Douluo Unrivaled: The Beginning Materializes the Black Abyss and White Flowers

Chapter 156 The Divine Child Recovers
At this moment, Yae no Miko had already returned to human form.

Her long, dreamy pink hair cascaded smoothly over her shoulders, the ends carefully tied back with a bright red ribbon, giving her a simple yet sophisticated look, and exuding elegance with every gesture.

She was dressed in a traditional red and white shrine maiden outfit, which accentuated her graceful figure.

As soon as Yae no Miko appeared, she stared intently at Lu Jingming with her deep purple eyes, a slight smile playing on her lips, and said, "Little guy, shouldn't you give me an explanation?"

Her voice was soft and melodious, yet it carried a hint of shame and anger. Clearly, she had not forgotten her experiences as a little fox.

Whenever she recalls her embarrassing behavior during that period, Yae no Miko wishes she could strike everyone with a bolt of lightning, knock them unconscious, and then erase their memories one by one so that her "dark history" could be buried forever.

"Ahem, you know, Divine Child, this is all due to uncontrollable factors!" Lu Jingming felt a little guilty under the gaze of the Eightfold Divine Child, and his words unconsciously carried a hint of embarrassment.

Looking back, when the divine child was still in fox form, he did do some rather excessive things, such as trying to distinguish between male and female divine children. Now that he thinks about it, it was really inappropriate.

"Heh, do you think I'd believe your nonsense?" Yae no Miko smiled insincerely, her eyes flashing with a dangerous light, her gaze like that of a fox eyeing its prey, exuding a chilling aura.

In her view, she was always the one who found amusement and fun in others, so when did she become the laughing stock in other people's eyes and be made fun of? This made her quite unhappy.

Sensing the dangerous aura emanating from the Eightfold Divine Child, Lu Jingming felt a chill run down his spine and inwardly groaned.

He knew Yae no Miko's cunning nature all too well; this scoundrel was clearly planning to settle scores later.

The thought that if she really set her sights on him, his future days would probably be filled with dread.

To compensate for the Eightfold Divine Child, Lu Jingming directly raised the Eightfold Divine Child's strength to level ninety-four this time.

The reason for choosing to stay at this level is that once you break through to level 95, it means entering another realm, and the required real power will increase exponentially.

Even at level 94, the Eighth Divine Child's current strength would make dealing with Lu Jingming a piece of cake, without any pressure whatsoever.

Helpless, Lu Jingming could only look to Gan Yu, Ke Qing, and Ning Guang for help, hoping that these three could help him out of this predicament.

However, contrary to his wishes, the three women seemed to choose to ignore his distress signals.

Ke Qing, in particular, made no attempt to hide her gloating, her meaning clear: she should bear the consequences of her own actions.

"Fine, for her sake, I'll let bygones be bygones for what happened before."

Just as Lu Jingming was about to run away, Yae no Miko's expression suddenly softened.

She tilted her head slightly, looking at the blood-red holy mark on the back of Lu Jingming's hand, her eyes revealing an extremely complex expression, a mixture of joy and nostalgia.

Lu Jingming subconsciously looked at the Holy Mark in his hand, then glanced unobtrusively at the figure sleeping quietly in the Holy Mark's space, and let out a long sigh.

Fortunately, the insurance I had taken out in advance came in handy.

He's not the kind of person who acts rashly without any preparation.

Even when he decided to restore Yae no Miko's intellect, he anticipated that once the Miko was restored, she would definitely try every means to settle scores with him.

But he still dared to do it because he had prepared his trump card in advance.

As it turned out, this trump card did not disappoint him; the divine child indeed chose to let him go for the time being because of her existence.

"However, you may escape death, but you can't escape punishment. Just you wait, little guy!" Just as Lu Jingming breathed a sigh of relief, the mocking voice of the Eightfold Divine Child rang in his ears.

Lu Jingming's lips twitched, and he inwardly groaned.

