On a hillside outside the city, the terrain opened wide, blanketed in grass that grew up to the knees.
A gentle breeze swept in from the distant plains and brushed across the high ground, sending the grass rippling like waves.
The wind carried the fresh scent of soil and the fragrance of wildflowers.
Su Yu stopped and turned to face the vast world before him.
He reached to the Storage Soul Tool at his waist and brushed it lightly. With a flash of light, a huge map, faintly scented with parchment, appeared in his hand.
It was a detailed map of all Douluo Continent, an internal edition Su Yu had casually picked up from a Spirit Hall office earlier.
It not only marked the territories of the major empires and kingdoms, but also recorded the precise locations of every high-level Soul Master Academy, sect, and Soul Beast forest.
Su Yu bent down and spread the enormous map, over a meter wide and long, across the soft grass.
He weighed down its four corners with several hefty stones to keep the wind from carrying it away.
"Come take a look." Su Yu beckoned to the two girls behind him.
Tang Wu and Xiao Wu immediately came over.
The two girls crouched naturally at Su Yu's sides, one on either side.
Tang Wu wore a fitted blue short skirt. As she crouched, her fair, straight legs were fully exposed.
She wrapped both arms around Su Yu's left arm, pressing her astonishingly full chest tightly against it.
Her dark blue hair fell onto the grass. She stared at the map with wide, blinking eyes. Though she couldn't make sense of the dense markings, as long as she could stay close to Su Yu, she felt completely at ease.
Xiao Wu crouched on his right. Her long, supple legs showed beneath her pink short skirt.
Unlike Tang Wu, she didn't cling tightly to Su Yu. Instead, she rested her chin on one hand as the rabbit ears atop her head trembled lightly in the breeze. Her ruby-red eyes wandered curiously across the map.
"Brother Yu, where are we going next? This map is so complicated, it's making my head spin." Tang Wu lifted her delicate face and asked in a soft, sweet voice.
Su Yu extended his right index finger and tapped several places on the map, each heavily circled in red cinnabar.
"We've graduated from Nuoding Primary Academy. Following the usual path, we should choose a high-level Soul Master Academy and continue our studies." Su Yu's voice was steady, carrying the composure of someone in control of the whole picture. "These are some of the most prestigious academies on the continent right now."
His finger landed on the symbol for a great city in the north.
"This is the capital of the Heaven Dou Empire. Heaven Dou Royal Academy is here." Su Yu analyzed it calmly. "It's the best academy in the Heaven Dou Empire, with excellent teachers and one of the finest Mimicry Cultivation Environments on the continent."
"Then should we go there?" Xiao Wu blinked and chimed in.
Su Yu shook his head, dismissing the option without hesitation. "No. Heaven Dou Royal Academy has a rigid rule: it only accepts aristocrats. We could force our way in through sheer strength, but the place is full of spoiled, overbearing second-generation brats. We'd have to deal with pointless aristocratic etiquette and political alliances every day. It would be a waste of time and do nothing to improve our strength."
Su Yu's finger slid south across the map and stopped over the territory of another vast empire.
"This is Star Luo Royal Academy. Unlike Heaven Dou, the Star Luo Empire worships strength above all else. Competition within the academy is brutal, a cutthroat system where only the strongest survive."
"That sounds fun. We could fight all the time!" Xiao Wu clenched her little fists, her eyes lighting up.
"But they have too many rules and a strict hierarchy." Su Yu shook his head again, ruling out Star Luo Royal Academy as well. "And the major clans have long monopolized the resources there. All those ordinary high-level academies, whether in Heaven Dou or Star Luo, or even the Elemental Academies, follow a fixed curriculum."
Su Yu paused and glanced at the two girls, his voice growing more emphatic. "This hothouse environment of daily classes, meditation, and scheduled tests can no longer meet our needs. With our strength and foundations, going there would be nothing but a waste of life."
