Yu Xiaogang took several deep breaths in a row, forcibly suppressing the anger churning in his chest.
Looking at the two six-year-old children who didn't know the immensity of heaven and earth, he felt he could still turn the situation around.
As long as he brought out that set of theories that had never failed him, these two little brats would surely be left speechless.
He immediately clasped his hands behind his back, raised his head, and once again assumed the lofty air of the world's foremost Grandmaster.
"Foolish children, I'm magnanimous enough not to hold this against you."
Yu Xiaogang cleared his throat and launched into his grand lecture.
"The Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul theory I published is universally recognized as a standard in the Soul Master World. The very first point clearly addresses the ideal ratio of Martial Souls."
He held up one finger and jabbed it emphatically into the air.
"The maximum limit for a First Soul Ring is four hundred and twenty-three years!"
"Once you exceed that limit, even by a single year, a Soul Master's body will be unable to withstand the violent energy of the Soul Ring. The inevitable result will be ruptured meridians and an exploding body. This is an ironclad law that cannot be challenged!"
Hearing this confident declaration, Lin Yuan immediately let out a scornful laugh.
He retorted without the slightest courtesy.
"Ironclad law?"
"There are countless Soul Masters in this world, and this tradition has been passed down for so many years. Are you saying no one has ever been able to break this so-called rule of yours?"
At that, Dugu Bo and Dugu Yan both turned their heads, their gazes landing squarely on Lin Yuan.
Dugu Bo furrowed his brow. Deep down, he actually agreed with Yu Xiaogang's limit.
In the Soul Master World, obtaining a First Soul Ring was already extremely difficult.
Most people thought that, without elders or experts protecting them, even absorbing a Hundred-Year Soul Ring would be difficult for a six-year-old child.
This kid might have a thorough understanding of poison attributes, but claiming he could break the four-hundred-and-twenty-three-year limit was a little too presumptuous.
Yu Xiaogang keenly caught the change in Dugu Bo's expression and immediately felt he had regained the upper hand. His face brimmed with absolute confidence.
"Absolutely impossible!"
He swept out a hand and declared with finality.
"This is the truth I arrived at after studying countless records on Soul Masters. No matter who it is, no matter how talented they are, if their First Soul Ring exceeds this limit, they're doomed to die. You're just a six-year-old brat. What do you know about limits?"
Lin Yuan couldn't even be bothered to look him in the eye. Instead, he turned to Hu Liena beside him.
"Nana, show him what he's missing. Let him see your First Soul Ring."
Hu Liena was already thoroughly sick of this man who did nothing but run his mouth.
At Lin Yuan's instruction, the little girl eagerly nodded.
"Sure!"
She stepped forward and brought her hands together before her chest. The surging Soul Power that had only just stabilized inside her burst forth without restraint.
Accompanied by a clear, ethereal fox's cry, the phantom of a proud Nine-tailed Fox appeared behind Hu Liena.
Then, under everyone's astonished gazes, a Soul Ring shimmering with a deep purple glow slowly rose from beneath her feet.
Its rich purple light instantly illuminated the surrounding bushes.
Powerful thousand-year Soul Power rippled outward like waves, bringing with it a pressure that made one's heart tremble.
The entire scene fell into deathly silence.
Dugu Yan's eyes widened. She raised a pale, delicate finger and pointed shakily at the dazzling Soul Ring beneath Hu Liena's feet.
"P-Purple?"
"How is that possible? Your First Soul Ring is a thousand years old!"
Hu Liena lifted her little chin, like a proud little swan.
"Of course! Big Brother just helped me hunt it down. It's a Prime Nine-tailed Fox Spirit Ring, fourteen hundred years old!"
She made no effort to hide her admiration for Lin Yuan, her voice clear and bright.
"What four-hundred-and-twenty-three-year limit? It's not even worth a fart in front of my big brother!"
She even deliberately waved the purple glow at Yu Xiaogang. Seeing his face turn uglier than if he'd swallowed a dead fly, she couldn't have been more pleased.
Yu Xiaogang's head, which had been held high, froze in midair.
His usually stern face had turned completely livid.
He stared fixedly at the purple Soul Ring, his eyes bulging as though they were about to pop out of their sockets.
"No!!"
"This is impossible!"
Yu Xiaogang staggered back two steps.
"Absolutely impossible! This makes no sense at all!"
The theories Yu Xiaogang had spent half his life studying, the supreme ironclad law he considered the greatest pride of his life, had just been utterly smashed to pieces right before his eyes by a six-year-old girl.
He wouldn't accept it.
He would rather die than accept this absurd reality.
"Fake! This has to be fake!"
"The Soul Ring's color must be wrong! Or maybe... maybe that Nine-tailed Fox Soul Beast was mutated, making its age seem far higher than it really is! It hasn't actually reached a thousand years!"
"That's right, it must be! My theory is flawless. I've calculated it hundreds, even thousands, of times. There's no way my theory could be wrong!"
Lin Yuan looked at Yu Xiaogang, who had fallen into madness, his expression as calm as still water.
He walked out from beside the bushes, his hands still casually tucked in his pockets, and spoke in an utterly indifferent tone.
"Stop deluding yourself."
"Your so-called Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul theory is nothing more than a laughable flight of fancy."
Lin Yuan stopped and looked straight at Yu Xiaogang's twisted face.
"You hide behind the excuse of research, but all you've done is gather secondhand materials discarded by Spirit Hall and the various great sects.
Then you take those incomplete scraps, patch them together, and make up a pile of nonsense that only looks consistent on the surface."
"You mistake the records of mediocre people for the entirety of the world.
You couldn't even break through the bottleneck of a Soul Grandmaster, and you spent your whole life stuck at level twenty-nine.
With your narrow perspective and meager abilities, how dare you claim to have seen through the essence of Martial Souls?"
Every word from Lin Yuan struck at Yu Xiaogang's heart. Each sentence was like a loud slap across his face.
"People with real talent don't need your so-called garbage theories. True geniuses are born to shatter convention."
Yu Xiaogang's withered face flushed as red as pig's liver. His lips trembled, but he couldn't force out a single word in reply.
What little dignity he had left was being trampled underfoot by a six-year-old child.
Standing nearby, Dugu Bo looked at the purple Soul Ring beneath Hu Liena's feet, its powerful energy flowing within it, and remained shaken for a long time.
A six-year-old girl, with a thousand-year Soul Ring as her First Soul Ring.
If word of this got out, the entire Douluo Continent would be swept up in a storm.
And all of it had been brought about by the unfathomably powerful boy before him.
Dugu Bo finally believed what Lin Yuan had said earlier.
This kid's understanding of Martial Souls far surpassed that of the useless Grandmaster who only knew how to talk theory.
He turned to Yu Xiaogang, his face full of undisguised contempt.
"Enough. Stop making a fool of yourself here."
"Your damn title of Grandmaster is a joke. You can't even outargue a six-year-old child, and someone's just trampled your precious theory right in front of you. How dare you still have the nerve to claim you can guide my granddaughter?"
"Get out of here. You're in the way!"
Being berated to his face by a Titled Douluo, Yu Xiaogang shuddered violently.
But he still clenched his teeth and stubbornly refused to back down.
"Senior Poison, this is just an isolated case! A freak occurrence with an extremely low probability!"
"That girl must have used some kind of forbidden technique to absorb a thousand-year Soul Ring. A method like that can't be applied generally!"
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