"Lin Chuan! Lin Chuan!"
"Junior Brother Lin Chuan is amazing!"
"Long live Spirit Hall!"
The cheers grew louder and louder. Although the final tally was one win, one draw, and one loss, Spirit Hall had still come out slightly ahead.
Bibi Dong had already turned into a little beast and darted straight into Lin Chuan's arms.
"You little rascal, you scared me to death."
"I thought you'd nearly lost."
Lin Chuan didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Didn't I just use a little trick?"
Bibi Dong said, a little displeased, "You got beaten until you coughed up blood, and you call that a trick?"
Lin Chuan: "..."
How was he supposed to explain that the blood wasn't his?
Perhaps no one on the Douluo Continent had used a trick like his in this era.
Everyone was still too innocent.
Jin Kuang and Qiangu Feiyun also hurried over.
Jin Kuang shouted, "Junior Brother Lin Chuan, beautifully done! We really showed them!"
Qiangu Feiyun also came over and congratulated him repeatedly.
On the platform.
Golden Crocodile Douluo, Qian Jun, Jiang Mo, Azure Luan, and the others couldn't help looking on with pride and relief.
At first, they too had thought Lin Chuan would be trained as a healing-type Soul Master.
But now, Lin Chuan could undoubtedly do the work of two people.
Chrysanthemum Guan and Gui Mei were even more surprised. They exchanged a glance and instantly felt that luck was on their side.
As the Pope's trusted aides, if Lin Chuan rose to power one day, the two of them would undoubtedly be able to take another step up.
They would have to hug Lin Chuan's thigh tightly in the future.
Seeing Spirit Hall cheering and celebrating, the Clear Sky Sect's faces grew even uglier.
Although the three matches had ended in a draw, Lin Chuan had won a Soul Bone over fifty thousand years old for Spirit Hall.
The Clear Sky Sect had suffered a crushing loss.
Qian Daoliu looked at Tang Chen with a smile and said:
"Brother Tang, thank you for letting us win."
"I'll accept this fifty-thousand-year Soul Bone on the child's behalf."
Tang Chen took a deep breath, handed a box to Qian Daoliu, and said:
"It seems Brother Qian must have been laughing at me behind my back when you heard me singing my own praises earlier."
"The younger generation is truly formidable!"
With that, Tang Chen lingered no longer and left with his party.
From this clash with Qian Daoliu, he could also see that Spirit Hall's ambitions had not faded.
With Lin Chuan and Bibi Dong as its two hopes for the future, Spirit Hall would likely make no small moves in the years to come.
And their other purpose this time, giving the younger generation experience, had ended in complete failure.
Aside from Tang Xiao, Tang Hao had been affected somewhat, and the one affected most was naturally Tang San.
Even after leaving Spirit Hall, Tang San's gaze remained vacant.
Tang Wei's words of comfort had not made him feel any better.
Tang Chen suddenly called out, "Xiao San!"
Tang San looked up numbly. "Ancestor, Xiao San is here."
Tang Chen smiled.
"Actually, compared to Spirit Hall's Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul, the Clear Sky Hammer still has a slight edge."
"But do you know why I can stand on equal footing with Qian Daoliu, and even come out slightly ahead when we clash head-on?"
Tang San asked in puzzlement, "Xiao San doesn't know."
Tang Chen smiled.
"You're still young."
"You haven't even fully mastered the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer, and you've only grasped the barest surface of the Clear Sky Sect's essence, so there's no need to worry."
"Your two elder brothers have both mastered at least part of the Clear Sky Nine Absolutes."
"Only when you've mastered the Clear Sky Nine Absolutes can you truly be considered one of our Clear Sky Sect's most important disciples, so don't rush."
"You lost this year, but what about next year? The year after? Three years from now, or six?"
"In the life of a Soul Master, time stretches a long way."
"Lin Chuan winning now doesn't mean he'll be able to win in the future."
"He won against you now because he caught you by surprise."
