The next moment, the Wishing Divine Lamp burst with dazzling golden light.
Countless streams of golden light poured into Yu Xiaogang like a surging tide.
All at once, Yu Xiaogang felt the level-thirty bottleneck that had held him back for decades actually begin to loosen.
"It moved! It really moved!"
"I'm going to break through! I'm going to break through!"
Yu Xiaogang could no longer maintain his stiff expression. He cried out in excitement.
Soul Power surged through his meridians, battering the invisible bottleneck again and again.
"Boom!"
A thunderous blast seemed to explode in his ears. Yu Xiaogang felt the level-thirty bottleneck finally shatter!
Soul Elder! He had finally broken through to Soul Elder!
At that moment, Yu Xiaogang felt as though he had been reborn.
"I broke through... I finally broke through to Soul Elder!"
Yu Xiaogang dropped to his knees with a thud, tears and snot streaming down his face as he shouted at the sky.
"Father! I haven't disgraced the family! I, Yu Xiaogang, haven't disgraced the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect!"
That shout unleashed more than forty years of pent-up frustration.
Half a level of Innate Soul Power, a malignant Martial Soul mutation, treated as trash by his family, mocked by his peers, looked down on by everyone under heaven...
But he, Yu Xiaogang, had relied on his own efforts to fight his way to this point, one step at a time!
How could he not cry?
He wanted so badly to cry!
At the sight of Yu Xiaogang kneeling there with tears streaming down his face, Bibi Dong felt a pang in her chest, and her eyes reddened too.
As his former girlfriend, she knew all too well the grievances Xiaogang had suffered over the years.
"Xiaogang..."
Xu Nuo, meanwhile, stood to one side, looking well-behaved and obedient, though his eyes gleamed with excitement.
Because just now, at the moment Yu Xiaogang made his wish...
Xu Nuo had felt two things appear inside his Wishing Divine Lamp Martial Soul.
A stream of golden Martial Soul Origin, and a stream of astonishingly vast medicinal power.
Martial Soul Origin...
This should be the Golden Sacred Dragon Origin inside Luo Sanpao, right?
I actually managed to snatch it for myself!
Xu Nuo was delighted and nearly failed to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up.
But what was that medicinal power about?
Xu Nuo blinked his big eyes, full of confusion.
By rights, the price of a wish should have fallen on the person who made it.
Yet the "payment" the Wishing Divine Lamp had collected also included a vast amount of medicinal power.
Could that have been stripped out of Yu Xiaogang's body too?
The truth of the matter was actually quite simple.
Yu Xiaogang's Martial Soul, Luo Sanpao, had only half a level of Innate Soul Power. It was a Trash Martial Soul, utterly lousy to the extreme.
Becoming a powerhouse was out of the question.
If he had cultivated normally, he probably would have struggled even to break through to Soul Grandmaster.
But no matter what, Yu Xiaogang was the son of Yu Yuanzhen, the sect master of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect.
Though Yu Yuanzhen was somewhat disappointed in Yu Xiaogang, he had never quite hardened his heart enough to abandon him completely.
From childhood onward, Yu Yuanzhen had made sure Yu Xiaogang rarely lacked precious spirit medicines, Soul Power food, or Soul Beast meat.
It was only by relying on those cultivation resources that Yu Xiaogang had managed to break through to Soul Grandmaster in his teens.
But Yu Xiaogang's aptitude was simply too poor.
He had refined at most around a tenth of the medicinal power in those spirit medicines.
The remaining nine-tenths had all settled deep in his flesh and meridians, and might never have been activated in his lifetime.
Just now, however, Yu Xiaogang had wished to break through to level thirty immediately.
To ensure an immediate breakthrough,
the Wishing Divine Lamp had stripped away Luo Sanpao's detached Martial Soul nature and Golden Sacred Dragon Origin, turning Luo Sanpao into a normal Beast Martial Soul.
His potential had instead increased by a considerable margin.
The chain reaction caused by the Martial Soul's "evolution" had also activated a small portion of the medicinal power deposited in Yu Xiaogang's body.
