Tang Wulin might have felt anxious if somebody else had been there, but he was truly relieved when he saw it was none other than Gu Yue’s teacher. This was not due to his trust in Leng Yaozhu, but in Gu Yue. He would absolutely never believe that Gu Yue would refuse to help him.
The rest of the staff were bustling about in the spirit ascension platform while Leng Yaozhu brought Tang Wulin and Gu Yue to her office.
“I saw what happened earlier. The Overlord Dragon’s appearance in the intermediate spirit ascension platform was the Spirit Pagoda’s mistake. It was supposed to be the guardian of the path between the intermediate and advanced spirit ascension platforms. Moreover, it was the strongest guardian. Due to certain circumstances, it accidentally escaped to the outer region. The Spirit Pagoda can only exercise limited control over a soul beast of such a rank. However, you’ve absorbed it…”
Leng Yaozhu’s face took on a peculiar expression as she looked at Tang Wulin while speaking. Even if it was the Spirit Pagoda’s fault that the Overlord Dragon appeared on the intermediate spirit ascension platform’s area, at most she would only need to compensate the soul master who bumped into the Overlord Dragon afterward.
The reason she went to the spirit ascension platform’s entrance was because this young man before her actually absorbed the Overlord Dragon in a rather baffling way.
Leng Yaozhu had rushed over at once when she realized that Gu Yue was involved, and then she saw Tang Wulin once again.
She had arrived just in time to witness the final moments when the Overlord Dragon had turned into smoke and was completely absorbed into Tang Wulin’s body.
“Your eminence, would you believe me if I told you I don’t know what happened either?” Tang Wulin spoke with a forced smile.
“I believe you. Tell me how you felt at the time.” The Heavenly Phoenix Douluo did not seem suspicious of Tang Wulin’s words. After all, in her eyes, Tang Wulin was still a child of just over ten years old. Furthermore, he had led a clean and pure life.
After Tang Wulin had helped his companions gain their spirit souls on the spirit ascension platform earlier, Leng Yaozhu investigated this young fellow who had a close relationship with her disciple.
Tang Wulin explained, “There seems to be a dragon-type force in my bloodline, but my martial soul has yet to be truly awakened. In other words, it’s a different type of awakening. The energy of my bloodline is capable of bringing forth this ability of mine. I’m capable of generating a suppression effect on most dragon-type soul beasts, but only a certain amount. That’s why we were unable to defeat the Overlord Dragon earlier, but I had to try since I already entered the spirit ascension platform. Then I…”
He did not try to conceal anything. He recounted everything that he felt, along with the fact that there was no change to his body after absorbing the dragon.
Leng Yaozhu gazed at him deeply. “Wulin, I’m sorry. This is our Spirit Pagoda’s mistake, but I’m afraid that you’ll have to go through a series of physical inspections due to the strange circumstances of this incident.”
Before Tang Wulin could even answer, Gu Yue spoke with a frown, “But why, teacher? Our training on the spirit ascension platform was interrupted, and you’ve said yourself that this was our Spirit Pagoda’s own mistake. Why does he have to be put through these inspections?”
Leng Yaozhu darted her a look. “Of course it would be easy to settle if this was such a simple incident. We would even offer some compensation. However, you need to understand that the soul beasts in the spirit ascension platforms really exist, in a sense.”
Tang Wulin was startled immediately upon hearing these words. He could vaguely sense that he understood the mystery.
Upon seeing Tang Wulin’s eyes widen in surprise, Leng Yaozhu smiled gently and spoke, “Don’t be afraid. It’s only a few routine inspections. Actually, it’s fine for me to inform you that many high ranking soul masters are aware of what happened in the spirit ascension platform earlier. Most of the soul beasts you see on the spirit ascension platform are real creatures. We use a device that allows your spiritual consciousness to bring your body’s brand into the platform’s world. When you are in that world, the energy of any soul beasts that you kill will be attached to your spiritual power and your body’s brand. Then it is brought out using the device. In reality, the soul beasts that all of you see there are actual spirit souls that are created or cloned by the Spirit Pagoda.”
“The Spirit Pagoda’s greatest source of income is the creation of spirit souls, yet there’ll inevitably be some abnormal results from this process. These defective products cannot be absorbed by soul masters directly, but we are able to send them into the spirit ascension platform after a special cultivation process. These products will then manifest before you. The soul beast and soul power’s characteristics from their main body will be converted into pure energy that is absorbed into your soul ring after they are killed. This is the origin of the spirit ascension platform.”
