Depart, Star Dou Great Forest!

At Nuoding Academy in the early morning, the rising sun had just cleared the courtyard walls, bathing the training ground in warm gold.

On the track, a group of young students ran hard beneath the morning light, their ragged, panting footsteps falling in heavy unison.

The four figures at the very front were especially conspicuous—boys barely eight years old, each of them grimy and drenched in sweat, yet still gritting their teeth and persevering.

Behind them, Lin Ya, also eight, followed at an unhurried pace with a thin leather whip in hand, his voice full of merciless urging.

"Xiao Chenyu! Ling Feng! Liu Long! Wang Sheng! This is all the speed you've got? An eighty-year-old granny at the village entrance could outrun you!"

"Boss Lin! What kind of granny is that? She'd have to be a Soul Douluo granny!" Xiao Chenyu shouted back with his neck stiffly craned around, his face flushed red as he gasped for breath.

A full two and a half years.

Ever since the four of them had acknowledged Lin Ya as their boss, he had drilled them relentlessly for two and a half whole years.

Mornings were filled with hellish physical training, afternoons with systematic Soul Master theory, and nights with meditation to cultivate soul power according to Lin Ya's strange "National Elementary School Students' Basic Internal Energy Version 1.0." Their lives had been unbearably hard, leaving them exhausted every day like stray dogs that had been whipped.

Yet not one of the four young Soul Scholars dared defy him, and none of them bore any resentment.

Because the changes brought by those two and a half years of training were obvious to the naked eye.

Liu Long, Ling Feng, and Wang Sheng had all broken through to Level 9 Soul Scholar, just one step away from becoming Soul Masters. As for Xiao Chenyu, who led the group, he had forcefully reached Level 10 Soul Scholar. With just one soul ring, he could officially become a Soul Master.

"Less talk, pick up the pace!" Lin Ya flicked his wrist, cracking the whip sharply through the air. "If you don't risk your life training today, risking your life tomorrow will be useless. Even my cat knows to secretly practice catching mice. You lot, though—useless at everything, never satisfied when eating, and you can't even beat a Blue Silver Grass Soul Master!"

"Stop scolding us, stop scolding us!" Xiao Chenyu nearly cried. "Boss, no matter how bad we are, we can't be so bad that we'd lose to a Blue Silver Grass Soul Master, right? That's way too exaggerated!"

"Exaggerated?" Lin Ya sneered, his gaze indifferent. "You'll find out one day. I never speak empty words."

As soon as he finished speaking, he glanced at the brightening sky on the horizon and casually tossed the whip onto the ground.

"Stop. I'm giving you a few days off. I have business to attend to outside. I'll be back after a while."

The four, who had been sprawled limply on the ground, instantly perked up. Xiao Chenyu hurried forward and asked fawningly, "Boss, where are you going? Do you want us to come along and protect you?"

Lin Ya shot him an irritated glance. "You think you can protect me? I'm going to hunt for my second soul ring. You want to tag along for the excitement too?"

Over the past two and a half years, Lin Ya had never slackened in the slightest.

Starting from Level 11, he had advanced steadily and forcefully reached the bottleneck of Level 20 Grand Soul Master. Now, at last, it was time to obtain his second soul ring.

The moment they heard that, Xiao Chenyu and the others' eyes filled with intense admiration.

Xiao Chenyu himself had gone from Level 3 to Level 10 in two and a half years, already making him a genius within the academy. But Lin Ya had risen directly from Level 11 to Level 20. The higher a Soul Master's level, the harder it became to advance—this was common knowledge. The gap in talent between the two had long since become the difference between clouds and mud.

He secretly calculated that even if he gave it everything he had, reaching Level 17 by graduation in sixth grade would be the absolute limit.

But Lin Ya?

Breaking through to become a Level 30 Soul Elder before graduation was practically certain.

The gap between people could sometimes be even greater than the gap between soul beasts and humans.

But the four felt no jealousy, only wholehearted conviction.

They knew perfectly well that without Lin Ya's harsh yet effective training, they would be thanking the heavens if they had even reached Level 6 soul power by now. That debt of gratitude had long been carved into their bones.

