In an instant, everyone's curious gaze turned toward Tuoba Xuan.
Even Dugu Bo and Dugu Yan couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Dugu Bo's confusion lasted only a second, though, before he remembered a joke he'd heard years ago.
The joke went like this: six years earlier, Yu Xiaogang had happened to pass by and watch the Sacred Dragon Sect's Martial Soul Awakening ceremony.
The result was that the Sacred Dragon Sect had produced another pig.
Two pigs trotted side by side, one purple and one yellow—a perfect match.
That was when Yu Xiaogang had set his sights on Tuoba Xuan.
Yu Xiaogang wanted to try out all the "brilliant ideas" he'd dreamed up for Luo Sanpao on Tuoba Xuan's Martial Soul instead.
To that end, Yu Xiaogang had put on his Grandmaster airs and told Tuoba Xuan on the spot to take him as his teacher.
Tuoba Xuan had refused him outright, then exposed his past.
He'd dragged out every detail of Yu Xiaogang's miserable, down-and-out youth.
That had enraged Yu Xiaogang on the spot, to the point that he'd even tried to teach Tuoba Xuan a lesson.
Of course, on the Sacred Dragon Sect's home turf, they weren't about to let Tuoba Xuan be bullied.
After that, Yu Xiaogang had hounded Tuoba Xuan for quite a while. When Tuoba Xuan finally rejected him for good, Yu Xiaogang had completely lost it. In front of everyone, he'd declared that Tuoba Xuan was a good-for-nothing—a good-for-nothing with only three innate levels of Soul Power, a good-for-nothing whose Soul Power couldn't advance.
In short, he'd said the most vicious things imaginable!
"Who are you?" Yu Xiaogang had long since forgotten what Tuoba Xuan looked like.
"Grandmaster, you really do forget things easily. It's only been three years since we last met," Tuoba Xuan said slowly.
Yu Xiaogang froze. The refined figure before him gradually merged with the memory of that good-for-nothing who'd awakened a yellow pig.
"You..." Yu Xiaogang cried, his face paling. "You're that good-for-nothing from back then?"
Tuoba Xuan smiled with a sense of relief. "That's right. I'm the good-for-nothing from back then. But as your student once said, 'Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river.' I'm no good-for-nothing anymore."
Tuoba Xuan's voice turned cold. "But you, Grandmaster! You're still the same good-for-nothing, fond of tinkering with your theories that everyone knows about, cheating and swindling your way through life!"
The wrinkles on Yu Xiaogang's face bunched together. Exposed in front of everyone, he felt his chest heaving as fury surged through him.
"You..." The veins on Yu Xiaogang's arms bulged.
"Bastard, how dare you insult my teacher?" As one of Yu Xiaogang's most loyal followers, Tang San couldn't stand by and let him be insulted.
"Teacher?" Tuoba Xuan said mockingly. "You're this good-for-nothing's student?"
Tang San grew even angrier. A glint of cold light flickered from his sleeve. "Shut up! You don't get to question my teacher."
Tuoba Xuan's expression didn't change. "How rare. A Soul Elder is actually the student of a Soul Grandmaster."
Tuoba Xuan's words drew everyone's attention again. Only then did they remember that Grandmaster was merely a Soul Grandmaster who'd reached level 29 at the age of fifty.
"If you wear a hat long enough, do you really start thinking you have horns?" Tuoba Xuan chuckled, laying bare Yu Xiaogang's shameful past one detail at a time.
"Give yourself the title of Grandmaster, and you really think you're one."
"How laughable. You don't realize that you only have any standing because of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's name."
"Any student who's graduated from an advanced Soul Master Academy knows those theories of yours."
"You have the highest-tier Martial Soul, yet you don't know how to use it. Now, at the age of fifty, you've barely managed to break through to level 29 Soul Power."
"Grandmaster, your face is probably thicker than the walls of this academy. If I were you, I'd have found a rock and smashed my head against it long ago."
Tuoba Xuan's string of soul-piercing questions left Yu Xiaogang dumbfounded.
