The Yuhao Chronicles - Volume 1 Chapter 4

A huge, golden, mansion stood shining brilliantly as the sun began to rise. With its golden rooftop and beautifully carved red gate, it carried an ancient but regal style to all that witness it. It, along with many off-shoot buildings stretched out across the land and covered over 2 kilometres of land, dominating the surrounding landscape with its gigantic size. Carved into the front gate, read the words, Duke’s Estate. This mansion did not belong to a city but was actually a separate entity located only 50 metres northwest of the capital of the Star Luo Empire.

On a small hill, just a couple hundred metres away from the mansion, a 6-year-old child could be seen watching the sunrise. Evidently, it could be seen that every day this child endured the heat of the sun as he had developed a healthy tan. He was dressed in a simple, clean, grey commoner’s outfit, with short, ebony black hair, neatly swept back. It allowed people to see all features of his face, and portrayed a cool, calm and collected vibe.

As the sun began to shine completely on the mansion, it spurned this child to reminisce on the past six years he experienced while in the White Tiger Duke’s Mansion. His name was Yuhao, Dai Yuhao, from his father’s side, who is widely known as the ‘White Tiger Duke’ of Star Luo Empire. However, he definitely preferred to go by Huo Yuhao, taking after his mother’s name, who was a maid that got the favour of the duke and ended up pregnant. Even though his mother tells him not to, with his father never meeting them, even when returning from the battlefield, he held no love for him.

Following the complete assimilation into the body, Yuhao began cultivating following the technique gifted to him by Morrigan. It allowed him to remain strong and build a solid foundation for himself, even while he and his mother barely received enough food to sustain themselves. At around the age of two, his soul energy stopped rising in began exclusively becoming purer and denser. Alongside this, his spirit power and continuous improvement of his body through both cultivation and his daily exercises, allowed him to become very strong for an individual who has yet to awaken their spirits. This did not stop the bad treatment from the Duke’s wife and her children, as even though they could never keep up with or overpower Yuhao, they continuously sought out to humiliate him and his mother at every turn.

Yuhao shook his head, ending his recollection as he stood up, ‘Right, today is the day that everyone in the mansion will awaken their spirits. I know that I will have spirit eyes as one, but I am extremely curious as to what my second will be. Even with my innate full spirit that I will undoubtedly show, who knows if they will attempt to nurture me or not. I have been discussing with mum about moving to Soutuo City. It was one of the largest cities in the area, providing not only a strong possibility of the duchess and our enemies not finding us but also has ample opportunities regarding work. Not to mention it is on the way to Shrek Academy. While she is hesitant as she still believes that father will eventually help us, I know she is almost convinced. Hopefully, this spirit awakening doesn’t change anything, and we can leave this place behind. Well, look at the time. Better start moving to not be late’

Finishing this thought, Yuhao began running down the small slope and back to the Mansion.

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Inside the central hall of the main mansion, a lot of boys and girls were gathered. These children came from all of the smaller villages surrounding the mansion and its land that were too small to have a spirit master sent out to perform the awakening ceremony. Generally speaking, the central hall would be forbidden to those living within the mansion, not to mention commoners from small villages, but as today was a special event, those boys and girls were allowed access. Today, no matter if you were a servant’s child, commoner or noble descendant, everyone was treated equally as the moment you awaken a decent martial spirit and soul force your destiny and status will change.

The elder performing the ceremony scanned the area and saw all the children have similar expressions on their faces, all showing the nervous and anticipation for the coming events, but awe and admiration towards himself for being a strong spirit master. He let his eyes trail towards to two sons of the duke, one however a bastard, still was liked more by him. He carried a calm bearing in all facets of his life so far, not showing any hatred or bad intentions even after his brothers try and abuse him constantly. Sadly because of these actions and the potential genius he may show, he was sent here by the duchess to forge the results, hopefully ruining his chances of becoming a spirit master when his hope was smothered.

