After laying down the ultimatum "Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river" to his ex-girlfriend Bibi Dong, Yu Xiaogang left the "filthy" Spirit Hall with unwavering resolve.
After leaving, he considered becoming an elder or something at another sect. He was certain that, with his talent and knowledge, he would receive fair treatment!
He wouldn't even give the smaller sects a second glance.
For a once-in-a-thousand-years genius like him, it had to be one of the Upper Three Sects or one of the two great empires!
After much deliberation, Yu Xiaogang decided that he still had an unpublished work, Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul. After all, one shouldn't let the wealth of one's family go to outsiders.
Though he was the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's failure, despised by many in the family, he still felt deeply attached to the clan. After all, his father was its sect master.
Besides, returning home in splendor was like wearing fine clothes on a moonless night. Yu Xiaogang wanted to bring his peerless theories back to the clan, make his father see him in a new light, and slap the faces of those clansmen who had mocked him as a failure!
In the end, Yu Xiaogang returned to the clan.
Yu Yuanzhen thought his son was useless in every way, but he was still his son. What could he do? He had to indulge him.
Yu Xiaogang showed his father the Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul, the work he was so proud of. Yu Yuanzhen furrowed his brow, then turned to look at Yu Xiaogang, who was watching him eagerly.
In the end, he sighed, changed his expression to one of delight, and exclaimed in astonishment:
"Wonderful! Wonderful! My son truly is the greatest theoretical Grandmaster on Douluo Continent!"
Yu Xiaogang was deeply moved. As expected, his father had an eye for talent. How could someone as blind as Bibi Dong ever grasp the secrets within his work?
"Father! I'm ready to publish this theory and make it known to the world, so it can benefit all of Douluo Continent!"
Yu Xiaogang said excitedly.
Yu Yuanzhen was filled with worry. He looked up at Yu Xiaogang's excited eyes, then swallowed his concerns and thought:
I'm the mighty sect master of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan. Can't I promote just one person? Theories aren't like Martial Soul cultivation, where strength and weakness are plain to see. They're highly malleable. With a little effort, I can make Xiaogang a great theoretical Grandmaster of his generation!
Xiaogang will never get anywhere with Martial Souls. As his father, I have to think about his future. If I make him a great theoretical Grandmaster of his generation, even if it's all made up, given enough time it'll become real. Then, even after I'm gone, Xiaogang will have somewhere to turn. He won't be left with no way to survive if he's expelled from the clan...
A parent's love for their child meant planning far ahead on their behalf. As Yu Xiaogang's father, Yu Yuanzhen had truly done everything he could for him.
And so, Yu Yuanzhen used his connections and wealth as sect master of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan to make a "god of theory" famous across Douluo Continent.
Yu Xiaogang's name soon became known in every household. Soul Masters and well-informed nobles could see at a glance just what level he was at: he was a failure.
But out of deference to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, they could only praise Yu Yuanzhen for having fathered a prodigy.
As for the commoners, who could barely read and couldn't afford books, they couldn't read Yu Xiaogang's work. But they heard the public praise him as a Grandmaster, and storytellers fed them made-up tales of Yu Xiaogang's success.
Since commoners made up ninety percent of Douluo Continent's population, they naturally believed Yu Xiaogang was an undisputed theoretical Grandmaster, even though they had never read his Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul.
And in an irony that could hardly be more bitter, Yu Xiaogang owed his reputation to the commoners, yet in real life he was an arrogant noble who looked down on the poor more than anyone.
Wasn't that a peculiar kind of dark humor?
Throughout those years, only the Spirit Hall diligently "smeared" Yu Xiaogang. Everywhere else, people had nothing but praise for him, singing his praises without end!
For those few years, Yu Xiaogang lived high on the hog. He even walked as if he had the wind at his back.
Relying on his reputation as a "theoretical Grandmaster," he made his way across Douluo Continent and met two people who would become lifelong companions: Flender, the biggest sucker of them all, and his cousin as well as lover, Liu Erlong.
And the three of them somehow managed to perform two powerful Martial Soul Fusion Skills: Sun-Moon Radiance Golden Turn and Golden Sacred Dragon.
Thus, the Golden Iron Triangle gradually became famous across the continent. Thanks to the Grandmaster's reputation, the Golden Iron Triangle soon became known throughout Douluo Continent as well.
The news naturally reached Yu Xiaogang's second uncle, Yu Luomian. He hadn't thought much of it, but one look into the matter left him stunned: the Horn of Slaughter in the Golden Iron Triangle was his illegitimate daughter, Liu Erlong!
When Yu Luomian learned that his illegitimate daughter had come to see him and told him she was getting married, he curiously asked who the man was.
Liu Erlong replied that it was Yu Xiaogang.
Yu Luomian's heart sank, and boundless fury took its place!
He told Liu Erlong that Yu Xiaogang was her own cousin and that they couldn't be together! It went against all human decency!
Liu Erlong cried for a long time. Then Yu Luomian locked her in her room and forbade her from seeing Yu Xiaogang, that useless failure!
Yu Luomian went to Yu Xiaogang himself and gave his useless nephew a vicious tongue-lashing. In particular, he tore his theories to shreds, telling him he was nothing but a false god his father had propped up!
Then he humiliated Yu Xiaogang even further: "You idiot! You're supposedly such a brilliant theorist, yet you never once questioned your cousin's Martial Soul. You couldn't even recognize your own cousin!"
Yu Xiaogang's conviction crumbled under the scolding. Too ashamed to face anyone, he ran out of the clan in a daze and never had the face to return to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.
As far as Yu Luomian was concerned, even if Yu Xiaogang hadn't been his nephew and had just been an ordinary man, he still wouldn't have let Liu Erlong marry him. There was no other reason: the man was a failure among failures. Not only was his Martial Soul useless, his theories were useless too.
And this failure had no sense of his own limitations. If Yu Xiaogang had kept his head down and worked hard, his second uncle wouldn't have had to target him so much.
But seriously—
Who could understand how infuriating it was to have a failure beside you constantly bragging that his theories were unrivaled, while you couldn't scold him because of your elder brother's sake?
Yu Luomian had been holding it in for far too long. The scandal over Liu Erlong marrying a close relative finally gave him the chance to vent all the anger he'd bottled up over the years.
When Yu Yuanzhen learned the whole story, he didn't know what to say. The clan's dissatisfaction with Yu Xiaogang had been building for a long time. This incident was merely the spark that set it off.
Thanks to Yu Luomian's explosive revelation, the entire Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan could finally speak the truth about Yu Xiaogang openly!
Just three days after the news broke, the entire clan was already denouncing Yu Xiaogang as if he were a maggot.
Over the years, Yu Yuanzhen had spent enormous amounts of manpower and resources promoting his son. As a result, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan members had all taken substantial pay cuts.
Now, with Yu Luomian leading the charge, the entire Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan united to attack Yu Yuanzhen for abusing his power for personal gain, under the pretext of criticizing Yu Xiaogang.
Yu Yuanzhen hadn't been stripped of his authority, but he could no longer make the decisions on many matters within the clan. His standing had fallen dramatically.
The influence of his second brother Yu Luomian's branch rose rapidly, and they began to stand as equals against the old sect master.
Meanwhile, our Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang had brushed himself off and wandered far and wide until he reached Nuoding City. Since he was friends with the dean of Nuoding Junior Spirit Master Academy, he settled in and started living off handouts.