A year passed.
It was time for Notting Academy's vacation.
Today, Tang San prepared to return to Holy Soul Village with Xiao Wu.
He had specifically bought Tang Hao a new forging hammer and several bottles of good wine, as well as a new set of clothes each for Tang Hao and Tang Liu.
A year had passed. He wondered how Father and Xiao Liu were doing.
Thinking of them, Tang San felt boundless joy and longing well up in his heart, and a smile unconsciously appeared at the corners of his lips.
However, when he and Xiao Wu hurried home, only an empty house awaited them.
"Xiao San, by the time you read this letter, I will have already left with your younger brother. Do not try to find us. You will never be able to find us. Though you are still young, you can take care of yourself, unlike your younger brother. A fledgling eagle can only soar early by spreading its wings on its own. Do not worry about me.
"You inherited much of your mother's sensitivity in your personality, while your younger brother is more like me. Yet neither of you is like me, because your father is a useless man, while the two of you are extraordinarily gifted.
"You are gradually growing up. Your father needs to reclaim some things that should have belonged to me. Xiao Liu will follow me for a time. When you enter an intermediate Soul Master Academy, I will have him go find you. When that time comes, you must look after him in my place. One day, our family will be reunited.
"I hope you become strong, yet I also hope you do not become strong. Choose your own path. If one day you feel that being a Soul Master is not a good profession, then return to Holy Soul Village and become a blacksmith like me.
"Do not worry.
"Tang Hao."
At dusk, the setting sun gave off an enticing crimson glow.
On the little hill where Tang San often trained in the mornings, he and Xiao Wu poured out their hearts to each other.
However, what they did not know was that Tang Hao and Tang Liu were concealing themselves nearby, watching them.
"Hehe, looks like my future sister-in-law is settled," Tang Liu said with a smile as he watched the young boy and girl atop the hill.
"Hmph, misbehaving at such a young age." Tang Hao snorted and raised a hand to knock Tang Liu on the head.
Tang Liu felt somewhat wronged and protested, "My brother is the one dating, not me. Why are you hitting me?"
Tang Hao unceremoniously ruffled his hair. "I just wrote your brother a farewell letter. Should I rush out there and beat him up again?"
Tang Liu: "..." That really is a perfectly sound reason to hit me!
"Besides, what do children like you know about feelings? I only hope Xiao San does not become like me in the future..." Tang Hao said, seemingly somewhat melancholy.
Tang Liu secretly grumbled to himself: I know my brother never dated in his previous life, but as an adult, he should still know what love is. And as a youth of the new century, even though I have never dated either, I definitely know more than you people do!
Perhaps Tang San and Xiao Wu had stirred up some painful memories for Tang Hao, so he soon left with Tang Liu. After all, with Tang Hao's cultivation as a Titled Douluo, he could easily see Xiao Wu's identity as a Soul Beast.
He could sense that Xiao Wu's thoughts were as pure as a blank sheet of paper. Her approaching Tang San had merely been a coincidence, or perhaps she had been drawn to the half of Soul Beast bloodline within him. However, Tang Hao was certain that Xiao Wu bore Tang San no ill will.
Thus, he let Tang San and Xiao Wu be.
Over the past year, Tang Liu had deliberately slowed his cultivation progress and begun trying to compress and refine the Soul Power within his body, all so his Soul Power would last longer in battle.
At present, only his Third Martial Soul could provide him with decent combat power. Without a blue buff, he could only increase his mana pool by compressing his Soul Power. Otherwise, if his mana bar ran dry after just two or three moves in a fight, what was he supposed to do?
However, even though he had intentionally slowed his cultivation, Tang Liu's Soul Power still reached level 37 and was nearing level 38.
Aside from refining his Soul Power, Tang Liu had also worked hard to train his Mental Power over the past year.
After all, if he wanted to maximize the effects of the second soul skill of his first Martial Soul and his External Soul Bone, his Mental Power cultivation absolutely could not fall behind.
As for training methods, there were plenty of them. After all, Tang Liu had a system that could do nothing except offer suggestions.
When Tang Liu proposed cultivating his Mental Power, the system immediately offered him three suitable plans to choose from.
In the end, Tang Liu chose the easiest method currently available to him.
Cultivating the Purple Demon Eye.
However, Tang Liu possessed neither Huo Yuhao's Spirit Eyes Martial Soul nor Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew, so his progress with the Purple Demon Eye was exceedingly slow. He could only accumulate it little by little each day.
Therefore, aside from cultivating the Purple Demon Eye, Tang Liu also practiced another, comparatively faster method of training Mental Power.
Memorization.
Yes, memorization.
When the system presented this method, Tang Liu found it rather unbelievable and wondered whether the system had been possessed again just to make fun of him.
Later, however, the system told him that methods of improving Mental Power were not actually as difficult as he had imagined.
In everyday life, every moment when one focused one's mind was, in fact, a form of Mental Power cultivation.
For example, a high school student could focus on studying better than a kindergarten child.
Age was certainly a factor, but it was also an indication that Mental Power had improved.
For another example, a top student needed less time to memorize an English passage than a poor student and could remember it for longer. Those were all signs of increased Mental Power.
But did anyone dare say that every top student could memorize English passages from the very beginning?
No. Memorizing an English passage always began step by step, from a single sentence to a paragraph, then to the entire passage.
The more content one could memorize, the more one's Mental Power would improve.
And facts proved that people who regularly memorized texts had much better memories than ordinary people. That was a sign of increased Mental Power.
As for someone who could memorize an English passage from the start, that was not a top student. That was a genius...
Thus, Tang Liu, who had not memorized texts for six years, began his miserable morning-reading journey once more.
Every morning, after cultivating the Purple Demon Eye, he began memorizing English passages, occasionally mixing in a few pieces of classical Chinese prose to improve his mood...
As for where Tang Liu got these morning-reading materials, he had the system to thank for that.
That was how Tang Liu spent the year.
After a year of morning reading, Tang Liu could now remember two or three sentences, or even nearly an entire paragraph, of English with a single glance. The results were quite obvious...
Over the past year, Tang Hao had not taken him anywhere too far away. They mostly wandered around Nuoding City, secretly watching Tang San.
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