Flender Investigates His Background—Master, Why Are You So Anxious?

Shrek Academy was run-down beyond recognition.

Several mud-brick houses leaned crookedly against wooden frames. There was not even a flat stone path in the yard; weeds and chicken droppings were everywhere.

Chen Xuan followed Flender inside, stepping over the yellow earth without the slightest look of surprise on his face.

Flender pushed open the wooden door of the innermost room.

The unoiled hinges let out a piercing creak.

Inside stood a paint-chipped desk and two hardwood chairs. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf against the wall was piled with old ledgers and yellowed blueprints, while the air carried a mingled smell of aged paper and mildew.

"Sit." Flender pointed at the chair opposite him, which was missing half its backrest.

Chen Xuan did not stand on ceremony. He pulled over the chair and sat down.

Flender went behind the desk, dropped heavily into his boss's chair, then casually pulled a stack of crumpled letter paper from a drawer and tossed it onto the desktop.

"This is information sent over from Notting City." Flender extended two fingers and tapped the writing on the paper. "It says Nuoding Junior Soul Master Academy produced a freak. Innate soul power at rank nine, but his martial soul was five utterly ordinary gray stones."

Chen Xuan said nothing. He leaned back in his chair and watched Flender.

"But during the graduation assessment, that freak pulled out a repeating crossbow, a long blade, and a heavy shield all by himself, forcing the academy's strongest Soul King teacher into a cold sweat." Flender pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, his small eyes sizing Chen Xuan up through the lenses. "Then today at registration, you produced a frying pan and a large shield with water-ripple patterns."

Flender leaned forward, clasping his hands on the desk.

"Kid, don't try any tricks with me. I've run academies for half my life. I've seen mutated beast martial souls and mutated tool martial souls, but I've never seen anyone's stones turn into five or six different weapons whenever they pleased." Flender tapped the desk with a finger. "Show me one."

Chen Xuan remained seated. He raised his right hand and casually grabbed at the air.

Red light burst from his palm.

A crimson longbow, marked with flame patterns at both ends, appeared in his hand out of thin air.

The instant the bow emerged, the temperature in the tiny office shot up by ten degrees.

The yellowed old papers on the desk were hit by the dry, scorching gust, and their corners curled upward at once.

Epic weapon, Flame Bow.

Flender's eyes lit up.

Without waiting for Chen Xuan to speak, he reached out with his right hand and grabbed the back of the Flame Bow.

The soul power of a rank seventy-eight Soul Sage surged from Flender's palm. He tried to probe into the crimson bow, to thoroughly examine its martial soul structure and the paths of its soul power circulation.

The moment Flender's palm touched the bow, his expression changed.

The soul power he sent in found no meridian pathways belonging to a martial soul at all. Instead, it crashed into an utterly pure mass of flame energy.

That flame energy was completely incompatible with his soul power. Worse, it burned back along his palm.

"Hiss—" Flender jerked his hand back.

He looked down at his palm. A red burn mark had already appeared on his skin.

"No soul ring enhancement, and no soul power circuit originating from a martial soul." Flender discarded his carefree demeanor, his face turning serious. "This thing doesn't belong to the martial soul system at all. Where did you get such pure elemental power?"

"The stones changed on their own." Chen Xuan held the Flame Bow in one hand, his tone exceedingly perfunctory. "I'm lucky. Whatever they want to become, they become."

"Lucky?" Flender was so irritated by that answer that he laughed. "Kid, do you take me for a three-year-old—"

Before Flender could finish, the office door was shoved open hard from outside.

With a bang, the door slammed into the mud wall, knocking down several chunks of dried clay.

Yu Xiaogang walked in from outside with his hands behind his back and a grim face.

Tang San followed closely behind Yu Xiaogang, one hand habitually resting on the Twenty-Four Bridges Under Moonlight at his waist. His gaze swept around the office before finally settling on the Flame Bow in Chen Xuan's hand.

Another weapon he had never seen before.

Tang San clenched his teeth until they creaked.

