The Scorn of the Past

"It's started..."

"What are you muttering about, You Chen? Are you talking to yourself before you've even finished making lunch?"

"What do you mean, You Chen? Do you know how to respect your elders? Call me Uncle! And stay out of grown-ups' business, little brat. Go play somewhere else."

You Chen waved Xiao Wu away with a look of disdain, leaving her to puff out her cheeks and stomp off to sulk.

Five days had passed since You Chen had abducted Xiao Wu.

Ever since leaving Spirit City, new missions had naturally continued to refresh as usual.

As the You Chen of the old timeline grew stronger, the ranks of those he needed to counterattack rose accordingly, and the mission rewards gradually improved as well.

Just like any ordinary mission system, the more troublesome the opponent and the more difficult the objective, the richer the rewards.

The quantity of beginner-level pill rewards had noticeably increased, and Intermediate Nourishment Pills had even begun to appear.

However, either the targets listed had already died, or Ge Ruisi had discovered while gathering information that they were simply too far away, or You Chen found the rewards unappealing. Thus, he had abandoned them one by one.

Forget a few Beginner Experience Pills—even cards that increased a soul ring's age by a hundred years, things capable of directly enhancing attributes and even one's foundation, were not worth much in his eyes.

After all, they were only hundred-year-level items. Unless he had ten or twenty of them, it was hard to say whether they would have any obvious effect on him now.

The cultivation methods and combat techniques that generally only appeared as bonus rewards were another matter. If there were something useful, he might hesitate a little. But at most, they were techniques on the level of Flying on Grass, hardly worth You Chen stopping for.

The reason was... that period back then had lasted more than half a month in total, spanning just over two years.

Nine plus two equaled eleven.

In other words, the mission timeline would soon reach the point when You Chen was twelve years old.

Once You Chen displayed his qualities as a theoretical genius, his status would be utterly incomparable to that of the insignificant nobody he had once been.

That meant the level of trouble that would come looking for him would rise sharply, and it also meant the quality of the mission rewards would undergo a qualitative leap!

In fact, since the Newbie Mission, the only rewards that had truly tempted You Chen so far were Soul Shocking Tactic and Flash of Inspiration.

The best of the rest only looked decent, but were actually of little use to You Chen.

Yet he had never lowered the importance he placed on system missions.

Because he knew very well that mediocre or lousy rewards now did not mean the rewards later would also be lousy!

As the strength of the mission targets at the time increased, even if a mission merely gave him an Intermediate Experience Pill as a token reward, it could still save him an enormous amount of time!

If he could perfectly clear the missions accumulated by his old self over more than twenty years at an extremely rapid pace, the gains would definitely not be inferior to immortal herbs or even divine trials!

However, as he continually filtered out missions with mediocre rewards, it was only natural that missions with rewards tempting enough to move You Chen—and with a strong chance of obtaining them—would emerge.

But that brought with it a new problem...

Mission: Senior student Kendall (Level 20 Soul Master) is competing with you for the final reward of the academy's junior division. At your current stage, he is an opponent you can barely defeat even if you give it everything you have! Nor does he make any effort to conceal his contempt for you. As one destined to become a god, how can you tolerate such humiliation!? Defeat Kendall and tell him that a so-called protagonist is someone capable of defeating the strong while weak, someone who can carve a path forward through the pitch-black wilderness! Complete this within three minutes to receive an additional reward.

Base Rewards: Three Intermediate Nourishment Pills, one Muscle and Marrow Cleansing, one Flash of Inspiration

Additional Reward: Longevity Secret (a life-element secret technique capable of preserving one's vital essence and extending one's lifespan)

The Soul Master stage was a very peculiar stage.

Normally, at lower realms, so long as one did not cross a major realm, a difference of a few levels in soul power did not make much difference to the intensity of one's soul power. Thus, unless the fight became a drawn-out battle of attrition, differences in soul power levels within the same realm were not crucial.

But at the Soul Master stage, Soul Masters possessed too little soul power. They could not even use century-old soul skills many times. One or two extra levels meant one or two more uses of soul skills, naturally creating a clear gap in actual combat strength.

Instead, a gap of several levels could become as vast as the heavens.

You Chen still remembered the cross-grade final competition described by the system mission.

Spirit Hall Academy was also divided into junior, intermediate, and senior divisions, with each division further separated into several grades based on the year of enrollment.

So although it was called a cross-grade match, he and Kendall had only been one year apart.

But what was You Chen's soul power level at the time?

Level 14.

He had broken through the first ring at age nine, reached Level 11 after absorbing his soul ring, and then cultivated for over two years, only rising three levels.

That had been You Chen's cultivation talent back then.

He could rely on extraordinary effort, a mentality beyond his years, and some opportunistic methods to defeat his peers, whose soul power levels were at most one or two levels above his own.

But against Kendall, who was only one year older, had not yet absorbed a second ring to become a Soul Grandmaster, yet still possessed a six-level advantage in soul power and had a high-grade martial soul...

There had been no chance of victory.

If not for the junior division's final reward, Kendall might have already chosen to break through to Soul Grandmaster and transferred to the intermediate academy to cultivate. Naturally, such a Kendall would not give You Chen any opportunity.

It had been a crushing defeat.

Perhaps because of the enormous gap between them at the time, the rewards offered by the system had been exceptionally generous.

Flash of Inspiration went without saying. If any earlier mission had offered that reward, You Chen would not have abandoned it.

More importantly, there was Longevity Secret.

No one did not yearn for longevity.

Even after obtaining the system, You Chen could not guarantee that he would certainly become an immortal, indestructible god. The value of extending one's lifespan therefore needed no explanation.

Moreover, preserving one's vital essence could likewise extend the golden period of cultivation.

In terms of value, Longevity Secret was absolutely beyond comparison with Soul Shocking Tactic.

Naturally... You Chen was tempted.

You Chen had not expected that a mere ordinary competition in the academy could be judged by the system as a Counterattack Mission simply because of Kendall's "contempt."

It had classified their clash as a "conflict." Of course, that might also have been because the "guaranteed minimum" mechanism had been triggered...

To be honest, if not for the system's description, You Chen would never have known that the other party had looked down on him back then. After all, he did not possess the ability to see the palette of emotions in other people's eyes.

But he vaguely remembered that Kendall, now thirty-six years old, had already become a six-ring Soul Emperor.

Within the current Spirit Hall, he had also entered the upper ranks. It was said that he was a leading candidate for Red Robe Bishop.

What that implied was self-evident.

Every Red Robe Bishop was at least a Soul Sage.

That meant Kendall was not far from becoming a Soul Sage.

If he had merely been an ordinary Soul Emperor, then even if he held a high position in Spirit Hall, You Chen could still try to secretly gather intelligence through the Soul Arena Beasts and make a covert move while Kendall carried out a mission.

Whether Longevity Secret was worth taking that risk was another matter, but at least You Chen would not have been entirely without options. It would have been something he could consider.

But a prospective Red Robe Bishop meant that not only were there many people watching him, there might even be powerful figures secretly protecting him due to shared interests...

Asking the Soul Arena Beasts to determine whether Soul Sages or even Soul Douluos were hidden around Kendall was asking far too much of them.

Targeting him essentially meant having to face at least one Soul Sage.

And as everyone knew, the Soul Sage realm was the stage at which a Soul Master's strength underwent a qualitative transformation.