Word Count: 3,114
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The next morning, at dawn.
After a dreamless night, Zhao Xuanzhen finished washing up, changed into a set of fresh, clean clothes, and opened his door, only to nearly smash face-first into a pair of pectorals bigger than his head.
He tilted his chin up at the two hulking men who had the doorway blocked tight. Towering, broad-shouldered, and bearded, the sort of premium beefcake that would have topped any must-eat list back in his previous life. He grinned and said, "Why are your heads so pointy?"
"You're the one who's pointy! And after we came over this early for you!"
The Bai sisters retorted in perfect unison. With a pop like bursting balloons, their massive frames shrank away, returning to their original lovely forms.
"Her Excellency Heavenly Phoenix is back. She's waiting for you."
Bai Zhicen spoke with more than a trace of annoyance, reaching into her storage space and producing a glass of milk as if performing a magic trick. Bai Haoze activated her Light Unicorn Martial Spirit to warm it, then handed it to Zhao Xuanzhen.
He took the steaming glass and drained it in long, thirsty gulps. Sourced from a 1,000-year Snow Mountain Yak, the beverage was rich with nutrients and carried a thick, mellow fragrance. Zhao Xuanzhen's heart swelled with feeling.
Starting out in the Spirit Pagoda. Did anyone truly understand what kind of life he'd been living these past six years! It was simply...
Heavenly!
His teacher played favorites shamelessly, his allowance ran to seven figures, and he had two saintly older sisters with puppy-like devotion, fussing over him and ready to indulge any request at a moment's notice!
So content here, I don't think of Shu anymore!
(TL/N: An idiom meaning to be completely content with one's current pleasant situation and have no desire to return to a former, possibly less pleasant, one.)
"Let's go. We shouldn't keep Teacher waiting."
Seas had turned to mulberry fields and the world had shifted with time. The Douluo Continent was no longer the era of Tang San twenty thousand years ago, when Spirit Hall deacons traveled the land helping Spirit Masters awaken their Martial Spirits. Nor was it the age of Huo Yuhao ten thousand years ago, when even undergoing a Martial Spirit Awakening could be a struggle.
Now, free Martial Spirit Awakening sites had been established across the continent. As one of the superpowers, the Spirit Pagoda naturally had its own exclusive facility.
The three of them boarded a high-level elevator and went straight to the Awakening Room on the ninth floor.
The elevator doors slid open, and Zhao Xuanzhen immediately noticed that the entire Awakening Room had been cleared out. Not a single Spirit Pagoda member was anywhere in sight. The spacious hall lay quiet as still water. Crystal chandeliers cast a warm white glow, and the marble floor was polished bright enough to mirror a person's reflection.
The place had been booked for the day, without question. No idle outsiders were permitted inside.
Some influential person with reach everywhere had obviously taken a special interest in Zhao Xuanzhen and arranged a spacious, quiet environment just for him.
"Xuanzhen."
A voice rang out from deeper within. A figure emerged, sunlight spilling in beside her to wash over features beautiful as a painting, a graceful and alluring figure cloaked in a captivating halo that made it difficult to look away.
Her crimson hair flowed like a waterfall veiled in mist, light and silky. A pair of phoenix eyes, red as rubies, carried a chill like frost, yet her slender, crescent-shaped brows curved with just enough softness to lend that cold beauty a touch of tenderness.
"Greetings, Your Excellency Heavenly Phoenix."
Reverence filled the Bai sisters' eyes the moment the woman appeared. They bowed promptly and properly in salute. There was no other reason needed. Her status, her position, and her personal strength were all things they could only look up to.
Vice Pagoda Master of the Spirit Pagoda. Four-Word Battle Armor Master. Heavenly Phoenix Douluo, Leng Yaozhu.
"Teacher."
Zhao Xuanzhen walked briskly over. Leng Yaozhu bent down, cupped his face in both hands, and kneaded his cheeks with obvious delight. "Your Martial Spirit is about to awaken. Nervous?"
"There's no need to be nervous. A Martial Spirit Awakening can't decide the whole long life of a Spirit Master. The Douluo Continent has plenty of treasures that can make up for innate shortcomings.
To quote a famous saying: 'Thirty years east, thirty years west. Don't look down on a youth just because he's poor now.'"
Zhao Xuanzhen let Leng Yaozhu enjoy the springy softness of his cheeks to her heart's content. The Bai sisters watched with unconcealed envy. Just yesterday, the two of them hadn't even been allowed to pat his head. In the end, Teacher simply had more pull.
