Successful Registration! Yu Xiaogang Passes By!

"The city scenery is truly different," Tang San sighed with genuine emotion.

Huang Fei nodded.

Holy Soul Village was fine, but it was a village after all.

Muddy roads, adobe houses, and chicken and duck droppings everywhere—it couldn't compare to this place.

However, having said that, he missed the broken bed he slept on in Holy Soul Village more than any scenery here.

"Let's go, let's report in first." Huang Fei patted Tang San on the shoulder and walked toward the teaching building.

The registration office was on the right side of the first-floor lobby, a moderately sized room.

A wooden sign hung on the door with the words "New Student Registration" written on it.

Tang San knocked on the door, and a woman's voice came from inside: "Come in."

Pushing the door open, they entered to find a female teacher in her thirties sitting in the office. She wore her hair in a simple bun and was dressed in the academy's standard cyan uniform. Her appearance was plain, but her smile was very kind.

"Are you two new students here to report?" The teacher put down her pen and looked the two of them up and down.

"Yes."

Tang San stepped forward, took out his Martial Soul awakening certificate and the work-study student quota voucher from his pocket, and handed them over with both hands.

Huang Fei followed suit, taking out his own documents and placing them on the desk.

The teacher took the two sets of materials and glanced down at them.

The first one: Tang San, six years old, Martial Soul Blue Silver Grass, Innate Full Soul Power.

She froze for a moment.

Innate Full Soul Power with Blue Silver Grass?

That was rare.

No, it should be said that she had never seen it before.

For a trash Martial Soul like Blue Silver Grass, having one or two levels of soul power would be considered good; what kind of concept was Innate Full Soul Power?

She suppressed the surprise in her heart and opened the second file.

Huang Fei, six years old, Martial Soul Blue Silver Grass, Innate Full Soul Power.

The teacher's hand trembled, and she nearly dropped the documents.

Two of them?

Two Blue Silver Grass Martial Souls, two cases of Innate Full Soul Power?

She looked up, glancing from Tang San to Huang Fei, her mouth opening and closing repeatedly. It took her a long time to squeeze out a sentence.

"Are you... from the same village?"

"Yes, Holy Soul Village," Tang San replied politely.

Holy Soul Village.

The teacher searched her memory, confirming she had never heard of such a name.

A small village producing two children with Innate Full Soul Power in one year, and both with Blue Silver Grass Martial Souls?

If you called this luck, the Martial Soul was Blue Silver Grass.

The universally recognized trash Martial Soul of the Douluo Continent.

If you called it bad luck, they had Innate Full Soul Power.

A talent that many soul masters wouldn't even dare to dream of.

Good grief, it was both absurd and regrettable; for a moment, she didn't know whether to be happy for them or feel sorry for them.

The teacher took a deep breath and picked up her pen to register them.

"Tang San, work-study student, Dormitory Seven. Huang Fei, work-study student, Dormitory Seven."

She quickly wrote their names in the register, then looked up, her tone returning to professional calm.

"Although you two are work-study students and don't need to pay tuition, you must exchange labor for room and board. A life teacher will tell you exactly what to do later. For example, helping the academy clean, organizing the warehouse, or moving miscellaneous items."

She paused, then added: "Don't worry, you aren't working for free; there is a wage. It's not much, but it's enough for your pocket money."

Tang San nodded earnestly: "Understood, thank you, teacher."

Huang Fei also nodded, though his mind was on something else.

Martial Soul Hall.

Come to think of it, this system of "free enrollment for work-study students, working in exchange for support" was promoted by Martial Soul Hall.

As long as children from commoner families awakened their Martial Souls, even if their talent was average, they could receive a soul master education through the work-study program.

Martial Soul Hall also provided cultivation resources to outstanding commoner soul masters to help them advance.

In the dog-eat-dog world of the Douluo Continent, this could be considered a rare "welfare policy."

When Huang Fei read novels in his past life, his feelings toward Martial Soul Hall were very complex.

Martial Soul Hall certainly committed many evils and possessed great ambition, but one must admit that their support for civilian spirit masters was genuine.

By comparison, those so-called "righteous" sects remained high and mighty, keeping to themselves, making it harder for ordinary civilians to enter than to ascend to the heavens.

By the end of the first part of Douluo Continent, Martial Soul Hall had been destroyed, and the Tang Sect had risen.

As for what happened later, anyone who has read the sequels knows.

The Tang Sect became the sole power, monopolizing resources, and the plight of civilian spirit masters became significantly worse than it had been during the era of Martial Soul Hall.

