Le Bai's Panel and Plan

The wind at high altitude was quite cold.

Although Dean Flender had tried his best to control his flight speed, by the time they reached their destination, Le Bai and Oscar both felt chilled to the bone and were shivering uncontrollably.

"The two of you, hurry up and move your bodies to raise your temperature."

Seeing the two children hugging themselves and trembling, Dean Flender advised, "Don't wait until the cold seeps into your bodies, or you'll get sick."

Le Bai and Oscar immediately began to exercise on the spot.

Five minutes later, feeling their bodies warm up from the inside out, the two stopped moving and began to survey their surroundings.

"Lord Soul Master, is this your academy?"

Oscar pointed at the dilapidated gate and asked, "Why does it look a bit broken?"

"Ahem!"

Dean Flender coughed twice in embarrassment.

Although he considered himself a rather excellent Soul Master, Dean Flender was not skilled at management, nor was he willing to go against his principles for money, and he had no desire to curry favor with the powerful. As time went on, it was only natural that the academy had ended up in this state.

"This, it's mainly because... if the conditions are too good, it's easy for a Soul Master to become lazy, which is why I specifically made the academy look like this! Yes, that's right, that's exactly it!"

Dean Flender almost believed his own words: "Besides, Oscar, from today on you are a member of our Shrek. Remember to call me Dean from now on, not Lord Soul Master, understand?"

"Understood, Dean!"

Oscar followed suit: "Then Dean, what should I do next? And what about Le Bai, where will he live? Can I come visit him often?"

"Hehehe, you have quite a lot of questions."

Dean Flender said with a smile, "Then I'll take you to Le Bai's place first. Remember the location, and if you want to see Le Bai in the future, just come find him yourself; the teachers won't restrict you. As for what to do next, first is to master the method of cultivating Soul Power, which is the foundation of a Soul Master. You also need to learn how to read and write."

"Eh~ do we have to learn to read and write too?"

Oscar looked a bit reluctant: "I thought we were Soul Masters..."

"It is precisely because you are a Soul Master that you need to learn."

Le Bai, standing to the side, suddenly spoke up: "If you can't even recognize words, even if a precious secret manual were placed in front of you, you wouldn't be able to study it yourself."

"Uh, that's true too!"

Oscar scratched his head: "Come to think of it, Le Bai, can you study with me? I mean, learning to read and write."

"Based on what Dean Flender said, perhaps it's possible."

Le Bai looked up at Dean Flender: "Although I am not qualified to join Shrek for the time being, Dean Flender never said that 'those who are not students of the academy cannot attend classes here,' so I think there is a high possibility that I can sit in on the lessons."

Dean Flender looked at Le Bai with surprise once again: "You are very clever! That's right, our Shrek Academy does not forbid people from outside the academy to audit classes. In fact, children from the village near the academy come over to study every day. As for the Soul Master courses, children without Soul Power, or those with too little, wouldn't be able to keep up with the curriculum set by the academy's teachers anyway."

"That means Le Bai can attend classes with me from now on, right?"

Oscar asked with a lack of confidence.

"Correct."

Dean Flender smiled and patted Oscar on the head.

Once upon a time, he also had a good friend and brother who had poor talent and low Soul Power, but shared the same spirit.

Oscar was only six years old this year; leaving his hometown at such a young age must be filled with anxiety. Having a peer by his side, especially a good brother he had grown up with, should alleviate that anxiety to the greatest extent.

These are all good things!

Dean Flender thought.

Walking at a child's pace for five minutes, Dean Flender brought Le Bai and Oscar to the vicinity of the village adjacent to the academy and stopped in front of a wooden house that looked rather old.

"This house is where I used to live; it's not being used now, so you can stay here for the time being."

Dean Flender said to Le Bai with a tone of nostalgia: "Although it looks a bit dilapidated from the outside, everything you need is inside."

Le Bai's Woodworking level was not low, and he saw the problem at a glance: "Lord Dean, may I ask how long ago 'used to' was?"

"Over twenty years ago."

Dean Flender asked curiously: "Is there a problem?"

Le Bai didn't speak; he walked to the wooden door of the house and tapped it lightly—

Bang!

The rotten door hinge couldn't support the door panel, and it collapsed inward.

Le Bai turned his head and looked at Dean Flender with a blank expression: "Lord Dean, it seems I will have to trouble you for some more materials and tools."

Dean Flender borrowed tools from the villagers and bought some lumber. After handing everything over to Le Bai, he took Oscar into the academy.

