Great Soul Arena, Preparing for Battle

After roughly discussing the implementation of their future plans with Salas, Salas finalized the arrangements for their accommodations.

Su He's residence was located beside the commercial street near the Great Soul Arena. The area was extremely prosperous, with thriving roadside stalls and an endless stream of customers. At night, the lights glittered and crowds flowed through the streets. It was a place frequently visited by people who came to watch Soul Fighting matches at the Great Soul Arena.

Dugu Bo, meanwhile, directly took up residence in a guest room on the top floor of the Spirit Hall Sanctuary. This greatly reduced the risk of his identity being exposed.

Before the plan was put into action, it was better for Dugu Bo's true appearance to remain unknown to too many people.

Stepping down from the carriage, Su He opened the door to his residence.

It was a very clean apartment. In terms from his previous life, it was a standard three-bedroom, one-living-room layout. It had every facility one could need: a dining room, bedrooms, and a cultivation room. The living room contained a table and several tea sets, while a sofa stood at the back for resting. Su He was very satisfied with the place.

Although it was not as spacious as the Side Hall of the Worship Hall where he had lived before, Su He was already quite content to have such accommodations during an undercover mission.

Su He took out his essential daily necessities from his Spatial Soul Tool, placed them in the cabinets, and organized them before beginning to meditate and cultivate.

In truth, he no longer needed to eat like an ordinary person to sustain his life. At the Soul Elder level, one could survive by absorbing the Soul Power between heaven and earth. Yet Su He still held an obsession with delicious food. He always ate three meals a day on time and never passed up any rare delicacies.

After all, as the grandson of a Spirit Hall Worshiper, Su He had truly never worried about money in his life. Even now, his Spatial Soul Tool still held the one million Gold Soul Coins Mighty Lion Douluo had given him before he left.

With his status, the amount of Gold Soul Coins he possessed was merely a number. True powerhouses never cared about wealth, because if their strength was sufficient, countless people would rush to hand over their riches. Su He, who understood deeply that strength was the only true path, naturally would not spend too much time on worldly possessions. There was only one thing he needed to do: reach the peak of the continent.

Su He was highly confident that he could complete the four objectives of the system's second-stage main quest. He was also greatly anticipating the Martial Soul Evolution route he would soon obtain. His first Martial Soul Evolution had already granted him the Abyssal Golden Lion, the strongest top-tier Martial Soul beneath a God-tier Martial Soul. If it evolved once more, it should break through that bottleneck and become a true God-tier Martial Soul, shouldn't it?

With that thought, Su He stopped dwelling on the future. He still had a mission on his shoulders.

"Everything in the present nurtures the future, and everything in the future grows from its yesterday."

A famous person from Su He's previous life had said that. Back in high school, he had used that line quite often in Chinese essays, so even after twelve years in another world, he still remembered it vividly.

Draping himself in a cloak embroidered with a silver-maned lion, then putting on the black-and-gold mask custom-made by Spirit Hall, Su He walked out into the beautiful evening sunset.

His destination was the Heaven Dou Imperial City Great Soul Arena—one of the largest Soul Arenas.

It hosted the finest Soul Fighting performances on the entire continent. It was a place where the nobles and royal family members of the Heaven Dou Empire often came to throw around money for entertainment, while for Soul Masters seeking to temper their strength but lacking resources and wealth, it was also an excellent place for training.

However, Su He, who knew the Original Work well, clearly understood that the dark side of the Great Soul Arena was simply unbearable to look at. Although Crown Prince "Xue Qinghe" had worked hard over the years to crack down on such darkness, he could only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. There were countless Soul Masters who threw matches for money, whether willingly or under coercion. For Soul Masters in the Great Soul Arena, this had become commonplace—but it was not a problem for Su He.

Leaving aside his teacher Golden Crocodile and his grandfather Mighty Lion, Dugu Bo alone, whom he had brought with him, could walk unhindered throughout the Heaven Dou Empire. If either of the former two came, then even if the Sword Bone Douluo of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect joined forces, they would not be a match for either one.

After all, above level 95, the difference of one level was as vast as the difference between heaven and earth.

The source of this darkness was the royal family of the Heaven Dou Empire—or, rather, Emperor Xueye himself. The aged Xueye had long lost the ambition and drive of his youth to strengthen the nation. He had become muddleheaded. What he thought about most now was how to remain seated on the Dragon Throne for a few more days. Like Qin Shi Huang in his later years, he sought a method of immortality. The very thought made Su He shake his head.

Perhaps Sister Xue'er taking over that old bastard Xueye's throne would truly benefit the people of the Heaven Dou Empire.

It had to be understood that Spirit Hall's position was naturally opposed to that of the major sects and the Two Great Empires. The sects cared only about their own inheritances and their lofty status; they did not care whether others lived or died. The Two Great Empires were even worse. Under their rigid class hierarchy, each level oppressed the one beneath it, layer upon layer, making life miserable for the common people. One only had to look at Holy Soul Village, where Tang San had lived as a child, to understand just how dire the lives of ordinary people on the Douluo Continent were.

Spirit Hall, on the other hand, was an organization that genuinely helped commoners. Take the free Martial Soul awakenings and the monthly subsidies given to low-level Soul Masters. Some might say that Spirit Hall did this only to recruit talents and strengthen itself. That was naturally true, but from the perspective of commoners, Spirit Hall truly gave them a path to rise above their station.

As long as one could awaken a Martial Soul and possessed Soul Power to cultivate, Spirit Hall would provide subsidies while they were weak, preventing low-level Soul Masters from lacking the money to purchase cultivation resources. This was also the main reason Spirit Hall was regarded as a holy land for Soul Masters and enjoyed such high prestige among commoners. That was why, after Tang San destroyed Spirit Hall in the Original Work, the continent's history regressed by five thousand years. In the Douluo Continent ten thousand years later, Evil Spirit Masters ran rampant, and even awakening a Martial Soul required money. A major reason was that commoners had lost Spirit Hall's protection and were oppressed even more brutally by the nobles.

The nobles of the Two Great Empires hated this deeply, as it completely damaged their interests. Thus, the relationship between the empires and Spirit Hall grew increasingly tense.

In terms of national strength alone, none of this was a problem for Su He. The Star Luo Empire was barely passable, but the Heaven Dou Empire was rotten to its core and could not be cured without harsh medicine. Moreover, its strongest combatant was merely the level 89 Soul Douluo Marshal Gelon. It could not even produce a single Titled Douluo.

Yet the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect and the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan were both within the Heaven Dou Empire. These two sects could be said to share the empire's interests and fate. After all, as members of the noble class, they naturally did not want Spirit Hall to grow stronger and stronger, as that would continuously erode their advantages and interests.

Whatever. Once I grow strong enough, I'll just kill those who refuse to obey, Su He thought as he slowly entered the Great Soul Arena.

The Heaven Dou Imperial City Great Soul Arena was decorated in magnificent splendor, with an air of lavish decadence everywhere.