"So carefree at such a young age."
Leng Yaozhu withdrew her hands, her gaze warm. "Still, Teacher hopes you'll inherit your mother's Spirit Phoenix Martial Spirit. A rare phoenix bloodline with spiritual attributes. If you do, I can pass my abilities on to you to the greatest extent."
"Teacher, Teacher, the Spirit Phoenix is definitely strong, but it's way too demanding on technique. Any simpler, more dominant Martial Spirits I could hope to awaken?"
"There is."
Leng Yaozhu nodded. "Your father's Silver Giant. Paired with ancient martial arts, it's simple and powerful."
The Leng Clan was one of the ruling families within the Spirit Pagoda. Their inherited Martial Spirit was the Heavenly Phoenix, and they were known across the continent as the Phoenix Clan.
Zhao Xuanzhen's mother, Ye Ling, hailed from a branch line known as the Spirit Phoenix lineage. Fifteen years ago, she had entered the military on the Spirit Pagoda's recommendation to garrison a key strategic location, where she met Zhao Xuanzhen's father, Zhao Liuyun. The two fell in love.
On the very day Zhao Xuanzhen was born, the evil creatures sealed at that military stronghold erupted in a sudden riot of a scale not seen in a hundred years. Both his parents perished in the fighting, leaving behind only their infant son.
When the war ended in a pyrrhic victory, a high-ranking officer originally proposed adopting Zhao Xuanzhen, but Leng Yaozhu intervened.
The Leng Clan's famed twin beauties, once renowned across the continent for both prowess and grace, had both remained alone. The direct line of the Leng Clan had no heirs and stood severed, which made the branch lines all the more important. Leng Yaozhu took Zhao Xuanzhen away, accepted him as her disciple, and hoped that one day he would grow into the family's next leader after her.
Six years had passed. The time had finally come to scratch off the lottery ticket. Would it be 'Thanks for participating,' or was a hidden jackpot about to be revealed?
"Xuanzhen, Teacher will awaken your Martial Spirit. Da Bai, Xiao Bai, come along too."
Leng Yaozhu rose and walked inward, every step carrying gentle dignity and mature feminine grace. Zhao Xuanzhen and the Bai sisters followed close behind.
At the center of the Awakening Room, Zhao Xuanzhen came to a stop. Leng Yaozhu extended a slender jade finger and slowly poured spirit power into the surroundings.
The awakening method was exceedingly simple. Even a Spirit Grand Master could perform it without the slightest danger, let alone Heavenly Phoenix Douluo herself.
Throughout the process, Leng Yaozhu kept her eyes fixed on Zhao Xuanzhen. Bai Haoze and Bai Zhicen were even more tightly focused, their attention locked on him like a vice. They were his teacher and his older sisters, the ones who had watched him grow from child to youth step by step. The last thing they wanted was for something to go wrong.
The Martial Spirit Awakening began. Zhao Xuanzhen felt a warm current seeping into him, constant and steady. A power gradually stirred awake inside his body, shifting from a faint ripple into a violent, boiling turbulence.
Drawn along by that warm current, something within him seemed to shatter. All that pent-up energy surged through his entire body in a single explosive rush!
Black and white mist billowed out in the blink of an eye. The entire ninth floor of the Spirit Pagoda blazed with dazzling radiance, like some wondrous, otherworldly dream.
Zhao Xuanzhen stood quietly where he was, eyes tightly shut. An invisible power flowed outward from him, wrapping his body in a mysterious black-and-white halo.
The mist spread farther and farther. The three women felt as though they were drifting through layers of black-and-white cloud. The person who had been standing right before them suddenly seemed impossibly remote, as if he had floated beyond the heavens and out of reach.
The Bai sisters' composure was nowhere near Leng Yaozhu's. Their mouths fell open of their own accord. Bai Haoze murmured, "Xuanzhen's Martial Spirit Awakening is making way more of a commotion than ours ever did!"
Bai Zhicen felt exactly the same. The sisters both possessed top-level Unicorn Martial Spirits, yet their own awakenings at age six had produced only a few slight anomalies.
If the rule held true that a greater commotion during awakening meant a fiercer Martial Spirit, then all their earlier worries...
Had been completely unnecessary!
