Chapter Fifty-Nine: Soul and Spirit

"As you command."

Su Ling lowered his head. As for talking back—such a suicidal notion was entirely out of the question. After all, just a moment ago, he had genuinely feared that the situation might be completely beyond resolution.

Since his master had relented, he would naturally not strike a smiling face. Everything was open to negotiation. As for Ruan Xiu, who had suddenly vanished, that matter would be quite simple to handle.

Was it not merely a matter of being seen completely naked... or rather, Ruan Xiu seeing his body? Surely that could be easily resolved. He would simply overwhelm Ruan Xiu with a blissful deluge of pastries, rendering her so happy that she would gladly forget this somewhat shameful memory.

Of course, while thinking of it was simple, the actual execution might not be quite so straightforward. Every beginning is hard, but he didn't need to offer explanations to his master for the time being.

As for what there was to explain, it naturally pertained to why he had not used martial Qi to cushion the force of his high-altitude fall. Regarding that, he could only say the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

The martial Qi stored within Su Ling's body was indeed exceptionally refined, high-quality energy; yet precisely because of this, it prevented his internal Qi from growing limitlessly like his divine soul.

The capacity of one's martial Qi was strictly tethered to their martial realm, and Su Ling was currently still lingering at the third realm of Qi refinement, stuck at the Martial Courage Realm.

Consequently, the volume of martial Qi within him was insufficient to support reckless extravagance. After all, during that battle in the void, he had certainly stolen the spotlight, but his martial Qi had genuinely fallen short.

To say nothing else, the sheer, terrifying consumption caused by that single punch—which had stirred the entire void and blasted a Confucian sage flying—had nearly wiped out his internal Qi reserves entirely.

Had it not been for his depleted Qi, he would never have fallen into such an awkward predicament, plummeting with such catastrophic impact that it inevitably drew the nearby Ruan Xiu.

Had his martial Qi been abundant, he could easily have splurged, materializing his Qi into a crude set of garments to cloak his bare torso, sparing him from being completely exposed to his senior sister...

On the other side, seeing Su Ling turn and walk out the door, Ruan邛's initially gloomy expression suddenly blossomed like chrysanthemums in midsummer. He beamed with a naive, endearing warmth, his eyes brimming with amusement.

"Hah, the brat finally gave the old man a chance to put him in his place!"

Indeed, Ruan邛 had not been serious just now; it had all been a facade. Even the talk of matchmaking his own daughter was sheer nonsense—merely a fabricated leverage used to put Su Ling in his place.

After all, over the past three years, Su Ling had taken his dignity as a master and rubbed it ruthlessly into the dirt, even giving him the humble, glorious, and pride-inducing feeling of being utterly outshone.

Su Ling's talent in the martial arts was truly peerless; to call it unprecedented and perhaps unrepeatable was no exaggeration. Yet precisely because of this, Ruan邛, as his master, felt a mixture of glory, boasting rights, and profound helplessness.

Ruan邛 had already imparted everything he knew without reservation. As for the rest, it depended entirely on whether Su Ling, this peerless prodigy with the bearing of a martial god, could live up to those expectations and rapidly translate that knowledge into raw power.

In truth, Su Ling had not disappointed. Three years later, not only had he stepped into the third realm of Qi refinement—a height ordinary geniuses dared not even dream of—

The sheer power he displayed shook the past and present, unprecedented, and likely never to be surpassed.

This created an intensely awkward dynamic: apart from maintaining a slight edge in cultivation realm, Ruan邛 could only gaze at his disciple and sigh in despair in every other aspect.

Glory there was aplenty. After all, who else possessed such a supreme genius for a disciple? Moreover, this disciple was not only overwhelmingly powerful but also possessed a volcanic temper—someone who would throw a punch at anyone daring to provoke him, striking even the Heavenly Dao itself without hesitation.

Ruan邛 could never truly keep Su Ling under his thumb, leaving him mentally exhausted yet endlessly thrilled. Now, he had finally found a way to properly whip his disciple into shape in the days to come...

Without drawing his disciple's bitter enmity, since the punishment was entirely justified. The root cause of the error lay with Su Ling himself; the master merely had to wag his tongue, while the disciple would have to run his legs off.

Imagining that scene, the psychological trauma inflicted upon him by this genius over the years dissipated somewhat, replaced by a gleeful, immensely satisfying picture...

"Haha, time for a drink! I'm in a great mood today, I'm going to get thoroughly drunk for three days!"

Ruan邛 let out a hearty laugh, rose to his feet, and strode out of the forge. As for his daughter, though he cared somewhat, he firmly disbelieved that Su Ling could mend fences so easily.

After all, who knew his precious daughter's temperament better than her own father?

As for the matchmaking nonsense—an utter impossibility—Ruan邛 merely laughed it off and dismissed it. After all, he cherished his daughter far too dearly; there was no way he would marry her off anytime soon...

However, the joyful Ruan邛 was unaware that, perhaps due to his excessive excitement, his perceptual awareness had plummeted drastically, allowing everything that transpired here to be witnessed by Ruan Xiu via arcane techniques...

...

Outside the forge, Su Ling searched the vicinity on foot but failed to catch sight of Ruan Xiu. Feeling a wave of helplessness, he simply abandoned the idea of seeking her out for explanations and turned to stride down the mountain.

Presently, his divine soul cultivation had grown remarkably solid and resilient, tempered by the wrath of the Heavenly Dao. He no longer needed to fret over his sole remaining vulnerability: his divine soul.

Furthermore, he had discovered faint signs of a breakthrough in the martial art technique used to forge the soul. One must understand that his mastery of this technique was already at the second level: "Inner Furnace, Outer Iron."

If the technique were to break through once more, it might well reach the realm attained by the very entity who created it—that supreme tier of martial mastery.

Even the creator of the technique had believed that no one in the endless future could ever possibly elevate the martial art to that plane.

Yet that creator had grossly miscalculated, failing to foresee that in the distant future, a human prodigy with a monstrous physical body like Su Ling would emerge.

As for the third level of the technique, the sensation was akin to a resilient glass bottle covered in hairline cracks, trembling on the verge of shattering—a natural, ripe-for-the-plucking intuition.

If left untouched, the bottleneck would likely break on its own before long, allowing him to step naturally into the third tier of the martial art: the realm of the union of soul and flesh.

The divine soul would no longer serve merely as a furnace or an iron billet, but would transform into a far tougher substance. As time flowed, the divine soul would gradually merge with the physical body.

Reaching a completely different dimension of power, to put it colloquially: the stronger and sturdier the physical body, the more indomitable the divine soul would become. The two would no longer share a merely transactional relationship.

Instead, they would forge an even tighter bond. Should Su Ling step into this realm of martial mastery, he could finally set his mind entirely at ease.

He would no longer need to exhaust his wits trying to fortify his divine soul's weakness. After all, to inflict damage upon his soul, one would first have to shatter the first tier of his martial art: treating the physical body as a furnace and the divine soul as the billet.