Time flew like an arrow, and the sun and moon raced across the sky.
For people who buried themselves in cultivation, a year was like a phone battery—seemed like plenty at first, but before you knew it, it was gone.
Ten li west of Nuoding City, in a secluded valley rarely visited by anyone.
Dawn was breaking.
The sun had just peeked halfway over the ridge.
Pale violet light spread across the sky. It was the perfect time to absorb the purple qi rising in the east.
Xiao Chenyu sat cross-legged on a flat slab of bluestone, facing east with his eyes gently closed.
His breathing was long and even.
The inner energy of the Mysterious Heaven Skill flowed slowly through his meridians, eventually gathering around his eyes.
The instant the first ray of purple dawn pierced the clouds, a faint purple light suddenly gleamed deep within his pupils.
The light seemed almost alive, pulsing with the dawn as it drew in threads of purple qi drifting between heaven and earth, one by one.
Purple Demon Eye.
One of the Tang Sect's six great secret arts.
Tempering the eyes with purple qi allowed one to see the tiniest details and pierce illusions.
At its peak, it could even reveal the flow of an opponent's Soul Power at a glance, allowing its user to anticipate every attack.
Simply put, it was a cheat with built-in motion capture and weakness analysis.
When Xiao Chenyu had read the original story in his previous life, he'd thought the Purple Demon Eye sounded pretty useful.
Only after cultivating it himself did he truly understand what made this pupil technique so special.
As the purple qi entered his eyes, the whole world suddenly seemed different to him.
Every crack in the cliff opposite, every pattern on the moss, was as clear as if seen through a magnifying glass.
A bee flew past him.
He could even see the angle of its transparent wings with each beat.
He could make out the tiny hairs tilting gently in the breeze.
The Subtlety realm—achieved!
After a year of hard cultivation, he had finally reached this level.
Xiao Chenyu drew in his inner energy and slowly opened his eyes. The purple light deep in his pupils flickered and vanished.
He exhaled a long breath of stale air. As he watched the white mist hang in the air without dispersing, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
"One year to reach the Subtlety realm. Not bad, but still a little slower than Tang San, who reached it at six."
He gave a self-mocking shake of his head, but showed no sign of discouragement.
After all, Tang San had been born with memories of the cultivation he'd practiced in his previous life.
Reaching the Subtlety realm at six was a cheat powered by memories from a past life.
A year ago, Xiao Chenyu hadn't even been exposed to basic internal cultivation techniques.
He had managed to independently figure out how to cultivate the Purple Demon Eye to the Subtlety realm using a manual he'd tricked out of someone's pants.
That was monstrous talent by the standards of the entire Douluo Continent.
It was only because he was measuring himself against Tang San, a reincarnated cheat, that he seemed to be making such slow progress.
He had also become adept at moving with Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track.
Don't underestimate that achievement. Three months ago, he'd been banging his knees until they were black and blue, and Xiao Chengkun had thought somebody had beaten up his son.
He could now use Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon to lift objects as heavy as teacups from a distance.
For now, he could only grab teacups, not people.
Still, it was more than enough for sneaking snacks out of the kitchen.
His Mysterious Jade Hand had reached the minor mastery stage, too.
When activated, his hands became smooth and warm as jade, impervious to blades and swords.
They looked like the pampered hands of a young master, but were hard enough to split firewood barehanded.
They couldn't compare to Tang San's future "Tendon-Splitting and Bone-Crushing Hand," but they were genuinely handy for chopping wood and starting fires.
As for the Hundred Explanations of Hidden Weapons, he'd flipped through it and set it aside for the time being.
Mechanical hidden weapons like crossbow bolts and throwing darts needed to be made by skilled craftsmen.
He had neither a blacksmith's shop nor a supplier of materials.
He couldn't exactly take a kitchen knife from the City Lord Mansion and grind it into throwing darts.
Besides, frankly, it would be absurd for a Soul Master to suddenly pull a handful of plum-blossom darts from his robe in the middle of a fight.
