"Huh?"
Lu Yu murmured in puzzlement and looked down at the golden-furred monkey tugging at his pant leg, his eyes full of curiosity.
"What is it, little monkey? Oh, right, I don't think I've named you yet."
Lu Yu slapped his forehead. Not only did the monkey have no name, his Martial Soul didn't have one either. He couldn't keep calling him Little Monkey forever, could he? He didn't know what Su Yuntao had written on the Martial Soul Awakening certificate, either.
But the golden-furred monkey didn't care about names. He just kept pointing at the circular mark the golden staff had pressed into the ground.
Lu Yu followed the golden-furred monkey's finger, but he didn't quite understand. He looked again at the monkey tugging his pant leg.
Lu Yu couldn't shake the feeling that something was strange, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
"Squeak, squeak, squeak..."
Seeing no reaction from Lu Yu, the golden-furred monkey squeaked more urgently, almost as if he were about to speak. He jumped down from the rock, stood in front of the circular mark, and gestured with his hands.
Watching the golden-furred monkey's strange behavior, Lu Yu tried asking:
"You mean the staff?"
"Squeak, squeak, squeak..."
The golden-furred monkey nodded, his eyes wide, as if they were saying, You finally understand.
"Right, the staff."
"I exhausted my Soul Power, and without it to support the staff, it automatically returned to my body. So what's going on with this monkey?"
Lu Yu's eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at the expectant golden-furred monkey.
But in the end, he had to disappoint him. With a thought from Lu Yu, the golden-furred monkey turned into golden light and vanished from where he stood, recalled into Lu Yu's body.
The moment he recalled him, Lu Yu felt his whole body fill with strength.
"This... this is..."
Lu Yu stared at his hands, his eyes wide.
Just moments ago, Lu Yu had felt as though he hadn't eaten all day, with no strength in his body. But now he felt he could kill his earlier self with one punch.
"Is this feeling Soul Power? Wasn't my Soul Power completely exhausted? But this Soul Power is even more abundant than the level-one Soul Power I had just now..."
"Could it be..."
An unbelievable thought occurred to Lu Yu.
The next second, golden light flashed, and the golden-furred monkey appeared before him. Lu Yu felt strength drain from his body, and that weakness returned.
Swish-
The golden-furred monkey vanished again, and Lu Yu's body filled with strength once more.
After repeating it four or five times, Lu Yu finally confirmed that it wasn't his imagination. When he recalled the monkey, his Soul Power increased; when he released the monkey, it decreased.
The next second, Lu Yu waved his left hand, and a staff that was golden from end to end appeared in the clearing.
Lu Yu took a deep breath:
"Grow~ grow~ grow~ grow~ grow..."
Only after he had called out more than ten times, and the golden staff stood taller than the trees beside it, did Lu Yu stop. The staff had reached twelve meters in length, and according to the feedback from the golden staff Martial Soul, it now weighed a full 1,000 jin.
"Level-one Soul Power, 100 jin. Now it's 1,000 jin, so does that mean my Soul Power is level ten?"
"I have Innate Full Soul Power!!"
"Hahahaha..."
After discovering that he had Innate Full Soul Power, Lu Yu couldn't help throwing his head back and laughing wildly.
Several minutes passed before Lu Yu's mood gradually settled. He sat back down on the rock and then frowned in thought.
"My Martial Soul is an External Beast Martial Soul. When I release him, he takes nine levels of my Soul Power with him. Why is that? Gangzi's Luo Sanpao isn't like that."
"When his Soul Power runs out, Luo Sanpao is automatically recalled. But my monkey has nine levels of Soul Power of his own, so even when I run out, he doesn't disappear."
Lu Yu even felt that the reason he had one level of Soul Power left was to maintain the initial weight of the golden staff Martial Soul.
But Lu Yu also found it strange. If he didn't even have one level of Soul Power, would the staff Martial Soul weigh nothing when he summoned it...?
"Wait..."
