Huo Yuhao and Jiang Nannan

"Because there is a significant disparity in everyone's cultivation levels, we will not be holding a vote for class monitor this time. I am officially appointing student Lin Yao to the position. Does anyone have any objections?"

After Mu Jin's gaze lingered on Lin Yao for a moment, she spoke to the students below. The students of Class Nine exchanged glances, but no one spoke.

Because the feat Lin Yao had accomplished upon enrollment—defeating a sixth-ring senior head-on with only four-ring cultivation—was simply too eye-catching. Not a single student there dared to challenge him.

This was the convenient aspect of the Douluo Continent: as long as your strength was sufficient, the people around you were reasonable. You would never encounter a situation where, despite your immense strength and fame, someone remained ignorant of your status and tried to provoke you.

Ye Guyi, standing to the side, also flashed a smile at Lin Yao. Lin Yao stood up and said indifferently, "Thank you for your high regard, Teacher Mu."

Mu Jin nodded at him and immediately addressed the rest of Class Nine: "The position of class monitor at Shrek Academy is fluid. If anyone feels they have the ability to serve as monitor, you may challenge student Lin at a time convenient for him. If you win, you become the new monitor."

The crowd gasped. At that moment, everyone was thinking the same thing: Are you even listening to yourself?

What kind of logic was it to ask students who had just enrolled with twenty-something levels of power to fight a monitor with forty-something levels? And what kind of logic was it to suggest challenging a monitor who had just hammered a sixty-level senior?

Lin Yao, you might as well sit in that monitor's chair until you die; don't ever think about passing it on to these people.

In this era, the value of a Shrek Academy class monitor was nowhere near as high as it would be in later generations, nor would it affect one's resume after graduating from Shrek Academy.

Everyone's enthusiasm was far lower than it would be during the era of the third installment. To put it bluntly, the current class monitor was a real monitor, purely there to shoulder the workload; it was just a title that sounded a bit better when mentioned to others.

Mu Jin's first class was not boring at all. After quickly finishing the selection of the class monitor, she began to explain some of the school rules for walking around the outer courtyard, such as where one could go and where one should not wander aimlessly.

Following that, she recounted the history of soul master development, comparing the distribution of soul master professions today with those from ten thousand years ago. Interspersed with little anecdotes from the soul master world, it was far more substantial than those fluff courses back in university.

Once the day's classes were over, Ye Guyi said she was going to take a bath. Lin Yao left the school gates on his own, intending to scout around to see if Huo Yuhao and his group were setting up their stall, hoping to deduce how much the plot had deviated.

Not far from the main gate of Shrek Academy, Lin Yao spotted a small stall already surrounded by people.

When he and Ye Guyi had come out last night, he hadn't seen this stall.

Lin Yao squeezed through the crowd and, sure enough, saw the familiar youth with the Spirit Eyes tinkering with grilled fish by the stove.

Lin Yao was also curious about what this supposedly incredibly delicious grilled fish tasted like, so he took out some money and bought two.

The taste was indeed excellent. The fish meat was grilled to a crisp, much like a potato chip, to the point where even the fish bones could be chewed up and swallowed.

Combined with the relatively rich seasonings, it was certainly a special and delicious meal for the average native of the Douluo Continent.

Lin Yao felt that even when the chefs at the Lin Mansion weren't preparing banquet-level dishes, the seasonings they used weren't as rich as those on this grilled fish.

Lin Yao packed two more grilled fish to go. The outer courtyard students had already recognized him by now, and none of them dared to compete with him; they all silently stepped aside, with some even offering to give up their own grilled fish.

Huo Yuhao looked at Lin Yao, noting that his age was very close to his own, and asked with some hesitation, "Big Brother Lin, are you also a first-year student this year?"

Lin Yao nodded and replied, "Your fish is quite good, little brother."

Huo Yuhao smiled at Lin Yao and said, "Thank you for the compliment, Big Brother Lin!"

At this moment, there wasn't much fish left at Huo Yuhao's stall, and just then, the grand drama belonging to Huo Yuhao at Shrek Academy began.

Several female students in purple uniforms walked out from the gates of Shrek Academy. The female student walking at the very front attracted countless gazes the moment she appeared.

She looked to be only fourteen or fifteen years old, with a slender and well-proportioned figure. Her long, golden hair fell in large waves behind her, her skin was as white as snow, and her eyes were like a pool of clear water.

As she glanced around, she possessed an elegant and noble temperament, like a new moon glowing or a flower tree covered in snow. Her delicate and graceful demeanor was so breathtakingly beautiful that it seemed to dim everything else in the surroundings.

Seeing her walk out with the other purple-clad female students, surrounded like stars around the moon, Lin Yao knew that the woman in the lead was Jiang Nannan.

She was the most tragic background character, a patchwork of the martial souls and soul skills of previous generations. She lacked the powerful combat techniques of Xiao Wu's Soft Bone Rabbit, yet had been stitched with Zhao Wuji's gravity control soul skill.

In the end, she was neither a true agility-type nor a true power-type, just an accessory with no real performance later on.

Lin Yao silently stepped aside, leaving the stage to the true protagonist of this drama, while he himself carried the grilled fish and headed back toward Shrek Academy.

For Lin Yao's appetite, two grilled fish were enough for dinner; the remaining two were naturally for Ye Guyi.

What followed was the "celestial" conversation between Huo Yuhao and Jiang Nannan—one who clearly didn't intend to keep selling fish but still had to haggle over the price, and the other who was truly poor but wouldn't haggle at the academy's windows, yet chose to haggle at a stall run by a junior.

Then came the scene where Xu Sanshi, in a fit of rage, took action against Huo Yuhao's stall, followed by Bei Bei and Tang Ya stepping in to back Huo Yuhao up.

Of course, none of this mattered to Lin Yao anymore. He had already reached the dormitory entrance, said a word to the dormitory manager, and stood in front of the building waiting for Ye Guyi to come down.

When Ye Guyi descended, she had changed into a milky-white long dress. She moved with a breeze, and that breeze carried the fragrance of her recent bath, making one feel refreshed and relaxed.

"Let's go. I found a pretty good treasure of a stall today. This fish is grilled quite well, have a taste." Lin Yao greeted her and handed the two grilled fish to Ye Guyi. Ye Guyi took them, held a skewer in one hand, and took a bite of the fish's belly. Golden stars of delight immediately appeared in her eyes.

"Delicious!" Ye Guyi said as she chewed. While eating, she commented, "This fish is grilled really well. The skin is crispy, and the bones can be chewed up directly without affecting the eating experience. It's truly excellent."

Lin Yao smiled at her. The next moment, a foreign object suddenly appeared in his mouth, and the savory aroma of the grilled fish flooded his brain...