After all the twists and turns in their relationship, they still couldn't escape the fate of being retaliated against! But this time, judging from the goddess's expression, she probably won't do anything too outrageous...

The sensation caused by this year's All-Continent Advanced Soul Master Academy Battle Tournament held in Haiyuan City far exceeded people's expectations.

What attracted the most attention was not St. Freya Academy's victory again, but the appearance of the Stigmata.

The emergence of this entirely new thing instantly caused a huge uproar throughout the entire Soul Master world.

For most Soul Masters, the birth of the Holy Mark is undoubtedly great news.

In the past, if Soul Masters wanted to obtain Soul Rings, they had to venture deep into the perilous Soul Beast Forest.

In the dangerous Soul Beast Forest, a single misstep could turn a Soul Master hunting for Soul Rings into Soul Beast excrement, leaving no trace of their body.

However, the situation has changed. Soul Masters can now simply work hard to accumulate money without having to risk their lives to venture into the Soul Beast Forest to hunt Soul Beasts.

They only need to go to the Jade Pavilion and spend the corresponding amount of money to buy a Holy Mark to easily obtain a Soul Ring.

What's even more remarkable is that high-quality Sacred Marks can not only provide Soul Masters with multiple Soul Rings, but also possess the characteristic of inheritance, with a chance to pass them on to future generations.

Moreover, Soul Masters have a great deal of autonomy in choosing Sacred Marks. They can choose the Sacred Marks that best suit them based on the characteristics of their own Martial Soul, thereby obtaining Soul Skills that best match their own development.

Compared to the previous method of blindly trying to obtain spirit rings in the Spirit Beast Forest, this is undoubtedly a huge improvement, a million times better.

However, with such enormous profits at hand, it would be extremely difficult for Haiyuan City to swallow this tempting cake all by itself, and it would inevitably face a severe test.

After all, the changes brought about by the Stigmata have touched the nerves of too many forces.

However, Lu Jingming's goal was not simply limited to the material benefits brought by selling the Holy Marks.

For him, acquiring a large amount of true power was a more important goal. Therefore, as soon as the competition ended, he immediately began cooperating with the Star Crown Sect.

Of course, the method of making the Stigmata is a core secret that must never be leaked, but the profits generated from sales can be reasonably distributed with other forces.

Regarding the Sacred Mark project, Lu Jingming publicly stated that he welcomes other major forces to invest and participate, sharing the profits together.

However, the core technology must be firmly controlled by Haiyuan City; this is his bottom line that he will never waver on.

As soon as the news spread, all the major forces moved quickly, and the Star Luo Empire was the first to take the initiative to seek cooperation and invest in the Sacred Mark project.

Following closely behind, Princess Vina of the Heavenly Soul Empire couldn't hold back any longer. She approached Xu Jiujiu, asking him to help connect her with Lu Jingming and express her desire to get involved and share in the spoils.

Not to be outdone, the Douling Empire quickly dispatched envoys to negotiate with Haiyuan City, attempting to secure a place in this feast of interests.

Shrek Academy, far away in Shrek City, also sensed the huge business opportunities behind the Holy Mark.

They also approached Ningguang, expressing their desire to invest in the Stigmata project.

Faced with the addition of these powerful forces, Lu Jingming accepted them all without hesitation.

He knew very well that in this world of Soul Masters, it was unwise to hoard things and would easily make him a target of public criticism, bringing endless trouble.

Conversely, appropriately relinquishing some interests and cooperating with various forces, while sacrificing some profits, can avoid many unnecessary disputes and create a relatively stable development environment.

As long as the core technology remains firmly in our hands, no matter how the benefits are distributed, Haiyuan City will always be in a dominant position and become the biggest beneficiary.

Sun Moon Empire, Sun Moon Royal Soul Master Academy, Mingde Hall.

Jing Hongchen held two blood-red crystals tightly in his hands, his expression focused and solemn.

