Chapter 225

When he walked out of the auction, Tang Wulin looked somewhat dazed.

Seeing what came after, he felt somewhat numb; this was his first contact with the dark side of this world, and what he saw dealt him a great shock.

Gongyang Mo glanced at him worriedly and asked in a low voice:

"Xiao Tong, should we go back?"

Tang Wulin nodded silently without saying a word.

Before coming here, he hadn't expected to see these things, had made no mental preparations, and needed time to organize his thoughts.

Upon returning to the stronghold, Zhou Sichen was already back; seeing the two enter with solemn expressions, he raised an eyebrow and asked, "You two also went to gather intel? Looks like it's not good news."

Tang Wulin and Gongyang Mo exchanged a glance, then after closing the door took a deep breath and said, "Zhou Sichen, listen to us..."

Next, he roughly told Zhou Sichen what he had heard and seen at the underground market.

As he spoke, he himself could hardly believe it was true, for the words lacked any sense of reality.

Zhou Sichen listened attentively, but when he heard of the Holy Spirit Sect's existence, he couldn't help but interject:

"Boss, are you sure that guy's telling the truth and not lying to you?"

Evil Soul Masters use others' lives as cultivation material; they can be called genuine public enemies of humanity. He found it hard to believe such an organization could lurk in the shadows, even receiving support from the Ri Yue Di Guo government.

Facing such an organization, shouldn't we suppress its development by any means necessary?

Gongyang Mo gave a wry smile and said:

"If I hadn't gone to the underground market with Wulin, hearing this would have elicited the same reaction from me; unfortunately, it's indeed true."

Zhou Sichen stared in shock, fell silent for a moment, then asked:

"So, Boss, what do you plan to do next?"

He had guessed that what Tang Wulin's group uncovered wasn't good news, but he hadn't expected it to be this bad.

Tang Wulin answered without hesitation: "First, send a message to the Academy to inform them of the situation here, and then go to the place the black-clothed person mentioned to scout it out and verify whether it's truly a Holy Spirit Sect branch."

This matter is truly huge; judging by the scale of the underground market, the Holy Spirit Sect must have grown enormously. Tang Wulin can't imagine what kind of bloodbath would erupt on the continent if these Evil Soul Masters swarmed out.

Zhou Sichen took a deep breath.

"Understood, but you shouldn't go yourself to the place the black-clothed person mentioned to scout; let my Lingji Bird go."

Tang Wulin nodded heavily.

"Okay, I'll leave it to you." After the previous tournament ended, Zhou Sichen had taken a summoning-system Senior Elder from the Sea God's Pavilion as his teacher and learned a great deal of new knowledge.

According to that Senior Elder, his Canon Martial Soul is strong, but his cultivation method is a mess, failing to unleash the martial soul's greatest advantage.

The trait of the Canon Martial Soul is to turn the owner of absorbed soul rings into a summoned beast; this trait destined its development to be extremely flexible.

Yet Zhou Sichen, when cultivating, completely ignored this, pouring his first three soul skills purely into combat, which made that Senior Elder feel somewhat frustrated, like wishing he could turn iron into steel.

"Idiot, listen: given your martial soul's trait, you absolutely don't need to absorb so many combat-type soul rings, because no matter how many you absorb early on, they'll be negligible compared to later soul rings."

"For an imperfect example, if your first eight soul rings are at most ten-thousand-year rings, but your Ninth Soul Technique is to summon the Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King, Di Tian, what use are those first eight soul skills at all?"

"So pure combat-type soul rings can wait until your cultivation is higher; what matters now is functionality! Functionality! Hear me? A soul beast's combat power isn't important; what matters is that its racial talent be strong!"

Although this Senior Elder had a fiery temper, he indeed scolded Zhou Sichen awake, so Zhou Sichen chose a direction for his fourth soul skill that was completely different from the first three.

The Lingji Bird—if any soul master possessed this martial soul, he would surely be a top-tier agility attack type soul master, for it is a bird-type soul beast ranked fourteenth in known speed worldwide.

Don't underestimate fourteenth place; with so many bird-type soul beasts in the world, ranking fourteenth already lets one look down on the crowd.

Moreover, the most crucial point is that the Lingji Bird is not only fast itself, but also possesses spatial attributes, granting it teleportation ability.

After Zhou Sichen absorbed it, he retained the bird's teleportation ability and gained a new skill called Transfer, allowing him to swap places with the Lingji Bird; if he touches another person and that person offers no resistance, he can also swap that person with the bird.

The effect resembles Xu San Shi's Xuanming Displacement, but they are actually two completely different skills; Xu San Shi's Xuanming Displacement can ignore the opponent's will to forcibly swap positions, usable not only for movement but also to trap opponents, whereas Zhou Sichen's ability, which only allows human‑bird swaps, is far inferior by comparison.

But Zhou Sichen felt no dissatisfaction; he had originally absorbed this soul skill not to harm others, but simply because he valued its teleportation ability.

As a summoning-type soul master, his own combat ability is poor; escape capability matters to him far more than to ordinary soul masters, and after gaining this soul skill, his survivability greatly increased, even granting him some battlefield control—beyond his expectations.

The Lingji Bird is tiny, among the smallest of bird-type soul beasts, making it perfect for scouting ahead right now.

Thus the three settled on their division of labor: Tang Wulin and Gongyang Mo would write to the Academy to report the situation here, while Zhou Sichen would use the Lingji Bird to scout the Holy Spirit Sect branch.

As for his scouting method, it relies on the Sense of Sympathy ability.

After the previous tournament, the Academy, based on the four soul bones in Star Luo City, additionally provided three more, each highly compatible with a certain member of the Seven Monsters.

One of them was specially prepared for Zhou Sichen—a skull bone—that could be said to give him an all‑round improvement.

Needless to say, the skull greatly enhances his physical fitness and mental power; at the same time, the Sense of Sympathy ability it grants him is very useful.

With the Sense of Sympathy empowered, Zhou Sichen's summoned beasts will have a vastly increased range of activity and greatly extended duration; moreover, the greatest improvement lies in his control over them, to the point that when the ability is maxed out he can project his consciousness into a summoned beast, achieving perfect control.

Now he is using Sense of Sympathy to attach his consciousness to the Lingji Bird, remotely observing the situation at the Holy Spirit Sect branch.

(End of chapter)