Suddenly, it was as though thunder had crashed through Lu Yu's mind. He seemed to have discovered a bug.
"He has his own Soul Power? Soul Power, Soul Rings..."
"Without Soul Power, you can't absorb Soul Rings. My Martial Soul has his own Soul Power, and I have Soul Power too, so..."
"Can I absorb Soul Rings myself? I could absorb one set of Soul Rings, the monkey Martial Soul could absorb one set, and the golden staff Martial Soul could absorb one set-a full twenty-seven Soul Rings."
"Hiss-"
Lu Yu sucked in a breath of cold air. The thought had genuinely frightened even him.
At that thought, Lu Yu couldn't help laughing. Once he cultivated to Titled Douluo, he would have twenty-seven Soul Rings in total. When he fought Little Scumbag, he could unleash his Martial Souls, and those twenty-seven Soul Rings alone could scare Tang Hao to death.
But then Lu Yu thought of something else. With the monkey Martial Soul recalled, he had Innate Full Soul Power; with the monkey Martial Soul released, he had innate level-one Soul Power.
So was his cultivation talent based on Innate Full Soul Power or innate level-one Soul Power? The difference between the two was like heaven and earth.
After he added Soul Rings later on and the monkey Martial Soul broke through the level limits, would he take more of Lu Yu's Soul Power?
Right now, Lu Yu was both delighted and worried.
The delightful possibility was that his cultivation talent was based on Innate Full Soul Power, and that he could remain at level ten without breaking through while the monkey Martial Soul reached Soul Douluo.
He could cultivate to level ten, give nine levels of Soul Power to the monkey Martial Soul, and then, with the Soul Power from absorbing Soul Rings, instantly break through to level ninety and become a Titled Douluo.
He could do the same at other realms too, not just Soul Douluo.
What worried him was the possibility that his cultivation talent was based on innate level-one Soul Power. If he cultivated for years and finally struggled his way to level ten, only for the monkey Martial Soul to take nine levels away, Lu Yu would cry himself to death.
"Ah~ forget it. I'll go home first and look into cultivation tomorrow. I won't figure it out in a short while anyway."
With that thought, Lu Yu had just risen to his feet when he remembered that he still hadn't named the monkey Martial Soul.
So he released the monkey Martial Soul.
As soon as he came out, the golden-furred monkey stared at Lu Yu reproachfully, his monkey face full of grievance.
Lu Yu pressed a hand to his forehead. Having a Martial Soul with intelligence was a little troublesome too. Although the monkey couldn't disobey his orders, Lu Yu didn't want to be like Gangzi and treat Luo Sanpao as a tool soul.
"All right, I'll give you a name, and then I'll bring out the golden staff Martial Soul. How's that?"
Lu Yu crouched down and gently stroked the golden-furred monkey's little head.
When he heard that Lu Yu would bring out the golden staff, the golden-furred monkey's aggrieved expression vanished, and he instantly jumped up in delight.
Lu Yu smiled and shook his head.
"A golden-furred monkey... Sun Wukong? I don't mean any offense to you, honored elder, so please don't misunderstand. I want to spread your fame in another world. Though I'm not one ten-thousandth as capable as you, I still want the people of this world to know the mighty name of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven."
When Lu Yu finished speaking, he pressed his palms together and bowed to the empty air around him, both apologizing and begging Brother Monkey for permission, hoping he wouldn't take offense.
"Then the monkey will be called 'Great Sage.' I'll also go to the Great Soul Arena to practice my fighting skills and earn some Gold Soul Coins while I'm at it. I'll call myself 'Equal to Heaven,' and my codename will be 'Great Sage Equal to Heaven.'"
Just as Lu Yu spoke, a rumble of thunder sounded in the clear sky.
"Holy crap~"
The rumble of thunder gave Lu Yu a fright.
"Damn it, lightning isn't going to strike me, is it?!"
Lu Yu cautiously looked up at the sky, where the sun was close to setting. No more thunder followed.