By the time of Peerless Tang Sect, even awakening a martial soul had become a luxury; children from ordinary families didn't even know what their own martial souls were.

This is precisely where Tang San was criticized by readers in his previous life.

After overthrowing Martial Soul Hall, he failed to establish a better system to replace it.

The Tang Sect only cared about its own strength; who cared about the lives of ordinary civilians?

Of course, Huang Fei would not say these things to Tang San.

It was too early to discuss such things, and Tang San was still a six-year-old child who didn't even have his first spirit ring. Discussing "systemic changes" or "historical cycles" with him would likely only leave him bewildered.

"Let's go, let's check out the dormitory." Huang Fei pulled Tang San, who was still carefully examining the registration form.

The two left the office and walked along the path behind the teaching building toward the dormitory area.

The dormitory area was in the northeast corner of the academy, consisting of a row of two-story buildings with gray bricks and tiles.

Dormitory Seven, where the work-study students lived, was the innermost and oldest building, its exterior plaster already peeling away.

Just as the two reached the entrance of the dormitory area, a man walked toward them.

He wore black, had a crew cut, a stern face, and an indescribable gloom in his eyes.

He appeared to be in his forties, of medium build, walking at a steady pace, holding a thick notebook in his hand as if contemplating some problem.

Huang Fei paused slightly.

Yu Xiaogang.

The Wisdom Corner of the Golden Iron Triangle, the castaway of the Blue Lightning Overlord Dragon Clan, and an authority on martial soul theory.

Well, the validity of that last title was questionable.

When Huang Fei read the novel in his previous life, he summed up Yu Xiaogang in four words.

Theory is plump, reality is skinny.

He had spent half his life researching martial soul theory and proposed countless "revolutionary" hypotheses, yet his own spirit power remained forever stuck at level twenty-nine due to a martial soul mutation, unable to break through for his entire life.

His greatest "achievement" was "cultivating" Tang San, the future God King.

And that line he said in the finale, "I cultivated a god," was mocked by countless readers.

Cultivated?

Tang San's Mysterious Heaven Skill was brought from his previous life, his Tang Sect techniques were self-practiced, his spirit rings were absorbed through his own life-risking efforts, his Clear Sky Hammer was taught by Tang Hao, and his Blue Silver Emperor bloodline was awakened by himself.

Aside from offering some theoretical advice, what exactly did Yu Xiaogang "cultivate"?

Of course, to be fair, Yu Xiaogang's theories were not entirely without merit.

His understanding of martial souls was indeed unique, certainly better than those spirit masters on the continent who only knew how to recite from books.

But his biggest problem was treating Tang San as a "specimen" for his theories.

In the original work, Tang San's first spirit ring was obtained after following Yu Xiaogang's advice to hunt a Mandala Snake, setting him on a "poison control" path.

To be honest, this choice wasn't necessarily wrong, but it certainly wasn't the optimal one.

The core advantage of Blue Silver Grass is vitality, not poison.

This was the reason why Huang Fei wanted to talk to Tang San about this matter in advance.

By planting the seed of the "vitality path" first, once Tang San researched and verified it himself later, he would naturally feel that this path was the correct one.

As for Yu Xiaogang?

If he still came knocking like in the original story, trying to fool Tang San with that theory of "the counterattack of a trash martial soul," Huang Fei would like to see if the Tang San of this life would still buy it.

Yu Xiaogang walked past the two, his gaze sweeping over them casually without pausing his stride.

His eyes lingered on Huang Fei for less than half a second, stayed on Tang San for another half-second, and then he withdrew his gaze, clutching his notebook and walking away without looking back.

From beginning to end, he did not say a single word.

Tang San nodded politely at him, and seeing no response, he didn't mind and continued toward the dormitory.

Huang Fei followed behind, looking back at Yu Xiaogang's retreating figure.

This "Grandmaster" didn't yet know that his "perfect experimental lab rat" had already been intercepted halfway.

Huang Fei withdrew his gaze, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly.

Interesting.

He suddenly looked forward to the day Yu Xiaogang would come knocking.

"Huang Fei, are you coming or not?" Tang San called out from the front.

"They're coming, they're coming."

Huang Fei quickened his pace, catching up to Tang San.

The setting sun spilled through the gaps in the ginkgo trees, plating the two youths in a layer of warm, golden light.

In the distance, the figure of Yu Xiaogang vanished around the corner of the teaching building, leaving behind only a lonely, black silhouette.