The Younger Generation

"Why do you keep digging up the ground every day when you have nothing better to do?"

In the blink of an eye, Mu Baobao and Ma Xiaotao had already spent two months with the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.

What Ma Xiaotao could not understand was that Mu Baobao had neglected his cultivation, even his forging. She had thought he would at least bring that Battle Armor to the clan as well!

Whenever he had nothing to do, he went digging in the dirt, planting fresh fruits and vegetables. He had even built fences to keep away small animals. Worse still, he had started researching what kind of soul beast manure would make crops grow faster.

Mu Baobao could not help marveling that this truly was a fantasy world. Soul beast manure could make crops grow faster, allowing fresh food to be harvested with ease... On Blue Star, they had to wait for the right time and plant according to the seasons.

"What would be the point of a reclusive clan if it couldn't live an ordinary life?" Mu Baobao glanced at her before continuing to dig, sow seeds, and fertilize the soil. "Don't look down on it now. Once you get sick of life at Shrek, you might want to live like this too. Humans are just like that. No matter what, they can never focus on doing only one thing. They need other things to balance them out."

It was not until noon that he finished tending the fields and returned. The courtyard was stacked with firewood he had chopped from the mountains.

There was practically no trace of Soul Tools in the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan. It was as though they were still living ten thousand years in the past. Reclusive clans believed that a soul master's strength was what truly mattered—or rather, they were stubborn old fossils unwilling to accept new things. Any tool still required Soul Power anyway.

He lit the fire and began cooking with practiced ease. The meat had all been hunted in the mountains. Afraid they would not finish it, he had also salted and smoked some of it. Only then did Ma Xiaotao realize where the meat and grain she ate so often came from.

"Yes, yes, yes. It helps temper the heart!"

She idly teased a little red sparrow. She had to admit that she had not adapted well when she first arrived in this remote place, but later she found it rather nice.

At Shrek Academy, life consisted of nothing but cultivation and going out on missions, always keeping company with death.

She even found herself wanting this life to continue. Shaking her head, she muttered, "What is wrong with me? I'm actually growing attached to this life. Shrek Academy is my home. I came here for a purpose!"

Seeing Mu Baobao set out the table, chairs, bowls, and chopsticks before bringing out the food, she released the little red sparrow and sat down.

"Good thing you know how to cook, or we'd starve to death!" she muttered as she served herself a huge bowl. Mu Baobao was utterly helpless. "But you despised this plain food when we first got here."

"When did I? I'm eating happily enough!"

Ma Xiaotao chewed great mouthfuls of food without the slightest trace of feminine grace, her words muffled and unclear.

"There are only fifteen days left before we enter Sacred Mountain. By then, the new semester will begin, and we should head back." She suddenly said, "The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan seems to have several troublesome people. Are you confident?"

After two months of observing this quiet life, they had discovered that some reclusive clans stayed hidden because they were too weak to compete outside. Others, however, simply found invincibility lonely and meaningless. The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan was undoubtedly one of the latter. They had several Title Douluo.

Their younger generation was no less impressive. Shrek Academy's Sea God Pavilion had ten Title Douluo, though its true number was naturally greater. Thousands of years ago, when the Sun Moon Continent collided with the Douluo Continent, the academy headmaster of that era had called out from on high and gathered more than sixty Title Douluo. There were naturally those who had not entered the Sea God Pavilion, people like Tie Wuji.

As one of the continent's three great powers, they had to have faith in their own strength. "When other people return to their sects, aren't they supposed to provoke everyone and amaze them? Yet you spend every day digging fields, chopping firewood, and picking up soul beast manure."

"What novel have you been reading?"

Mu Baobao was speechless. Tang Buddha Ancestor had done the same thing too. It was practically a cliché in countless novels.

The first time I return to the sect, it's my father's fault. The second time, it's not my father's fault. The third time, it's all your fault.

As long as one could enter Sacred Mountain, one could receive the Dragon Transformation Method passed down by the clan's ancient monsters. Moreover, it was the Bone Burial Ground of the Radiant Sacred Dragon. It had strange effects on the cultivation of dragon-type martial souls, and any opportunity one found there would belong to oneself.

