Old Grudge Between the Lin Family and the Spirit Pagoda

"I knew you could do it! You really absorbed this hard-won Unyielding soul spirit!" Lin Qingye laughed wildly, happily lifting Lin Yu and spinning him around several times, as if venting all the scorn and frustration he had endured over the years.

On the second night after returning to Aolai City, Lin Qingye called Lin Yu into his room again.

Lin Yu saw that Lin Qingye's eyes were bloodshot. Clearly, he had barely rested that night.

Lin Qingye looked at Lin Yu. After a long while, he spoke in a somewhat hoarse voice. "Xiao Yu, do you know about what happened between me and the Spirit Pagoda?"

Lin Yu scratched his head, then looked at Lin Qingye and asked, "Father, you've never told me about it."

Lin Qingye took a deep breath, then said to Lin Yu, "Back when I was in my prime, I reached the rank of Soul King and obtained my own battle armor. Almost immediately, I felt invincible, as though I had already climbed to the pinnacle of the world."

"Clothes make the man, and power does too. Once your soul power reaches a certain level, that power gives you confidence. And once you become confident, it becomes easy for mistakes to slip into your actions." Lin Qingye pondered for a moment before speaking.

Lin Yu then said to Lin Qingye, "So, Dad, someone set you up and left you with some irreparable injury, right?"

Lin Qingye froze for a moment, then nodded. Leaning back in his chair, he said, "More or less. My battle armor was shattered, completely pulverized. The battle armor was mentally linked to me, and the attack they used was exceptionally vicious. It damaged my spiritual power as well."

Lin Qingye took a deep breath. As if recalling the past, he fell silent for a long while before saying, "So from then on, I could no longer fuse with new battle-armor metals, nor could I absorb new soul spirits or raise the cultivation age of my current ones. Just maintaining my current soul spirits and soul power rank already takes everything I have, because of my spiritual power."

Lin Yu raised a brow and looked at Lin Qingye. "Isn't there some healing-type Soul Master who could treat something like that?"

Lin Qingye shook his head, then pointed at his own nose with a bitter smile. "Who do you think would help an already crippled Soul Sage like me over a Spirit Pagoda manager whose soul power is even higher than mine? Even obtaining a soul spirit for you required me to use up my last remaining connections and beg favors. I can only lift you this far."

Lin Yu fell silent for a moment. Then Lin Qingye said to him, "That's my situation. Based on how I felt before you absorbed the soul spirit yesterday, I didn't want you joining the Spirit Pagoda. That was why I specifically went to ask someone for help."

"Normally, when the Spirit Pagoda provides a soul spirit like this, it expects the Soul Master who absorbs it to join the Spirit Pagoda. That is because it is not only a Voidless soul spirit, but also a soul spirit created by the Spirit Pagoda at the cost of its test subjects' life force."

Lin Yu could not help looking at his hands. His lips twitched as he asked Lin Qingye, "What do you mean, it cost the test subjects their lives? Were test subjects sacrificed while creating this soul spirit?"

Lin Qingye calmly held up five fingers. Lin Yu's lips twitched again. Then Lin Qingye leaned back in his chair and said to him:

"That isn't important. What matters is what I want to say next. I don't want you joining the Spirit Pagoda, but after thinking it over all night, I feel that I cannot limit you because of that."

Lin Yu raised his eyes toward Lin Qingye, while Lin Qingye rubbed his head and said, "Because I truly no longer have the ability to help you obtain better soul spirits. The Spirit Pagoda's support for Soul Masters who join them is fairly decent, even if they ultimately use them as puppets."

"But with your talent, you probably won't be used as cannon fodder. So if you want to consider your future, I won't blame you for joining the Spirit Pagoda. However, I still don't know what position that person has reached by now, so it would be best if you do not say that you are my son."

Lin Yu rubbed his head. What the fuck is this? So this bargain-bin dad of mine is the city lord of some insignificant city, and he's even carrying some top-tier grudge from the older generation.

Lin Yu merely rubbed his head once, looking perfectly natural, before saying to Lin Qingye, "I won't join the Spirit Pagoda, Father. In fact, even without these concerns, I personally can't stand what the Spirit Pagoda has been doing in Aolai City. A hundred-year soul spirit costs one million Federation credits."

"That practically cuts off the path of advancement for ordinary people. If a child from an ordinary family awakens a martial soul and gains soul power, but cannot scrape together enough money for a hundred-year soul spirit and has no choice but to choose a ten-year soul spirit, the psychological trauma that would cause the child is easy to imagine."

Lin Yu spoke as if his reasoning were sound, but in truth, it was merely an excuse he had come up with on the spot. He truly did not want to join the Spirit Pagoda, but the problem was not the pricing of soul spirits.

The pricing of soul spirits could barely be defended, but cooperating with the Holy Spirit Cult was the Spirit Pagoda's truly unforgivable crime.

Lin Yu did not consider himself a good person, but neither did he want to associate with those lunatics from the Holy Spirit Cult who hoped to destroy the world.

By comparison, he could even accept those crazies at Shrek more easily. After all, they genuinely had resources. If you truly gave your all for them, you could at least receive some protection and benefits.

Not to mention anything else, when Shrek suffered the explosion, those teachers did not run away. Instead, they did everything they could to protect the students around them. That alone meant there was still hope for them.

As for parasites like Double Moon within its system, once he was strong enough, he could just kick them all out at once. They would not truly affect the normal lives of Shrek's regular students.

One had to know that in the original Soul Land 3, Shrek had at least a hundred or so new students, yet only Tang Wulin's group of seven had ever suffered under Double Moon. Most of the other students never even caught Double Moon's attention.

As for the conflict between Tang Wulin's group and Cai Yue'er, the blame had to be split evenly. Cai Yue'er truly was unfit to be a teacher, or even a normal elder. Her actions were utterly bestial.

But right before the exam, Tang Wulin decided to attempt a bloodline breakthrough, which forced the entire team into a situation where they either had to be late with him or abandon their companion and act without loyalty or righteousness.

He bore at least some responsibility as well.

Seeing Lin Yu's resolute expression, hesitation appeared in Lin Qingye's eyes. Lin Yu continued speaking to Lin Qingye...