Inside one of the crystals was a small mountain-moving ape, surrounded by a striking blood-red soul ring, which undoubtedly indicated that this was an extremely precious 100,000-year-old sacred mark.

Within another crimson crystal, a snow-white toad floated silently. It had fiery red pupils and was surrounded by a deep black soul ring. Clearly, this was a ten-thousand-year-old Crimson-Eyed Ice Toad Sacred Mark.

This Ten-Thousand-Year Crimson-Eyed Ice Toad Sacred Mark was a reward that Lu Jingming specially selected for Meng Hongchen after the Sun Moon Royal Soul Master Academy won third place in this competition.

The goodwill behind this gift is self-evident.

The Crimson-Eyed Ice Toad, a type of spirit beast, typically inhabits the outer regions of the far north and is extremely rare.

However, the Snow Emperor, who is now the ruler of the far north, is Lu Jingming's man. For him, finding a ten-thousand-year-old Crimson-Eyed Ice Toad and extracting its genetic soul information is not a difficult task.

When Meng Hongchen first saw this sacred mark, her face turned red with excitement, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. If it weren't for the occasion, she probably would have pounced on Lu Jingming and given him a big kiss on the spot.

"Is this the Stigmata? It's unimaginable what kind of genius could master such incredible technology."

Jing Hongchen stared at the sacred mark in his hand and couldn't help but exclaim in genuine amazement.

Even though the Sun Moon Empire has always been at the forefront of the field of soul guidance technology, and has even mastered advanced genetic technologies such as extracting male seeds and implanting them into female bodies to achieve female pregnancy, they are still completely clueless about the magical holy mark technology that allows soul masters to easily obtain soul rings.

It felt like facing a simulated universe; the technology of the Holy Mark was far beyond their current knowledge and understanding.

If it were someone else, they might suspect that the Stigmata was the work of the Black Tower Lady.

But Jing Hongchen didn't think so. He had been paying close attention to Ms. Black Tower's every move for a long time. Although he had never met her, through various channels, he knew that Ms. Black Tower was an extremely proud and narcissistic person.

If the Stigmata were truly her invention, given her personality, she would never have kept it a secret.

Therefore, Jing Hongchen concluded that the developer of the Holy Mark was someone else, and that this person must have come from Haiyuan City.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but sigh, "Haiyuan City is truly a place where hidden talents abound!"

Jing Hongchen's expression grew increasingly solemn. The rise of Haiyuan City had already broken the Sun Moon Empire's long-standing leading position in the field of soul tools, a situation that had long attracted the attention of the Sun Moon Empire's high-level officials.

The advanced soul guidance technologies displayed by Haiyuan City in this year's Soul Master Competition broadened his horizons and amazed him.

Not to mention the Saint Mark technology that shook the entire continent; its influence was so great that it could change the entire landscape of the Soul Master world.

All these changes clearly indicate that the Douluo Continent is about to undergo an unprecedented transformation, and an era of dramatic change is about to begin.

Although the Sun Moon Empire has always regarded Haiyuan City as a potential competitor and hypothetical enemy, Jing Hongchen also understands that it would be ideal to win Haiyuan City over and make it a member of his camp.

Thinking of this, Jing Hongchen couldn't help but turn his gaze to his beloved granddaughter, Meng Hongchen.

He knew Meng Hongchen's personality very well. Although this girl was usually infatuated with handsome men and couldn't walk past them, she mostly just admired them and didn't do anything substantial.

However, judging from Meng Hongchen's almost obsessive admiration for Lu Jingming, she was clearly deeply infatuated and unable to extricate herself.

In response, Jing Hongchen not only had no intention of pulling Meng Hongchen out of the picture, but also secretly plotted to take advantage of the situation and add fuel to the fire.

"Meng, Xiao, would you like to study at St. Freya Academy for a few years?"

Jing Hongchen narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze sweeping back and forth between Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen, before slowly asking.

(End of this chapter)