Before leaving, Oscar promised that he would come to visit Le Bai often.

"My Lv15 [Woodworking] skill finally has a place to be useful."

Le Bai looked at the information on his panel and then looked up at the house: "Alright, the next task is to finish repairing and cleaning this old house before dark. As for dinner... I'll think about it slowly while I work."

It had already been six years since Le Bai arrived in this world, which was highly likely to be the Douluo Continent.

Transmigration? Possession? Or reincarnation?

Le Bai was unsure of his situation—due to unknown reasons, he had lost part of his memory, including but not limited to his former name, age, parents, friends, and family...

The name Le Bai was given to him by Oscar's Father after he found him.

Ironically, while Le Bai had lost so many important memories, he had perfectly retained his memories of "entertainment," such as games, anime, manga, novels, and so on.

This caused Le Bai to have a very miserable time during those initial days.

Because the Douluo World was a world where entertainment methods and means were relatively backward and scarce.

How could Le Bai, who retained memories of modern entertainment, endure a world without the internet, computers, or even Flying Chess?

What was even more excessive was that the hardware conditions of daily life were extremely inconvenient: no flush toilets, no running water, no electric lights, no gas stoves, no... in short, not a single tool of modern civilization!

Too much inconvenience and boredom caused Le Bai to have thoughts of "dying" several times. If it weren't for his body being too small, Le Bai would have definitely put those thoughts into practice.

Fortunately, his Golden Finger finally appeared!

The [Panel] was, for Le Bai, almost the only pillar supporting his will to keep living.

As a "non-system" old-school classic Golden Finger, Le Bai's panel was very simple. It would neither communicate with him nor provide any actual items, Cultivation Methods, or bloodlines; it had one, and only one, effect: "Digitization."

But that was exactly why it was good!

For Le Bai, who was so bored he wanted to die, such a Golden Finger allowed him to fully divert his attention.

When his limited time and energy were all invested in the research of the panel, Le Bai's abnormal mental state was finally alleviated.

At the same time, his research on the panel yielded important results.

The most important and strongest effect of the panel was "Digitization."

At first glance, it only allowed his status and mastered skills to be displayed as data, but in reality, it contained three huge benefits: real-time feedback, only progress and no regression, and no bottlenecks.

Just as the literal meaning of these twelve characters suggests:

Real-time feedback—this effect was of little help to Le Bai in the early stages, but its significance to him was far greater than the other two points. It was precisely because as long as he put in the effort (grinding), he could see the data change (real-time feedback), giving Le Bai the feeling that he was playing a fully immersive game, that he was able to persist until now.

Only progress and no regression—after being digitized by the panel, Le Bai's abilities, or rather his attributes in various aspects, would increase due to his diligent training, but would not decline due to his slackness.

No bottlenecks—this was even more impressive. In theory, Le Bai could learn and master any skill, and there would be no so-called bottlenecks for subsequent improvements.

It is worth noting that Le Bai did not think the panel could allow him to ignore all bottlenecks, or at least, there existed an upper limit.

It was just that the things he had come into contact with so far could not yet reach this limit.

Additionally, a rather regrettable point was that only the bottlenecks had disappeared. Digitization had no effect on Le Bai's own talent, comprehension, or the like—theoretically being able to learn something did not mean he could actually learn it; digitization did not have the effect of improving Le Bai's learning efficiency or learning ability.

But regardless, the Golden Finger was ultimately powerful.

After his research on the Golden Finger concluded, in order to prevent himself from returning to his original state of extreme boredom, Le Bai began to engage in various activities and experiments. Through the data changes fed back in real-time by the panel, he treated his current life like a game, tirelessly and actively working hard to improve (grind) every ability and skill on the panel.

After actually seeing the villagers release their Martial Souls, Le Bai was basically certain that this world was the "Douluo World" he knew, but he still held a small doubt: was this world the Douluo World he knew, or a world that just happened to be quite similar to the Douluo World he knew?

However, regardless of which result it was, it didn't matter to the current Le Bai.

Having no goals in life, the only thing he wanted to do now was to keep grinding until the limit of the panel, and then improve the current state of entertainment scarcity in this world.

"Phew, done."

Le Bai wiped the sweat with the towel hanging around his neck, looking at the brand-new Wooden House: "A septic tank (wooden) and a flush toilet (wooden); the lack of rubber rings is a big problem. I have to find a way to get a substitute. When I have time, I need to find some clay. It would be best if I could use the specialties of this world... I wonder if there is any content about Soul Guidance Device Crafting in the Shrek library."