Six Years of Growth, Part Two

Six Years of Growth, Part Two

After accepting Qian Renxue's recruitment, Wu Tong became an Esteemed Guest of the Crown Prince Residence and moved into the estate Qian Renxue had prepared for him in Heaven Dou City, Wutong Courtyard.

Though there were still people watching him, Wu Tong had no objections. After all, this could also be called a form of protection.

After arriving in Heaven Dou City, Wu Tong did not let his taut nerves relax. After all, after experiencing more than a dozen assassination attempts on the road, Wu Tong had come to understand one truth: as long as you had not grown strong, even if you had potential, it meant jack shit.

Wu Tong knew he still needed enough power to make other factions hesitate, so they could not casually crush him to death as if they were squashing an ant.

And power was nothing more than strength, authority, and connections.

But raising his strength required far too much time; raising his authority, unless he also became the lord of a major faction, still would not let him withstand those hyenas.

So Wu Tong wanted to obtain enough power in the shortest time possible. There was only one thing he could do, and that was to raise his reputation on Douluo Continent and expand his network. When Wu Tong was acknowledged and revered by all under heaven, even the two great empires and Spirit Hall would have to think carefully before touching him.

Just like that, Wu Tong began preparing for his goal, spending his days going back and forth between Qian Renxue's private library and his own Wutong Courtyard.

Qian Renxue also grew curious about Wu Tong's actions and began helping Wu Tong collect all kinds of knowledge, ready to see what kind of results Wu Tong could produce.

Study, collect data, organize and analyze, summarize, test... Wu Tong repeated that tedious process over and over again.

With an enormous accumulation of knowledge, Wu Tong's understanding of the martial soul system gradually deepened as well. Based on this knowledge, Wu Tong began summarizing methods to improve the martial soul system and spread them to the world...

"The Importance of Dietary Supplements—On the Feasibility of Raising Innate Soul Power Under Conditions of Sufficient Spirit Beast Meat," "Whale Rubber—A Supreme Treasure for Improving Physical Fitness," "No One Is Born Useless—On the Roles of Various Martial Souls in Different Fields," "The Essence of Martial Souls—Evolution in the Course of Development," "A Brief Discussion on Improving Meditation Techniques"...

One theory after another, all highly feasible after testing, was spread across the world by Wu Tong. The marvelous conjectures and practical methods within those books caused Wu Tong's reputation to soar rapidly, pushing his fame to its peak.

The continent's First Sage, Master of martial soul research, Medicine Saint... all kinds of praise were placed upon Wu Tong's head.

As Wu Tong's reputation on Douluo Continent grew increasingly illustrious, the major factions also began to hesitate because of popular sentiment, no longer daring to target or suppress Wu Tong at will.

After all, as the old saying went: the ruler is the boat, the people are the water; water can carry the boat, but it can also overturn it.

Only after expanding his network across the entire continent did Wu Tong's life gradually settle down.

Coming back to himself, Wu Tong held the tea that had already gone cold and lightly took another sip, then set it on the tea tray, rose, and left the Crown Prince Residence.

By the time Wu Tong returned to Wutong Courtyard, it was already evening.

Wu Tong lay on the bed and began relaxing his body. Then he circulated the Lesser Sun True Qi within him. The true qi that had originally been moving along a fixed route began following Wu Tong's will toward the route for releasing his soul skill.

"Second Soul Skill, Dream World."

As the soul skill activated, Wu Tong only felt his head sink, and a wave of drowsiness rushed straight to his brain. Wu Tong closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, letting himself relax completely. Then he yawned and sank into sleep.

As Wu Tong's consciousness gradually blurred, Wu Tong felt as if he were being drawn by a gentle force, passing through a brilliant starry sky before finally arriving in an illusory world.

When he opened his eyes again, Wu Tong had already appeared inside a huge white space. Before him was a boundless, utterly pure white world.

This white was neither a dazzling bright white nor a dim pallor, but a soft yet profound shade, as if it could contain all things in the world, like a layer of soft gauze lightly draped over everything around him.

He raised his head and looked at the ceiling. It was an endless expanse of pure white, as if it could stretch to the edge of the universe. The ground beneath his feet was the same white, smooth and level, like a giant mirror reflecting the gentle light in the sky.

Wu Tong casually waved his hand. The white space around him began to change according to his will—coloring, decomposing and recombining, intertwining in complexity... like a puzzle being scrambled and reassembled before Wu Tong's eyes.

After everything settled, what appeared before Wu Tong again was a beautiful valley. Within the valley, the scenery was stunning, like poetry and painting. The four seasons cycled and changed without end, every instant shifting; in just one short hour, it went from spring to summer. However, the tender green grassland remained unchanged, not altering with the cycle of the seasons. It was still like a soft velvet carpet, spread across every corner of the valley, displaying nature's gentleness and vitality.

Faced with this scene that completely defied the laws of nature, Wu Tong was not surprised at all.

This was his Second Soul Skill, taken from the Spirit Ring of the Spirit Beast Calamity Dream Peach Tree: Dream World.

The Calamity Dream Peach Tree was a Plant Spirit Beast, a product of the Star Dou Great Forest. It could use pollen to hypnotize enemies and drag them into a Dream World, then manipulate the dream, destroying the enemy's mind and causing them to die within the dream. Its roots would drag the enemy's dead body underground, turning it into fertilizer to nourish the tree.

With the help of the Crown Prince Residence, Wu Tong had successfully hunted down the Calamity Dream Peach Tree and obtained the dream-space soul skill he had longed for.

Its effect was to generate a dream space that could only act on himself. It looked useless, but within the dream space, Wu Tong himself was awake and could freely control the Dream World, changing the world as he pleased according to his will, even stretching time until a single instant became a thousand years. It could be said that in this Dream World, Wu Tong was a true god.

Because of this characteristic, Wu Tong treated this dream space as his laboratory. No matter what kind of injury he suffered inside, he could recover with a single thought.

He casually lay down on the ground, and a small sapling quickly grew behind him. The sapling grew, stretched, and expanded at an astonishing speed. In the blink of an eye, the sapling had become a towering tree. During its growth, it lifted Wu Tong's body, letting him lean against its trunk.

Wu Tong sat half-reclined against the tree trunk. He swept his hand over his body, then waved it to the side, and "Wu Tong" appeared before Wu Tong.

The newly appeared "Wu Tong" had nothing at all on his body. His body was translucent, and one could clearly see the organs, skin, flesh, bones, and more inside "Wu Tong."

With a thought, the body's structure faded away. Inside "Wu Tong's" body, countless dense lines of light suddenly appeared. Pale red gas flowed through the lines, connecting seven hundred and twenty points of light, and among those points of light, nearly one-third had already turned pale red.

These lines of light that covered the entire body from head to toe were the meridians inside Wu Tong's body, while those points of light were Wu Tong's acupoints. The reason they had turned red was that they were filled with Lesser Sun True Qi. The diagram of his meridians and acupoints appeared inside Wu Tong's body.