Martial Soul Possession turned him into a werewolf.
How satisfying was it to swipe at someone with a claw? Who needed hidden weapons?
The techniques for using hand-thrown hidden weapons were worth studying, though.
But techniques like Guanyin Tear were extremely difficult. His current level of inner energy couldn't activate them at all, and forcing himself to practice would only hurt him.
His greatest gains this year hadn't come from the Tang Sect Secret Arts.
Xiao Chenyu rose to his feet and stretched his limbs.
With a single thought, Soul Power surged through him like a great river.
Compared with a year ago, this power was denser, deeper, and more vigorous.
As level twenty-five Soul Power flowed through his meridians, it seemed to rumble with wind and thunder.
The Mysterious Heaven Skill's boost to Soul Power cultivation far exceeded his expectations.
In the original story, Tang San had used it to build a foundation with full Soul Power.
After switching to the Mysterious Heaven Skill, Xiao Chenyu had reached level twenty in a year and had now successfully obtained his second Soul Ring.
As before, his father had paid a Soul Hunting Group to handle the hunt for his second Soul Ring.
This time, though, things had been completely different from the first.
Last year, his father had been just a minor Soul King, his knees trembling in front of the Dark Gold Dreadclaw Bear.
This year, his father had already reached level sixty-one and become a Soul Emperor.
The Titan Giant Wolf Martial Soul had made him far more powerful, too.
With his Soul Emperor father handling things personally, the Soul Hunting Operation had been a VIP experience.
No pain, no injuries, no scares from start to finish. Xiao Chenyu only had to sit nearby, drink tea, and wait for the beast's head to be brought back.
The information about the Soul Beast had come from the Will of Douluo Planet.
It was a top-tier, thousand-year-old Blood Demon Wolf hiding in the outer reaches of the Star Dou Great Forest, with a cultivation age of four thousand five hundred years.
The Blood Demon Wolf was a rare breed among top-tier wolf Soul Beasts, famed for its frenzied, bloodthirsty instincts.
It was highly compatible with his Destruction Demon Wolf King Martial Soul.
He was quite satisfied with the second Soul Skill he'd gained after absorbing its Soul Ring, too.
"In one year, I've turned things around and become a level-twenty-five Soul Grandmaster with Twin Martial Souls."
"On top of that, I've learned five Tang Sect Secret Arts: the Mysterious Heaven Skill, Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon, Mysterious Jade Hand, and Purple Demon Eye."
Xiao Chenyu gave himself an annual review as he walked out of the valley.
"Sure, I'm still behind those two cheaters, the future Tang San and Huo Yuhao, but at least the gap is visibly shrinking."
The thought put Xiao Chenyu in an excellent mood.
He brushed the morning dew from his robe and was about to head back to the city for breakfast.
The kitchen was making his favorite braised-meat buns today.
A message suddenly popped into his mind, nearly making him stumble.
[Will of Douluo Planet]: Avenger!!! Avenger, Avenger, Avenger!!! (ﾟДﾟ≡ﾟДﾟ) [ Xiao Chenyu ]: Shouting first thing in the morning. Did someone step on your tail? [Will of Douluo Planet]: No, it's Xiao Wu! Xiao Wu has taken human form! She's right in the core region of the Star Dou Great Forest. This baby saw it with my own eyes! [Will of Douluo Planet]: It won't be long before she leaves the Star Dou Great Forest and heads for the human world.
Xiao Chenyu's feet came to a sudden halt.
"She's taken human form? Xiao Wu's finally done it!" he murmured.
According to the original story,
after taking human form, Xiao Wu would leave the Star Dou Great Forest and enroll at Notting Junior Spirit Master Academy as a work-study student.
In the academy dormitory, she would meet Tang San, then acknowledge him as her older brother, fight alongside him, and sacrifice herself for him.
That line of fate had to be cut off at the very beginning!