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In a dormitory at Canaan Academy, Gu Xun'er sat gracefully on a wooden chair, dressed in a light purple, one-piece long dress. Holding a book delicately in her hands, she quietly flipped through the pages, waiting for Ling Ying to report back. Her slender, jade-like fingers turned the pages with ease, and although her face was stunningly beautiful, there was still a hint of youthful innocence. Her figure had already begun to show signs of maturity, and her calm, aloof temperament resembled a budding lotus flower—elegant and untouched. It was hard to imagine how breathtaking she would become once fully grown.
Just as Gu Xun'er was about to take a sip of tea from the cup beside her, the surface of the tea suddenly rippled, followed by the thud of the book and chair falling to the ground.
In the dormitory, Qian Renhan appeared out of thin air, crossing through space. With one hand, he seized Gu Xuner's slender, fair neck and lifted her into the air.
"Gu Xun'er, you've truly made things difficult for me during this time," Qian Renhan said coldly. As he slightly tightened his grip, Gu Xuner's delicate face flushed red in pain. With his other hand, he took her storage ring.
Gu Xun'er stared intently at Qian Renhan's calm expression and said, "You're the traitor hunted by the clan! You're not dead? What happened to Elder Ling?"
"I really should thank you," he sneered. "You sent me so many corpses and souls of the Gu Clan's Dou Zuns. My strength has increased significantly. Yet you still have the time to worry about that old man?"
A flash of light emerged from the storage ring in Qian Renhan's hand, revealing a delicate silk pouch—a Qiankun Bag, a storage soul tool produced in the Douluo world that could store living beings. Strangely, in the Dou Po world, storage rings could not hold living things.
"You killed Elder Ling!"
Golden flames suddenly ignited in Gu Xun'er's eyes, and her entire body was engulfed in a scorching blaze. The temperature soared, and even the dormitory itself seemed on the verge of catching fire.
"Golden Emperor Burning Heaven Flame? This temperature, this purity, this aura... it must be just a sub-flame."
Qian Renhan's hands surged with dark Dou Qi. The golden flames radiating from Gu Xun'er were swiftly drawn into his body, converted into an incredibly refined form of Dou Qi. Gu Xuner's face changed dramatically. She felt the sub-flame of the Golden Emperor Burning Heaven Flame—the one that had tormented her as a child and took years to harmonize with—rapidly vanish from her body. Her cultivation, which had reached the peak of Da Dou Shi, began to plummet. In that moment, even if she wanted to cry out "Father, save me," she no longer had the chance.
After absorbing the energy from the sub-flame, Qian Renhan finally broke through to the Nine-Star Dou Zun level. Meanwhile, Gu Xun'er's face turned pale as paper, her body limp and weak, unable even to open her mouth. She had become like a sponge, drained of all strength.
Qian Renhan sealed her cultivation and unleashed his pitch-black Dou Qi once again. It flowed through her mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, infiltrating her brain. The fury in her eyes vanished in an instant—now hollow and blank. She no longer knew who he was, who she was, or why she was even here.
The Gu Clan likely had ways to confirm whether their members were still alive. For this reason, Qian Renhan didn't kill Ling Ying outright. Instead, he used an evil-type Dou Qi to destroy his consciousness and turn him into a puppet. Gu Xun'er suffered the same fate.
Qian Renhan wasn't afraid of death—but that didn't mean he had a death wish. Killing Ling Ying and Gu Xun'er outright would have caused Gu Yuan, a peak-level Nine-Star Dou Sheng, to personally descend and slap him to death, or worse, torture him endlessly.
After throwing Gu Xun'er into the Qiankun Bag, Qian Renhan's figure flickered and reappeared in the mountain range that had been nearly leveled during the previous battle with the Gu Clan's Dou Zuns. He resumed his devouring spree.
The Gu Clan's Nine-Star Dou Zun experts practiced quasi-heaven-tier Dou Techniques, and their Dou Qi was even denser than Qian Renhan's.
Reaching the peak of the Nine-Star Dou Zun realm didn't lead directly to the Dou Sheng level. There was an intermediary stage—the Nine-Turn Dou Zun Realm. This stage meant that a Nine-Star Dou Zun had to compress their Dou Qi nine times, with each successful compression marking a new "turn." Hence, it was called the Nine-Turn Dou Zun Realm.
Above the Nine-Turn Dou Zun realm was another stage before reaching Dou Sheng: the Half-Saint. A Half-Saint was someone who had further compressed their Dou Qi one more time after reaching the ninth turn.
