"Ptooey! Ptooey!"
"Just my luck!"
In a secluded valley behind Heaven Dou Royal Academy,
Gu Changge emerged from a starlit portal, covered in dust.
"Damn that sneaky Creeper and Xiao Bai! They played me dirty!"
Gu Changge cursed under his breath.
But once he finished, a smile spread across his face. "Still, I finally finished that damned beginner quest!"
Gu Changge was a transmigrator.
Eighteen years ago, a damn dump truck had run him over and sent him to Douluo Continent.
He hadn't started at the top as a member of the Upper Three Sects or Spirit Hall.
Nor had he been blessed with Innate Full Soul Power and Twin Martial Souls.
But his start hadn't been bad.
He was the sole heir of the Iris Duke Family, which had existed since the founding of the Heaven Dou Empire.
True, his ancestors had squandered the duchy that once belonged to them over two hundred years ago.
And his parents had managed to get themselves killed before he turned six.
But before they died, they had found Gu Changge a new home.
With none other than the famous old man who handed out riches... no, the old man who handed out immortal herbs: Poison Douluo, Dugu Bo.
Gu Changge had no idea what deal they had made behind closed doors.
But Dugu Bo had taken him home and raised him like his own grandson.
Gu Changge had lived up to that kindness. During his Martial Soul Awakening, he awakened the Rift Wind Dragon Eagle Martial Soul with Innate Level Eight Soul Power.
Now he had both backing and talent.
Naturally, the past eighteen years had been comfortable.
That comfort had ended six months ago.
His cheat, My World—the sandbox game MC—had finally come online.
Perhaps transmigration had changed it somehow.
His version of MC was a little different from the ordinary game.
Besides the usual gameplay, it came with a quest system.
To unlock more features and mods, he had to complete quests.
His beginner quest was to collect ten stacks of wood.
The reward was a Crafting Table, a Steve Physique limited to MC, and Survival Mode.
In other words, he had none of those things while doing the beginner quest.
What a damn scam!
One block of wood in the MC World was a full cubic meter.
Oak alone weighed seven hundred jin.
And the MC World wasn't safe even during the day.
Zombies and the likes of Xiao Bai could lurk in the woods.
As for Creepers, sunlight didn't bother them at all.
So asking him to collect ten stacks of wood with no bonuses whatsoever
had been nothing short of a disaster for Gu Changge.
That was why he'd been stuck for half a year.
Only today had he finally collected the last block of wood with a saw from Douluo Continent.
He had unlocked the Crafting Table, the Steve Physique limited to MC, and Survival Mode.
Of those three rewards,
the Crafting Table was just a normal Crafting Table.
The Steve Physique, however, came with a restriction.
As its name suggested, it only worked in the MC World. He couldn't take it back to Douluo Continent.
But it had a hidden advantage that made up for that drawback: he could share it.
Anyone he brought into the MC World
could receive the Steve Physique if he chose to share it with them.
There was no limit to how many people he could share it with.
And he could take it back whenever he wanted.
The reward had its flaw, but its strengths more than made up for it.
As for Survival Mode, that had been a pure delight.
What did Survival Mode mean?
An Immortal Body, of course. Unlimited retries, unlimited revivals, and no fear of death.
More importantly, the Survival Mode reward had no restrictions.
Whether he was in the MC World or on Douluo Continent,
he would respawn beside his bound Bed in the MC World the moment he died.
With that reward in hand, Gu Changge had grown bold at once.
And right then, a Creeper had crawled out of the woods.
Before gaining Survival Mode, Gu Changge would have turned and run the moment he saw one.
But with Survival Mode, things were different.
Not only would he attack first, he would settle an old score.
With no need to worry about actually getting blown to death,
Gu Changge had used nimble footwork to run that Creeper in circles until it couldn't keep up.
Killing it should have been only a matter of time.
But then, damn it,
Xiao Bai had appeared from the woods.
And she had fired an arrow at him when he wasn't looking.
That had thrown off his footwork.
The Creeper caught up, exploded right in his face, and handed him his very first death.
After respawning, he had ground the sneaky Xiao Bai into dust.
But that Creeper's explosion had still been terrifying.
Death was terrifying, after all. Even with the Steve Physique reducing the pain to almost nothing,
his first death across two lifetimes had still shaken him.
How could Gu Changge not curse about it?
"Chang Ge!"
A girl's voice came from the distance. "I knew you'd be hiding out here again!"
The newcomer was Dugu Yan, one of Gu Changge's childhood sweethearts.
Gu Changge smiled when he saw her. "How come you have time to look for me? Aren't you training with the first team?"
