Xu Mang returned to his hotel room after leaving the Zhao Marketplace, closing the door quietly behind him. The Ruler level soul essence sat in a reinforced container on the table, glowing faintly with a deep blue shimmer.
He sat down in front of it, took a long breath, and rested the Black Tortoise Pendant in his palm.
"You have waited long enough," Xu Mang said softly. "Go ahead. Absorb it."
The pendant warmed instantly.
A dark cyan light burst from its surface, sharp and sudden, lancing straight into the container. The protective seal shook as if slapped by a giant's hand, then shattered with a crisp snap.
The moment the soul essence touched the pendant's glow, its murky outer layer dissolved. What remained was a brilliant, radiant core filled with intricate lines of compressed power.
Xu Mang blinked in surprise.
He had expected a reaction.
He had not expected this much.
This was the purest form of Ruler class essence — something that even established clans hoarded like treasure.
And his pendant was eating it like a starving animal.
"Hold on. Not so fast." Xu Mang reached forward instinctively.
The pendant did not slow down.
In fact, it flared brighter, as if offended by being interrupted.
"Wait. Stop. I am serious. That stuff is worth billions. Do not just swallow it without–"
The pendant ignored him entirely and consumed the rest in one steady pull.
"All of it…" Xu Mang muttered.
The container was empty. Not a single trace of soul essence remained.
He exhaled sharply. "That was two billion yuan. Two billion. You could have at least pretended to struggle."
The pendant gave a low, almost satisfied hum.
Xu Mang stared at it. "You are lucky I am patient."
The pendant pulsed again, as if telling him to calm down.
Then it burped.
A tiny, soft vibration that was unmistakably a burp.
Xu Mang closed his eyes. "You… did not just… burp."
He rubbed his temples.
Just when he was about to sit back and breathe, the pendant suddenly began to shine again.
This time brighter.
Hotter.
Almost blinding.
Thin cracks formed along the pendant's dark outer shell, glowing from within like molten metal pushing through stone. More cracks followed, spreading across its surface like lightning crawling through glass.
The black shell could no longer hold.
With a sharp crack, the outer layer shattered into dozens of fragments that scattered across the table.
A deep blue core was revealed beneath the remnants of the old shell.
The pendant had transformed.
The new surface was smooth and pristine, carved with intricate patterns like ancient sigils flowing seamlessly across its body. Its eyes, once dull and lifeless, now shone with a vivid, intelligent light.
Xu Mang held it carefully.
It felt heavier.
Denser.
Alive.
"If you looked worthless before," he muttered, "now you would sell for a hundred million."
Not that he would ever sell it.
The pendant glowed warmly in his hand, as if agreeing.
Xu Mang leaned back in his chair, exhaling.
"With this, my Summoning cultivation will move ten times faster. And the wolf I bring back from Antarctica… will have a proper home."
He placed the pendant against his chest.
The Black Totem Pendant pulsed once, powerful and steady.
A new stage of his journey had begun.
"Sigh… well at least I gained something from my loss," Xu Mang muttered to the Black Totem Pendant while cultivating.
It had been fifteen days since the pendant devoured the Ruler Class Soul Essence.
During that time, he focused almost entirely on his Summoning Element. He was still far from Second Level, but his progress was shocking compared to normal students. The upgraded Black Totem Pendant clearly boosted his cultivation speed.
"If it keeps going like this, I might break through in the next three months," Xu Mang calculated quietly. "But the pendant has evolved so much, why is it still this stingy? If it let me use one hundred percent of what it absorbed, I could have broken through already."
He frowned.
"Was it not able to digest all of the energy yet? Or is it still in the middle of some deeper evolution?"
The pendant's aura and appearance did not fully match what a Ruler Class Soul Essence should have produced. That meant it was still processing part of the power.
"By the looks of it, I will not be able to use all of its benefits any time soon," Xu Mang said, feeling a little helpless.
Even so, the Black Totem Pendant was not leaving him completely in the dark. It had already enhanced itself enough to speed up his cultivation a lot more than before.
"Well, anyway, that fat bastard has not contacted me at all since that day," Xu Mang grumbled, thinking of the Zhao merchant.
"Let us pay him a visit today."
…
Far away at the end of the world, the southernmost gateway city sat quietly beside a cold sea.
Ushuaia.
The most southerly of the gateway cities, roughly one thousand kilometers from the Antarctic Peninsula.
The lakes were calm, the mountains completely covered in snow. The city looked like it belonged in a fairy tale. The air was pure and sharp, and many ships sat anchored in the harbor.
Because of the polar nights, the city had been in darkness for nearly six months. The Forbidden Lands of Antarctica turned the entire region into an extremely cold world. Only yesterday had the dark winter finally ended.
The sun had risen, and the worst cold was slowly retreating. For the people living here, winter was long and terrifying. In the past, before the city developed, many could not even survive it.
During winter, food, heating materials, clothing, and medicine were lifelines. The rich stayed inside their warm homes, watching television and eating roast meat by the fireplace. The poor faced houses collapsing under heavy snow and had no way even to thaw their frozen food.
So spring was precious here. It did not only mean the end of extreme cold. It meant life and hope.
To celebrate spring, Ushuaia held a food buffet along one of its pedestrian streets. The smell of meat and wine filled the air. Soon people were dancing to old radio music, laughing and shouting.
In a tavern named Last Pork, four people sat around a table with expressions like their closest family member had just died.
"We lost Mateo… damn it!" The man in his thirties wearing a large warm coat slammed his fist on the floor in frustration.
