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As they ventured deeper into the cave, Tang San realized they were moving upwards and quickened his pace.
Gu Yuena, Yu Tianheng, and Dugu Yan followed closely behind.
The first two were particularly amazed by Gu Yuena's speed and stamina, which rivaled their own. However, considering her "mystical heritage," they were somewhat reassured.
Still, the thought of her being only eight years old stirred a touch of jealousy within them.
Tang San himself was suddenly reminded of memories from his past life. He bit the tip of his tongue to snap back to reality and thought, "Brother Electrolux, those three fallen ones are definitely up to something. At a time like this, I shouldn't be recalling memories from my previous life."
The memories that surfaced were of his previous life's joy in learning, working, and earning money, as well as the frustration of being scolded by parents, teachers, and bosses, and the arguments with family elders when he lost his temper.
These memories were completely out of place!
"There's definitely something wrong," Electrolux said gravely. "I haven't had such thoughts, probably because I'm a demigod soul... You need to stay vigilant and warn the two behind you."
"The little silver dragon doesn't need it. Her mind is still young, but her essence is god-level. Aside from human emotions and stronger essence power, nothing can affect her thinking."
Tang San looked back and saw that Gu Yuena's eyes were clear, while Yu Tianheng and Dugu Yan's eyes held an inexplicable look.
"Focus!"
With this soft exclamation, Tang San's mental power pierced into their brains, making them instantly regain their clarity. "You were being influenced by some mental power. Don't be confused."
Yu Tianheng felt a chill down his spine. "So that's why. No wonder we often made mistakes when cooperating with others before. We were always so irritable... Now that I think about it, those three Soul Kings must have been emitting some mental power to interfere with our minds."
"Have they discovered us?" Dugu Yan asked coldly.
"They shouldn't have. If they were just Soul Kings, they couldn't have such strong mental power, even if they are fallen ones..." Tang San frowned, slowing down a bit.
In this way, under Tang San's constant vigilance, Yu Tianheng and Dugu Yan remained clear-headed as they finally reached an exit—inside was a vast underground space, almost as large as a small city.
With a rough glance, they saw the place was semi-circular, with countless roots of various thicknesses spread across the walls, resembling a web that enclosed the space.
At the top, numerous white glowing spherical objects, either luminous stem blocks from the roots or some kind of glowing soul tools, illuminated the area as brightly as day.
The space had interconnected streets, lined with various round-topped houses, densely packed like peculiar mushrooms.
In the center of the city stood a glass column connecting to the dome, estimated to be over 500 meters tall and more than 50 meters in diameter.
"What is this place?" Yu Tianheng was stunned, unable to imagine a city being built underground. "An ancient ruin?"
"I must admit, this place is quite magical," Dugu Yan marveled at the scenery.
Tang San and Gu Yuena, however, were looking up at the dome.
The Golden Tree was right above them!
"Let's go. I found where those people are." With the Golden Tree's guidance and life energy, Tang San's mental power was significantly enhanced, easily locating the seven fallen ones...
"An observation elevator? The Douluo Continent was incredibly advanced during ancient times."
In front of the massive glass column stood seven figures clad in black robes. Three of them were at the forefront, but it was a middle-aged man among the remaining four who spoke.
The three Soul Ancestors among them had vacant expressions, as if they had lost their minds, appearing like puppets.
"Last time I came to the Golden Tree, I encountered the protagonist couple..." the man murmured, recalling how he accidentally entered the core area of the Infinite Desert and met people from the Star Crown Sect, Sacred Dragon Sect, and the Yu Clan. They had worked together to challenge and acquire soul tools.
When he saw Tang San and Xiao Wu during that encounter, he realized that the storyline had deviated from what he knew. However, he wasn't concerned with the plot and held only one principle regarding the protagonists: as long as there was no direct conflict of interest, he wouldn't provoke them.
The reason he became a fallen one was simple: he had poor talent.
Coming to a world with extraordinary powers, he couldn't accept having a useless martial soul and wanted to become a Soul Master. His awakened martial soul was a prismatic crystal, with innate soul power of only level one. With normal meditation, he would never become a Great Soul Master in his lifetime.
After all, he wasn't born into a prestigious family and didn't have the privileges that someone like Yu Xiaogang had.
By the age of twenty, he had only reached level ten. By then, he had been expelled from his elementary academy, couldn't hire teachers to lead him in hunting soul beasts, and lacked the background, power, and money to get a permit from the Spirit Hall to enter the Soul Hunting Forest. So, he had to try his luck in the Star Dou Forest.
To get a soul ring, he spent all his savings to hire an obscure soul hunting team to help him hunt a soul beast. He wasn't even hoping for a hundred-year soul ring—just a soul beast of a few decades would suffice since his money only covered the cost of hunting a ten-year soul beast.
His twenty years of experience had taught him that once you give up a normal life and enter the world of soul masters, without strength and talent, you can't expect any sympathy from others.
Perhaps fate was on his side. After the ten-year soul beast died, it not only gave him a white soul ring but also unexpectedly dropped a soul bone.
A few-decade-old soul beast had dropped a soul bone!
For a moment, he thought he had become the protagonist!
But his joy was short-lived. The soul hunting team immediately stabbed him in the gut and pierced through his back. Even a few-decade-old soul bone is priceless to soul masters, let alone the near-zero probability of a ten-year soul beast dropping one.
Even without absorbing it, its collectible value was comparable to a thousand-year-old soul bone!
At that moment, he truly understood the wickedness of human nature.
After he fell to the ground, the team members turned on each other for the soul bone. Brothers, sisters, and couples in the team only had greed and anger in their eyes, each wanting to kill the others and take the soul bone for themselves.
It was then that his martial soul, the prismatic crystal, emerged on its own, seemingly absorbing some kind of energy, and began to repair his severely injured body.
When he recovered, the soul hunting team had turned into seven skeletons. A slight touch made them crumble. His soul power had risen to level thirteen, and his physical condition had also improved.
At that moment, he realized that he too had a cheat ability—his awakened martial soul could absorb human emotions: anger, resentment, hatred, and the like.
All negative emotions.
Moreover, only the most intense negative emotions could be absorbed by his martial soul—
This revelation made him realize that becoming extraordinary meant he could never be a good person.
(End of Chapter)