"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" In Clara Vale's spiritual sea, Tian Meng Iceworm shouted in panic, trying to stop her from accepting Wu Ling as her teacher. If Clara really went off to learn another world's abilities, how was Tian Meng supposed to carry out his plan later?
Clara still did not know what Tian Meng was planning, so his reaction only left her confused. He had just told her that their fates were tied together. If one suffered, both suffered. If one prospered, both prospered. So why was he suddenly stopping her from taking a teacher?
True, she was being pushed into the apprenticeship, but after thinking about it carefully, Wu Ling could cross worlds. His strength could not possibly be weak. He had given her clothes, fed her, and most importantly, he was handsome. He did not look like a bad person.
According to Tian Meng, Wu Ling's real target might be the gray bead inside her spiritual sea. Even so, she had eaten his food and taken his help. Her mother had once told her a little about proper gifts between teacher and student. For someone like her, born with only rank-one Spirit Power, taking a powerful teacher should have meant she was the one gaining an enormous advantage.
So why was Tian Meng still trying to stop her?
Clara turned her head slightly toward Wu Ling. She wanted to tell him about Tian Meng, but every time that thought rose, Tian Meng immediately tried to stop her from inside the spiritual sea.
So she could only use the excuse of going to the bathroom. She planned to get farther away from Wu Ling first, then enter her spiritual sea and ask Tian Meng what was going on.
As soon as she finished speaking, Wu Ling leaned closer. Their eyes met. Clara could even see a faint Magecraft array glimmering deep inside his eyes.
Before she could feel embarrassed, Wu Ling's next words made her go pale.
"The bathroom? No, that is not it. It is that bug, right? He is trying to stop you from becoming my disciple."
Even with the warm breath from Wu Ling's words brushing her cheek, Clara's face remained bloodless. The secret that belonged only to her, the secret buried deepest inside her, had been spoken so casually by Wu Ling.
It was not that she had never planned to tell him. But just like the apprenticeship earlier, saying it herself and having someone else expose it felt completely different. In front of Wu Ling, she felt as if she had no secrets at all.
Tian Meng Iceworm, who had been making a racket inside her spiritual sea, fell silent in disbelief. He could not understand how Wu Ling had noticed his existence.
While Clara's mind went blank, Wu Ling lightly patted her head twice. Those two pats brought her back to herself.
"All right, all right. I will stop teasing you. I have some involvement with souls, so I saw everything that big worm just did. Add that to his enormous spiritual power, and I do not even need to think very hard to know what he is planning."
"After all, this sort of thing happens all the time in other worlds. Some people get a fox sealed inside them. Some get an old man. Some even seal themselves inside."
"Some are sealed. Some want to reincarnate. Some want to revive. In short, anyone capable of doing this usually has a goal."
"From the state of that big worm just now, combined with your current situation, I can basically guess his purpose. He wants to create a god."
"That big worm's body will not last much longer, and the Divine Realm will not let him ascend, so becoming a god himself is impossible. But he would rather swallow his pride and choose you as his Spirit Master than face death directly. That means he is afraid to die. Of course, fearing death is the instinct of every living being. I am afraid of death too, so I have nothing to criticize there."
"But since he chose you as his Spirit Master, even becoming a Titled Sage would only give him another century or so. If he wants to truly keep living, there is only one path left. He must create a god. You are the candidate he chose."
"Otherwise, why do you think I chose you as my disciple? I do not even care about ordinary geniuses with innate full Spirit Power."
Just like that, while Clara and Tian Meng Iceworm reeled, Wu Ling casually explained the whole chain of events. At the same time, he subtly showed how much he had seen across worlds.
He gave Clara a little time to react, then pinched her soft cheek and pulled her attention back again.
"I am telling you this early because I do not want you to misunderstand me later. Since you are my disciple, I will not harm you."
"And tell that big worm to relax. I will teach you abilities from other worlds, but this world's system will still be your main foundation."
"It just so happens that I have some cultivation in this world too. I am not at the absolute peak, but I am more than enough to teach you."
As he spoke, Wu Ling revealed his strange Spirit Rings: two purple, two black, and two red.
"Red... red... red Spirit Rings!" Clara felt as if she had used up an entire lifetime of surprises in a single day.
She was poor, and she had never attended school. That did not mean she knew nothing about the ideal Spirit Ring configuration or what each Spirit Ring color meant. Between rumor, common knowledge, and the things her mother had once told her, she understood perfectly how abnormal Wu Ling's Spirit Rings were.
Her own first Spirit Ring was technically million-year, but because she had obtained it too easily, it still felt unreal to her. At first, she had even kept forgetting that fact.
"I am seventeen this year. My Spirit Power is level sixty-nine. As for my real combat strength, I am confident calling myself the strongest person below a Titled Sage."
As Wu Ling spoke, he pinched Clara's cheek again. To be honest, he was starting to enjoy it.
The tactic worked very well. It cleanly redirected Clara's attention, giving her chaotic emotions something concrete to latch onto.
"I am eleven. My Spirit Power is level eleven. Teacher is six years older than me, and his Spirit Power is fifty-eight levels higher. His real strength is even greater than his level..."
Wu Ling looked at Clara as she counted on her fingers, and a faint smile touched his face.
He admitted that he had taken Clara as a disciple partly to target Tang San. But her personality did make people want to protect her.
In the original path, under Tang San's arrangement, the Emperor Auspicious Beast's sacrifice helped her reach the sixties or seventies by seventeen or eighteen, and she became the God of Emotion at twenty-six. Now that Wu Ling was helping her, even if he did not move that schedule earlier, matching it should not be difficult. The difference was that she would not have to die once, nor endure so much pain.
A person needed some hardship on the road to maturity. Wu Ling understood that. But making a girl bear that many things still felt cruel to him.
To Clara, Wu Ling was not only powerful. His learning, knowledge, and array of abilities all struck directly at what she lacked most. This teacher, who seemed omnipotent and unfathomable, was exactly what the current Clara needed.