"It could not be helped," a rough looking but beautiful middle aged woman bit her lip, her fists clenched. "He sacrificed his life to save ours. If it were not for him, we would…"
She was furious at her own lack of strength.
"It is all because of that contractor," another man shouted through tears. "If he had not posted such a request, we would never have gone to that cursed place!"
"It is not the contractor's fault," the youngest girl in the group said quietly. "We are the ones who accepted the request. We should have prepared better before entering that place during its polar night cycle."
These four were Seven Star Hunter Masters, just returned from the Antarctic territories.
They had accepted a quest posted in the Hunter Union. The reward had been extremely high, around fifteen billion Argentinian peso. There was no way they could ignore such a sum.
High reward meant high risk. The task was to enter the Forbidden Lands and steal an offspring of a Great Ruler or higher class wolf monster.
The team knew the habitat of the Ice Beasts. One member had already crossed the barrier of Super Level and stepped into Half Forbidden Level for the Fire Element. The rest were peak Super mages, and all of them had Ice Element.
With that strength, they had believed it would be possible to complete the quest. They badly underestimated the Extreme South.
They had not expected that the Ice Beasts territory now housed a slumbering Emperor Level monster.
In the eternal night cycle, the Extreme South Land was particularly deadly. The party did not even sense the Emperor's presence until they were far too close.
Even so, they pressed forward because they found what they were looking for.
A newborn wolf monster.
The infant had just been born, only a few months old. They did not know if it belonged to a Ruler level wolf or not, but since they found it within five kilometer radius of the Emperor, they deduced it must be from a true Ruler class wolf or higher.
The baby beast was nowhere near tame. Noble and royal in appearance, yet ferocious in nature. They saw it bite through another monster's leg and chew it proudly when they arrived.
The moment they saw it, they trapped the wolf infant in a cage and tried to run. However, the Emperor Level monster noticed and attacked.
Mateo, the Half Forbidden Fire mage, stayed behind. He unleashed his strongest spell to buy enough time for his party to reach the spatial formation they had prepared on the outskirts.
That was the only reason the others survived.
Just before they were teleported away, they saw Mateo and his strongest spell ripped apart by a huge white slash. His body and flames disappeared in the Emperor's attack.
In a Forbidden Zone like Antarctica, a human life was no more than an insect.
"When will we get the money?" one of the men finally asked.
"We shipped the infant two days ago. It should have arrived by now, so we can expect payment today or tomorrow."
"Where did you ship it?"
"China."
…
…
Back in Magic City, morning sunlight shone over the Zhao Auction House.
"Good morning, Mr Xu," the receptionist with thick makeup greeted as soon as Xu Mang stepped through the door.
She guided him to the VIP lounge and offered refreshments.
"Do you have my item ready?" Xu Mang asked, sipping the cold drink she brought.
"Yes. It was shipped from Ushuaia City and arrived today," she answered with a polite smile.
"Ushuaia? The one near Antarctica?" Xu Mang raised his brows slightly.
"Yes. Our Zhao family issued a special quest to the Ushuaia Hunter Union based on your request."
Xu Mang was honestly impressed. He had not expected Zhao Wong to take the commission so seriously. His impression of the man improved a little.
"Thank you. So, for how much are you planning to sell it?" Xu Mang asked.
"That… actually… ah, sir," she stammered, noticing Zhao Wong approaching with a stiff expression.
"Good morning, Mr Xu. Let us talk inside," Zhao Wong said, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Xu Mang noted both of their nervous reactions and followed him into a private room.
"So? What happened?" Xu Mang asked calmly.
"Well, actually the thing is…" Zhao Wong explained how the hunter group could not officially confirm the exact bloodline level of the infant monster they had captured.
He then brought in a cage.
Inside, a newborn wolf about three months old at most gnawed at the magically reinforced bars with sharp white teeth.
The moment Xu Mang laid eyes on it, he knew.
The pure snow white fur without a speck of dirt screamed nobility. Faint golden runes traced across its small body, carrying terrifying potential. A tiny cluster of Ice Element dust rested on its forehead, hinting at a future crown that only true monster royalties possessed.
"We believe it might be an offspring of the Polar Wolf King," Zhao Wong said with a troubled smile.
A Polar Wolf King was already an absolute sovereign of the polar regions. Even Super mages avoided such monsters.
It was not a Polar Wolf King's child. It was something even higher.
That was Xu Mang's first thought as he studied the infant. A Polar Wolf King's bloodline would look ordinary beside this one. The problem was clear, though. Now that he saw it up close, he knew this wolf would be almost untameable in the future.
"I will buy it. How much?" Xu Mang asked directly.
"Oh, but we really cannot affirm its bloodline…" Zhao Wong hesitated.
"It does not matter. Just name the price."
"In the regular market, such a specimen would be around seven hundred million RMB."
"Six hundred million," Xu Mang replied without blinking. "Since you cannot confirm the lineage, it is a gamble."
"O… ok. Six hundred million it is."
For some reason, the manager felt like he had taken a loss, even though they had just sold a newborn monster for much more than usual.
Xu Mang completed the payment and left with the wolf pup.
"What a bargain," he thought as he walked. "A lineage like this could easily be worth billions. It is fortunate the manager was careless. If he had any real eye for bloodlines, buying it would have been difficult even with my current resources."
He stroked the side of the cage lightly.
"But now I need someone powerful and experienced in the Summoning Element to support me. Without help, I am one hundred percent sure I will fail while trying to evolve my spirit wolf with this new lineage."
Xu Mang considered quietly, then turned toward a familiar direction in Magic City.
Clear Sky Hunter Agency.