“However, not all soul beasts in the spirit ascension platform are defective products. In order to improve the spirit ascension platform– particularly at the intermediate and advanced levels– we added some perfected artificial spirit souls, and as well as some real spirit souls. This ensures that the entire system is further perfected.”
Tang Wulin had only just realized that this was how the spirit ascension platform originated. He could not help admiring the Spirit Pagoda in his heart. The Heavenly Phoenix Douluo explained in such a simple manner, but he wondered how many technical issues were involved. This was the essence of the Spirit Pagoda’s wisdom for millennia and mega-annums before the spirit ascension platform was created.
Battle armor, artificial spirit souls, and spirit ascension platforms were known as the epoch-making products. They had managed to enhance the human soul master’s overall power to a large extent. This was also the main reason that the soul beasts faced extinction before the soul masters.
The Spirit Pagoda played an extremely important role in this.
Tang Wulin finally understood more about the Spirit Pagoda after listening to Leng Yaozhu’s words.
“Your eminence, so the Overlord Dragon that we ran into earlier was…”
Leng Yaozhu looked at him with a deep gaze as she spoke, “That was a real spirit soul. It is known to us as the ‘unyielding spirit soul’.”
“The unyielding spirit soul?” This was the first time Tang Wulin had ever heard of such a title.
Leng Yaozhu nodded and spoke, “The Spirit Pagoda has been preserving a large number of spirit souls since ages past. Generally, a soul beast’s spirit soul will gradually dissipate after it has died. In order to retain these spirit souls, the Spirit Pagoda uses a number of special techniques to preserve them in the hopes of finding the most suitable soul masters for them in the future. Just like how we are studying the spirit soul recovery system. If the research is successful, a soul master who dies from ordinary causes in the future will need only be sent to the Spirit Pagoda three days after his passing. Then all the spirit souls he has ever owned in his lifetime can be extracted for preservation. This’ll greatly conserve our resources. Of course, it’ll take a very long time before this research can be perfected. We would also need the soul master’s family members to cooperate with us. After all, the soul master’s body will be violated to a certain extent in the process of extracting spirit souls.”
Tang Wulin widened his eyes. ‘Has the Spirit Pagoda achieved such a level of technological advancement?’
Leng Yaozhuo continued, “Not all the spirit souls that we preserved can be absorbed by soul masters. It has been that way ever since ancient times, and it remains so to this day. The majority of such spirit souls cannot be absorbed due to their own pride or intractable behavior. These are the ones that we have dubbed ‘unyielding spirit souls’. If a soul master attempted to absorb them by force, he would certainly be endangering his life. We have kept precise statistics and records of these spirit souls, in order to ensure that the soul masters will never bump into them.”
“However, most of the unyielding spirit souls are very powerful. Just preserving them has consumed a lot of the Spirit Pagoda’s resources. We are trying to figure out a way to send them into the spirit ascension platform. This is mainly to perfect the spirit ascension platform, but it’ll also ensure that they have a place to go so we can save cost.”
“The Overlord Dragon is an unyielding spirit soul?” Tang Wulin asked.
Leng Yaozhu nodded and answered, “Yes. Moreover, it is an elite soul amongst all of them. It is one of the most uncontrollable creatures. There are only a few that are on par with it. The Overlord Dragon is wild and overbearing in temperament. There was once a human soul master who had achieved rank-90 that wanted to absorb it as his final spirit soul, but he died tragically as a result of being forcibly breached by it. None have ever conquered its unyielding will. Amongst the Spirit Pagoda’s preserved souls there is only one spirit soul from a soul beast that has been extinct since ancient times. It is also a creature at the pinnacle and exceedingly disobedient. It’ll often devour the other soul beasts in the spirit ascension platform. We have thought about killing it, but due to its long history, as well as its rarity, we chose to leave it be. Yet, it was absorbed by you today. This has piqued our curiosity, and that is why we need to collect a set of statistics from you and keep you under some observation in the future.”
“Even though there is no way to absorb the unyielding spirit soul, the amount of resources and money that the Spirit Pagoda has spent on the Overlord Dragon is astronomical. We will need to explain its disappearance to the Spirit Pagoda’s council system. Don’t worry. We won’t do anything bad to you. It is just some routine inspections, and we will provide you with a set of our inspection results. I’ve already sent someone to notify your Shrek Academy. Someone will come from your academy to personally supervise your inspection.”