"Flender, you cannot accept this student." Yu Xiaogang entered the room without beating around the bush and addressed Flender directly behind the desk.

Flender frowned. "Xiaogang, what are you doing? I'm conducting this new student's entrance assessment."

"He is not fit to be a student of Shrek." Yu Xiaogang took two steps forward, pointed at Chen Xuan, and spoke in an extremely stern tone. "Flender, we have known each other for decades. I would not harm you. This boy is full of holes. He has been deceiving everyone all along!"

Flender said nothing, signaling Yu Xiaogang to continue.

Yu Xiaogang turned around, looked at the Flame Bow in Chen Xuan's hand, and said loudly, "First, in a soul master's cultivation, after rank ten, one must absorb a soul ring to continue breaking through. That is an iron law! He does not have a single soul ring, yet his soul power has reached rank eleven. He must have used some shameful forbidden technique to interfere with the crystal ball's test results!"

"Second, his martial soul is five stones. There is a clear record of that in the Notting City branch hall. Yet now he can casually produce bows, shields, and repeating crossbows. This completely violates the fundamental rules of martial souls! The only explanation is that he has concealed a second, immensely powerful mutated tool martial soul and has been using those five stones as a cover!"

The more Yu Xiaogang spoke, the louder he became, his voice even carrying a hint of righteous indignation.

"A troublemaker who conceals his true martial soul, refuses to obey the academy's discipline, and even uses unknown methods to falsify his soul power rank—if you let him stay at Shrek, he will only destroy the academy's rules and lead the other students astray!" Yu Xiaogang looked at Flender. "Shrek wants monsters, not liars!"

The room fell silent.

Tang San stood at the back and nodded slightly.

In his view, his teacher's analysis cut straight to the heart of the matter. All of Chen Xuan's unexplainable phenomena became perfectly reasonable once they were explained as "concealing twin martial souls" and "cheating."

Flender did not immediately state his position. He tapped the desk with his fingers, looking from Yu Xiaogang to Chen Xuan in the chair.

Holding the Flame Bow in one hand, Chen Xuan suddenly smiled.

He casually struck the longbow against the ground, sending sparks flying.

"Master, you chased me all the way from Notting City to Soto City. You traveled so far just to come to someone else's headmaster's office and accuse me?" Chen Xuan raised his face and looked at Yu Xiaogang.

"I am merely exposing your disguise." Yu Xiaogang said with his hands behind his back and his chin lifted.

"Exposing me?" Chen Xuan stood up. The Flame Bow in his hand turned into a speck of red light and dispersed into the air. "Master, stop flattering yourself. You are not doing this for Shrek's rules. You're just afraid."

"What am I afraid of?" Yu Xiaogang's expression darkened.

"You're afraid I'll stay here." Chen Xuan took a step forward and stared directly into Yu Xiaogang's eyes. "You're afraid that a 'trash martial soul' with five lousy stones and not a single soul ring will keep wandering around under your nose, growing stronger every day through methods you can't explain, until it pins your student to the ground and beats him senseless."

"You're talking nonsense!" Yu Xiaogang's sore spot had been struck, and his voice instantly rose several octaves.

"Isn't that so?" Chen Xuan sneered. "You go around saying, 'There are no useless martial souls, only useless soul masters.' But the moment you encounter a martial soul that does not follow your theories, one you cannot explain, you immediately jump out and call them a liar, claiming they've hidden twin martial souls."

Chen Xuan turned to Flender.

"Headmaster Flender, this Master's so-called Ten Core Competencies of Martial Souls are nothing remarkable at all. After thirty years of research, he only figured out one thing—how to teach someone who was talented to begin with."

Chen Xuan pointed at Tang San behind him.

"He got lucky and found an exceptionally gifted student, so he thinks he has grasped the truth of the entire continent. If someone like me, who doesn't fit within his theoretical framework, stays at Shrek, then within three years everyone in the academy will discover that his theories are riddled with holes."