That had finally allowed Yu Xiaogang to break through to level thirty!
As for the rest of that medicinal power...
The Wishing Divine Lamp had naturally stripped it away in passing as the price of granting the wish, and it had gone into Xu Nuo's pocket.
"Xiaogang, congratulations!"
Seeing Yu Xiaogang successfully break through, Bibi Dong smiled sincerely on her noble, aloof, and beautiful face as she congratulated him.
After recovering from his wild joy, Yu Xiaogang wiped the tear tracks from his face and looked at Bibi Dong with a complicated gaze.
"Bibi Dong, I have you to thank for this."
"If you hadn't brought this child here, I might never have broken through to level thirty in my life."
"It's nothing. This was mainly because you were clever, Xiaogang."
Bibi Dong shook her head, her beautiful eyes full of undisguised admiration.
"You guessed from those two examples of wishes that making a wish might come at a price, and then chose the safest wish."
"Someone else might never have thought to do that!"
Hearing this, Yu Xiaogang couldn't help the corners of his stiff face from curling up slightly, a hint of pride appearing in his eyes.
Suddenly, Yu Xiaogang frowned and spoke in a low voice.
"Oh, right! Bibi Dong."
"After making the wish just now, I felt as though my Martial Soul had undergone some changes."
With a thought, Yu Xiaogang summoned his Martial Soul, Luo Sanpao.
But the creature that appeared in the room the next moment was not the strange little purple beast he had always known.
It was a fat purple pig beast!
"What?!"
Yu Xiaogang's expression changed drastically, and he stared in disbelief at the fat pig before him.
"My Sanpao... how did he end up like this?!"
Bibi Dong was stunned too.
She knew what Luo Sanpao had looked like before. He had been a rather cute little beast.
How had he turned into a big fat pig now?!
"This..."
For a moment, Bibi Dong didn't know what to say either.
She hadn't expected this to happen.
The expression on Yu Xiaogang's face shifted from disbelief to confusion. Finally, he seemed to think of something, and a hint of pleasant surprise appeared.
Although Luo Sanpao had turned into a pig beast, he seemed to have become a true Beast Martial Soul too!
Yu Xiaogang was certain that with a single thought, he could let his Martial Soul, Luo Sanpao, possess him!
The old Luo Sanpao, however, had been unable to perform Martial Soul Possession.
In Yu Xiaogang's view, Luo Sanpao's former traits as an intelligent Beast Martial Soul that existed outside his body had been the very marks of a malignant mutation!
Now his Martial Soul had changed and become normal.
This could undoubtedly be called an "evolution"!
But soon, Yu Xiaogang thought of another problem.
Although his Martial Soul Luo Sanpao had evolved into a normal Beast Martial Soul, which was indeed something to celebrate,
his Martial Soul could now possess him.
That meant he would have to unleash his Soul Skills himself from now on.
But what were his Martial Soul Luo Sanpao's two great Soul Skills?
They were both farts!
Before, he had used his Soul Skills through Luo Sanpao.
But now that Luo Sanpao had become a normal Beast Martial Soul, didn't that mean he, Yu Xiaogang, would have to fart in person from now on?!
At that thought, Yu Xiaogang's face turned green.
A scene had already appeared in his mind.
He fought an enemy for three hundred rounds in his normal state, only to find he was no match.
In the end, he could only grit his teeth, use Martial Soul Possession, and unleash his Soul Skill with a loud shout.
With an earth-shaking fart, the enemy clutched his nose and stumbled back several steps, breaking down in disgust.
And he himself lost all face and became a laughingstock!
No!
Anything but that!
Yu Xiaogang was utterly distraught, screaming wildly in his heart.
But now, nothing could be changed.
Yu Xiaogang could only desperately try to comfort himself and look on the bright side.
He had now broken through to Soul Elder, and his Martial Soul had "evolved" too.
Maybe... maybe my Soul Skills have changed along with it?
Yes!
My Soul Skills have changed. They must have changed!