Douluo Continent: A Thousand Miles of Cultivation

'What a beautiful shark!'

After the enormous Earth Demon Soul Great White Shark King leaped out of the seawater, it soared into the air, its dazzling gray-blue, perfectly streamlined body radiating light. Strangely, its body was rapidly shrinking within this light.

Under Qian Shui's gaze, she quickly transformed into a tall, slender girl and appeared before him.

She appears to be about the same height as Qian Shui. For an average girl, such a height would easily look disproportionate, but her figure looks perfect.

Her white leather-like outfit accentuated her perfect figure, and the beautiful curves made her look incredibly alluring. Her long, gray-blue hair cascaded down her back, reaching all the way to the ground.

Her eyes were also grayish-blue, and her fair skin had a faint grayish-blue sheen. She had a high, straight nose. Her face was somewhat angular, like it had been carved with a knife, but it didn't look out of place; instead, it was quite distinctive.

Before Qian Shui could even properly appreciate it, she launched a fierce attack.

'My goodness, the attack methods of spirit beasts are finally getting interesting!'

This was the first time Qian Shui had ever encountered such a brutal, hand-to-hand combat in all his years. It was something that was extremely rare among humans. In fact, the only person he had ever seen who could fight like this was Bibi Dong; the others mostly just used their soul skills.

The Demon Soul Great White Shark shone with a brilliant gray-blue light. With a flick of its body, its right leg lashed out like a whip, and in an instant, seven gray-blue light blades with water-like ripples burst forth, crisscrossing in the air as they slashed towards Qian Shui.

Just as the blow was about to strike, Qian Shui moved.

He moved swiftly and skillfully through the air, disappearing into the light!

This was the first time he had used the aerial movement ability that came with his immense cultivation after reaching the Golden Core stage.

After dodging these attacks in an instant, Qian Shui still didn't change his moves, but instead used brute force to overcome skill, throwing a straight punch with his soul power. The Demon Soul Great White Shark was not afraid either, and also met the attack with a straight punch.

With a loud bang, the intense soul power carrying the impact exploded above the ring-shaped sea, and the blue soul power light wave was like an exploding firework.

Taking this opportunity, Qian Shui drew her sword, Wen Xin, and charged forward. Her signature storm of sword strikes appeared, combined with the shield's light. The Demon Soul Great White Shark suddenly felt that Qian Shui was attacking from all sides.

But she was no pushover either. With a sudden turn of her body, white-gray energy exploded from her, instantly repelling Qian Shui Yishun. A series of explosive sounds, like raindrops hitting banana leaves, suddenly erupted, and a clear whistle rang out from the center of the battlefield.

The Demon Soul Great White Shark's body suddenly expanded, transforming into its true form in an instant. Ignoring the few sword strikes, it completely repelled Qian Shui. The powerful energy collided with Qian Shui, sending him flying even further away.

The demonic great white shark, now in its true form, seemed to possess even greater mobility and attack power. Its massive tail seemed to easily lash out at Qian Shui, but Qian Shui dared not take it head-on. After dodging in an instant, she finally saw the terrifying force slamming into the sea like a mountain collapsing and the earth splitting.

The sea, already churning from the battle, suddenly burst open as if struck by a concentrated missile explosion. Huge columns of water shot into the sky, and with this force, a strange energy wave erupted from the head of the great shark, transforming into rings of gray-blue light that enveloped the heavens.

A surge of mental energy emanated from the source: "Fang of the Demon Shark!"

A gray-blue light condensed and took shape around her body. Dozens of gray-blue rays, shaped like teeth, were energy in form, but they were as solid as physical objects, shooting directly toward Qian Shui.

'As expected, it has the level of a Super Douluo.'

Qian Shui made a judgment: this attack was roughly equivalent to the ninth soul skill of a Title Douluo, and was definitely stronger than that of the Serpent Spear Douluo.

Because of the slowing effect of the Demon Shark Domain, Qian Shui had little room to dodge, but that didn't mean he would just sit and wait to die.

Mingxin drew his sword, wielding both blade and sword simultaneously, and shouted, "Terrorclaw Breaking Army! Flying Whirlwind Pig Technique!"

After giving himself an attack power boost, he charged towards "Magic Shark Fang" and broke through in an instant, slamming the back of his sword hard into the head of the Demon Soul Great White Shark, sending it straight into the sea.