Yu Xiaogang's face had turned the color of pig liver. Hot air poured furiously from his two blocked nostrils.
"You... you..." Yu Xiaogang was so furious that he completely lost it, unable to say another word.
Even the others were looking at Grandmaster with complicated expressions, especially Ma Hongjun and the other two, who had already been dissatisfied with him.
Yu Xiaogang had been parachuted in as their teacher, and they didn't know much about him. Now that they'd heard Tuoba Xuan's account, they finally understood just how useless Yu Xiaogang was.
But with disaster looming, the three of them could only swallow their resentment for now.
"And what about you? Aren't you the same? Your Soul Power didn't advance one bit in five whole years," Yu Xiaogang said, as though he'd found something to use against him. "Your Soul Power Level is still three, isn't it?"
Yu Xiaogang's words turned everyone's eyes toward Tuoba Xuan again, all of them full of mockery!
"Oh? Do you still think I'm that good-for-nothing whose Soul Power couldn't advance?"
Tuoba Xuan chuckled. "Watch closely, Grandmaster. I'll show you the difference between the two of us, both of us with pig Martial Souls."
As he spoke, the air and temperature around them seemed to freeze for an instant.
Complex patterns began to appear on Tuoba Xuan's skin, gradually spreading as a faint golden light covered him.
"Boom!"
Tuoba Xuan stopped holding back.
The terrifying Soul Power of a Quasi-Soul Ancestor at level forty erupted from him.
Under everyone's astonished gaze,
Tuoba Xuan's aura began to climb, surging higher and higher.
"Terrifying! Terrifying!"
That was all anyone present could think.
"Yu Xiaogang, do you still recognize what this is?"
With that, Tuoba Xuan abruptly spread his arms. The enormous phantom of the Mountain Dragon King appeared behind him in an instant.
Powerful, terrifying, immense, ancient.
Everyone trembled to their core.
"This... is this your Martial Soul?"
Yu Xiaogang looked utterly disbelieving, like a duck held by the throat.
"No, no, how is this possible? We both have pig Martial Souls. How can he be so powerful?"
Yu Xiaogang felt as if his entire worldview had been overturned. He could sense that the majestic, imposing dragon shadow before him was indeed Tuoba Xuan's Martial Soul.
Yu Xiaogang roared, "This is impossible! This is impossible! Who are you?"
"My name is one you've all heard before: Tuoba Xuan!"
"Tuoba Xuan?"
The three words echoed in everyone's minds.
They had indeed all heard the name: the Sacred Dragon Sect's young sect master, the good-for-nothing with three innate levels of Soul Power, the good-for-nothing whose Martial Soul was a pig.
"Teacher!" Tang San gritted his teeth and rushed to Yu Xiaogang's side, trying to help him up.
Being utterly humiliated by someone he'd mocked back then left Yu Xiaogang feeling as sick as if he'd eaten dog shit.
At that moment, Yu Xiaogang desperately wanted to prove his theories.
"Xiao San, Xiao San, hurry! Defeat him! Defeat him, and you'll prove my theories!"
Yu Xiaogang's throat was already dry, and he could only roar weakly.
"No need to make it so complicated. You and your student can come at me together."
"I'll give you this chance. If you win, Poison Douluo and I will no longer interfere in this matter."
"If you lose, admit that you're good-for-nothings."
"Then bear the name of good-for-nothings and get out of here."
Tuoba Xuan's voice fell like a mountain, pressing down on the Shrek crowd.
Meng Shenji and Xue Xing glanced curiously at Dugu Bo. Given Dugu Bo's temper, anyone who spoke to him like that would have been slapped to death long ago.
But now Dugu Bo made no move. He even gave a slight nod.
That showed just how highly Tuoba Xuan stood in Dugu Bo's eyes.
"What do you say? It's two against one, so I'm not exactly bullying you!"
Tuoba Xuan's arrogance finally enraged Tang San. "Fine. I'll accept on behalf of my teacher."
Yu Xiaogang: I never said I agreed!