“My name is Zhu Yan, a Spirit Ancestor with 4 spirit rings. My Martial Spirit is the Hell Civet. As you all should know, being a spirit master is the noblest vocation on our continent. All who step on this path try and progress through the 10 ranks of Spirit Scholar, Spirit Master, Spirit Grandmaster, Spirit Elder, Spirit Ancestor, Spirit King, Spirit Emperor, Spirit Sage and Spirit Douluo, to finally reach the last rank of Title Douluo. Today I will be guiding you all to awaken your own martial spirits, so whatever happens, don’t be afraid and just endure. That’s it for the introduction so please line up and I will start calling out your names,” announced Zhu Li.

The process was very similar to what Yuhao remembered reading. Zhu Li would flood his soul force throughout the children’s bodies, and soon after, they would awake their respective martial spirit. Following that, he would measure their soul force through a mysterious looking stone he kept in his pocket. There were a lot of poor martial spirits appearing which helped him to truly understand how rare the existence of being a spirit master is compared to the entire population. Until now there were only a few with children with traces of soul force, however small those readings were at one on the stone. As Yuhao continued watching the fascinating sight in front of him it was soon his turn, which definitely surprised him. Although he was a bastard son of the duke, he was actually called along with the servant’s children.

“Dai Yuhao”, called Zhu Li. At this name, the other servant’s children were very surprised as although he lived in the servant’s quarters, he was still the Duke’s son. This action couldn’t help but cause Yuhao to laugh internally, as his prediction of the duchess interfering with the ceremony.

Yuhao approached the central platform as he looked towards the old man with a mysterious smile on his face. Zhu Li felt very uncomfortable with this smile, as if the kid knew what was really going on In the shadows. He put his hand above Yuhao’s head and let his soul power stimulate his spirits. Yuhao could feel the energy surround him in a warm blanket before tapping on his martial spirits. The moment it enveloped them they began surging, one moving towards his eyes, while the other began suffusing his whole body, first his bones before moving to break out from his skin. Yuhao quickly willed his second spirit to not manifest as there would be no way they would allow him and his mother to leave if he showed off dual spirit essences.

“Ah—!” Yuhao suddenly screamed, causing the children and the elder to jump in fright. An ordinary child usually wouldn’t feel too much pain during their awakenings. As Zhu Li looked closer he could see golden lines spreading out from Yuhao’s forehead before spreading out down his face and below his clothes. He noticed that they did appear on the back of Yuhao’s hands. However, as soon as these lines reached his fingers, they disappeared and Yuhao’s eyes began glowing gold.

‘What kind of martial soul is this?’ Zhu Li wondered as he tried to process what those golden lines were. This was the first time he had seen this situation happen. As he continued thinking he felt a faint energy being emitted from Yuhao from his eyes and looked up to seem them glowing gold.

“Spirit Eyes,” he stated, causing whispers to erupt through all the children in the room. Everyone knew that a child of the Duke’s bloodline was recognisable due to their hereditary White Tiger Spirit and not having this spirit was seen badly across the mansion.

As the glowing settled down, Zhu Li retrieved the mysterious stone from his pocket. However, unlike the previous stone used to measure the soul force of the servants, this one was a special stone that had a limit of one. As Yuhao put his hand on the stone it glowed very faintly, causing Zhu Li to exclaim, “Soul Power Rank 1!”

As the words echoed across the room people began whispering between themselves. Yuhao was at first confused by the reading before he noticed the subtle differences the stone had from the previous one. Yuhao chuckled internally, ‘Haha, this is a massive ploy. Does the duchess think that I will be so downtrodden from these forged results?’

As the whispering quietened down, Yuhao stepped out of the central platform and joined the line of finished children. As the final awakenings ended, with only Dai Huabin, the only son his age between the Duke and Duchess, awakening a decent spirit being the White Tiger, with 7 soul force.

As the ceremony ended, he quickly walked off back to his house in order to finally convince her to leave, seeing what they have done to sabotage him.