Soul Arena Beasts

Because of their young age, the Soul Arena Beasts were generally only Soul Scholars or Soul Grand Masters, with even a portion still being Soul Scholars. For now, Ge Ruisi secretly coordinated and managed them.

Why build such an organization?

The reason was simple.

Based on his age and Soul Power Level, You Chen had realized that he would most likely be unable to stand at the pinnacle in the future.

After thirty, one's vitality would no longer be at its peak, and the rate at which Soul Power improved would continue to decline.

Considering the possibility that he might be unable to break through to Soul Sage, he had begun planning ahead, expanding individual cases like Ge Ruisi and gradually developing them into a group like this.

Ge Ruisi's White Fox Martial Soul was a high-grade Martial Soul. Based on You Chen's deductions, the talents of these beastified mutants were unlikely to be poor.

And that was indeed the case. After his "adjustments" and "treatment," not one of those beastified mutants possessed a low-grade Martial Soul.

Among the roughly one hundred beastified mutants, seventy percent had mid-grade Martial Souls, thirty percent had high-grade Martial Souls, and there was even one owner of a top-grade Martial Soul.

Moreover, even those with mid-grade Martial Souls had considerable talent. Not a single one had a comprehensive Martial Soul rating below ten.

They might not be of much use now, but in ten or twenty years, they would at least become a batch of Soul Ancestors and Soul Kings!

If they were properly cultivated, then by the time Tang San destroyed Spirit Hall, he could at the very least gain several top-tier Soul Sages absolutely loyal to him!

That way, even if he himself could not reach the pinnacle, he would still be able to wield power!

But...

Now that the system had activated and given him new possibilities, the importance of the Soul Arena Beasts had naturally fallen greatly.

Improving his own strength had once again become You Chen's foremost goal.

Of course, that did not mean he intended to discard the Soul Arena Beasts.

With Bibi Dong above him, certain things were inconvenient to handle. That was when the Soul Arena Beasts could come in handy.

For example, under the targeting of Spirit Hall's upper ranks, he could no longer issue an order and have research funding and materials delivered straight to his door.

At times like that, he could have the Soul Arena Beasts help him collect research materials.

Or, for example... if those people Ge Ruisi had sent invitations to were unwilling to come, he could simply have the Soul Arena Beasts secretly abduct them.

Fortunately, everyone seemed willing to show him some respect. They had not used excuses to decline simply because his position had become delicate.

In only three days, nearly half of them had gathered.

Most of this group worked in Spirit City or nearby, and their talents were all above average.

They had mostly been invited by You Chen in the name of a "class reunion," asked to visit his villa near Spirit City.

By this point, everyone could probably guess why You Chen had sent invitations and invited others over, right?

You Chen had invited his former classmates, as well as quite a few notable figures from the past...

But most of them were merely a smokescreen. The people he truly wanted to invite were those who had clashed with him more than twenty years ago.

They were most likely candidates for future mission targets.

In fact, nearly all of those candidates had already arrived at this stage.

After all, after You Chen defeated Ye Han and Jiang Liu, anyone who still dared to clash with him would not have been lacking in basic ability.

Those with comparatively ordinary talent had mostly been assigned to serve as stewards in other branch halls. Naturally, they could not compare to those working in the main hall or its surrounding areas, where there was room for advancement.

You Chen entertained these former classmates and teachers, using his knowledge to analyze their Martial Souls and recommend suitable Soul Rings. Naturally, the atmosphere was harmonious, and no one felt that their time had been wasted.

"I'll soon be taking up a post at another branch hall. In the future, everyone will probably be too busy to spare any time, and it's hard to say whether we'll have another chance to meet. We were classmates, teachers and students, or friends once. There isn't much I can do for everyone, but recommending Soul Rings might let you go a little farther in the future. Consider it my farewell gift." That was You Chen's public explanation.

Naturally, this sent everyone into raptures.

Most of them knew little about the filthy matters involved in Spirit Hall's high-level struggles.

For more than twenty years, they had grown up hearing You Chen's legendary stories.

This was guidance from the most dazzling research professor of the past few decades, a figure praised as a master of Martial Soul research!

How could they possibly not be delighted?

Most of those present were thirty-five or thirty-six years old and generally had hopes of obtaining their next Soul Ring.

With their personal interests at stake, the hosts and guests were naturally all pleased.

Even though You Chen had not arranged any special entertainment, the guests all looked deeply moved and thoroughly content.

Analyzing Martial Souls and personally recommending Soul Rings naturally required quite a bit of time.

Using that as a reason, along with some rhetoric about "classmate bonds," You Chen ensured that this gathering did not end after a single day, but continued for quite some time.

Although he had "wasted" quite a bit of time on these useless people and engaged in plenty of useless socializing, You Chen felt that it was all acceptable in light of what he had gained.

Just as You Chen had inferred from the frequency and timing of mission triggers, the third mission refreshed at midnight on the night he instructed Ge Ruisi to send out the invitations.

The time and examples afterward were also enough for him to gain a preliminary understanding of the system's mission triggers.

You Chen had currently summarized three rules.

This belated system was unlike the delayed systems he had read about before. After the first mission, its subsequent missions did not slowly trigger along the timeline of decades ago.

The system's missions seemed to have piled up like a stack. Whenever he resolved one, the next could be triggered immediately.

Time was divided by the midnight boundary of each day.

That was the first rule.

However, for one thing, although You Chen had attracted plenty of attention by rising to prominence with abilities that did not match his original talent, he was not some novel protagonist whom people would step on wherever he went.

When normal people saw a rising star within the same faction, their first reaction would be to try to befriend them.

It was only that the Soul Scholars of the Douluo world had basically never received any compulsory education.

The older, middle-aged Soul Scholars who had experienced the harshness of society were better.

The younger ones were generally impulsive and stubborn, which made them more likely to trigger missions.

But it was impossible for missions to trigger endlessly with such frequency.

According to You Chen's recollections, more people had picked fights with him only during the first two years. Once he turned twelve and published his first paper, everyone had basically greeted him with smiles.

After all, unlike Yu Xiaogang, You Chen believed that he did possess some genuine ability.

Then came the strange part.

Between the Newbie Mission and the second mission, not only had Ye Han caused trouble for him again, but others had also made sarcastic remarks toward him.

Yet the second mission did not trigger until Jiang Liu's provocation.

The third mission afterward was the same. You Chen dug out his diary to check, and the third mission had only triggered more than thirty days after the second one.