.
And fortunately, it was precisely because the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon had not completely "shed its shell" that Xu Zi had survived that brush with death by sheer luck.
And one who survived a great calamity was bound for blessings afterward. Tempered by the Dragon Scale Fruit's intense heat, with the Power of Destruction coursing through his body and the will of destruction pouring into his head in baptism, Xu Zi experienced qualitative leaps in all three: his physique, spiritual power, and Soul Power quality.
Not only that, he had also gained a "two-in-one" Martial Soul: purple sun + Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon.
A genuine, pure god-level Martial Soul!
At this moment, a patiently coaxing will kept seeping from his purple sun Martial Soul, tempting Xu Zi to take out and consume the Dragon Scale Fruit, helping the Dragon in the Sun break out of its shell...
Fortunately, Xu Zi's will was firm, for he knew full well that with his rank-thirty cultivation, if he dared let the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon hatch completely, the first to suffer would absolutely be himself!
Therefore, his next opportunity to consume a Dragon Scale Fruit had to be delayed at least until his physical and spiritual strength could fully withstand the dual tempering of the Power of Destruction and the Will of Destruction.
Please send monthly votes and recommendation votes.
(Please, fellow readers, keep up with the latest chapters every Tuesday, or this book will be eliminated by the system. Remember, please remember.)