Chapter 111: The Everlasting Puppet
The Everlasting Puppet
Victor calmly observed the young man standing before him.
His golden eyes seemed capable of seeing through every secret in existence.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"So..."
"Your true body."
Leandro blinked.
Victor slowly placed his teacup onto the table.
"I was just thinking..."
"If you’d dared to send one of your clones to meet me..."
"I would’ve dismantled every wooden puppet and paper doll you’ve hidden."
"...Personally."
Leandro’s face immediately turned bright red.
His expression became so awkward that he wished he could disappear into the ground.
Just hearing those words made his scalp tingle.
He had actually considered doing exactly that.
For a moment, he forced out an embarrassed laugh.
"Patriarch..."
"...how could I possibly dare?"
Victor raised an eyebrow.
"You don’t dare?"
A faint chuckle escaped him.
"Heh..."
"Is there anything you don’t dare?"
Leandro swallowed hard.
His heart suddenly skipped a beat.
Victor continued calmly,
"That little wooden house of yours..."
"...in the northwest corner of the Blessed Land..."
"It’s layered with more than three hundred annihilation formations."
He looked at Leandro with an amused expression.
"If someone didn’t know better..."
"They’d think it was the Salvatore Family’s greatest sacred inheritance ground..."
"...instead of your shabby little hut."
Leandro’s smile completely froze.
Cold sweat instantly formed on his forehead.
He...
He even knows that?
That little cabin had been his greatest masterpiece.
Every formation had been arranged personally by him.
He had hidden traps beneath traps.
Illusions within illusions.
Even if a Heavenly Genesis Realm expert barged inside carelessly, they would probably lose half their life.
Yet...
Victor had exposed every secret with just a few casual sentences.
Leandro lowered his head helplessly.
"Patriarch..."
"I only built them for self-defense."
Victor smiled faintly.
"For self-defense?"
Leandro nodded repeatedly.
"Yes!"
"What if someone suddenly attacks me?"
"What if an enemy sneaks into the family?"
"What if lightning strikes the cabin?"
"What if—"
Victor interrupted him before the list could continue.
"And what if a mosquito flies inside?"
Leandro paused.
His eyes lit up.
"I... actually prepared for that too."
Victor fell silent.
For the first time in a long while...
Even he didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh.
After several moments, he simply shook his head with a helpless smile.
"As expected of you."
"The Everlasting Puppet."
Leandro scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
Being praised by the Patriarch should have made him happy...
Yet somehow...
He felt as though every secret he had hidden since childhood had already been seen through.
Just as he had suspected...
None of his little tricks could escape the Patriarch’s notice.
And here he’d thought there was a 0.001% chance of remaining undetected.
Unfortunately...
That tiny possibility had completely disappeared the moment he stepped through Victor’s door.
[Ding!! Special Destiny clansman detected. Legacy Investment available!]
The familiar notification of the Eternal Legacy System echoed softly within Victor’s mind. As always, no one else could hear it. Standing calmly atop Sovereign Peak in his flowing black robe embroidered with majestic golden dragons, Victor’s shoulder-length black hair swayed gently in the evening breeze while his radiant golden eyes rested upon the young man before him.
Leandro Salvatore stood respectfully with his head lowered. His black hair framed his youthful face, while his emerald-green eyes carried a trace of awkwardness beneath their usual vigilance. Even now, despite standing before the Patriarch himself, his instincts refused to relax completely.
The translucent screen of the Eternal Legacy System unfolded before Victor’s eyes.
One notification appeared after another.
[Investing: Mirror Soul Pill. Reward: Primordial Blood Sovereign Pill.]
[Investing: Divine Guard Elixir. Reward: Nether Emperor Pill.]
[Investing: Four Seasons Hidden Spring Scripture. Reward: Absolute Destruction Art.]
Victor’s expression remained calm, but a faint glimmer flickered within his golden eyes.
The rewards...
None of them were ordinary.
His gaze shifted toward Leandro once again.
Another translucent screen slowly materialized before him, revealing the young man’s complete information.
[Name: Leandro Salvatore]
[Cultivation: Astral Manifestation Realm Great Perfection]
[Destiny: Blue? Purple? Gold? Red?]
[Comprehension: Commoner]
[Talent: Commoner]
[Constitution: Celestial Wood Divine Body]
[Bloodline Forbidden Art: Divine Soul Partition Technique]
[Celestial Wood Divine Body: Those who possess this physique possess extraordinarily long lifespans, but their personalities often develop toward extreme tendencies.]
[Divine Soul Partition Technique: A forbidden bloodline art capable of dividing one’s soul. Every division inflicts agony beyond imagination.]
[Fortune: Received the inheritance of an Eternal Emperor Realm expert within a dream. Endured countless hardships throughout that dream, causing his cautious nature to evolve into absolute paranoia.]
[Quality Ranking: Commoner < Ordinary < Superior < Genius < Prodigy < Peerless < Freak < Era-Suppressing]
Victor quietly studied the information.
Even someone as composed as him couldn’t help finding it rather peculiar.
Leandro’s natural aptitude...
It was astonishingly poor.
Ever since the Eternal Legacy System had blessed the Salvatore Family, every clansman’s talent had risen by an entire tier. Coupled with the constant nourishment of precious spiritual herbs and the incomparably rich spiritual energy filling Sovereign Blessed Land, nearly every member of the family had reached at least the Superior rank of talent.
Yet Leandro...
Even after receiving all of those blessings...
Was still merely ranked as a Commoner.
Victor couldn’t help but think that, without the system’s enhancement, the young man might never have possessed the qualifications to cultivate at all.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
More interesting than his talent...
Was his Destiny.
Blue...
Purple...
Gold...
Red...
Four completely different evaluations existed simultaneously.
At first glance, it looked absurd.
Yet after a moment of thought, Victor understood the reason.
Leandro possessed the Divine Soul Partition Technique.
A terrifying forbidden bloodline ability.
Every separated individual fragment of his soul could cultivate independently before returning its accumulated cultivation back to the original body.
In the theory...
One Leandro could become ten.
Ten could become a hundred.
A hundred could become countless more.
Every clone cultivated.
Every clone comprehended.
Every clone accumulated experience.
Everything eventually returned to a single person.
It was an ability so heaven-defying that even Victor found it extraordinary.
However...