Chapter 1163: Number One Sword Dao Talent in the Extreme North
Su Yuan grew increasingly uneasy as he listened to Lu Yang converse with the voice. While everyone’s attention wasn’t on him, he secretly took a sip of the Wudao Enlightenment Tea. Instantly, he felt his entire body become remarkably clear, as though it didn’t exist, allowing him to move with extraordinary ease.
“Th-This is...” The voice was stunned. He had drunk Wudao Enlightenment Tea countless times in his life, but the tea hadn’t possessed such potency.
What vintage is this Wudao Enlightenment Tea?
The Extreme North has no Wudao Enlightenment Tea of such grade. Just who exactly is this person? Why could he bring it out so casually?
“Just who are you, Fellow Daoist?” The voice set aside its earlier hubris, realizing that Lu Yang’s origins far exceeded its imagination. He is likely someone of equal standing to my former status, or perhaps even more powerful.
If he’s more powerful than I am, he can only be a Transcendent Tribulation cultivator.
“You should introduce yourself before asking someone’s identity.”
The voice let out a long sigh. “You are right, Fellow Daoist. It’s just that I truly have forgotten who I once was.”
Lu Yang narrowed his eyes. “Then what do you remember?”
“I was an Apex Fusion cultivator from the Extreme North. I encountered a great calamity and attempted to take over the body of a frozen little beggar in the city. But after the body takeover, I fell into a sleep slumber, while that little beggar survived.”
Su Yuan was startled. “That little beggar...”
“...was you.”
Su Yuan looked lost. His childhood memories were hazy.
“Encountered a great calamity? What calamity?” Lu Yang rubbed his chin. This was what he truly wanted to know.
“I can’t remember, only that it was an enemy too powerful to defeat.”
To force an Apex Fusion expert to resort to body takeover to escape, the enemy must either have possessed combat prowess comparable to Shifu’s or have been at the Transcendent Tribulation Stage.
“Little Su, since there’s nothing much happening at home, your teacher can rest easy.” Seeing that he couldn’t extract any more information, Lu Yang rose to leave.
Su Yuan let out a surprised “Ah?” You call this “nothing much happening at home?”
“Alright, no need to see me out.” Before leaving, Lu Yang advised him, “That voice won’t harm you, but don’t take everything it says at face value. As it said just now, you’re young and inexperienced, unaware of how treacherous people can be. You should still take the necessary precautionary measures.”
“You!” The voice sounded somewhat angered.
Lu Yang pretended not to hear it and left Su Yuan’s home.
~~~
“Mister, give me a roasted sweet potato.” On his way back, Lu Yang rubbed his ears until they turned red, blending in with the other pedestrians whose ears were red from the cold.
“I hadn’t noticed before, but that kid Su Yuan has quite a strong soul,” Lu Yang remarked as he ate his sweet potato along the way.
He gently peeled back the soft skin, revealing the tempting orange-yellow flesh within. Steam rose slowly, condensing into fine droplets in the frigid air, mingling with the falling snowflakes to veil Lu Yang’s face. He took a bite. It was soft and sticky, with a sweet fragrance filling his mouth.
Su Yuan’s soul was at the Apex Fusion Stage. No cultivator in Muxue City could discern this. If Lu Yang’s soul hadn’t happened to be fluctuating at the Transcendent Tribulation Stage, he wouldn’t have spotted something amiss either.
“It’s nothing special, just a Fusion cultivator,” the Everlasting Immortal Fairy said from the mental space. She had built a small dome-shaped snow hut and lay sprawled inside lazily, not feeling cold at all.
“As I thought, it’s a case of split personality.”
What Su Yuan didn’t know was that if it had been a body takeover, he would have been conversing with the voice in the mental space like what Lu Yang had done with the Everlasting Immortal Fairy. But when that voice spoke, it had always used Su Yuan’s body.
In other words, the voice was actually Su Yuan as well.
The fact that Su Yuan’s body contained only one soul further corroborated this conclusion.
According to Lu Yang’s deduction, around ten years ago, the voice had fought a great battle, lost, and attempted to take over the body of a dead little beggar in Muxue City.
Whether it was due to the voice’s severe injuries or the little beggar’s fragile body, the body takeover process had gone awry. The voice had fallen into slumber, lost its memory, and split off a sliver of its soul to become the new little beggar—Su Yuan.
Now that Su Yuan was cultivating the Tiger Roar Fist, the yang energy he generated had awakened that voice.
Judging from their brief exchange, the voice had also not realized that Su Yuan was its other personality.
Perhaps the voice would continue to tempt Su Yuan and urge him to accept its power, thereby taking control of his body, or perhaps Su Yuan would resist the temptation and obtain that voice’s power instead.
The final outcome will depend on Su Yuan’s own choice.
~~~
“Have all of you heard? Xue Shilou is coming to our Muxue City.”
During the break between the first and second half of class, the students gathered in small groups, whispering excitedly and gesticulating nonstop with their hands and feet, their eyebrows dancing. It was clear that Xue Shilou carried significant weight in their hearts.
“Xue Shilou, the great hero who punishes evil and upholds justice?” Gong Che asked excitedly. Xue Shilou was renowned in the Extreme North for his righteous behavior. Which young person didn’t admire him?
The number one Sword Dao talent in the Extreme North—this title alone could attract countless admirers.
“Yes, it’s him. They say that he was drawn here by the sword qi of that peerless sword cultivator from the beast tide. He wants to study the sword qi.”
“I also heard that he once faced off against Prodigy Lu Yang. Is that true?” Shi Yi was so excited that he couldn’t sit still.
“It’s true. They were opponents at the Sword-Seeking Grand Ceremony held at the Sword Tower. It’s said that aside from the Sword Tower successor Ming Lou, Xue Shilou was the strongest opponent Lu Yang faced at the ceremony!” Gong Che shared. He came from a family of cultivators, so he knew a bit more than the average person.
A clash between two powerful individuals was always a popular topic, especially when it involved talents like Xue Shilou and Lu Yang, who were famous in the Extreme North and throughout the cultivation world.
Xue Shilou? Lu Yang paused for a moment when he heard the name. Only after Gong Che’s explanation did he recall who that was.
Indeed, he had been a formidable opponent at the Sword-Seeking Grand Ceremony. Against other opponents, I needed only one sword strike, but to defeat Xue Shilou, I had to use three sword strikes.
“Alright, enough discussion. Time for class,” Lu Yang called out.
The students responded reluctantly. They were just getting to the good part.
The door to the martial arts school suddenly burst open, and a gust of cold wind rushed in. A swordsman clad in black appeared in the doorway and quickly shut the door behind him.
Xue Shilou breathed a sigh of relief. Someone had accidentally recognized him, and the whole street had quickly become crowded. Unfamiliar with the area, he had no choice but to hide in a random place.
He turned around to find thirty-three students staring at him with sixty-six eyes, leaving him feeling awkward.
Suddenly, he noticed the teacher at the front. He stumbled back several steps, nearly tripping over the threshold. “It’s you?”
He hurriedly looked up at the signboard above the door. Yes, this is a martial arts school, not the city lord’s estate.
“Focus, everyone. This is your teacher’s friend,” Lu Yang stated impassively, then glanced at Xue Shilou.
“You stay quiet and don’t disrupt my class. We’ll talk after the lesson.”
Xue Shilou nodded woodenly.
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