"Chen Xuan! Shut up!" Unable to endure it any longer, Tang San stepped out from behind Yu Xiaogang.

He could not tolerate anyone belittling his benefactor and teacher like this.

"What? Want to fight?" Chen Xuan did not even give Tang San a proper glance. "Didn't get shot enough at the training ground, or didn't get smacked enough by an iron pan at the Rose Hotel?"

Tang San's chest heaved violently. The knuckles of his clenched right hand turned white as the Mysterious Heaven Technique circulated at high speed within him, ready for him to unleash every hidden mechanical weapon inside the Twenty-Four Bridges Under Moonlight at any moment.

"Enough! Shut up, all of you!"

Behind the desk, Flender suddenly slammed his palm down.

A crack split the solid wooden desktop. The overwhelming pressure of a rank seventy-eight Soul Sage instantly enveloped the entire tiny office.

Tang San was struck by that pressure and staggered back three steps in a row, only barely steadying himself after his back hit the doorframe.

Yu Xiaogang looked ugly as he stared at Flender. "Flender, did you hear what he just said? A student like this—"

"Xiaogang, don't speak yet." Flender cut Yu Xiaogang off.

He rose from his boss's chair, went around the battered desk, and stopped in front of Chen Xuan.

Flender circled Chen Xuan halfway, reached up to adjust his glasses, then suddenly burst into loud laughter.

"Hahahaha! Good! Well said!" Flender slapped his thigh. "I've run this academy for twenty years, and this is the first time I've seen someone dare to tear Xiaogang's theories apart so thoroughly!"

Yu Xiaogang grew anxious. "Flender! What do you mean by that?"

"What do I mean?" Flender stopped laughing and turned to look at his old friend. "Xiaogang, you're a theory master. You understand rules. But I, Flender, am no master. I'm a headmaster who came from bandits!"

Flender pointed out the window at the shabby mud-brick houses.

"From the very first day Shrek Academy was founded, there has only been one rule—we accept only monsters, never ordinary people! What is a monster? Something that cannot be explained by common sense—that is a monster!"

Flender turned back and slapped Chen Xuan on the shoulder.

"I don't care whether you have twin martial souls or whether you've absorbed soul rings. So long as you aren't twelve yet, and so long as you can beat those Soul Elders and Soul Ancestors flat, you are the monster Shrek wants!"

Flender looked at Yu Xiaogang and waved his hand. "Xiaogang, you are my brother and an honorary adviser to the academy. But when it comes to admitting students, I, the headmaster, have the final say. Your theories may work elsewhere, but at Shrek, they have to give way to strength."

Yu Xiaogang was choked speechless by Flender's words for a long while.

He clenched his fists tightly, his chest rising and falling erratically, before finally flicking his sleeve hard.

"Fine! Flender, if you insist on taking him in, I won't interfere! I'd like to see what you can possibly teach him!" After saying that, Yu Xiaogang did not even look at Chen Xuan. He strode straight out of the office.

"Teacher!" Tang San called out hurriedly. He shot Chen Xuan a vicious glare, then turned and ran after Yu Xiaogang.

The office fell quiet again.

Chen Xuan rubbed the shoulder Flender had slapped numb. "Headmaster Flender, you really have quite the grip. So, does this mean I've been admitted?"

"Admitted? Not so fast."

Flender bared a mouthful of yellow teeth, smiling like an old fox that had stolen a chicken.

"I don't care about martial soul theories, but not a single stage of Shrek's entrance examination can be skipped. Your soul power is only rank eleven, so there's no need to test you on the basic stages. Go with Tang San and the others straight to the fourth stage."

Flender leaned close to Chen Xuan and lowered his voice, his tone full of malicious delight.

"Kid, don't say I didn't warn you. The one guarding the fourth stage today is Vice Headmaster Zhao Wuji. That old bear went gambling last night and lost an entire month's salary. He's in a terrible mood today."

Flender poked Chen Xuan twice in the chest.

"He definitely won't hold back today. You, Tang San, and those other newly arrived little monsters should pray for yourselves."