I Walk Alone in the Darkness

The dormitory had its own restroom and bathroom, which made Su Fan breathe a sigh of relief.

At least he would not have to fight four hundred people for the toilet. In that respect, Dou Ling Royal Academy absolutely crushed Shrek Academy.

After briefly unpacking and making his bed, Su Fan entered meditation.

In this world, strength was what ultimately spoke.

Su Fan understood his own talent well.

Since his talent was lacking, he would make up for it with effort.

Effort could not make up for the gap in talent.

So while working hard, he could not neglect exploring the path ahead.

"On the ordinary path, I no longer have the qualifications to catch up to those geniuses. If I want to catch them, I can only find another way."

"Others run along broad, sunlit roads. I walk alone in the darkness."

In his hazy consciousness, there was only darkness deep within Su Fan's mind.

Only the small flame in his heart never went out, illuminating the road ahead for him.

"Another Aperture."

The first ray of morning sunlight fell across his face, and Su Fan slowly opened his eyes.

His gaze was still as water, without the slightest ripple.

He had taken another small step forward.

Yet it did not make him happy.

Instead, it disappointed him.

Because it meant he had grown comfortable again.

"The path of condensing Apertures was an idea I came up with a year and a half ago. I'm still repeating the same process. Although accumulating enough of them may bring a qualitative change, and many later ideas may require a certain number of Apertures as support, until then, I'm simply living off old gains."

Su Fan understood this with perfect clarity.

Before he truly reaped the rewards of his later ideas, condensing Apertures again and again without innovation meant he was regressing.

"If I want to use Apertures as hubs in the later stages, sort through the veins of heaven and earth, and command the power of heaven and earth, I can't rely on fantasies. I can't wait until my Soul Power reaches the later stages."

"Every step must be taken for that final goal."

He closed his eyes.

He looked inward.

All his Apertures trembled in unison.

"Too crude. Using my martial soul as a template, the Apertures I condensed can drive Soul Power circulation, temporarily store Soul Power, unleash Soul Power, and reduce the burden on my meridians, but they all lack a soul."

No matter how useful they were as support, Su Fan himself had no offensive power!

His martial soul was Apertures. Now that he had used them for all of this, how else could he fight?

At this moment, Su Fan was like an auxiliary-system Soul Master. All the boosts granted by his martial soul and soul skills had been applied to himself, yet he still could not unleash any truly effective damage.

"Soul Tools?"

Su Fan drew a deep breath, and his expectations for Soul Tools rose another notch.

"I don't want ordinary Soul Tools. I'll only study Core Arrays!"

Set up arrays outside the body, using Apertures as nodes to leverage the power of heaven and earth.

Inside the body, engrave patterns within the Apertures to form arrays.

The former was an idea Su Fan had already had before coming here.

The latter was an idea that had only just been born.

Under the pressure he placed upon himself, he had finally found a new point for innovation.

"If I remember correctly, Rong Nianbing's world also has Aperture cultivation. Its Aperture method is unusual, though. Only seven Apertures need to be opened in total during cultivation, and each one possesses all sorts of unimaginable power."

"That may be due to differences in human anatomy. I may not even have those so-called Imperial Apertures and the like within my body."

"But the line of thinking can be borrowed."

"Apertures, soul skills, and Soul Tools may not be impossible to connect together."

Su Fan slowly exhaled and suppressed his newest idea.

He would try it after returning that evening.

"Time to report in."

Soul Guidance Department.

The Soul Guidance Department of Dou Ling Royal Academy occupied half the entire academy.

Among the Douluo Three Empires, the Dou Ling Empire lay far to the rear and was itself peaceful.

But that did not mean its development lagged behind.

In the field of pills, the Mystic Underworld Sect had its exclusive Mystic Water Pill.

In the field of Soul Tools, the Dou Ling Empire also invested heavily in development.

Although all kinds of divisions existed within the empire, its development across every industry was the smoothest among the three empires.

The treatment of commoners?

That was not something Su Fan needed to consider.

In truth, it was a problem that the Douluo Three Empires, and even the Sun Moon Empire, could not solve.

He entered the Soul Guidance Department.

This was not a traditional classroom area.

Instead, it was an enormous Soul Tool experimental zone. Research institutes stood throughout the grounds.

To learn about Soul Tools, one had to find a mentor.

In other words, there was no standardized Soul Engineer training.

That was not Dou Ling Royal Academy's fault.

Across the entire continent, only the Sun Moon Empire had unified theoretical and practical teaching.

There was no helping it. The Douluo Three Empires did not produce rare metals, or at least, no rare metals had been mined openly.

Every piece of rare metal came from the Sun Moon Empire.

Given the relationship between the two sides, these rare metals naturally had to be smuggled in.

The quantity of smuggled rare metals was easy enough to imagine.

With even rare metals in short supply, the development of Soul Tools naturally could not progress very quickly.

"Fortunately, I don't need to make Soul Tools."

Su Fan found Research Institute No. 18.

Research Institute No. 18, also known as the Practical Control Soul Tool Research Institute, had a research direction that was extremely niche within the Douluo Three Empires. It specialized in Soul Tools that enhanced Soul Masters.

Rather than researching Soul Tools like Soul Cannons, it researched cold weapons containing effects similar to soul skills, Soul Tool shields that served as defensive soul skills, Soul Tool thrusters, and other Soul Tools that could greatly improve a Soul Master's real combat ability.

Soul Masters still used traditional combat methods, merely relying on Soul Tools to improve their all-around capabilities in attack, defense, recovery, and more.

The so-called Practical Control had nothing to do with control.

It was a concept brought over from the Sun Moon Empire.

It was said that many Soul Engineer academies in the Sun Moon Empire had already established Practical Control Departments.

The original purpose of this classification was to preserve the advantages of Soul Tools without delaying students' cultivation in the Martial Soul Department.

Clearly, while the Douluo Three Empires were developing Soul Tools, the Sun Moon Empire was also developing its martial soul systems.

"Aunt Yue'er."

Su Fan tentatively knocked on the research institute's door and called out.

After a while, the doors swung open.

A woman with messy hair scratched her head, her eyes still bleary.

"You are?"

"My brother is Su Tian."

"Oh, you're Xiao Tian's younger brother?"

"Mm-hmm."

Su Tian was not yet married, but he was already engaged to the daughter of Eastsea City's City Lord.

This messy-haired woman was the younger sister of Eastsea City's City Lord.

"Come in first."

Lin Yue had received a letter from home and knew that Su Fan was coming to study Soul Tools under her.

She was only a fifth-rank Soul Engineer herself, but her mentor was a seventh-rank Soul Engineer.

Back then.

After advancing to fifth-rank Soul Engineer, she had used her family's support and applied to the academy to establish Research Institute No. 18, where she conducted independent research.

The results had been quite good.

The Dou Ling Team's ability to reach the semifinals this year owed some credit to the Soul Tools produced by Research Institute No. 18.

Fifth rank was low.

But the highest-ranked Soul Engineer in the entire Dou Ling Empire was only seventh rank.

How great could the difference be?

Besides, what Su Fan wanted to learn were precisely the Core Arrays of Soul Tools useful in direct combat.

"Your brother said you only want to study Core Arrays?"

"Yes."

"That's good too. Rare metals are a bottomless pit. It's not a bad thing that you aren't jumping into it."