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One Year Ago
A small city under the Tianhai Alliance.
"Master, you've sealed all your cultivation and retained only your elemental control abilities. Is it not too dangerous to enter human society like this?" A black-haired man with golden eyes looked at a girl with an ordinary appearance.
The girl appeared no older than nine, yet she was addressed as "Master" by this golden-eyed man.
The girl was Gu Yue, the main avatar of the Silver Dragon King.
"To resolve the issue of human soul masters, we must first understand their society," Gu Yue said coldly, reiterating her earlier point.
Were soul beasts really so rigid?
She had explained repeatedly to Emperor Tian and the other great ferocious beasts: Understand, become, surpass.
By integrating into human society, understanding why human soul masters were so powerful, and using their resources to strengthen themselves, they could work toward benefiting soul beasts while also seeking solutions to the human-soul master problem.
This simple logic—why couldn't Emperor Tian and the others grasp it?
"Battle armor and spirit souls are what we need to focus on. I need to find a way to join the Spirit Pagoda. If I don't seal everything, even I would be discovered."
Taking human form meant sealing away her power.
Yes, the Silver Dragon King's spiritual power was on the level of a god, and her body was undoubtedly of the same caliber. But after being gravely injured and falling onto Douluo Continent, she hadn't been able to recover fully despite spending countless years trying. Now, she could only seal her cultivation within her body through her transformation and begin cultivating anew.
If she wanted to bypass her severely injured body, there would naturally be a price to pay.
Her current weakness was undeniable.
Unless she abandoned her human form and forcibly reverted back to her true form as the Silver Dragon King.
But doing so would result in significant losses. The cost of this transformation was already immense.
And in her weakened state, she needed to avoid detection by powerful human soul masters. Thus, she sealed everything away.
Rather than saying she sealed everything, it was more accurate to say she completely transformed into a human.
What others perceived as retaining only elemental control was actually her sealing all her past existence into this newly formed human body. Elemental control was the martial soul she created for this body using her own power.
This was the method of a god.
And she—she could indeed be considered a god.
In fact, aside from her soul consciousness and memories, Gu Yue's current situation was similar to Tang Wulin's. Both had human bodies that respectively sealed the entire cultivation and bloodline of the Gold and Silver Dragon Kings. The difference was that Gu Yue's condition was fully controllable, as all this stemmed from her own power, and fusing it back together posed no risk.
Gu Yue's gaze turned cold.
She looked toward another remote city under the Tianhai Alliance—Aolai City.
That feeling again.
"Why does his presence appear on Douluo Continent?"
At the moment she split Na'er's consciousness, she had intended to send Na'er to where the Gold Dragon King's presence had emerged. However, she had sensed something amiss about herself and abandoned the plan.
Na'er had just been split when Yun Ming and the other two arrived, taking her away as their disciple.
As a result, Gu Yue directly infused the Silver Dragon Spear into Na'er's body, ensuring that Na'er wouldn't end up like in the original storyline—with no martial soul upon awakening.
---
On the soul-guided train, Xu Yuan closed his eyes to rest.
"Respected passengers, the train will soon arrive at its destination. The next stop is Tianhai Station. Passengers who need to disembark, please gather your belongings."
Tianhai Station had arrived.
Xu Yuan opened his eyes.
The other Shrek Academy students also began gathering their luggage.
Among the Shrek students coming to Tianhai City this time were four outer court students, as well as Xu Yuan, Xu Lizhi, and Ye Xinglan.
Leading the four outer court students was Yu Yuanfeng, undoubtedly the top student of his grade. His martial soul was the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon, and his soul power had reached level forty-five. Hailing from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon family, he was considered one of the most outstanding students in recent outer court generations in preparation for entering the inner court.
However, his achievements were largely due to external assistance.
He had fused a ten-thousand-year soul bone.
His fourth soul ring came from hunting a real spirit beast—not a ten-thousand-year spirit soul, sparing him the burden on his spiritual power.
These two factors alone had artificially boosted his soul power by at least four levels.
While soul bones didn't directly increase soul power, if one was already at a bottleneck, absorbing a soul bone could easily lead to a breakthrough.
In other words, Yu Yuanfeng's breakthrough to level forty was likely aided by the fusion of a soul bone.
Perhaps to focus more energy on crafting battle armor, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon family provided such significant support for his soul power cultivation?
Xu Yuan shook his head, refraining from judgment.
Sometimes, resources themselves were a form of talent. His own background wasn't weak—he had an uncle who was a Spirit Envoy. Though he lacked a family legacy, his uncle, as a Spirit Envoy, only needed to focus on nurturing him.
It wasn't that he lacked opportunities to fuse soul bones—it was just that he found them unworthy. So far, he hadn't fused a single one.
This time, Xu Yuan had another task: retrieving the Dark Golden Terror Claw external soul bone from the Ascension Platform of the Spirit Pagoda in Donghai City. He planned to study it to see if it could be integrated into his spear spirit, which would represent an evolution of the Five-Element Spear Spirit. Even if he couldn't figure out anything, it would still be a valuable external soul bone.
In Xu Yuan's view, giving this soul bone to Xu Lizhi would be better than leaving it to Tang Wulin. If he remembered correctly, Xu Lizhi later awakened the power of destruction in the original story. Combining that with the Dark Golden Terror Claw could yield interesting results, though not much.
As for Tang Wulin?
Please. The original story practically made it clear that the Dark Golden Terror Claw offered minimal benefits to him.
Under the might of the Golden Dragon's Terror Claw, the thousand-year-level Dark Golden Terror Claw was essentially useless. Its additional effects were inferior to the crushing ability inherent in Tang Wulin's Golden Dragon Terror Claw.
Rather than wasting it on Tang Wulin, it would be better to give it to someone else—someone on the team who could rely on it for self-preservation.
---
Stepping off the train, the group entered the waiting area, where a delegation was already waiting for Shrek's team.
"Teacher Shen, hello, I am—"
Xu Yuan listened as Shen Yi exchanged pleasantries with the other party. Accompanied by the group, they were transported by a dedicated vehicle to the main arena of the Tianhai Alliance Grand Competition.
"The teams from your academy will perform exhibition matches against the youth division champions of last year's competition, hosted by Tianhai Academy, on the central main stage."
"No!" Shen Yi interrupted the administrator, looking at them and stating firmly, "We will face the youth division champion team from last year's competition."
The administrator hesitated, glancing at Shen Yi.
"Teacher Shen, I know your students are geniuses, but the youth division champion team from last year is now part of the adult division. Their members are at least twenty years old, while your team this year belongs to the junior division—at least five years younger."
The administrator's gaze lingered especially on the youngest-looking trio: Xu Yuan, Xu Lizhi, and Ye Xinglan.
These three weren't just five years younger—they were ten years younger!
The four outer court students were fifteen, making them only five years younger than their opponents. But these three were a full decade younger!
In the past, whenever Shrek traveled to perform exhibition matches, they usually faced opponents of the same age, effortlessly defeating them. Could a five-year age gap really bridge this disparity?
Was Teacher Shen deliberately making this exhibition match more challenging, creating fiercer battles to hone her students?
This was the only explanation the administrator could think of.
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