Qian Shui, using the momentum, gracefully did a three-and-a-half-turn backwards and landed on the soft sand not far away.

Just as Qian Shui smoothed her bangs and splashed the seawater, a huge shark head popped out of the sea with a bang, bringing a huge wave that drenched Qian Shui once again.

Immediately afterwards, the Demon Soul Great White Shark transformed into human form and charged straight at Qian Shui, raising its finger as it approached, filled with indignation.

"You! You! You! You! How on earth did you manage to break through my Demon Shark Fang?!"

Chapter 136 Overbearing Power as It Was Justified

In the year 2640 of the Douluo Calendar, Qian Shui had been missing from Douluo for six years, as if he had never existed in this world.

That year, Qian Renxue had turned 20. These days, even she didn't know where Qian Shui had gone. Based on her understanding of Qian Shui, he had probably found some unknown mountain village to live in seclusion again.

"Qinghe, the kingdoms and duchies of the empire are still somewhat resistant to the road construction. I wonder if you have any solutions?"

Qian Renxue picked up her teacup, took a sip, and said calmly, "Teacher, the current situation seems stable and uneventful."

But beneath these waves, we both understand that this is only temporary.

The Spirit Hall's advances are so forceful that no one knows what she will do next.

All the empire can do in this peaceful time is to consolidate its strength as much as possible to cope with future uncertainties.

At this point, Qian Renxue stood up and solemnly said to Ning Fengzhi:

"My father's health is poor, and the heavy burden of the empire has suddenly fallen on Qinghe's shoulders. To outsiders, Qinghe is in the best of times, but only those who have truly shouldered this burden can understand the hardships and exhaustion my father has endured."

Therefore, teacher, some things are non-negotiable. Since Qinghe is in charge now, there's not much room for negotiation. I hope you will support me!

After saying that, she bowed ninety degrees to Ning Fengzhi.

"Qinghe, why bother? We are master and disciple, and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School is your greatest support. Your teacher can't help you much more than this."

After saying this, Ning Fengzhi helped Xue Qinghe up, leaving the unspoken implications unsaid.

In recent years, this crown prince has become a completely different person. Now, the real person in charge of the Heavenly Dou Empire is the crown prince who is bowing respectfully to him.

Perhaps no one has paid attention to the shift in the power structure. Since Goron's downfall, the entire imperial military has been completely controlled by the Tiandou royal family. With the royal family in charge of the military, the Xue family has once again firmly grasped the core of power.

Through road construction, some idle nobles were gradually purged, and the administrative power of the subordinate provinces was consolidated.

Through the cultivation and promotion of new talents, the Crown Prince has basically established a new ruling team. These people all come from the Crown Prince's residence, and since they are all low-level Soul Masters with little strength, they have not attracted much attention.

However, when some things began to be implemented, these people played a pivotal role, and through this, His Highness the Crown Prince began to reform the administrative structure and gradually carry out population management and registration.

Based on the fact that the number of Soul Masters could only be counted by the Spirit Hall, a new identity registration mechanism was established, which initially clarified the population of the empire, thus initiating a new tax reform.

The Douluo Continent has always valued only Soul Masters, or rather, high-level Soul Masters, and all of this has been possible because of this lack of emphasis.

Moreover, the Spirit Hall, which suffered the greatest losses, completely ignored these actions and even participated in them, fueling the flames.

With this, the foundation for everything was basically established, and the Crown Prince's power base began to solidify, surpassing Emperor Xueye's status as Crown Prince and initially realizing the centralized control of the government.

As Xue Qinghe's political influence grew ever stronger, Ning Fengzhi noticed the problem. In his view, at least the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School couldn't just focus on road construction.

Ning Fengzhi had greater interests to pursue. Faced with this disciple who exceeded his expectations, he needed an attitude, an attitude that a disciple would not abandon the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School.

“Rongrong has arrived. I still have some matters to attend to in Tiandou City. Could she stay at your residence for a few days?”

"Of course, I wonder if this little witch can stay here~"

"Haha, Qinghe, Rongrong really likes you. She keeps asking to see you every day at home!"

"Teacher~"

……

The affairs of Douluo Continent have nothing to do with Qian Shui. His three-month period has ended, and he has no interest in playing happily with Xiao Bai anymore.