Lin Ya gave the four one final sweep of his gaze and left them with a cold, stern warning:

"Remember: if your first soul ring isn't at least a hundred years old, don't come see me."

With that, he turned around, packed his simple luggage, and headed straight for the academy gates.

Along the way, Lin Ya frowned slightly as he pondered to himself.

It had been a long time since he had seen Uncle Xue Xing. He wondered how things were going in Heaven Dou City. He had made inquiries about the city, yet had heard no news of Xue Qinghe dying suddenly.

He had hinted so clearly back then—could Prince Xue Xing truly have developed no suspicions whatsoever about Xue Qinghe's identity? Was Qian Renxue's acting really so flawless that she could deceive everyone?

"Lin Ya!"

A familiar voice interrupted his thoughts.

Lin Ya looked up, and a genuine smile immediately appeared on his face as he quickly walked over.

"Uncle Xue Xing!"

"Hahaha, good lad, I knew you'd already broken through to Level 20!" Prince Xue Xing strode forward and gave him a fierce hug, his tone brimming with delight. "Your uncle came specially to take you hunting for your second soul ring!"

As he spoke, he took a large pile of tightly wrapped gelatinous items from his soul tool and handed them to Lin Ya.

"This is the whale gelatin you asked me to find. I have to say, this stuff is remarkably effective. After several Soul Masters under my command consumed it, their physical qualities soared, and even the rate at which they condensed soul power increased somewhat."

Prince Xue Xing had always remembered Lin Ya's request. After returning to Heaven Dou City, he had immediately mobilized his resources to gather whale gelatin and personally had people test its effects. The results had far exceeded his expectations.

Lin Ya accepted the whale gelatin and gave it a rough count, a flash of delight immediately appearing in his eyes.

Several dozen pieces of ten-year whale gelatin, more than a dozen pieces of hundred-year whale gelatin, and even three pieces of thousand-year whale gelatin!

"Uncle, with these things, I'd dare give a thousand-year second soul ring a shot!"

According to the records of Douluo Continent, a single piece of thousand-year whale gelatin could directly raise the user's soul-ring absorption limit by several hundred years.

Based on Lin Ya's previous experience, the actual efficiency should be ten to one. In other words, a piece of thousand-year whale gelatin could raise the limit by one hundred years, while nine-thousand-year whale gelatin could raise it by nine hundred years.

Lin Ya's first soul ring had already been six hundred years old. Even without whale gelatin, he had a decent chance of attempting a thousand-year soul ring.

Now, with this pile of whale gelatin backing him up...

Not to mention a thousand-year soul ring—he was confident he could safely absorb even a two-thousand-year one.

Back then, when Tang San absorbed his third soul ring—a two-thousand-year Man-Faced Demon Spider—he had barely survived.

Yet Lin Ya intended to challenge a two-thousand-year limit with his second soul ring. His talent and confidence were terrifying enough to make one's heart tremble.

Prince Xue Xing looked at the utterly confident Lin Ya, his eyes filled with gratification and affection. "Don't worry. I'm still gathering whale glue. By the time you challenge your third soul ring, I'll get you a piece of ten-thousand-year whale glue!"

In truth, Xue Xing had collected quite a bit of whale glue over the past two years, but most of it had been used in experiments.

Anything concerning Lin Ya had to be handled with the utmost caution. He had to confirm that whale glue truly worked before he dared let Lin Ya consume it.

Lin Ya did not think much of it and followed Prince Xue Xing into the luxurious carriage.

But as the wheels rolled on, he gradually realized that the route was wrong. They were not heading north toward the Soul Hunting Forest.

"Uncle, where are we going? The Soul Hunting Forest isn't in this direction."

At his words, Prince Xue Xing's lips curved into a confident smile, his voice calm and forceful.

"The soul beasts in the Soul Hunting Forest are too low in age. They aren't worthy of your goal. This time, we're going to—the Star Dou Great Forest!"

For a second soul ring with a two-thousand-year limit, only the Star Dou Great Forest could satisfy Lin Ya's ambition.