Xuan Zi

Biodata

Feature	Details
Name	Xuan Zi (玄子)
Alias(es)	Taotie Douluo; Elder Xuan
Species/Race	Human
Gender	Male
Affiliation	Shrek Academy; Sea God Pavilion
Occupation/Role	Shrek elder; escort and protector of Shrek's tournament team
Status	Alive
First Appearance	Chapter 8

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Rank 98 Super Douluo	8	Introduced as the Taotie Douluo, a Rank 98 powerhouse with a top-tier beast martial soul.
Seventh Soul Ring selected for ascension	99	Chooses his seventh ring—the ring governing his Martial Soul Avatar—for enhancement, hoping it will let him challenge the Limit Douluo realm.
Hundred-Thousand-Year Seventh Soul Ring	104	Survives nine bolts of tribulation lightning and the subsequent soul-ring-origin evolution; his seventh ring turns scarlet, though his cultivation remains Rank 98.

Background / History

Xuan Zi was an old-generation Rank 98 Super Douluo and an elder of Shrek Academy. Mu En instructed him to approach Xia Liang peacefully, but Xuan Zi ignored that order out of confidence in his own strength and challenged the self-styled “World Douluo” instead 8.

The fight ended with Xia Liang severely injuring, but deliberately sparing, him after testing several abilities on him. Mu En refused to have him treated immediately, intending for Xuan Zi to remember the consequences of recklessly throwing his weight around 9.

During Shrek's freshman assessment, Xuan Zi dismissed Huo Yuhao's rapid development as the result of resources rather than talent. He considered Huo Yuhao's ten-year first ring proof of poor potential and privately intended to reclaim the ten-thousand-year soul bone Huo Yuhao possessed 12.

He later served as Shrek's senior escort during the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Dueling Tournament. His conduct was inconsistent: he could be attentive to the students' safety, but he also repeatedly neglected his guard duty to eat Twilight Forest meat and attempted to conceal this negligence afterward 31 46.

Seeking a route beyond Rank 98, Xuan Zi volunteered as the first high-level test subject for the Spirit Pagoda's Soul Ring Lifespan Enhancement. He chose to enhance his seventh ring, hunted Twilight Forest bosses to fill its Soul Ascension Ring, and deliberately underwent tribulation lightning outside the portal 98 99 102.

Xuan Zi endured the tribulation and gained a hundred-thousand-year seventh soul ring. The achievement temporarily alleviated the gluttony-related side effect of his Taotie martial soul, but did not grant the Rank 99 breakthrough he sought 104 105.

Appearance

Xuan Zi is an elderly man with a ragged, disheveled appearance and messy hair. When he releases his power, his hair turns tawny yellow and earth-yellow light accompanies his Taotie martial soul 8 55.

• Often appears carrying food, particularly grilled Nine-Headed Serpent meat.
• Frequently eats and drinks even while overseeing dangerous assignments 31 46 75.
• His appearance after Xia Liang's defeat was described as “beaten beyond recognition” 9.

Personality

Xuan Zi is exceptionally confident in his own strength, to the point of arrogance. He initially disregards Mu En's instructions, underestimates Xia Liang, and dismisses Huo Yuhao as talentless despite the latter's rapid growth 8 12.

He is ambitious about reaching the Limit Douluo realm. This ambition drives him to risk a potentially fatal tribulation in pursuit of a hundred-thousand-year seventh soul ring, even though success offers no guaranteed cultivation breakthrough 75 98 104.

His strongest recurring vice is gluttony. He is easily distracted by rare meat from Twilight Forest and has neglected his responsibilities to continue eating. The evolution of his seventh ring temporarily reduces this martial-soul-related flaw 31 46 105.

Despite his carelessness, he remains concerned with Shrek's reputation and the survival of its students. After the tournament team's troubles, he chooses to withdraw from the Sea God Pavilion to avoid shifting blame for a potential loss onto others 46 56.

Abilities & Skills

Taotie Martial Soul

Xuan Zi possesses the Taotie, a top-tier beast martial soul that provides the foundation of his Rank 98 Super Douluo strength 8 103.

• Grants formidable physical strength; he can destroy powerful Twilight Forest enemies with a single palm strike 101.
• Provides extreme defensive capability; he withstood an eighty-thousand-year-level tribulation bolt without injury 103.
• Its martial-soul side effect manifests as intense gluttony, temporarily relieved after his seventh ring becomes a hundred-thousand-year ring 31 105.

