As someone who had crossed into this world, Su Yuntao naturally knew what Bibi Dong had gone through. Anyone would become twisted after enduring what she had.
Su Yuntao's expression sank. "Dean, what was Bibi Dong like before?"
"Ah!" Shui Xinhan sighed softly. "Bibi Dong and I had similar beginnings, but she had greater talent and better luck than I did."
"So, when she was six, Spirit Hall took her away safely. After she entered Spirit Hall, the previous Pope, Qian Xunji, took her as his disciple, and Spirit Hall devoted all its resources to raising her."
"But Bibi Dong's fate changed when she was twenty-two. She fell in love with someone she shouldn't have!"
"Was that person Master Yu Xiaogang?"
Shui Xinhan nodded. "That's right. Back then, Spirit Hall had protected Bibi Dong too well. Though she was born a commoner, she had lived in wealth and privilege since the age of six. As a result, she was inexperienced and didn't know how cruel the world could be."
"Yu Xiaogang had left the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan. Spirit Hall opposed his relationship with Bibi Dong, but she stood her ground, and the two stayed together for several years. During that time, Spirit Hall tried to get Yu Xiaogang to join them. But that Yu Xiaogang was an ungrateful wretch!"
Shui Xinhan sneered. "When he was with Bibi Dong, he was weak, yet all he cared about was making a name for himself and proving how impressive he was. He exploited Bibi Dong's position to steal a great deal of Spirit Hall's research, then dressed it up as his own and invented the so-called Ten Core Theories of Martial Souls. Yuntao, guess what happened next?"
A smile finally appeared on Su Yuntao's face. "Dean, I imagine Master became a laughingstock in the Soul Master World."
The corners of Shui Xinhan's mouth lifted. At last, when speaking of Master, she revealed a bright smile. "Yuntao, you underestimate him. Master couldn't even copy Spirit Hall's research properly. While dressing it up, he stuffed it full of his own nonsense."
"Didn't he ever stop to think? Spirit Hall had poured countless resources into that research over ten thousand years, compiling it from the data of countless Soul Masters. You could say Spirit Hall had built the current cultivation system for Soul Masters."
"What could Yu Xiaogang, a level-twenty-nine Soul Grandmaster, possibly contribute compared to an undertaking on that scale? The things he dreamed up himself were nothing but a joke. He was only unable to break through level thirty because he brought it on himself!"
Her words instantly stirred Su Yuntao's curiosity. "Dean, what exactly happened?"
Shui Xinhan sneered. "Master was originally a direct descendant of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan. Though his talent was unusual, his father, Thunder Douluo Yu Yuanzhen, didn't look down on him at all. On the contrary, he spoiled him rotten. He held a very special position in the clan."
"Under his father's protection, no one in the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan dared to slight him. Even Yu Luomian, the clan's second-in-command, maintained a good relationship with him on the surface."
"Even if Master's talent was poor, as long as he had even a trace of Innate Soul Power, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's thousand-year legacy could have carried him past level thirty. They could have piled heavenly treasures on him until he got there."
"Unfortunately, Yu Xiaogang was unbelievably stupid. Because of the gossip within the clan, he flew into a rage and stormed out. His father begged him to stay, but for the sake of his pride and his pitiful self-esteem, he still left the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan without hesitation. And after all these years away, he had never once gone back to visit his aging father."
"I truly don't understand how his brain works. For the sake of his so-called pride, he could even abandon the father who had poured his heart and soul into him!"
A cold smile crept across Su Yuntao's face. Having read the original story, he knew just how appallingly selfish Yu Xiaogang was.
"After leaving the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, he met Bibi Dong. Later, he obtained his Second Soul Ring, and then, after consuming countless resources from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, he became a Soul Grandmaster forever!"
Su Yuntao asked, "Dean, was there a problem with his Second Soul Ring?"
"No!" Shui Xinhan smiled. "More precisely, the problem was his own stupidity. One of the so-called Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul was the optimal Soul Ring Configuration: a First Soul Ring with a limit of 432 years and a Second Soul Ring with a limit of 756 years."
"He got those figures from Spirit Hall, but deleted two important conditions. The first was that the figures needed to vary according to a Soul Master's physical constitution. The second was that they needed to vary according to the quality of the Soul Beast."
Su Yuntao nodded. Differences between Soul Masters determined how many years' worth of a Soul Ring they could absorb. The difference between what Yu Xiaogang and Tang Hao could absorb would naturally be like night and day.
The quality of the Soul Beast also determined how many years' worth of a Soul Ring a Soul Master could absorb. The difference between a four-hundred-year-old Blue Silver Grass and a four-hundred-year-old Golden Dragon was as vast as heaven and earth.
Su Yuntao's First Soul Ring was only a white ring with a limit of ninety years, but it came from a ninety-year-old wolf-type Soul Beast. In every respect, it was better for him than a Hundred-Year Soul Ring—or even a two- or three-hundred-year Blue Silver Grass ring. A Blue Silver Grass that had lived for several hundred years still couldn't compare to a wolf with only a few decades of cultivation.
"Master's First Soul Ring was nearly two hundred years old. The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan spent an enormous amount of resources strengthening his body so he could absorb it."
"After leaving the clan, he used the Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul to fool people, hoping to win their admiration and satisfy his pitiful self-esteem. I don't know what he was thinking, but somehow he actually started believing his own nonsense."
"So he asked Bibi Dong to help him hunt down a top-quality Soul Beast with a lifespan of more than seven hundred years. Bibi Dong was inexperienced back then and blindly admired Master. She didn't stop to think it through and immediately took him to the Star Dou Great Forest."
"When Master tried to absorb the Soul Ring, he went into cultivation deviation, and his body nearly split apart. In the end, Bibi Dong begged her teacher for help, and that was the only reason Master survived. He barely managed to absorb it after narrowly escaping death. When he woke, he was elated and smug, wishing the whole world knew that he, Yu Xiaogang, had successfully absorbed a seven-hundred-year Soul Ring and that his Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul were absolutely correct."
"To high-level Soul Masters like us, he was a complete fool! That seven-hundred-year Soul Ring didn't kill him, but the attributes it granted far exceeded what his body could bear. The tremendous strain severely damaged the meridians inside his body. And so Master had no choice but to spend the rest of his life as a Soul Grandmaster. Now that really is a master!"
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