Huo Yuhao made decisions fast. He sprang up and immediately began packing.
After rifling through the room for a while he realized that, as servants-of-servants in the White Tiger Duke's household, Huo Yun'er and his family weren't rich at all—more like embarrassingly poor.
Aside from the White Tiger Dagger, the only other valuable thing in the whole house was an old pottery jar on the table.
He patted the dust clean and only found seven silver spirit coins and twenty copper spirit coins.
Not a single gold spirit coin. That sum could be decent for an ordinary family, but for a Spirit Master intent on roaming the land it would barely last a week.
"No wonder the original Huo Yuhao had to fish for food in the Star Dou Forest—he was flat broke," he muttered, staring at the coins.
"Well, guess I'll have to brush up on my roasted-fish skills again."
Lack of money didn't dent his determination to leave the White Tiger Duke's mansion. Even without memories from his previous life, any sane person who saw what he'd seen would want out.
Huo Yun'er and her son were like a thorn in the duke's wife's side. The duchess sent people to make life miserable for them on a regular basis, and her methods grew crueler with time.
What began as verbal abuse escalated into physical beatings. The duchess was confident that a boy who hadn't awakened a White Tiger Martial Soul would never draw the attention of Dai Hao, who guarded the Ming Dou Mountains. Even if Huo Yuhao died, with the duchess's authority at the mansion there were a hundred ways she could make the problem disappear.
As for rebellion—there was none to be had. The duchess herself was a genuine Spirit Sage-level powerhouse. Even without an aggressive fighting style, her Spirit Mastery Level alone could crush Huo Yuhao a hundred times over with nothing but her oppressive presence.
Of course he thought of revenge—when he was fully grown and had finished developing, he'd make the duchess and Dai Huabin pay the ultimate humiliation. Then he'd record it with a Spirit Tool and copy it into millions of distributions for the world to enjoy.
Just thinking about it made his blood flush with excitement.
"Enough daydreaming. Pack first," he told himself, shaking off the fantasy.
He put the coins in his pocket and hung the White Tiger Dagger at his waist so he could draw it at a moment's notice.
Next he needed to check his Spirit Power and his spiritual reserves. Spirit Power and spiritual power were his lifeblood—there could be no mistakes.
He opened his Spirit Eyes. The deep blue of his irises cleared, and if one looked closely tiny stars seemed to drift within them.
After activating his Martial Soul, the world snapped into sharp focus—wood grain on the table, motes drifting in the air, every minuscule detail. Spirit Power flowed along his meridians into his brain and converted into spiritual power, circulating within his Spirit Eyes.
Huo Yuhao summoned his spiritual power to probe his body. Every piece of flesh and blood had a mapped presence within his mind.
As he scanned himself roughly, his brows knit. Something felt…off. A subtle discordant presence had appeared inside him—so faint he likely wouldn't have discovered it if not for his Spirit Domain–level spiritual perception.
He began to probe every inch of his body with spiritual power. His spiritual realm was strong, but with only Rank 9 Spirit Power, the effort drained him visibly; his face went pale.
Strangely, though he clearly sensed the anomaly, he couldn't pinpoint it.
He wouldn't tolerate an unknown hidden danger in his body—if it erupted during a fight, it could cost him his life.
Ignoring his body's mounting alarm, he forced more Spirit Power into spiritual power and pushed his Spirit Eyes to search deeper.
Carefully, he examined his internal organs. At last—persistence rewarded him. In the spiritual sea located within his brain, he found a mysterious "line."
That line violently divided the spiritual sea's pure white sky into two. Countless points of light circled along its edges.
When his spiritual power brushed that line, it rapidly expanded into a massive gate, then drew in with overwhelming suction.
Like a black hole appearing in the spiritual sea, the floating light-points and Huo Yuhao's consciousness were sucked into it.
Inside, he felt as if stuffed into a washing machine running at full power—his mind was twisted and tortured. While his senses spun, he glimpsed an indescribably high-level presence making contact with his soul.
Before he could understand more, his consciousness was flung back into the spiritual sea.
"Damn—almost got pulled clean out," he breathed, forcing down a nausea that came from deep in his soul, then probed the spiritual sea again.
The white space was empty. If not for the missing light-points and the residual unease left by that soul-contact, no one would have known anything had occurred.
He tried to investigate further, but his Spirit Power and spiritual reserves were exhausted. The Spirit Eyes warned him he was overstretched.
Reluctantly, he closed his Martial Soul and withdrew his consciousness.
He propped his head up with his hands. Pale from spiritual and Spirit Power overexertion, he tried to focus on the trees outside to recover—but the sight before him made his pupils contract sharply.
A translucent screen had suddenly appeared in front of him.
Shock turned into elation. Having browsed countless Golden-era web novels in the virtual networks of his past life, he knew this sight well.
This was the hallmark of a protagonist with a stat panel.
The pain from overexertion faded as adrenaline surged. He read the information on the screen intently.
"Name: Huo Yuhao"
"Species: Human (God?)"