Almost 99.999% of cultivators on the Dou Qi Continent, after reaching the Nine-Turn Dou Zun level, would only manage to reach the Half-Saint realm. Only an extremely rare and gifted few could break through the Half-Saint stage and reach the Dou Sheng level.
According to the soul memories of the Gu Clan's Dou Zuns, Qian Renhan learned that upon reaching the Nine-Turn Dou Zun realm, they would shift their cultivation to quasi-heaven-tier techniques, and after entering the Half-Saint realm, they would begin cultivating true heaven-tier techniques. The leap in technique quality alone illustrated the immense power of heaven-tier Dou Techniques.
Under the rules of the Dou Qi Continent, one could never reach the Dou Sheng realm without cultivating a heaven-tier technique—no matter how much they compressed their energy. It was a hard limit set by the nature of their cultivation system—unless, of course, one practiced a technique not native to the Dou Qi Continent.
Realizing this, Qian Renhan felt a little helpless. If he had cultivated the Heavenly Nether Arts—a technique from outside the Dou Qi Continent—he could have easily advanced to the Half-Emperor level and potentially broken through to the Dou Di level using Source Qi. But before reaching that stage, he would have already died from being hunted down. The quality of his Dou Qi was too low. Still, bound by the rules of the Dou Qi Continent, he couldn't exploit the loophole of using a foreign cultivation method.
However, by borrowing the insight from the soul of this Dou Zun, Qian Renhan confirmed the path ahead—he would dismantle several Soul Hall branch halls and, once his cultivation was sufficient, head to Central Continent's Tianming Sect to seize a Heaven-Tier Cultivation Method.
As one of the two great sects in Central Continent, Tianming Sect surely possessed Heaven-Tier techniques. Although their Supreme Elder was only a Half-Saint, Qian Renhan refused to believe a sect of that stature lacked such techniques—especially since the gap between Half-Saint and Dou Sheng was as vast and insurmountable as a heavenly chasm.
Since arriving in the Dou Qi Continent, Qian Renhan had devoured the souls of Yi Chen, a Soul Hall Protector, and several Gu Clan Dou Zuns. Coupled with the knowledge imparted by Yao Lao, his breadth of insight was now no weaker than Yao Lao's himself.
"Nine-Turn Dou Zun… It's equivalent to a bottleneck-free cultivation to Nine-Star Dou Zun, with each turn representing a compression of accumulated Dou Qi once," Qian Renhan said to himself, glancing at the corpses beside him—three Nine-Star Dou Zuns, one Eight-Star, three Seven-Stars, and three Six-Stars. "With these, doesn't the time spent accumulating Dou Qi come straight to me?"
Three days later, using the incomplete corpses of the three Nine-Star Dou Zuns and five soul remnants, Qian Renhan broke through to Four-Turn Dou Zun. The remaining six bodies helped push him to Seven-Turn, nearly reaching Eight-Turn Dou Zun. At the same time, he began cultivating the Gu Clan's attribute-less quasi-Heaven-Tier technique, causing his strength to skyrocket once more.
"Zi Yan, this time I truly have to leave. The world you'll live in will be magnificent."
Qian Renhan looked at Zi Yan, who had come alone to see him off. Seeing her show no fear—even knowing he was being hunted—his gaze softened slightly for the first time. He actually called her by her name.
A glow emerged from the storage ring in his hand, revealing several jade bottles. These bottles contained pills once carried by the fallen Dou Zuns. Though few in number, they were enough to help Zi Yan evolve into her mature stage and return to Ancient Dragon Island.
"Senior, once I've grown up, I'll devour every last one of those people who came after you!" Zi Yan declared fiercely, baring her teeth and claws before accepting the bottles.
Turning without another word, Qian Renhan took a single step and vanished across a hundred miles. As he made his way toward one of the Soul Hall locations etched in his mind, his pupils suddenly contracted. A suffocating Dou Qi aura suddenly descended, engulfing the entire mountain range. The oppressive force was so overwhelming it made him feel as though he couldn't breathe.
"Leave? You think it's that easy? You've humiliated the Gu Clan again and again, killed our people... Over all these years, you're the only one who's dared do such a thing."
The space before him tore open, revealing an old man who emitted no discernible aura—appearing like a completely ordinary elder. But upon closer inspection, the danger he radiated was terrifying beyond belief.
Dou Zun experts wield control over spatial forces and can create space tunnels for fast travel. But this old man had torn through space itself to arrive here. Tearing space—this was a power that symbolized none other than a legendary Saint-Class expert!
(End of Chapter)