"But in the future, as your eye Martial Soul grows stronger and with the aid of the methods you cultivate, this so-called concealment won't stand in your way."
"Because his concealment should have been developed from his First Soul Skill. When the time comes, it certainly won't be able to keep up with your rate of progress."
"Besides, he can't cultivate as a Battle Soul Master. In the end, he still has to walk the path of a healing-type Soul Master."
"But you're different, Xiao San. You're a pure Battle Soul Master of our Clear Sky Sect, and you have the advantage of Twin Martial Souls."
"Don't be discouraged by a temporary defeat. Keep your eyes on the long term."
Although these were similar words,
Hearing them from Tang Chen made Tang San feel more comforted.
That was right. What did a single defeat matter?
In the Tang Sect, he had already proven himself a genius who surpassed all the other Tang Sect disciples.
In the Soul Master World, he believed he would one day surpass everyone as well.
And Lin Chuan was merely the first stone he had to cross.
Besides, he still hadn't combined the Tang Sect Secret Arts and the Clear Sky Sect's secret techniques closely enough. He needed to cultivate even harder.
On top of that, this had been an arena match.
If it hadn't been in an arena, he believed Lin Chuan would have been defeated and killed the moment he unleashed his Hidden Weapons.
A real battle couldn't be like an arena match, where everything was done out in the open.
At that thought, he let out a sigh of relief.
So I only lost because of the difference in what we knew about each other.
And I didn't use my Hidden Weapons.
My potential in the future will only be greater than Lin Chuan's.
In the future, he would challenge Lin Chuan again, and he believed that when the time came, Lin Chuan would be the one defeated at his hands.
After defeating Tang San, Lin Chuan became a rising star among Spirit Hall's younger generation.
Someone who was both a healing-type Soul Master and possessed a certain amount of fighting ability would be in tremendous demand on the battlefield.
One could say that Lin Chuan was now even more popular among the young disciples than Bibi Dong.
That was because Bibi Dong was still too proud in her dealings with the disciples.
Unlike Lin Chuan, who treated people warmly.
Most importantly, Lin Chuan's Martial Soul was an angel, while Bibi Dong's was a spider.
Everyone judged by appearances to some extent.
Even when it came to Martial Souls, it was no different.
A great crowd of Spirit Hall disciples gathered around him.
They surrounded Lin Chuan three layers deep, even squeezing Bibi Dong out. The sight made her stamp her feet in anger.
"Teacher, look! That rascal Junior Brother is ignoring me."
Qian Xunji comforted her:
"You should be happy for Chuan'er."
But seeing how popular Lin Chuan was, Qian Xunji also felt somewhat uncomfortable for some reason.
At last.
Chuan'er's talent had been seen by everyone, including the Clear Sky Sect, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, and many other powers.
Wasn't this her goal too?
Now everyone knew she had a genius disciple with extraordinary talent.
So why did she feel this sense of loss now?
After the celebrations,
Qian Daoliu summoned Qian Xunji and Lin Chuan for a private meeting.
Qian Daoliu smiled.
"Chuan'er did beautifully this time."
"He won a fifty-thousand-year Soul Bone for Spirit Hall."
"But the Soul Bone Tang Hao lost to us is a fifty-thousand-year Evil Eye Red Scorpion Soul Bone."
"It isn't suitable for the Wishing Angel."
"The Fallen Angel can use it, but once it does, the balance between it and the Wishing Angel will be broken."
"So I intend to exchange it for a Soul Bone of a higher age for Chuan'er, roughly seventy thousand years old."
Hearing this, Qian Xunji's eyes lit up.
"Is it that Inherited Soul Bone?"
Qian Daoliu nodded.
Watching the two of them speak as though in riddles, Lin Chuan couldn't help growing curious. Spirit Hall's Inherited Soul Bone shouldn't be ordinary.
As he saw it, even if it was inferior to the Angel Set's six ninety-nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-year Soul Bones, it couldn't be all that ordinary.
After all, if it were an ordinary Soul Bone, the Great Enshrined and his teacher wouldn't have those expressions.