"Spirit Power: 15 (Rank 9)"
"Spiritual Power: 300"
"Martial Soul: Spirit Eyes"
"Abilities: None"
"Authorities: [Dream]: Life's unique phantasms (Mastery 2%)
[Understanding]: Dominion over the unknown (Mastery 1%)
[Fantasize]: Distortion of reality (Mastery 1%)"
"Draws: Random manifestation based on Fantasize (Uses *3)"
"Closing: O high-dimensional lord! Take your throne!"
...
Huo Yuhao's gaze lingered on that last line.
"High-dimensional lord… is that talking about my past life?" he wondered.
On impulse he tapped the final line with his fingertip.
Ripples surged out from the touch, and the closing sentence blurred and vanished into the waves. A flood of information poured from the panel into his brain.
Because his previous-life memories had already woken, his mind was used to such an information overload.
The data explained the panel's origin and how to increase his Authorities' mastery.
The panel was formed by three Authorities that were built from Huo Yuhao's memories.
[Dream] formed the panel's nucleus; [Understanding] filled its content; [Fantasize] granted it functionality.
Originally he had been a high-dimensional existence. When he descended into this universe he carried a mark of this universe's spiritual law—he was, in effect, a spiritual sovereign of this universe, but he lacked command of the Authorities.
Put another way: he had the rank, but no Authority or power.
How to obtain them? [Dream] required collecting dreams—spinning them into a Dreamland to raise mastery. [Understanding] demanded exploration of the unknown: unknown borders, unknown places, unknown knowledge—all counted. [Fantasize] was straightforward: raising mastery came from repeatedly using the Draws, and Draws were tied to unique spiritual signatures.
Every sentient, awakened being carries a unique psyche generated by memory and soul. The simplest way to harvest these unique psyches was—killing.
Huo Yuhao hesitated. He couldn't bring himself to slaughter civilians for Draws—the ideological training in the underground city of his past life forbade it. But this was the Unrivaled Tang Sect era—there existed cultivated aberrations called Evil Spirit Masters. Killing such Evil Spirit Masters didn't weigh on his conscience one bit.
There would inevitably be collateral innocents if one slaughtered all the evil souls in a region, but killing nine out of ten of them would likely leave a few survivors to sow further chaos.
After sketching out a plan for earning Draws, Huo Yuhao's eyes moved to the panel's three free Draw attempts.
He thought for a moment—and decided to use them immediately.
He clasped his hands and muttered a chaotic litany under his breath: "May the Three Purities bless me, may the Buddha bless me, may God bless me, praise be to Allah, ancestors watch over me—"
"Give me something!"
His face contorted, and his finger stabbed the panel's Draw button.
Three cascades of golden light shimmered, and the names of three items appeared on the screen.
"Faceless Mask: Wear it to change your appearance at will; can alter height within ±10 cm of the wearer's own height."
"Yilin Concentrate (Douluo exclusive): Smells of honeyed air. Inject and your head will be filled with the glory of Shrek Academy."
"Mangekyō Sharingan: A Mangekyō eye that transcribes Amaterasu, Kagutsuchi, Tsukuyomi, and Kamui. If spiritual shock is extreme the user may awaken personal ocular techniques. Note: excessive use can cause blindness."
Huo Yuhao's grin stretched wide—wider than an AK-47's recoil.
Aside from the Yilin Concentrate, the Faceless Mask and Mangekyō Sharingan were golden-tier legend items. The Sharingan even carried several ocular jutsu transcribed into it.
Because Soul Spirit theory hadn't been developed yet in the Unrivaled Tang Sect era, few Spirit Masters studied spiritual power. spiritual cultivation was roughly divided into formless and substantial stages with coarse categories; no one had systematized it enough to discover that great mastery could birth a spiritual domain.
Thus, illusion-style ocular techniques like Tsukuyomi could be overwhelmingly effective against Spirit Masters below Spirit Sage. As for those above Spirit Sage, how much a Martial Soul's true body augmented their spiritual side was unclear and not something Huo Yuhao dared guarantee.
Amaterasu and Kagutsuchi were paired ocular techniques. Although in Naruto Amaterasu never incinerated to death onscreen, its power was still significant—temperatures comparable to the sun's surface, by some estimates.
If Sun-surface temperatures are around 5,500°C, and Douluo's ultimate fire is roughly 3,000°C, then Amaterasu would far outclass local fire techniques.
Kamui was among the pinnacle ocular techniques—mechanical, quantifiable, strong both offensively and defensively, and even possessing spatial qualities. If transplanted to the Douluo world, it might function like a half-plane spatial ability.
Then again, given that spatial techniques weren't especially rare on Douluo Continent, Kamui's actual performance there was uncertain.
"Pity there's no Eight Thousand Spears," he sighed. If he had that spear, his lack of raw Spirit Power wouldn't matter—he might even deliver an endless Tsukuyomi spectacle on Douluo.
He returned to the panel and spoke aloud.
"Fuse them for me!"