Gu Yue wishes to go to the Sun Moon Empire.

In that case, many plans targeting Shrek Academy could be put into motion, though he would have to calculate his moves carefully.

This was nothing short of an unexpected windfall.

Xu Yanli's consciousness returned to his body, and he continued to absorb the dense life force from the outside world, which was being emitted as a byproduct of the Golden Ancient Tree acknowledging him as its master.

Time passed quickly, and soon it was the next morning.

"I'll send you back. Here is a leave slip; just show it to your homeroom teacher later. Given your current cultivation level, you probably don't need to attend some of the basic cultivation courses anymore," Yan Shaozhe said, holding out a note.

Xu Yanli's eyes darted around. He hadn't expected the man to be so considerate; he hadn't even planned his next move, and yet someone had already handed him exactly what he needed.

"Then many thanks, Dean," Xu Yanli said with a faint smile.

After taking the leave slip, Xu Yanli followed Yan Shaozhe toward the Outer Court.

"Young man, with your talent, you are absolutely destined for the Inner Court in the future. How was it? Was it comfortable cultivating inside our Shrek Academy Inner Court yesterday?" Yan Shaozhe asked with an enticing tone.

However, seeing that Xu Yanli's expression remained unchanged, he sighed helplessly and said, "Fine, I suppose you young people don't like listening to us old folks ramble. How about this: I'll take you to the Outer Court to get your leave approved, and if you're interested, you can head over to the library afterward."

Yan Shaozhe grabbed Xu Yanli's shoulder and they quickly soared into the air, moving toward the Outer Court at high speed.

Class time had already passed, and the bell had long since rung.

"Where is the class monitor?" Mu Jin asked, looking at the empty seat with some confusion.

"Heh, maybe he skipped class?" Wang Dong crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

"Teacher, he didn't come back last night. Maybe he was delayed by something," Tang Ling hesitated for a moment before bravely standing up to speak.

"Sit down. With that guy's talent, it doesn't really matter if he attends class or not," Mu Jin said with a sigh. "It's very likely that an Inner Court teacher needed him for something..."

Mu Jin was making excuses for Xu Yanli; she couldn't let such a genius child be expelled over a minor matter.

About three or four minutes into the lesson, Yan Shaozhe brought Xu Yanli to the door and knocked: "Teacher Mu Jin, are you in?"

Mu Jin was just about to continue her lecture when she heard Yan Shaozhe's voice outside and immediately stepped forward to open the door.

"Dean..." Before Mu Jin could finish her sentence, she caught sight of Xu Yanli peeking out from behind Yan Shaozhe.

"Teacher Mu Jin, this is Xu Yanli's leave slip. Given his talent, he needs self-study more than he needs excessive guidance from teachers," Yan Shaozhe said with a smile, gesturing for Xu Yanli to hand the slip to Mu Jin.

"Does he still need to take the freshman exams?" Mu Jin asked after a pause.

"Of course, that is necessary. Besides, it's not as if he's skipping all his classes; he can simply choose which ones he wants to attend," Yan Shaozhe said with a light laugh.

Listening from behind, Xu Yanli felt his amusement grow—this was too good to be true.

Back when he was in school, he had always wanted to skip class, but he had never succeeded. Now, in a sense, he was skipping class on official business.

Just as Yan Shaozhe finished speaking, Xu Yanli stepped forward, bowed to Mu Jin, and said, "Teacher, please rest assured. I will still attend most of my classes. It's just that for certain courses, like cultivation practice, I prefer to study on my own. Thank you for your understanding."

Mu Jin said gently, "Good child, just make sure you arrange your time reasonably. As long as you don't fall behind in your cultivation, it will be fine."

Xu Yanli winked at his classmates, then took the token Yan Shaozhe had given him and headed toward the library.

He had to test it out first to see if it would actually work.

When Xu Yanli arrived at the library, he found it completely deserted; there wasn't a single person inside the vast space.

Xu Yanli chuckled softly. It seemed Shrek Academy was truly wasting such a massive library, just as they had wasted all those materials they had pilfered from Martial Soul Hall back in the day.

Xu Yanli began browsing the shelves dedicated to martial souls.

He took a monocle out of his storage soul tool and placed it over his eye.

Every page of content he flipped through was recorded by the lens.

This wasn't actually the primary tool for recording; it was a test to see if the signal would be blocked and whether it would attract anyone's attention.

In the Xiaoyao Pavilion within Shrek City.

"It's coming, it's coming," a level-nine researcher said with excitement.

He watched as the printer in front of him began to churn out documents—the very files containing everything Xu Yanli was seeing.

When Xu Yanli had first designed the lens, it was purely to look cool. The silver chain resting against his cheek and the single lens over his eye made him look like a true scholar.

Star Dou Great Forest.

"My Lord, do you intend to head to Shrek Academy, or...?" Di Tian asked respectfully.

The silver-haired, purple-eyed girl shook her head, chuckled, and asked, "What is the one thing unique to humans in the Douluo Continent these days?"

"My Lord, it is soul tools, and the region where they are most developed is the Sun Moon Empire," Di Tian replied.

The girl nodded, hands behind her back, and said, "Very well, I understand. I will cultivate for a while longer. Next year, we shall enroll at the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Academy. You will pose as my elder."

"As you command," Di Tian said respectfully.

The Three-Eyed Golden Lion was rolling in the dirt nearby, listening to their conversation with curiosity.

The silver-haired girl glanced at the Three-Eyed Golden Lion but said nothing.

Xu Yanli was currently flipping through the books page by page, a look of contemplation in his eyes.

As expected, some of this knowledge wasn't as simple as he had imagined, and the information in the original story wasn't necessarily comprehensive.

It was a pity he had no opportunity to take a look at the Tang Sect's Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record.

However, when Tang Ya is abducted by the Holy Spirit Cult in the future, he might just have a chance to obtain it from them.

A glimmer of dark light flashed through Xu Yanli's eyes; it seemed the plan to learn from Electrolux had to be implemented as soon as possible.

After all, without Electrolux as a guarantee, he dared not trust that bunch of Evil Soul Masters...

Even with Electrolux present, he was still a bit apprehensive, though possessing a portion of Electrolux's skills should make it easy enough to keep them under control.

Xu Yanli continued to turn the pages in front of him, the book rustling softly.

Xu Yanli suddenly stopped on a page, his fingers gently tracing the words above, his face filled with confusion.

Xu Yanli flipped back to the first page to check the book: Compendium of Martial Souls. There was no issue there...

Soon, he discovered what was wrong: the author of this thing was actually Yu Xiaogang again...