But the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan—even its predecessor, the Radiant Sacred Dragon Clan—had existed for more than a hundred thousand years. What opportunities could possibly be left?

Mu Baobao instead imagined that prehistoric era, when blood and corpses from the God Realm's great war had fallen upon the Douluo Continent, giving rise to martial souls and soul beasts... That had been an age when god-level beings were everywhere, no weaker than Ultimate Douluo.

The God Realm needed to restore its gods. The Radiant Sacred Dragon Clan, the Angel Family, the Mermaid Family...

The Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King, the Deep Sea Demonic Whale King, the Evil Eye Tyrant Sovereign... They were probably still little dragons, little fish, and little eyeballs back then. Snow Empress, Ice Empress, Bi Ji... They likely had not even been born yet.

Only then did the human gods occupy what had once been the Dragon God Realm and rename it the Douluo God Realm.

The Sacred Mountain selection was actually a covert contest over clan rankings. It would determine who would lead in the coming years. Every participant was the hope of their entire clan.

"The Qiangu Family and the Yu Family both have several qualified participants. The smaller clans have one or two each... There are around twenty people in total. Their talents are not inferior to those at Shrek Academy. They can all be considered geniuses."

Ma Xiaotao spoke with alarm. The Shrek Inspectorate often dealt with dangerous people, and scouts were undoubtedly of utmost importance. Most were agility-type soul masters, because if they discovered something, they could at least run away... The other types could only fight desperately for a sliver of survival.

Within the Tang Sect, the Speed Clan handled this profession. Bai He could even travel across the Douluo Continent and back in a few days. But in terms of absolute speed, Azure Luan Douluo of Spirit Hall was probably still the fastest. The Evil Fire Phoenix was not exceptionally fast, but she was not slow either. During that Battle Armor test—

With several soul skill boosts, Ma Xiaotao had unleashed the ultimate explosion of her flames and directly crushed Crow, a Soul Saint.

"Yu Longyue and Yu Longxing, the Blue Lightning Twin Dragons of this generation—their strength as Soul Emperors is no weaker than mine. The Qiangu Family also has the Panlong Twins, Qiangu Zuiren and Qiangu Liren. They are the geniuses of the two great clans. There are also several slightly weaker ones. Mu En's line only has you and Beibei. That is honestly a bit miserable."

As Ma Xiaotao spoke, Mu Baobao recalled that Tang Hao and Tang Xiao of the Clear Sky Sect had been known as the Clear Sky Twin Stars. Every clan and sect had its own naming conventions. Peerless Tang Sect, Legend of the Dragon King, Ultimate Douluo... Most stories still focused on Shrek Academy, while reclusive clans hardly received any attention. Yet their strength was not inferior to those geniuses.

In Peerless Tang Sect, the Xu Family of the Star Crown Sect helped the Star Luo Empire turn the tide and even succeeded the royal family of the Evil Eye White Tiger. In Legend of the Dragon King, the Qiangu Family controlled the Spirit Pagoda... To put it bluntly, whenever hidden sects emerged, they stirred up an era of turmoil.

"The Yu Family and the Qiangu Family are the targets we should truly pay attention to. They possess the Dragon Transformation Method, which can fuse Soul Rings into their bodies. They rarely use soul skills and instead focus on creating their own. Based on the Coiling Dragon Staff, the Qiangu Family developed a nine-style staff technique. Because of the Break Evil Dragon's unyielding nature, it was named the Unyielding Staff Technique."

"The Yu Family has the Nine Styles of the Great Dragon. Depending on the martial soul, they are called the Fire Dragon, Thunder Dragon, Ice Dragon... The nine styles. In any world, dragons are terrifying creatures. With every gesture, mountains collapse and the earth splits... Roar, Earthshaker, Claw Strike, Flight, Tail Sweep!"

"The final three styles of both techniques possess astonishing power. Each person's insights are different, so the final three styles they comprehend also differ. But it is said that anyone who masters all nine styles can shake the gods and would be no weaker than the Clear Sky Sect's Clear Sky Nine Decisions. Unfortunately, no one has succeeded so far!"

