T/N: Hello! The sign in error got fixed a couple days ago but I totally forgot about updating, which is completely my fault and I apolgize. Also since I couldn't update here, I decided to finish the fic on the p@treon so it's now done. So if you want to read from here to the end now, you can go to [email protected]/LordHipposApostle.
"Young Master Chu, were you groomed by Spirit Hall as one of their peerless prodigies?"
Hearing that Spirit Hall specialized in hunting evil soul masters, Ma Jieke's eyes lit up and he blurted the question.
"Uh, no. But Spirit Hall's crown heir is my girlfriend. And, Old Ma, you're my man now. You are not joining Spirit Hall."
Chu Chengzhou added the warning without missing a beat.
Qian Renxue's interests were his interests, and also Spirit Hall's interests. Spirit Hall's interests were Qian Renxue's, but not necessarily his. No mixing the two.
"Eh? Isn't the crown heir of Spirit Hall your girlfriend?" Ma Jieke froze. If they were practically family, why draw lines?
Having learned Spirit Hall actively cracked down on evil soul masters, and with his own history of suffering at their hands, Ma Jieke had instantly felt drawn to them. A righteous force. Worth joining.
"Who told you I only have one girlfriend? I'm not allowed to have others?"
Chu gave him a disdainful look.
Ma Jieke: "…"
Fair point.
But… Spirit Hall is strong. Aren't you afraid they'll kill you?
Just then, the mischievous Titan Giant Ape summoned spirit, Xiao Ming, came lumbering over grinning, proffering several radiant soul bones like trophies.
"Mm. Not bad."
Chu praised him and took the bones.
The Moon Worship Cult was one of the Sun–Moon Continent's top forces. Smashing their lair meant spoils.
"Old Ma, your strength is on the low side. Since you're under my banner, take this soul bone as a welcome gift."
He picked out the finest piece—a left arm bone of a bit over forty thousand years—and tossed it over.
Not everyone is a pillar of a great empire, and the Moon Worship Cult was a tier below the Star Luo Empire. Its upper ranks were worth far less than Star Luo's royal elders.
"Many thanks, Young Master Chu!"
Bowled over by the generosity, Ma Jieke hesitated only a moment before accepting. Proven: Boss Chu was not only strong but generous. Before Ma had earned any merit, a precious soul bone already—clearly a good boss.
"All right. Go home and pack up. You may not get another chance."
Chu Chengzhou put away four summoned spirits, keeping only the Space Dragon Xiao Yin as transport, and took Ma Jieke back to the Ma residence in a coastal city of the Sun–Moon Continent's east.
By the time they arrived it was late. With business still tonight, Chu Chengzhou chose not to depart for the Douluo Continent immediately. He would leave at first light.
Deep night. In the bedroom, Chu Chengzhou sat waiting for his martial soul to upgrade.
The True Spirit Banner he had kept idling in the auto-run slots was due to evolve again tonight.
He could not help anticipating the changes after this evolution.
Two years ago he had already "taken" Hu Liena. Later he had been with Tang Yuehua and Qian Renxue in turn. Why were none of their bellies showing?
It wasn't that the women had issues, nor that Chu Chengzhou had any problem. He simply didn't intend to have children before this evolution.
Thus far, his True Spirit Banner was only top-tier quality.
If he had already sown seed, then the children of Hu Liena and Tang Yuehua would, at best, awaken top-tier martial souls.
Even if they awakened an inherited True Spirit Banner, and even if Chu Chengzhou's own banner later evolved, that would not change the children's cap, at least not before he held divine power.
On the Douluo Continent, bloodline inheritance fixes at the moment life takes shape. Without defying the heavens, an ant remains an ant; it cannot become a dragon.
And if an "ant" does turn dragon, it is an ant with dragon blood, not a common ant.
Ascending to godhood here is not like next door on the Battle-Through-the-Heavens continent, where one person becomes Emperor and even distant kin soar alongside.
By contrast, the child of Qian Renxue—and any child conceived after his banner's evolution—by the rules of martial soul inheritance, would, barring mutation, certainly awaken a god-grade martial soul with an innate domain.
"God-grade" here refers to soul quality, not raw power—like how the Dark Devilgod Tiger bears a god-tier bloodline.
They are all his sons and daughters. How could Chu Chengzhou allow a qualitative gap between their martial souls? For family harmony later, there would be no children before evolution.
After tonight, that changed. The great ancestral wish could enter its "branching and leafing" phase.
A quarter hour later, a subtle change rippled through him.
At the same time his body felt ravenous. Without hesitation, the yin–yang complementary triple soul cores spun up to full output. He seemed to turn into a black hole, ravenously devouring the heaven-and-earth energy around him.
Soon, outside the bedroom, torrents of energy converged, coalescing under the night into a funnel-shaped cloud of essence.
Time slipped by. Half an hour later, the phenomenon faded. In the room, Chu Chengzhou opened his eyes. Light flashed in them; surging blue radiance rippled out, and a pale-blue domain bloomed to fill the chamber.
Knock, knock.
"Young Master Chu, did something happen?" Ma Jieke called from beyond the door. The earlier commotion had been hard to miss.
"Nothing. Just cultivating. Go rest."
Chu Chengzhou sent him away.
Sensing the soul power within—rank unchanged, but volume and purity both greatly increased—Chu Chengzhou nodded, satisfied, and released his martial soul.
When a martial soul's quality rises, even at the same rank soul power increases markedly and becomes more refined. Aside from rings, bones, and domain, that is the main reason high-grade martial soul users can fight above their level.
He studied the True Spirit Banner in his hand. The differences were obvious.
The dingy-gray staff was still veined with white lines that symbolized the Killing God Domain. The equally gray banner still bore nine emblems for his nine summons.
But where those nine emblems had once been simplified—so much so that, if not for knowing his own kit, even Chu Chengzhou might not identify which soul beast each stood for—now they were vivid, detailed, almost lifelike, as if the beings themselves were there.