"Then where are we going?" Su Yu's words made Xiao Wu restless. Her rabbit ears flicked irritably. "If we won't go here or there, we can't spend every day camping out in the wilderness!"
Su Yu chuckled, his eyes turning profound.
"My real goal is to find a place where 'geniuses gather.'" He gazed at the map, undisguised ambition in his voice.
"Geniuses gather?" Tang Wu tilted her head, puzzled.
"Exactly." Su Yu patiently explained. "Think about it. How many people with strange systems have we run into in Nuoding City over these six years? That butcher who got stronger by slaughtering pigs, the blacksmith who wanted to become a city lord by forging metal, and Yu Xiaogang, whom I threw into the women's bathhouse."
At the mention of Yu Xiaogang, Xiao Wu and Tang Wu both shuddered.
They still remembered all too well what had happened to that body snatcher.
Nuoding City was only a remote border town. A backwater like that could attract only low-level system hosts. Their system origins were pitifully weak—not even enough to whet my appetite." Su Yu snorted. "But those high-level system hosts who think they're above everyone else, those real cheaters with 'invincibility,' 'sign-in,' and 'plunder' powers, would never be content to stay in some small town."
A hunter's light gleamed in Su Yu's eyes. "The more geniuses a place has, the stronger its fortune. Those hidden cheaters and high-level system hosts are like sharks drawn to the smell of blood. They'll gather there in droves. Only by going to such a place can I harvest high-level system origins in bulk and make my strength truly explode."
At that, Xiao Wu grew excited.
She sprang to her feet, clenched both fists, and swung them through the air, stirring up a sharp gust.
"Fantastic! I'm sick of all those weaklings in Nuoding City!" Xiao Wu shouted, her face alight with a fighting spirit. "I don't care if they're geniuses or cheaters. As long as I can fight every day and work my muscles to my heart's content, I'll follow you anywhere! If anyone dares mess with us, I'll use the Eight-Stage Throw to crush their bones one by one!"
As a hundred-thousand-year-old Hooligan Rabbit, the violent streak in Xiao Wu had long been impossible to contain.
She'd spent the past six years cooped up in Nuoding Academy to hide her identity, and she was thoroughly bored.
Tang Wu looked at Xiao Wu's violent sidekick act and curled her lip in disdain.
She clung even tighter to Su Yu's arm, letting most of her body weight rest against him.
She raised her head and fixed her deep blue eyes on Su Yu, her gaze unwavering and utterly clear.
"Wherever Brother Yu goes, Xiao San goes." Tang Wu's voice was soft and sweet, but her words carried a chillingly obsessive edge. "I don't care what systems those people have or how strong they are. If anyone dares block our path or show Brother Yu even the slightest hostility, I'll use the poison of my Mutated Blue Silver Grass to turn them all into puddles of pus, without a scrap of bone left."
As she spoke, Tang Wu opened her fair right hand.
A crystalline Blue Silver Grass vine, covered in purplish-black poisonous patterns, emerged from her palm. It writhed in the air like a venomous snake, giving off a deadly, sickly-sweet scent.
Su Yu looked at the two eager girls and nodded with satisfaction.
"Since neither of you objects, we'll settle on our final destination."
Su Yu crouched down again, his finger moving slowly across the broad map.
His fingertip passed the grand symbol for Heaven Dou Royal Academy, then the territory of Star Luo Royal Academy, and then the famous Elemental Academies of Thunder, Divine Wind, and Heavenly Water.
His finger continued south, crossing vast plains and mountain ranges.
At last, Su Yu's finger stopped in an especially remote corner.
There wasn't even a proper city marked there, only a tiny village outside Suotuo City.
If the map hadn't been so detailed, an ordinary person would never have noticed this black speck, whose name was almost impossible to make out.
Su Yu pointed at the spot on the map and smirked with the signature grin of a sly schemer. "We're going here: Shrek Monster Academy."
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