Dragon God Douluo-Mu En

Huo Yuhao had a clear goal and headed straight for the white freshman teaching building.

The building was bustling with people. Most were boys and girls around his age, their faces alight with curiosity and excitement, along with a few accompanying parents and academy staff.

Following the signs, he found the freshman registration desk and calmly completed the required procedures.

The registration was handled by a kind-faced, middle-aged female teacher.

Huo Yuhao presented his Shrek Token. After verifying it, the teacher's eyes flashed with surprise, but she quickly resumed her professional smile. She asked no questions and efficiently took care of everything for him.

He paid the ten Gold Soul Coins required for enrollment, then received his belongings: a dormitory key, two sets of brand-new white freshman uniforms, and a white freshman badge engraved with a simple design and a number.

After politely thanking her, Huo Yuhao turned and left the somewhat noisy freshman teaching building.

Standing in the sunlight outside, he opened his palm and looked at the cold key.

A small tag hung from it, bearing three clearly engraved digits: "110."

At the sight of the number, Huo Yuhao's brows drew together ever so slightly.

According to Wang Teng's detailed, almost tediously thorough memories of the "original story," the "Huo Yuhao" who had been brought to Shrek by Tang Ya was supposed to receive the key to room "108."

And Dormitory 108 was the room belonging to Tang Wutong, the Tang family princess and Tang San's daughter!

"108" should have been one of the key points where he and Tang Wutong "met by fate," setting off the chain of events that would begin his life under someone else's control.

But now, he had received "110."

"Was it because I turned down Tang Ya's invitation and didn't enroll through the Tang Sect, choosing instead to use the Shrek Token, so my assignment changed?"

Huo Yuhao analyzed the situation swiftly. "Or did Tang San's 'arrangements' undergo some adjustment? Or is this simply an insignificant random difference in room assignments?"

After a brief moment of doubt, Huo Yuhao's expression returned to calm. Deep in his eyes, a trace of cool relief even flickered.

Not having to share a room with that Tang family princess was undoubtedly a good thing for him.

"110... That's fine, too."

Huo Yuhao closed his fist around the key and put the matter aside.

Following the signs, he passed between the white freshman teaching building and the black upper-year teaching building, and soon spotted the dormitory.

The dormitory was a massive standalone building, an estimated six stories high, with an enormous footprint.

Interestingly, its outer walls were divided into sections of white, yellow, purple, and black, apparently corresponding to the accommodation areas for students of different year levels.

The white section was naturally on the lowest floor.

Huo Yuhao came to the entrance of the white freshman section.

Sunlight filled the area, and the fresh scents of grass and trees drifted through the air.

Yet the scene at the entrance was at odds with the vibrant surroundings. An old recliner sat in the shade beneath the porch, with an extremely elderly-looking man half lying, half sitting in it.

The old man wore a gray cloth outfit washed nearly white. His back was hunched, and he was painfully thin.

The wrinkles on his face ran deep as gullies, layered over one another. His cloudy yellow eyes were half open, as if he were neither fully asleep nor awake.

Sunlight fell on him, but he seemed immersed in another world, still and unhurried—a candle guttering in the wind, seemingly close to death. He looked entirely out of place among the energetic young students around him.

Many freshmen hurried in and out. Some glanced curiously at the "old doorman," while others ignored him completely. No one paid him much attention.

But Huo Yuhao's steps faltered almost imperceptibly when he was several meters away.

His spiritual power had recovered to a level comparable to a Soul Elder's, and its quality was exceptionally high, leaving his senses keen beyond the ordinary.

The instant his gaze swept over the old man, an extremely subtle yet unfathomably vast, abyss-like feeling pricked him like a needle!

The old man seemed ordinary, his aura even faint.

But in Huo Yuhao's perception, an ancient dragon seemed to lie dormant beneath that aged shell!

A pure, concentrated, unimaginably mighty Soul Power flowed slowly within the old man like a boundless golden ocean. It lay coiled and silent, not leaking out in the slightest, yet the sheer pressure of it made Huo Yuhao feel that if it erupted, it could destroy the heavens and shatter the earth.

Alongside it was a spiritual fluctuation just as deep as the sea and as steely as iron, obscure yet powerful.

This was no ordinary old doorman! He wasn't even an ordinary Titled Douluo!

A name flashed through Huo Yuhao's mind—the name of a legend from an earlier era of Shrek Academy that he had seen in Wang Teng's memories—

Dragon God Douluo, Mu En!

The former Sea God Pavilion Master of Shrek Academy, a Level 99 Limit Douluo, wielder of the Light Sacred Dragon Martial Soul, and one of the humans said to be closest to godhood in the present age!

In his previous life, by the time Huo Yuhao led the Sun Moon Army to the gates of Shrek, this legendary Dragon God Douluo had already fallen to old injuries.

At the time, the one commanding Shrek's remnants in their stubborn resistance was Yan Shaozhe, head of the Martial Soul Department.

Xuan Zi, the original successor, had instead arrogantly attempted to delay the Sun Moon Army's advance by leading the Sea God Pavilion Elders and nearly fifty gathered Titled Douluos into Ming Capital to launch a terrorist attack.

The result was that Huo Yuhao, Kong Deming, and Du Busi joined forces to lay an ambush. They wiped the group out to the last man, killing them on the spot. Only then was Yan Shaozhe thrust into the crisis and made the last de facto leader of Shrek.

Facing the powerful figure before him, Huo Yuhao showed no reaction. He displayed neither the contempt or indifference an ordinary freshman might feel toward an "old doorman," nor the shock of someone who recognized a peerless expert, nor any deliberately feigned eagerness.

Just like every other freshman who had finished registering and was eager to find a place to stay, he calmly walked past the old man in the recliner. His pace never faltered, and he showed no trace of panic.

Yet at the instant Huo Yuhao brushed past Mu En, just as he was about to disappear into the shadows inside the dormitory entrance—

Mu En's cloudy yellow eyes, which had been half closed all this while, slowly opened by the tiniest sliver.

Deep within his murky eyes, a glint of light flashed and vanished like a star hidden in the abyss.

His gaze seemed able to pierce through the flesh and see the essence beneath, quietly settling on Huo Yuhao's slender but ramrod-straight back.

The old man's dry lips moved almost imperceptibly. In a voice so faint it seemed liable to scatter on the wind at any moment, he murmured to the air—or perhaps to himself:

"What a strange young man..."

As a Level 99 Limit Douluo who had once presided over the Sea God Pavilion and seen through countless secrets of the world, Dragon God Douluo Mu En possessed a vision that had long since transcended the ordinary.

To him, an ordinary genius—even one with Twin Martial Souls and Innate Full Soul Power—was merely "talented enough and worth cultivating."