Blair Lockehart stood before Wu Ling and the others with her legs pressed together, visibly nervous.
Before arriving, Yue Guan had already told her who she would be facing: three Titled Sages, one sect master, and Spirit Hall's Holy Son.
These people would be honored as distinguished guests even in the two great empires. In smaller kingdoms, their status might even stand above the kings themselves, because they possessed the ability to replace the royal family, or even the entire country, with ease.
Of course, since she already knew the Holy Son and two of the Titled Sages, Blair was not nervous because of the meeting itself. She was nervous because she did not know why Wu Ling had called for her.
"Sect Master Jewel, with your status, you should know who she is, correct?"
Wu Ling knew that with his identity, going to the Star Stripe Empire and suddenly returning with a maid would definitely make the upper levels of certain factions investigate her. So he asked without any intention of hiding it.
Just as Wu Ling thought, Alistair Jewel looked at the girl before him, who was even slightly younger than his own daughter, and recalled the information about her.
"Blair Lockehart. Third daughter of House Lockehart. Martial Soul, Netherworld Spirit Cat. Spirit Power level sixteen. Fiancée of the Star Stripe royal family's third prince. After the third prince fled and she coincidentally encountered Spirit Hall's Holy Son, she approached the Holy Son to preserve her life. The engagement was dissolved, and she was accepted as the Holy Son's maid.
"There is a seventy percent chance this was coincidence, and a thirty percent chance House Lockehart, perhaps even the Star Stripe royal family, pushed events from behind."
Alistair Jewel lowered his eyes slightly as that intelligence surfaced in his mind word for word. As a sect master, he could at least manage that much.
"To be honest with Your Highness, I only know a little because of curiosity," Alistair Jewel said while guessing at the relationship between Blair and the belt.
"If Sect Master Jewel knows a little, then her Martial Soul should be within that little, yes?"
Alistair Jewel glanced at Blair again.
"It is... the Netherworld Spirit Cat, correct, Your Highness?"
Wu Ling nodded silently. Then he tossed the belt-like object toward Blair. It traced a perfect golden arc through the air.
While everyone's attention focused on the belt, Wu Ling took out a bottle made from some unknown material. Its body was covered in Magecraft arrays, and those arrays were drawn with several blood-red lines.
"Right. This too. Third set."
Before the others could react, Wu Ling tossed the small bottle to Blair as well.
In Alistair Jewel's eyes, Blair's nervous expression eased slightly when Wu Ling said "third set." She was still tense, but compared with a moment ago, she was much better.
That made Alistair Jewel think.
"Is third set some kind of code? Or should I simply take it to mean the third version? Since there is a third set, are there also a first set and a second set?"
Before Alistair Jewel could keep thinking, Blair moved.
She placed the belt against her waist. The clasp behind her closed automatically. Then she lined up the small bottle with the opening at the top of the belt and, in the next second, shoved it in hard.
Alistair Jewel and the others could sense that something had surged out of the small bottle and into the belt.
After that, a Martial Soul imprint appeared inside the round glass at the center of the belt.
"That Martial Soul imprint looks like a spear," Alistair Jewel thought.
Lines of blood-red patterning gradually appeared across Blair's exposed hands, neck, and head.
Just as Alistair Jewel wanted to look more carefully, those patterns vanished back into Blair's body.
Suddenly, Blair stepped her right foot back. Her body leaned slightly forward, and her raised right hand closed as if gripping something invisible.
"Here I go! Thrust, pierce, one-strike kill! This is the Soulbreaker Spear!"
As the motion and words completed, Blair's belt released a burst of light.
When the light faded, Blair appeared before them with faint armor at her joints and a scarlet spear in her hand.
Because of the chant and motion she had just performed, a slight blush colored Blair's usually cool face. At the same time, she quietly sighed in relief. Thankfully, this had only been the third set, the Soulbreaker Spear motion. If it had been either of the first two sets, whether she could have performed those actions in front of all these people was a real question.
Of course, that was not because those two motions were too difficult. It was because they were far too embarrassing. She had already made up her mind. Even if she never used those two powers in the future, she would perform those motions only once in her life, and only in front of Wu Ling.
Aside from Wu Ling, however, everyone else was focused entirely on the spear. No one noticed Blair's blush.
After staring for a while and sensing it carefully, the others suddenly gathered around Blair, startling her.
Alistair Jewel and the others stepped forward and touched the shaft of the Soulbreaker Spear. At last, they confirmed one thing.
"It really is a Martial Soul. The Soulbreaker Spear!"
Because they understood Blair's identity so well, their shock was even greater. Her parents had been investigated clearly, as had three generations of her ancestors and her close relatives.
House Lockehart had produced Netherworld Spirit Cats for generations. Without any external factor or bloodline influence, unless a god personally intervened, the probability of someone directly awakening a tool-type Martial Soul from a beast-type Martial Soul family was infinitely close to zero.
And this tool-type Martial Soul was not just anything. It was the inherited Martial Soul of the Breaking Clan, one of the four clans once under the Clear Sky Sect.
In that short span of time, Alistair Jewel could almost imagine a long-distance romance across several generations.
A member of House Lockehart in the Star Stripe Empire and a member of the Breaking Clan under the Clear Sky Sect, two families that should have had no connection at all, met by chance and fell in love. After who knew how many generations, the fruit of their love once again appeared in the world...
Alistair Jewel's eyes suddenly widened.
He untangled the thoughts in his mind. Then his gaze fixed on Blair's waist. More accurately, it fixed on the belt at Blair's waist.
"So that is it! Soul Shifter... Soul Shifter. A device that shifts out a Martial Soul!"
Hearing Alistair Jewel's conclusion, Yue Guan, Ghost, and Lucius Grimm also understood. Their attention instantly moved to the belt.
Seeing that everyone understood what the Soul Shifter meant, Wu Ling clapped his hands lightly and drew their attention.
When their gazes turned back to him, Wu Ling began explaining.
"It seems everyone has understood. Correct. The Soul Shifter's function is to add one Martial Soul to the user. Put simply, it creates artificial acquired twin Martial Souls."