Leng Yaozhu's phoenix eyes shone just as brightly. She had prepared Mysterious Water Pills, whale rubber, shark pearls, and a whole series of supplements in advance. She had even steeled herself to pay a steep price for an Immortal Herb from the Tang Sect if it came to that. But if none of it was needed, all the better. Every teacher wanted their disciple's talent to be as strong as possible.
In the eyes of all three women, Zhao Xuanzhen's body was now entirely suffused in black-and-white radiance, his whole figure glowing as the ancient, traditional ritual drew forth his dormant Martial Spirit.
Leng Yaozhu had the highest cultivation and stood closest to him. She caught what looked like a black-and-white pattern flickering once at the center of his brow, then rapidly spreading in a web-like network through his limbs and trunk, illuminating every meridian in his body.
'It's not the Spirit Phoenix...'
As the matriarch of the Phoenix Clan, Leng Yaozhu knew phoenix Martial Spirits like the back of her hand. She could tell in a single second that this was absolutely not the Spirit Phoenix.
'Could it be the Silver Giant?'
While she was still deep in thought, Zhao Xuanzhen's eyes snapped open. Spirit power erupted with violent force, and riding alongside it came a wave of unmistakably powerful spiritual fluctuation!
Three pairs of beautiful eyes swept over him from head to toe like searchlights, racing to identify exactly what kind of Martial Spirit he had awakened.
Martial Spirits on the Douluo Continent fell broadly into two categories: Tool Spirits and Beast Spirits. Without exception, both produced dramatic changes in a Spirit Master's body. Yet Zhao Xuanzhen bore no new weapon, nor had his body developed any spirit beast traits. The only visible change was a single lock of black hair that had quietly turned pale white.
"Hair?"
Bai Haoze blinked several times.
"A Body Martial Spirit..."
Bai Zhicen scratched at the white hair beside her own ear.
"It is a Body Martial Spirit, but it isn't hair."
Leng Yaozhu spoke softly, then added, "Or rather, it isn't just hair!"
As if to prove her words, the black-and-white mist pouring from Zhao Xuanzhen's body condensed at his back. A figure slowly took shape, unmistakably an enlarged version of Zhao Xuanzhen himself, its eyes brilliant as stars, a Taiji Diagram of yin and yang revolving steadily beneath its feet.
"Spirit Body!"
The Bai sisters' pupils dilated. Martial Spirits on the Douluo Continent were inherited through bloodlines, yet there existed one type that any Spirit Master could potentially awaken: a part of the human body itself, known as a Body Martial Spirit!
Among Body Martial Spirits, the more vital the body part, the greater the Martial Spirit's potential.
The Spirit Body was, without question, one of the most top-tier Body Martial Spirits in existence!
'Spirit Body, huh... not bad.'
Zhao Xuanzhen chuckled softly, savoring the strength coursing through every fiber of his being. Honestly, it was quite a bit stronger than he had expected.
The Spirit Phoenix and Silver Giant were both high-level Martial Spirits, true enough, but the problem was that this was the era of the Legend of the Dragon King.
Against the two great Dragon King ancestors, Beast Martial Spirits simply had no path to survival. A Body Martial Spirit was an entirely different story. Its strength depended on Zhao Xuanzhen alone. It stood free of the bloodline suppression that functioned like a caste system, making it the Martial Spirit best suited for fusing the Daoist arts of his previous life into one cohesive whole!
"Xuanzhen, test your spiritual power and innate spirit power."
There was a trace of excitement in Leng Yaozhu's expression that she could not suppress. A Super Douluo with a Body Martial Spirit was stationed at Spirit Pagoda headquarters, and through her conversations with him, she had learned quite a few secrets about Body Martial Spirits.
She had a feeling that Zhao Xuanzhen's Spirit Body matched the description he had once given.
She produced a blue crystal ball from her storage device and motioned for Zhao Xuanzhen to place his right hand on it. A metal helmet descended from the ceiling in the next moment and settled over his head, ready to measure his spiritual power.
The instant Zhao Xuanzhen touched the crystal ball, it lit up. Dazzling blue light spread rapidly outward from a single point, rich azure radiance spilling forth until the entire sphere shone like a resplendent gemstone.
And the anomalies did not stop there. A faint hum arose as the helmet began flashing with soft white light. The three women turned to the connected Spirit Screen, where numbers had already started leaping.
The reading began at zero and shot skyward, breaking into three digits in the blink of an eye. Then it gradually stabilized and finally stopped at 188.
"Innate Full Spirit Power!"
"Innate Spirit Connection Realm?!"
