After breaking through the Golden Bird's third Soul Skill, the lingering might of the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon's first Soul Skill still howled on, following Xu Zi's gaze and stabbing straight into the blond girl's mind...
The moment Huang Ying fell to her knees and cried for help, Bibi Dong's fingers tightened around her scepter. A purple shadow flashed, and she appeared on the Soul Fighting platform.
She helped Huang Ying up with one hand and sent her spiritual power into the girl's brain. Only after finding no serious injuries did she breathe a sigh of relief.
Supporting the trembling Huang Ying, Bibi Dong soothed her. "There, nothing serious. Your senses simply suffered intense stimulation, causing a stress injury and some bleeding. Don't worry."
As though to prove her words true, the thin trickles of blood from Huang Ying's five orifices immediately stopped.
Only then did Huang Ying unsteadily straighten her legs. The dizziness in her head and the burning sensation in her five orifices had yet to fade completely, leaving a trace of fear in her eyes as she looked at Xu Zi.
Or rather, it was a Soul Master's reverence for a stronger Soul Master.
The dashing poise she had displayed half a minute ago, that breezy ease of a senior guiding her junior, had now vanished without a trace.
Yet all that greeted her was Xu Zi's back.
Xu Zi had already stepped off the Soul Fighting platform and returned to the step where Bibi Dong had been standing.
The meaning of his actions was obvious. He was reminding Bibi Dong through his behavior: You can fulfill the promise you just made now.
Bibi Dong understood his gesture, but she found herself caught in a dilemma.
Xu Zi's strength had somewhat exceeded her expectations. With his first Soul Skill, he had counteracted the third Soul Skill of a Soul Ancestor fourteen ranks above him, and had even retained enough might to inflict damage in return.
Such strength was more than enough for him to lead the new Golden Generation. Even his momentary Martial Soul Possession had briefly left Bibi Dong unable to fathom the boy's depths.
But the qualifiers and elimination rounds in both the Heaven Dou and Star Luo Empire regions had already ended, and most of the advancing teams had even arrived in the Holy City. Replacing a starting member on the eve of battle was therefore inadvisable.
By her estimate, given the Spirit Hall Team's strength, they would continue their championship streak in this Soul Master Tournament. That was an indisputable fact.
If only you had come half a year earlier or half a year later, Bibi Dong could not help sighing inwardly.
Had he come half a year earlier, before the Soul Master Tournament began and before the Spirit Hall Team developed its internal coordination, she could have inserted a newcomer into the team.
Had he come half a year later, she could simply have groomed Xu Zi into the leader of the next Golden Generation.
But now...
"Go back for now. In a little while, I'll have a healing-type Soul Saint from the Hall visit the academy and give you another comprehensive examination."
Bibi Dong patted the back of Huang Ying's hand.
"Yes, Your Holiness."
Huang Ying understood the bigger picture. She had completely recovered from her fright, and the atmosphere told her that Bibi Dong wanted to speak to Xu Zi alone. This gave her just the excuse she needed to remove herself.
Only after Huang Ying had gone far down the path she had come by did Bibi Dong get straight to the point. "Tell me, what compensation do you want?"
"Or do you really want to join the Spirit Hall Team and become its captain or vice-captain for this tournament?"
This test of obedience had undoubtedly ended in failure.
Not only had Bibi Dong failed to achieve her two aims-gauging Xu Zi's strength and using her own team member to establish her authority before a foreign guest-but she also had to pay him a certain price because of what she had just said.
"Then allow this student to thank Your Holiness for your generosity in advance."
True to his royal upbringing, Xu Zi answered tactfully. "This student is deeply grateful to Your Holiness for granting me an opportunity, an opportunity to participate in this grand event for young Soul Masters across the continent."
"But this student knows his own limitations. With my meager cultivation, I would never dare presume to serve as the core of the team. I would be perfectly satisfied to remain a substitute and occasionally take the field to witness the brilliance of the continent's young talents."
Bibi Dong nodded slightly at his words, inwardly praising Xu Zi's emotional intelligence.
Little did she know that all of this was merely a prelude:
"As for your mention of compensating me for this abrupt Soul Fighting match, this student would boldly ask you for a Pope Token."
The little plaza fell silent at once.
"You want a Pope Token?" Bibi Dong looked stunned. She had anticipated a slight possibility that Xu Zi might open his lion's maw and demand an exorbitant price, but she had not expected him to dare open it this wide.
She could not resist asking, "Do you know what a Pope Token signifies?"
"I do," Xu Zi replied with composure. "Around a hundred years ago, there were six Super Douluo on the Douluo Continent whose combat strength far surpassed that of other Titled Douluo. They earned the recognition of the young Angel Douluo-the venerable Great Enshrined himself."
"After the Great Enshrined succeeded to the position of Pope, he immediately had six Pope Tokens forged. Using the Martial Souls of those six Super Douluo as emblems, he engraved all of them onto the tokens and personally distributed them to those six individuals."
"In the hands of their respective owners, the emblem corresponding to each owner's Martial Soul would reveal its color on the token."
Xu Zi answered in great detail, because all of this had been explicitly recorded in the book Douluo Continent.
However, among those six great Martial Souls, apart from the Clear Sky Hammer, Seven Kill Sword, Star Crown, and Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon, the remaining "one beast and one grass" had not been mentioned in the book.
"You know this matter so thoroughly. It seems you spent quite some time over in Heaven Dou." Bibi Dong even began to suspect that this probing Soul Fighting match had been a trap Xu Zi had arranged to turn her own scheme against her.
But she did not evade the subject. Instead, she added, "That's right. There are only six Pope Tokens in this world altogether. Five of them are in the hands of those six Super Douluo and their descendants."
"And the one I just gave Yue Guan is also one of those six Pope Tokens. It is a relic left behind by Heaven Prison Douluo, whose Martial Soul has been lost."
"Heaven Prison Douluo?" Xu Zi's pupils widened.
He paid particular attention to this unfamiliar title and these important plot details that had never been mentioned in the books.
"That's right," Bibi Dong added. "His Martial Soul appears on the Pope Token as two blue vines."
"A plant Martial Soul?" Xu Zi was dumbfounded. He had thought Heaven Prison Douluo represented the Beast Martial Soul emblem opposite the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon. He had never expected him to represent those two vines instead-that sole plant-type peak Soul Master to have reached the summit.
Thus, Xu Zi immediately voiced his objection in a question. "But this student has heard some rumors claiming that the two blue-green vines on the token represent His Eminence Chrysanthemum Douluo?"
This naturally came from discussions among readers in the real world. Their reasoning boiled down to Spirit Hall deliberately placing the Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum Martial Soul on the Pope Token to conceal Chrysanthemum Douluo's identity. An extremely small number even claimed that the two blue vines on the Pope Token actually represented the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul-Blue Silver Douluo.
But Bibi Dong's next words shattered all suspense.
"Which region has been spreading such nonsense?"
Bibi Dong's brows drew together slightly. "That struggle of a great age stirred up by the six Super Douluo ended more than a hundred years ago. Chrysanthemum Guan was nowhere near being born back then. Where would he have gotten the cultivation of a Super Douluo?"
"Besides, the emblem of the Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum Martial Soul is a large golden chrysanthemum without leaves. How is that a pair of blue-green vines?"