Obviously, I Was Here First

Fang Yuan stood where he was and calmly accepted Tang San's formal bow as a disciple before reaching out to pull him up.

"From now on, you're my disciple. I'm sure you won't regret the decision you made today. Come on, I'll take you to meet the headmaster of this academy."

Fang Yuan took Tang San's hand and led him toward the headmaster's office at Notting Academy.

The headmaster was a level forty-two Tool Soul Ancestor, a figure of some standing in Notting City.

However, the moment he saw the six Soul Rings Fang Yuan displayed, his gaze immediately became exceedingly clear.

He hurriedly had someone summon the dean of student instruction to the headmaster's office, where Tang San's enrollment procedures were completed on the spot. He also promised to do his utmost to look after Tang San in the future.

However, Tang San's status as a work-study student remained unchanged. Since it had already been registered with Spirit Hall, even the headmaster said there was nothing he could do.

Tang San said he didn't care about such things. As someone living his second life, whether his living conditions were better or worse didn't make much difference to him.

In this life, he had been sleeping on the floor and cooking for himself every day since he was four. Hadn't he still made it to the age of six and enrolled in school?

After completing the enrollment and leaving the headmaster's office, Fang Yuan took out a uniquely designed brooch and pinned it to Tang San's chest.

Seeing Tang San's puzzled expression, Fang Yuan smiled calmly. "This is a Soul Tool I obtained before. It's used for storage and has over ten cubic meters of space inside. You can keep valuable items in it."

"There are also two hundred Gold Soul Coins inside the storage brooch. They're a gift from your teacher as well. You can use the money to buy whatever you need or improve your meals. As my disciple, you can't let yourself suffer."

As he spoke, Fang Yuan reached out and rubbed Tang San's little head.

Feeling the warm touch on his head, Tang San ran his fingers over the storage brooch, a warm current surging through his heart.

Whether in his previous life as an outer disciple of the Tang Sect, or in this life after being raised by Tang Hao through sheer hardship, he had barely experienced the warmth of family.

Yet today, from this teacher who had only just accepted him, he felt something akin to familial affection.

His teacher was like a father, arranging everything for him, and like a mother, considering every detail so thoroughly.

The Gold Soul Coins could greatly improve his living conditions. The storage Soul Tool was even more meaningful to him. The hidden weapons he crafted in the future could be stored inside it, vastly increasing his combat strength.

At that moment, although his soul was no longer that of a child, Tang San still felt his eyes redden and his nose sting.

Seeing how moved Tang San was, Fang Yuan nodded to himself.

Tang San wasn't truly bad by nature. It was just that he had spent his entire life meeting the wrong people. In his previous life, he had been treated as a tool, and after arriving on Douluo Continent, he had ended up with Haozi and Yu Xiaogang.

Now that he had become Tang San's teacher, as long as his teaching methods weren't too absurd, Tang San would at least develop a normal set of values in the future.

He patted Tang San, who was standing there in a daze, and said with a smile, "All right, go take a look at your dormitory. Get familiar with the storage Soul Tool over the next few days, but don't show it off in front of your classmates."

Tang San held back the tears in his eyes, waved goodbye to Fang Yuan, and turned toward the student dormitories.

There was only one dormitory building, with two large dorm rooms on each floor and more than eighty students in total.

For a junior academy, Notting Academy's dormitory conditions weren't bad. At least it didn't cram four hundred people into one restroom, forcing everyone to rush there first thing in the morning and line up outside with flushed faces.

Dorm Seven was the work-study students' dormitory. When Tang San arrived and pushed open the door, he saw the students gathered in a circle.

At the center of the crowd, a broad, sturdy child lay on the ground, groaning in pain. A pretty little girl stood before him.

The girl's long black hair was braided into a scorpion tail, which swayed from side to side as she smugly shook her head. In a crisp voice, she said to the child on the floor:

"Hey, no sleeping here. I beat you, so does that mean I'm the boss here now?"

As the child on the ground nodded while enduring the pain, sparse applause broke out around them, welcoming the birth of Dorm Seven's new leader.

At that moment, the little girl in the middle of the crowd noticed Tang San at the door and called out brightly, "Hey, are you new here? My name's Xiao Wu, Wu as in dancing. Do you want to challenge me?"

Tang San wasn't someone who liked making trouble. He could tell what had happened here from the situation before him. He had no intention of competing to become the dorm leader, so he honestly shook his head at Xiao Wu's question.

"Boring." Xiao Wu flicked her scorpion tail. "Then I'm the boss here from now on!"

Tang San ignored the noisy crowd, casually picked a bed, set down his luggage, and prepared to go out to buy a few things.

He arrived at the dormitory door and had just raised his hand to push it open when it opened from the outside.

Outside stood a middle-aged man with short black hair and an extremely stiff expression. He asked Tang San, "Is there a student named Tang San here?"

Tang San inexplicably felt a hint of wariness. He had no relatives or acquaintances at Notting Academy and had only just enrolled. Why would someone come looking for him at the dormitory?

He didn't reveal his identity. Instead, he politely asked the middle-aged man outside, "May I ask what you need Tang San for?"

The middle-aged man's voice was hoarse. "My name is Yu Xiaogang. You can call me Grandmaster. I saw Tang San's test report and want to take him as my disciple. If you see Tang San, tell him to come find me in the headmaster's office."

Take me as his disciple? Tang San was somewhat puzzled, but after confirming the middle-aged man's intentions, he relaxed and said to Yu Xiaogang:

"Grandmaster, I'm actually Tang San. I'm very sorry, but I already have a teacher."

Yu Xiaogang froze. "You already have a teacher? How could that be? Obviously, I was here first. Aren't you from a poor little village? How could a Soul Master have taken you as a disciple?"

He had some ties with the headmaster of Notting Academy and had been mooching food and lodging at the academy. After seeing the test information for this year's students, he had keenly noticed one particularly unusual student. Once he confirmed that the student wasn't from any major power, he hurried over.

Yu Xiaogang steadied himself, a trace of urgency entering his voice. "Your teacher doesn't have the ability to teach you properly. Only by becoming my disciple can your talent be fully brought out."

As a master of Martial Soul theory, he had seen at a glance that Tang San possessed Twin Martial Souls. For such a prodigy, he didn't believe just any stray nobody could teach him well. Only under his guidance could Twin Martial Souls truly shine.