Ma Xiaotao spoke with a trace of shock in her eyes. These reclusive clans not only had talents no weaker than Shrek Academy's, but their Self-Created Soul Skills were equally astounding. She noticed that Mu Baobao was deep in thought.

"Are you scared?" She thought Mu Baobao had lost his nerve and began wildly waving her delicate fists. "Don't worry. Soul Emperors definitely can't use the final three styles. Every style must have a requirement for one's strength. To use all nine, you probably need to be at least a Super Douluo. We also have Battle Armor that can boost us by more than ten ranks, so what the hell are you scared of?"

This was their greatest trump card. Crow and the Wraith Evil Soul Master had made major contributions to the research data.

What she did not know was that Mu Baobao was merely thinking about the Unyielding Nine Styles of the Coiling Dragon Staff. It was understandable enough that the Qiangu Family had developed it.

The Nine Styles of the Great Dragon, if he remembered correctly, had been created by Tang Wulin's grandmaster Zhuo Shi. It had been called the Nine Styles of the Red Dragon... After being passed down to Tang Wulin, it became the Nine Styles of the Golden Dragon. Had the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan developed it here as well? Thinking about it carefully, it was not impossible. The Douluo Continent was simply too vast.

There would always be people who came up with similar ideas. Great powers definitely had more authority when it came to Self-Created Soul Skills. Strictly speaking, the Nine Styles of the Great Dragon did not count as self-created. The Soul Ring soul skills of dragon-type martial souls would always possess one of them. It was simply a form of classification, much like how that scumbag Yu Xiaogang organized Spirit Hall's materials and produced the Ten Core Theories of Martial Souls.

Dragon Transformation, fusing Soul Rings into one's own body, was a path toward creating such soul skills. The Titan Abyss Family, descended from Er Ming and a human woman, had also inherited the powerful fist technique Er Ming comprehended in the God Realm. It was created based on the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer and was supremely rigid and fierce.

Yuanen Yehui, one of the Shrek Seven Devils of that generation, had created a fist technique at the heights of the clouds. Drawing upon natural concepts such as air currents and rolling clouds, combining them with her own strength and the Titan Giant Ape's ability to control an aura field, she created a technique that was both supremely rigid and supremely gentle, endlessly variable, and terrifyingly powerful. It later became the Yuanen Family's clan technique.

What Ma Xiaotao had initially worried about was not strength, but elemental restraint, which was enough to enable one to fight above one's rank. Fire and lightning did not particularly restrain each other.

There was a saying: heavenly lightning ignited earthfire. Ice somewhat restrained fire, but it conducted electricity and was therefore restrained by lightning. Even Ultimate Ice was no exception... The Thunder Prison Vine was, after all, the descendant of a first-rank Thunder God. It could likewise become Ultimate Lightning in the future. That Thunder Prison Vine currently had roughly thirty thousand years of cultivation.

Ordinary soul beasts were only comparable to Soul Emperors or Soul Saints, but soul masters and soul beasts alike always had exceptional individuals capable of challenging higher ranks. Generally speaking, it was comparable to a Soul Douluo.

Yet this guy had gone to temper his body with lightning alongside the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's disciples.

He desperately drew down lightning and was even more crazed than they were. There was not the slightest sign of his ice being restrained. Thus, even though he had barely cultivated, his strength was still improving. He had completely shattered her understanding. She truly could not figure out why, and those disciples were all somewhat afraid.

"So it won't be too boring, then? If I can't win, I'll just slack off. As long as I qualify to obtain the Dragon Transformation Method, that's enough. There's no need to fight to the death. Otherwise, why would we have come here two months early instead of simply joining the Sacred Mountain Grand Competition when the time came?" Mu Baobao stretched lazily.

Human greed changed continuously as one's strength increased. Dreams and goals also kept changing. Tempering one's heart... was therefore indispensable.

Ma Xiaotao rolled her eyes and complained, "Go ahead and slack off, then. You can even refuse the honor of becoming a specially approved member of the Sea God Pavilion. Countless soul masters dream of that, yet you would rather farm here."

"That would be too boring. Whether life is plain or exciting... people can never adapt to one thing forever."

"They will always keep searching for new pleasures."