The Soul Master Tournament was still three years away.
But Heaven Dou Royal Academy had already settled on its team.
Just as in the original story, Dugu Yan was a member of the first team.
"Don't get me started!"
Dugu Yan looked irritated. "Qin Ming keeps using the team's needs as an excuse to force me to work with Yu Tianheng. As if no one can see what he's really after! If he wants to suck up to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, he can do it himself. He's not using me!"
Dugu Bo had raised Gu Changge since childhood,
so he and Dugu Yan had naturally grown up together.
And since she was his childhood sweetheart, he wasn't about to leave her for Yu Tianheng.
So when they reached the age where romance first bloomed, Gu Changge had made his move.
He'd thought that meant Yu Tianheng, her supposed canon match in Douluo, would never show up at Heaven Dou Royal Academy.
But damn it, the guy had arrived last year anyway.
Worse, he had ignored Gu Changge's existence and brazenly started pursuing Dugu Yan.
Was Gu Changge going to put up with that?
Not a chance!
He had chased Yu Tianheng down and beaten him up for a whole month.
Every time they met, Yu Tianheng got another beating.
After that, Yu Tianheng behaved himself.
That should have been the end of it.
Unfortunately, Gu Changge was no saint either.
Besides Dugu Yan, her best friend Ye Lingling was also his girlfriend.
He had been seeing both girls at once.
Thanks to a formidable talent that apparently ran in the Gu family,
he had managed to smooth things over.
Both Dugu Yan and Ye Lingling had accepted it.
But when Dugu Bo and Ye Lingling's parents found out by accident,
Gu Changge's luck ran out.
Dugu Bo and Ye Lingling's parents vehemently opposed it.
Ye Lingling's parents were a little more forgiving. They were angry, but they considered the peculiarities of the Nine Heart Begonia lineage.
Besides, Ye Lingling had her heart set on Gu Changge.
So their anger and objections were mostly for show.
Dugu Bo, however, absolutely refused to budge.
He had given Gu Changge a fierce dressing-down.
He said he must have been cursed to have raised Gu Changge and even tacitly allowed him to be with his precious granddaughter.
Yet the brat wasn't satisfied with what he had and wanted two girls at once.
Did Gu Changge have any respect for the old man who handed out immortal herbs?
After the affair came to light, Dugu Bo threw Gu Changge out of his home.
And he laid down an ultimatum.
If Gu Changge wanted to marry them both, fine!
Either he could beat Dugu Bo in a fight, or he could survive a full dose of Jade Scale Snake Emperor Poison.
Otherwise, he should break things off with Ye Lingling and devote himself to Dugu Yan.
Well, then!
Once Dugu Bo said that,
Ye Lingling's parents, who had only intended to put on a show of disapproval, couldn't let it slide.
Was Dugu Bo's granddaughter the only one who mattered?
Was their Lingling worth any less?
So Ye Lingling's parents laid down an ultimatum of their own.
Either Gu Changge broke things off with Dugu Yan,
or he defeated Ye Lingling's mother.
Ye Lingling's mother was named Mu Qingyu.
Her name sounded gentle,
but she was a bona fide terror.
She had level eighty-three Soul Power and the Thunder Tyrant Dragon Martial Soul.
Rumor had it that her ancestors had ties to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.
Her fighting ability was nothing to scoff at.
According to Ye Lingling, her mother and father had once fought Yu Luomian, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's second-in-command and Liu Erlong's father, to a draw.
After that, Gu Changge was left reeling, while Yu Tianheng was delighted.
But after getting beaten down by Gu Changge before,
Yu Tianheng had learned to be smarter this time.
He no longer pursued Dugu Yan openly as he once had.
Instead, he took an indirect route and used someone else to do the work.
That someone was Qin Ming.
For one thing, Qin Ming was a Soul Emperor. Gu Changge couldn't beat him.
For another, he was the team's teacher, which gave him authority over Gu Changge.
So Yu Tianheng approached Qin Ming privately, and the two made a deal no one else knew about.
Afterward, Qin Ming kept finding ways, openly and subtly, to pair Dugu Yan with Yu Tianheng and give them time alone.
"Looks like keeping a low profile these past six months has made them forget who they're dealing with!"
Gu Changge had lived two lives, and in neither of them had he been the type to swallow an insult.
Especially not when his dignity as a man was at stake.
"Oh, come on. I was just venting. Don't do anything rash!"
Dugu Yan hurriedly wrapped her arms around his arm, turned his face toward her, and kissed him on the lips. "Those two only have a few tricks. They're not worth getting worked up over."
Before you continue