Yu Xiaogang's Ruined Reputation!

Qian Renyuan withdrew his gaze from below the stage, then leaned back against his chair and accepted a dossier Ma Xiunuo handed over with both hands.

Qian Renyuan opened the dossier, the rough pages making a harsh rustling sound.

"Spirit Hall governs the soul masters of the continent and must distinguish clearly between rewards and punishments. Today," Qian Renyuan's gaze swept across the entire crowd, his voice unhurried yet reaching every ear with perfect clarity, "I have summoned you all here because Spirit Hall is cleansing its own ranks."

Cleansing its own ranks?

Several hundred teachers and students instinctively held their breath, their eyes turning in unison toward the figure on the flag-raising platform, sprawled there like a torn sack.

Qian Renyuan lowered his eyes to the utterly disheveled Yu Xiaogang at his feet, his tone devoid of warmth.

"Yu Xiaogang, you clung to life beneath Spirit Hall's protection, yet committed acts of deception and plagiarism."

Yu Xiaogang's entire body stiffened. He clenched his back teeth hard, trying to conceal the panic in his eyes with what little dignity he had left.

"Your first crime."

Qian Renyuan closed the dossier in his hand and casually tossed it onto the table beside him.

"Shameless plagiarism."

Qian Renyuan looked down at him from above, his eyes filled with contempt. "Those so-called Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul that you used to swindle people were nothing but a grotesque patchwork you cobbled together after secretly rifling through the internal materials in Spirit Hall's library."

"You're talking nonsense!"

Like a man whose tail had been stepped on, Yu Xiaogang abruptly straightened his upper body.

Overwhelming humiliation and rage turned his pale face liver-red once more. His bloodshot eyes glared at Qian Renyuan, seated in the place of honor, and his voice came out hoarse. "My Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul were theories I painstakingly summarized only after traveling across the continent and conducting field investigations! This is slander!"

Faced with that hysterical roar, Qian Renyuan merely gave a cold laugh.

He could not even be bothered to waste another word. With a flick of his wrist, he directly picked up a yellowed ancient book.

Bang!

A handwritten copy of the centuries-old Chronicles of Soul Beasts and Martial Souls slammed heavily into Yu Xiaogang's face.

The spine split Yu Xiaogang's brow. He cried out in pain, covered his face, and fell back onto the stone slabs.

His gaze passed through the gaps between his fingers and landed on the book's cover. The instant he recognized the writing on it, the roar in Yu Xiaogang's throat came to an abrupt halt, and his entire body began trembling uncontrollably.

"Plant-type martial souls can absorb beast-type soul rings?"

Qian Renyuan propped his chin up with one hand, sounding as if he were reciting some absurd joke. "Three hundred years ago, the third Pope of Spirit Hall conducted extensive experiments on this matter and recorded them in full on page seventy-four of this book."

He leaned forward slightly, his gaze falling on Yu Xiaogang, sprawled limply on the ground.

"You merely copied old experimental conclusions from piles of paper, changed the name, and dared to stamp Yu Xiaogang's label on them." The mockery at Qian Renyuan's lips was undisguised. "This is your painstaking effort? This is your original work?"

Qian Renyuan did not stop there. He raised his chin slightly and gave Ma Xiunuo below the stage an order.

"Ma Xiunuo, turn to page one hundred and twelve. Read it aloud for everyone."

"Yes, sir!" Ma Xiunuo strode forward, planting one foot on the back of Yu Xiaogang's hand as he tried to cover the pages. Amid Yu Xiaogang's muffled groan, he opened the ancient book and began reading aloud:

"The median limit a soul master can bear for their first soul ring is four hundred and twenty-three years... This data was calculated over ten years by Spirit Hall's fifth generation of elders, who mobilized over a thousand soul masters!"

The moment those words were spoken, the crowd erupted. This was the exclusive core theory Yu Xiaogang loved to boast about to everyone he met.

The old headmaster standing below the steps flushed bright red. To distance himself from Yu Xiaogang, he suddenly stepped forward and pointed angrily at him. "Yu Xiaogang! You deceived not only the entire world, but even me! This is a disgrace to academia. From this moment onward, Notting Academy officially strips you of your position as a guest lecturer. We do not want a shameless thief like you."

In the corner of the training ground, Tang San, who had been forced to kneel, shuddered violently.

He stared fixedly at the ancient book on the stage, then looked at Yu Xiaogang, who could not squeeze out even a single word of rebuttal.

The image of that lofty expert who stood in the office with his hands behind his back, as if he understood everything in the world, suddenly became precarious.

Tang San clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug deep into his palms. For the first time, a crack appeared in the perfect image he held of Master.

Qian Renyuan looked at Yu Xiaogang, who resembled a homeless cur, and curled his lips into an undisguised sneer.

"And that saying you hold as sacred."

His long fingers lightly tapped the armrest of his chair. "There are no useless martial souls, only useless soul masters?"

Qian Renyuan leaned forward slightly, staring down at the mud-like wreck on the ground.

"Then have you spent your entire life stuck at rank twenty-nine without advancing a single step just to prove to the entire continent that you, Yu Xiaogang, are the ultimate useless soul master?"

The ultimate useless soul master.

Those five words were like a heavy hammer smashing Yu Xiaogang's skull apart.

Someone in the crowd let out a snicker first. Then, every teacher and student present revealed undisguised contempt.

"So his supposedly invincible theories were all copied from Spirit Hall?"

"And we kept calling him Master. Turns out he's just a plagiarizing fraud!"

"He's a rank twenty-nine failure himself. What right does he have to teach anyone..."

The discussion quickly grew louder. The students and academy teachers who had once treated him with respect now backed away one after another, looking toward the platform as though they were staring at a nauseating pile of trash. Piercing mockery trapped Yu Xiaogang from every direction.

Yu Xiaogang's eyes bulged, his bloodshot eyeballs seeming ready to burst from their sockets.

Listening to the unbearable insults below the stage, his chest heaved violently. He wanted to argue, but the ancient book marked with Spirit Hall's seal lay right beside him. Its black words on white paper were like a resounding slap across his face, leaving him unable to utter even half a word.

"Puh—"

Yu Xiaogang suddenly threw back his head and spat out a mouthful of foul blood, which splattered across the broken stone slabs.

The Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul that he had taken such pride in completely collapsed beneath the torrent of condemnation. It was as though all the bones had been pulled from his body; he lay limp in the pool of blood, convulsing violently.

At the same time, a crisp notification sounded in Qian Renyuan's mind.

[Yu Xiaogang successfully exposed as a fraud. Fortune value is soaring wildly.]

Yu Xiaogang, lying in the pool of blood, clawed desperately at the stone slabs. His nails flipped back, blood seeping out in glaring red streaks.

It was all over.

The title of Master that he had painstakingly built over half his life had been shattered so thoroughly by Qian Renyuan's few words that not even a trace remained.

Yu Xiaogang was unwilling to accept it. If he did not do something, he simply could not swallow this humiliation.

Amid the shrill curses, Yu Xiaogang struggled to prop up half his body on one elbow.

He abruptly raised his head. His ash-gray eyes now shone with madness.

Yu Xiaogang gritted his teeth and reached his trembling hand into his tattered robe.

Under countless contemptuous gazes, Yu Xiaogang pulled something from the inner lining pressed against his body and raised it high above his head.