A month later, A moonless night...
In the bustling Heaven Duo Empire city, amidst the crowd, a figure wearing a black hooded cloak moved swiftly through many dark and narrow roads. After a while, the figure slipped into a house through the window.
.....
The house lamp illuminated his hooded face, revealing a hint of his handsomeness.
"Is this the place where the Fire-type Great Soul Master lives?" Xie Yue thought to himself as he carefully surveyed the small house.
After a moment, he found the person he was looking for. The Soul Master was sleeping in his small room. Xie Yue quietly approached him and summoned his martial soul: two Moon blades, one in each hand.
Slash.
With a single slash, he severed both of the Great Soul Master's legs.
The Soul Master awoke with a shrill scream, jolted from his peaceful sleep.
"Ahhhhhhh!" Upon realizing he had lost his limbs, the Soul Master screamed louder. He couldn't understand what was happening. Panicked, he used his soul power to staunch the bleeding. He felt as though he had no future left. How would he live without his legs?
"If you do one thing for me, I'll save your life and reattach your limbs. My request is simple," At this time, Xie Yue said. But was reattaching limbs really that easy?
"You... Who the hell are you? What enmity do I have with you?" Hearing Xie Yue's voice, the Soul Master regained some clarity and realized who the hell cut off his legs.
There was uncontrollable anger in his weak voice, but also fear. He summoned his martial soul, a Fire Lamb materializing in his right hand, with one white and one yellow soul ring glowing around him. His first thought was to kill Xie Yue. He wasn't listening to anything Xie Yue had said; nothing he said seemed to register.
Seeing the Fire Soul Master's reaction, Xie Yue understood what he needed to do. He moved his right hand, and with another slash, the Soul Master lost his left hand.
"Aaaahhh!" The Soul Master screamed again.
"Last chance. If you don't do what I need, you can just die," Xie Yue said.
The Soul Master tried to say something, but he fainted from excessive blood loss.
Seeing him faint, Xie Yue swiftly severed his head without hesitation.
"So I can't control someone with this method?" Xie Yue wondered.
He needed a Fire Soul Master to help him melt whale glue. But asking his sect for help was out of the question. What if someone suspected something about the whale glue and him? So, he decided not to seek their assistance.
After considering other options, Xie Yue thought about asking other Soul Masters, then killing them afterward to keep his secrets. But there was a problem: he couldn't ask anyone with stronger soul power to melt the whale glue. If that person were stronger, he wouldn't be able to kill them in the end.
So, Xie Yue gathered information about Fire Soul Masters in the Heaven Duo Empire through his sect.
At first, he considered using money to hire them, but after some thought, he chose to use threats instead.
However, he didn't know how to effectively use threats to make someone work for him. Though he had learned etiquette and how to interact with nobles from Tang Yuehua, he was a complete novice in using threats. Even though he was very old, he was inexperienced in this regard.
But who could teach him this? No one. So, he would have to learn it himself. Once he mastered it, it would be useful to him in the future. That's why he chose threats over money as his first try.
"But it seems I can't do it like this... chopping off limbs and threatening them doesn't seem effective for this Soul Master. Should I try a more moderate approach?" Xie Yue thought. He could simply use money to get them to work for him, but he wasn't in a rush. What he really wanted was to learn how to control people using threats and fear. Improving in this area was very important to him. As for the lost lives? Heh... The world was full of people.
"If I want to learn it properly, I may need to kill more people. Torturing them is also an option. I'll use trial and error. But I can't try this on Fire Soul Masters... I need them to do my work."
"Since that's the case, I'll try my idea on other useless Soul Masters first before using it on Fire Soul Masters." Xie Yue made up his mind.
What if he had to kill more people to understand fear?
He didn't care. He had even killed himself in his past life. He didn't give a damn about other people's lives.
What if the City Guards or other powerful Soul Masters found out?
That's why he chose introverted and weak Soul Masters as his targets. Even if they died, no one would care.
But there was a big problem: being found out by his master or father. But that didn't matter now; he could perfectly cover up his killing aura after learning from the Moon Pavilion. No one would be able to tell he had killed anyone.
As for his secret guards, he had shaken them off on the way here, so no one knew about today's killing.
"But I can't stay outside the sect for too long. I came out this time under the pretext of visiting Tang Yuehua. I can only stay here for three days at most. I can't delay taking the whale glue either." With that thought, Xie Yue headed in a different direction.
He could learn torturing next time. For now, he wanted to use money to ask another Soul Master to melt the whale glue. He couldn't afford to delay taking it. If he missed this opportunity, he would have to wait another month.
---
After a while,
Xie Yue sneaked into another house. There, a middle-aged Soul Master and his average-looking wife were sleeping. After confirming that no one else was inside, Xie Yue exited the house and knocked on the door.
Hearing the knock, the husband and wife awoke, and the husband opened the door.
The Soul Master looked at Xie Yue. Without wasting any time, Xie Yue took out two gold coins.
"Here... Take this and help me melt this completely." As he spoke, Xie Yue took out a 10,000-year-old whale glue. Seeing the whale glue, the Soul Master's eyes gleamed with greed.
"Don't think anything funny," Xie Yue warned coldly as he summoned his martial soul.
A 10,000-year whale glue was worth nearly 20,000 gold coins in the current era. In the future, it could be worth even more—up to 1 million gold coins for just a thousand-year-old whale glue. To the Soul Master in front of him, 20,000 gold coins were a small fortune. It would take him over 30 years of hard work to earn that much. His greed was understandable, but Xie Yue released his martial soul to bring him back to his senses.
"Ah, Esteemed Soul Grandmaster, it will take about an hour to melt it completely with my level 10+ soul power. I'll also need to meditate to recover my soul power in between, so I'll need 5 gold coins to do the work," the Soul Master said, having controlled his greed after seeing Xie Yue's two yellow soul rings. He knew his own strength well...
If he could kill Xie Yue, he would become rich overnight, but it was impossible with his current strength. So, he opted for the next best thing: increasing the price.
"Doesn't matter. Here," Xie Yue said, handing him five gold coins.
"Haha, come in, Esteemed Soul Grandmaster," the Soul Master invited Xie Yue inside.
His wife felt a little displeased at the late-night knock but shut her mouth when she saw the gold coins and welcomed Xie Yue enthusiastically.
Nearly two hours later, the Soul Master had completely melted the whale glue and handed it to Xie Yue with a reluctant look in his eyes.
"Here, Esteemed Great Soul Master. I've melted it completely, but I don't know why you needed to melt whale glue... It's not usually used this way, is it?" he asked, expressing his doubt. Why would someone waste 20,000 gold coins worth whale glue, just to melt it?
Xie Yue reached out, took the whale glue, which was still hot, and had already changed shape after melting. It had turned into a soft, gelatinous substance, emitting a strange fragrance.
Using his soul power to hold it and resist the heat, Xie Yue addressed the Soul Master's question.