Martial Soul Avatar

Xuan Zi's seventh soul ring governs his Martial Soul Avatar, which he considers the most valuable ring to enhance because its power rises directly with the ring's age 99.

• He selected this ring for the Soul Ascension process rather than enhancing another ten-thousand-year ring 99.
• The ring evolved from ink-black to scarlet after the tribulation, becoming a genuine hundred-thousand-year soul ring 104.
• The upgrade did not raise him from Rank 98 to Rank 99 104.

Soul Ring Ascension

Xia Liang merged a special red Soul Ascension Ring into Xuan Zi's seventh ring, creating an internal container that absorbed “experience” gathered from Twilight Forest soul beasts 99.

• Xuan Zi hunted twenty- to thirty-thousand-year enemies, then stronger seventy- to eighty-thousand-year enemies, to fill the ring 101 102.
• He reached the threshold for evolution but had to leave Twilight Forest because its isolated world laws prevented tribulation lightning from manifesting 102.
• He survived six hundred-thousand-year-level bolts after Xia Liang strengthened the original tribulation 103 104.
• The origin evolution caused severe internal pain and required healing-type soul masters to stabilize him, though observers believed he could have survived without them 104.

Relationships

• Mu En — Fellow Shrek elder and superior figure. Mu En ordered peaceful contact with Xia Liang, rebuked Xuan Zi after he ignored that order, and supported his attempt to use a strengthened seventh ring to pursue Rank 99 8 9 103.
• Xia Liang — Initially an opponent whom Xuan Zi challenged and was decisively defeated by. Xia Liang later oversees Xuan Zi's Soul Ring Ascension experiment and modifies his tribulation to be more difficult 8 9 98 103.
• Huo Yuhao — Shrek student whom Xuan Zi initially judges harshly and views as a source of a reclaimable soul bone. He later recognizes Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong's combat dependence while planning Shrek's tournament strategy 12 87.
• Yan Shaozhe — Shrek colleague who brings him Nine-Headed Serpent Steak and discusses intelligence on the Spirit Pagoda 31.
• Du Busi — Rival and frequent verbal antagonist. Du Busi mocks Xuan Zi after the tribulation fails to push him to Rank 99, while privately acknowledging that he cannot yet risk the same process 103 104.
• Shrek tournament team — Acts as their elder escort and instructor, though his protection is compromised more than once by his fixation on food 31 46 87.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Clash with World Douluo

Xuan Zi pursues Xia Liang to determine his identity and force him to reveal his martial soul. Convinced his Rank 98 strength is sufficient, he initiates a fight and is badly defeated after Xia Liang tests several Minecraft-based abilities on him 8 9.

Shrek Assessment and Tournament Escort

He dismisses Huo Yuhao's talent during the freshman assessment and plans to take back Huo Yuhao's ten-thousand-year soul bone later. He subsequently escorts Shrek's tournament team, observes their matches, and gives tactical instructions before the finals 12 31 87.

Twilight Forest Negligence

While supervising Shrek's team in Twilight Forest, Xuan Zi stops taking the danger seriously and spends time eating grilled Nine-Headed Serpent meat. He arrives after the Mutant Skeleton's death explosion, then falsely claims he had reinforced the boulder that protected Chen Zifeng 46.

Pursuit of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Ring

After publicly witnessing Xia Liang's simulated soul rings, Xuan Zi volunteers to test advancement to the hundred-thousand-year threshold. He chooses his seventh ring, enters a customized Twilight Forest portal to gather experience, and eventually undergoes tribulation lightning outside the portal 97 98 99 102.

Tribulation and Taotie Feast

Xuan Zi survives an intensified nine-bolt tribulation and evolves his seventh soul ring into a hundred-thousand-year ring. The result becomes the first public proof that a living human can achieve such an upgrade, prompting the Star Luo Empire to hold a Taotie Feast in his honor 104 105.

Trivia

• Xuan Zi's soul ring configuration before his seventh-ring enhancement included two yellow, two purple, four black, and one red ring 55.
• He believes the Soul Spirit method is unnecessary and rejects its goal of reconciling soul masters with soul beasts 75.
• He considers Nine-Headed Serpent Steak especially nourishing and satisfying to his Taotie martial soul 31.
• Although his seventh ring reaches one hundred thousand years, he remains only one step short of Rank 99 104.