"Ouch, what are you doing!"

"Hey Xiaobai, is it really necessary? You always end up like a salted fish, completely unusable!"

The real one is Xiaobai, the Demon Soul Great White Shark King, who is a 100,000-year-old soul beast. Speechless, she has gone crazy ever since Qianshui came.

Her Demon Shark Fang is extremely powerful, but it is an area-of-effect soul skill.

Perhaps it's because the sea spirit beast is huge that its accuracy is high, making such a spirit skill seem quite powerful.

But to my utter surprise, I encountered Qian Shui.

"Area-of-effect soul skills break through the surface with a single point!" That's how Qian Shui explained it.

Although her attacks were powerful, they covered a wide area. Qian Shui charged straight at her, only needing to destroy the Shark Fangs that could attack her from the front, without needing to worry about anything else.

Then the silly shark figured it out and started focusing its attacks on a wide area, firing like a Gatling gun.

That's great! Without the range, you can dodge, which is even more to Qian Shui's liking.

So whenever she used her skill, the great white shark would definitely get a blow to the head, and after a while, she felt that the entire shark had been beaten senseless.

The only way to have a slight chance of winning is to transform into human form and engage in close combat with Qian Shui, but unfortunately, that's exactly what he wants—he wants you to spar with him like this to hone your combat skills.

The key is that Qian Shui is truly abnormal. Since reaching the Golden Core stage, he has entered a state of fasting, and can maintain vigorous physical functions simply by circulating energy. His in-depth research on the fifth soul skill also allows him to be fearless of injury and possesses extremely strong endurance.

This made things difficult for her as a whole shark; she was fighting day and night. The worst part was that as time went on, even though she gave up resisting, Qian Shui still refused to complete the divine test, deliberately dragging her along.

Until this third month.

These days she and Qian Shui had become quite familiar with each other, and she had indeed given up resisting. After the beating that day, she turned pale again, floating on the ring-shaped sea with a sense of hopelessness.

"Wow, this feels amazing!"

Qian Shui plopped down on Xiao Bai's belly, his face full of perverted expression, and quickly rubbed Xiao Bai's soft, smooth, yet tough skin, which was made specifically for the ocean, with one hand.

At first, Xiaobai did feel that Qianshui was treating her well, but the next second Qianshui showed a mocking expression.

"Tch! You may look good in human form, but I'm a married man, and my wife is much prettier than you!"

She, a pure shark who had been single for 100,000 years, couldn't stand this insult and immediately turned on him. But she couldn't beat him to death, so naturally, she ended up dying.

She later discovered that Qian Shui was more interested in her sharkskin than in her ulterior motives.

(Rua shark! The feel is amazing! — Thousand Water Douluo)

Then she really gave up resisting. Anyway, it wouldn't hurt her, so she let Qian Shui wipe it away.

"Hey, stop touching me! It's so itchy!"

A shark that's twenty or thirty meters long, flapping its long fins and slapping the surface of the sea, actually looks rather cute if you ignore its enormous body.

Qian Shui patted Xiao Bai's chin, feeling that was enough. He had recently practiced all the squeezing techniques several times, making the most of this useful sparring partner.

"Just kidding~ The three-month deadline has arrived! It's time to complete the divine test!"

With a slight flick of his palm, his soul power propelled the massive shark body of Little White towards the other side of the ring-shaped sea, as if it were rowing a boat.

Once they reached the other side, Qian Shui flipped over and jumped ashore, while the seascape of light had slowly disappeared.

Conquer the Demon Soul Great White Shark King with absolute strength and break through the defense line of the 100,000-year-old Demon Soul Great White Shark King.

Poseidon's second test, passed.

Poseidon affinity increases by 5%, total affinity increases by 10%.

As that voice echoed in his mind, the second of the Nine Trials of the Sea God came to an end.

With a splash, Xiaobai's big head emerged from the sea, glaring angrily at Qianshui, who stood calmly on the beach. She couldn't help but yell, "You pervert, you better pray that the later tests don't involve me, or you'll be sorry!"

"Relax, relax, there will be another chance to work together. How about taking me around Poseidon Island next time for a round-the-island trip?"

After patting Xiaobai's head, Qianshui learned how to soothe this overlord of the sea.