Arriving in Silves City

After letting out a long breath.

Amid the wavering firelight, he noticed a slender little blue grass growing quietly beside the spot where the stone box had been.

The Blue Silver Grass was a crystalline blue all over, and its leaves seemed to bear faint golden patterns. In the firelight, it gave off a weak, gentle halo.

Ah Yin's true form.

Looking at the sapling, Ye Feng fell silent for a moment, then simply shook his head.

He left it alone.

Everyone had their own fate.

Taking the Soul Bone had already cut off one of Tang San's great opportunities. There was no need to wipe him out completely.

Once he had finished, Ye Feng tied the rope around his waist again and climbed back up the way he had come.

Back at the top of the cliff, he untied the rope and tossed it down without a second glance.

He had to dispose of the evidence and leave no trace.

Afterward, he checked his bearings, turned toward Sunset Forest, and set off at a brisk pace.

The journey to Sunset Forest was far longer than he had imagined.

It took Ye Feng a full month of hard travel before he finally arrived, weary and travel-stained, at the stopover for this trip—Silves City.

For that entire month, he had almost always slept rough and eaten whatever he could find, spending most of his time trekking through uninhabited mountains and forests.

He never let his guard down for even a moment along the way.

His experience in Star Dou Great Forest had taught him just how cruel this world was. Greed was an original sin carved into every Soul Master's bones.

To avoid unnecessary trouble, he kept his conspicuous Soul Master robe packed away the entire time and wore an ordinary hemp outfit he had bought in a small town along the way. He had also smeared a special medicinal liquid over his face until it turned sallow, making him look like an ordinary mercenary who had spent years on the road.

Only when the outline of a magnificent city appeared on the horizon did Ye Feng's nerves, taut for over a month, finally relax a little.

Silves City.

It was one of the most prosperous cities in the Heaven Dou Empire and the nearest major supply point to Sunset Forest, barely a hundred miles away in a straight line.

Its towering walls were built from enormous blocks of gray-green stone, their surfaces marked by the ravages of time, as if scored by blades and axes.

At the city gates, crowds streamed in and out, while carts and horses flowed ceaselessly past.

There were Soul Master teams with giant swords on their backs and fierce auras, traveling merchants pushing handcarts with faces weathered by wind and frost, and even noble carriages surrounded by attendants, their occupants dressed in finery.

People from every walk of life gathered here.

Ye Feng followed the crowds, paid a few Copper Soul Coins as an entrance fee, and walked smoothly into this vibrant yet dangerous city.

Unlike the peace of a remote little town like Nuoding City, Silves City's air itself seemed to carry a faint stench of blood and the coppery reek of Gold Soul Coins.

Shops lined both sides of the street, one after another. The clang of hammers rang from the blacksmiths, all kinds of herbs hung drying outside the apothecaries, and the taverns were packed with people, the rough laughter and curses of Soul Masters occasionally ringing out.

Instead of rushing to find somewhere to stay, he first picked a hotel that looked reasonably clean, rented a room, and took a long, satisfying hot bath, washing away the dust and weariness of the past month.

Only after changing into clean clothes did he stroll unhurriedly into the streets and take a proper look around the city.

His goal was clear.

He would cultivate his Soul Power to level twenty here, then enter Sunset Forest in search of his second Soul Ring.

After that, he would find a decent advanced Soul Master academy, settle down for a few years, and systematically learn about this world.

As for which academy to attend...

Heaven Dou Royal Academy?

Ye Feng curled his lip and crossed it off the list.

It was a private garden for nobles. As a commoner with no power or connections, even if he had great talent, he would have to keep his head down in there. Before long, he might become a thorn in the side of some spoiled young noble—and die without even knowing how.

Then... Shrek Academy?

The moment the thought crossed his mind, Ye Feng couldn't help but let out a derisive laugh, thick with undisguised scorn and contempt.

Shrek Academy accepted only monsters, not ordinary people?

It sounded impressive, so unusual and independent.

But what was it really?

It was a joke! A complete and utter black joke built upon the bones of countless geniuses!

Ye Feng still remembered a detail from the original story that sent chills down his spine.

Dai Mubai had said himself that in the twenty years since Shrek Academy's founding, it had admitted a total of forty-two students, yet only fourteen had survived to graduate!

Forty-two!

The minimum standard for being accepted by Shrek was to be a genius with Innate Soul Power of at least level seven!

In twenty years, twenty-eight geniuses with Innate Soul Power of level seven or higher had died just like that, without anyone knowing why!

A death rate of two-thirds!

Tsk, tsk. Just thinking about those numbers was enough to make anyone shudder.

How could you call that an academy? It was a damn slaughterhouse!

And those fourteen who survived—had they really made it through on skill and luck?

Ye Feng seriously doubted it.

Just look at the Shrek Seven Devils in the original story.

Dai Mubai was a prince of the Star Luo Empire.

Would Flender dare let him die? Would Zhao Wuji?

The Star Luo Empire would probably send people over the very next day and grind Shrek Academy to dust.

Ning Rongrong was the little princess of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.

Just try laying a finger on her! Sword Douluo and Bone Douluo could scatter Flender's ashes to the winds.

There was no need to say more about Tang San. His father, Tang Hao, was behind him, protective to the point of being utterly unreasonable.

Whoever dared keep his son from graduating would find Tang Hao making sure their whole family "graduated" too.

Oscar had been picked up by Flender when he was little.

As for the rest... Ma Hongjun was Flender's disciple.

Qin Ming knew Zhao Wuji, who had introduced him to Shrek. The favoritism was practically written across his face.

Anyone without a real background who had entered on talent alone had probably already become one of those twenty-eight.

Flender and Zhao Wuji's habit of bullying the weak and fearing the strong was on full display in the original story.

Would those people dare go after Ning Rongrong or Tang San? No.

They only turned their butcher's blades on ordinary geniuses with no power or connections, people whose deaths would go uninvestigated.

They used the lives of those ordinary geniuses to build the fearsome reputation of their "Monster Academy" and satisfy their pathetic, laughable vanity.

And they had the nerve to call it "practical training"?

Bullshit!

Ye Feng could say with certainty that if those forty-two geniuses, with an average Innate Soul Power of level eight, had been sent to a top power like Spirit Hall or the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect—

Even without unlimited resources, with careful cultivation and guidance from a powerful expert, decades later, the worst of them would have become a group of Soul Douluo!

With a little luck, it wouldn't have been strange for one of them to become a Titled Douluo!

Even Blue Sunshine Academy could probably have cultivated them into Soul Douluo!

Yet at that backwater academy called Shrek, most of them had died, and the few who remained had achieved nothing remarkable. They even called Qin Ming a genius, when the man couldn't even get his hands on a standard Soul Ring configuration! What kind of genius was that!