The Bai sisters' expressions could only be described as stupefied. Their lovely features had practically knotted together from the shock.
If the spirit power crystal ball showed even the slightest response, it would prove that spirit power had been born within the tester's body. And now the crystal ball in Zhao Xuanzhen's hand was blazing with dazzling light, so the answer was obvious.
Innate Full Spirit Power.
After a person's Martial Spirit awakened, the type of Martial Spirit was not the only factor that determined whether a Spirit Master would be strong. Innate spirit power was equally important. Innate Full Spirit Power was the highest innate spirit power a normal Spirit Master could possess, and it gave tremendous advantages in future cultivation.
Rare as Innate Full Spirit Power was, it alone would not have left Bai Haoze and Bai Zhicen this shaken. What truly defied belief was that spiritual power reading of 188!
On the Douluo Continent of today, Spirit Souls had all but replaced spirit beasts. Powerful Spirit Souls required sufficiently deep spiritual power to communicate with, which made spiritual power every bit as important. It was divided into six major realms:
Spirit Origin Realm, Spirit Connection Realm, Spirit Sea Realm, Spirit Abyss Realm, Spirit Domain Realm, and the legendary Divine Origin Realm.
Spirit Origin Realm signified the beginning of one, the renewal of all things. Ranging from 1 to 100 points, it was the most fundamental level of spiritual power and permitted contracting two 10-year Spirit Souls or one 100-year Spirit Soul.
Spirit Connection Realm meant the mind and spirit were linked, that intent could arrive with thought. Ranging from 100 to 500 points, it permitted contracting two 100-year Spirit Souls or one 1,000-year Spirit Soul!
Reaching Spirit Connection Realm marked true entry into the path of spiritual power control, where one could wield it as a weapon of one's own. Innate spiritual power at Spirit Connection Realm meant Zhao Xuanzhen's very first Spirit Soul could be a 1,000-year spirit beast straight away!
"Sis, have you ever heard of a Martial Spirit that comes with both Innate Full Spirit Power and innate Spirit Connection Realm spiritual power?"
Bai Zhicen looked as though she was questioning life itself. Thinking back on yesterday, it seemed she had accidentally made a fool of herself.
"Me? Never heard of one!"
Bai Haoze shook her head like a rattle drum.
'A perfect 'Spirit Body'... So Illusory Brain Douluo wasn't simply boasting back then...'
Crimson eyes gazed deeply at Zhao Xuanzhen. Within Leng Yaozhu's gaze stirred satisfaction, calculation, hesitation, and...
Ambition!
After a long moment, the tangle of emotions on her face gradually condensed into one.
Resolve!
"Xuanzhen, your Martial Spirit is not the Spirit Body."
Leng Yaozhu's words made Zhao Xuanzhen and the Bai sisters freeze for a moment. All three turned puzzled looks toward her. She did not keep them in suspense and slowly explained:
"You should all know that the Douluo Continent has an ancient sect that has stood for ten thousand years, the Body Sect.
All disciples of the Body Sect possess Body Martial Spirits. They understand Body Martial Spirits better than anyone.
Body Martial Spirits correspond to many different parts of the human body. Just as traditional Martial Spirits on the Douluo Continent are divided into Tool Spirits and Beast Spirits, the Body Sect divides Body Martial Spirits into two branches: the physical and the spiritual.
In the Body Sect's classification, the Spirit Body refers to the entire flesh-and-blood form, encompassing the limbs, torso, skin, and so on. It stands as the pinnacle of the physical branch.
The pinnacle of the spiritual branch is one you've all heard of. It belongs to the founder of our Spirit Pagoda, Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao. His Eyes of Asura was a spiritual-attribute Martial Spirit that encompassed both the eyes and the brain."
"Physical and spiritual..."
Zhao Xuanzhen narrowed his eyes. "That sounds familiar. Rather like how the Golden Dragon King and Silver Dragon King each held half of the Dragon God's power."
"Exactly right."
Leng Yaozhu nodded gently. "For tens of thousands of years, the Body Sect has ceaselessly pursued the perfect form of a Body Martial Spirit. In theory, it should mirror the Dragon God, fusing the Golden Dragon King's ultimate physique with the Silver Dragon King's world-shaking wisdom to give birth to one supreme Body Martial Spirit.
Xuanzhen, that 'Spirit Body' of yours, the one that possesses spiritual attributes, is exactly the God-level Body Martial Spirit the Body Sect has dreamed of for ages...
True Self!"