First Soul Skill: Blue Silver Pole Vault

[I already said it: Tang San and I were both transmigrators.]

[But there was an essential difference between us—a huge one, like two parallel lines that would never intersect!]

[Tang San had been an outer disciple of the Tang Sect in a martial arts world in his previous life. After being discovered secretly learning the inner sect's ultimate arts, he was left with no way out and had no choice but to leap off a cliff to prove his resolve. He died and transmigrated to the Douluo Continent.]

[If I remembered correctly, it was only after Tang San died that he caught the Asura God's attention and gained the chance to be reborn.]

[The Tang Sect was an assassin sect that trained killers. Did anyone really expect Tang San, a killer disciple, to be particularly loyal or righteous?]

[Why did I say earlier that Tang San was only the nominal protagonist chosen by fate? Though he too was a transmigrator, the current Tang San was merely the Tang Sect's Tang San whose body had been occupied by an extraterrestrial demon. Put plainly, it was the cultivation world's body-snatching routine, and the one pulling the strings was the Asura God himself.]

[That old fox, the Asura God, was sharp. At a glance, he noticed Tang San, the protagonist chosen by fate in Soul Land I, and secretly pulled a switcheroo.]

[Tang San followed his teacher's example. Inherited from the Asura God, he directly trained Huo Yuhao, the protagonist chosen by fate in the Soul Land II era, into a dog.]

[Still, that was perfectly normal. Back when Ah Yin sacrificed herself to help Tang Hao break through to become a Titled Douluo, Tang San had only been a swaddled infant. How could he possibly have escaped unharmed from the encirclement of Qian Xunji and Spirit Hall's many experts?]

Soul Land I Tang Yuehua: "Huh? So Tang San was my brother's son?"

Soul Land I Ah Yin: "How could this be? My son... If Xiao San had already been body-snatched, was he still Hao's and my flesh and blood?"

[Actually, Tang Hao had probably noticed something was wrong long ago. From the time Tang San began cultivating Tang Sect inner power at the age of three, Tang Hao had ignored him completely, drinking himself into oblivion every day and hiding from the world.]

[To outsiders, he was merely a dispirited, negligent father who had fallen on hard times. In truth, he had deliberately kept his distance.]

[It was only when Tang San awakened his Twin Martial Souls at the age of six—Blue Silver Grass and the Clear Sky Hammer, or rather, the moment Tang San awakened the Clear Sky Hammer—that Tang Hao began to truly acknowledge him.]

[That was normal too. With a Titled Douluo's insight, how could he fail to see the strange things about his own son?]

[Not to mention that old fox Tang Hao was extremely shrewd. If one looked deeper, even Ah Yin's sacrifice of her hundred-thousand-year Spirit Ring back then had most likely been something Tang Hao secretly planned and then simply went along with...]

Soul Land I Tang Yuehua: "How could that be? My brother isn't that kind of person!"

Soul Land I Ah Yin: "Nonsense! Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

Soul Land II Ah Yin: "..."

Unlike the two women from Soul Land I, Ah Yin of the Soul Land II era was clearly far more mature in temperament.

Having experienced life's warmth and coldness, its drifting dust and worldly turmoil, the naïve mindset of a soul beast had faded away. Ah Yin's thoughts had gradually become more human, and she understood human nature better as well...

Could it... really be like this?

Ah Yin's cool gaze wavered slightly. Her fingertips gently brushed over the diary as she murmured softly in her heart.

There was no fierce rebuttal, no broken-down crying or shouting, yet she already believed this explanation in her heart, regardless of whether it was true...

Psychology had a classic effect: confirmation bias.

Once you suspected someone, the truth no longer mattered, because you would do everything possible to validate your suspicions. Anything that contradicted them would be ignored.

Once suspicion arose, the verdict had already been reached...

[Of course, this was only one possibility, a conclusion reverse-engineered from the future plot of the Douluo Continent. Let's not discuss this topic for now. We can talk about it when Ah Yin encounters it in the future...]

[Honestly, this was hard for me to judge. If I put myself in Tang San's shoes, I... forget it. I still couldn't understand why Tang San had insisted on secretly learning it.]

[The state had its laws, families had their rules, and since the sect existed, it must have had ways to advance. Why take such a desperate risk and secretly learn forbidden arts?]

[Although he was a genius, Tang San had only managed to learn the inner sect cultivation method because the elder in the technique pavilion had turned a blind eye and tacitly approved.]

[Unfortunately, no matter how gifted you were, you had violated the sect's rules. Accepting punishment was only natural.]

[But then came the most absurd part. Tang San was forced to the edge of Ghost's Sorrow Cliff, handed over Buddha's Fury Lotus—the pinnacle of the Tang Sect hidden weapons he had created—to the sect elders, gave an impassioned and tragic speech, and chose to leap off the cliff to prove his resolve.]

[Then came the classic scene: only after the Tang Sect Master saw Tang San's Buddha's Fury Lotus did he regret it bitterly, regretting that he had driven a genius disciple to death and watched the chance for the Tang Sect to rise again slip away.]

[The Tang Sect Master then hypocritically stepped forward to play the good guy, angrily scolding the elders who had slandered Tang San: "If you could make Buddha's Fury Lotus, you could break the sect rules too."]

[He started by slapping labels on people, speaking as though he hadn't pursued Tang San himself. I just wanted to ask: what were you doing earlier?]

[Birds of a feather flock together. The Tang Sect Master's shameless double standards were practically molded from the same template as Tang San's.]

[Still, setting aside Tang San's violations of sect rules, he truly was a genius at crafting hidden weapons, as well as an outstanding assassin and killer...]

"An assassin? Third Brother used to be an assassin?"

Within Shrek Academy, in the student dormitories.

Though it was already late at night, Xiao Wu was not asleep. She lay on her bed with the diary tucked against her chest, her expression complicated.

That did make sense. No wonder Third Brother carried so many different hidden weapons and possessed methods that did not belong to this continent.

Even Sect Master Ning, a man of high status and power, had willingly bet on and invested in him. Everything lined up...

[Let me think. What other strengths did Tang San have...]

[A steadfast defender of feudalism. He threw around "the way to death" at everyone else, but he was quite tolerant toward his own people.]

[Even with Yu Xiaogang, Tang San fulfilled the duty of treating a teacher like a father for life. If I were Tang San, a useless mediocrity like Yu Xiaogang, all show and no substance, misleading disciples and ruining their futures, would have long since earned the way to death.]

Soul Land I Bibi Dong: "???"

Soul Land I Liu Erlong: "???"

The former Blue Tyrant Academy, now Shrek Academy.

When Liu Erlong saw Qin Moyu openly slandering her beloved Yu Xiaogang in the diary, fury surged within her. Her eyes turned crimson, she panted like a bull, and every word came through gritted teeth.

"Bullshit! Xiao Gang isn't useless!"

Her extreme rage caused the Soul Power around her body to boil out of control. Even the surrounding air was scorched burning hot by her blazing Soul Power.

Liu Erlong stared fixedly at the diary floating before her, her eyes filled with anger and anxiety. Her heart was consumed by an obsessive need to defend her lover. She simply refused to admit that even a single word in the diary might be true!

In her heart, Yu Xiaogang's role as the wisdom corner of the Golden Iron Triangle was by no means undeserved!

Although Yu Xiaogang's own Martial Soul was defective and he could never break through his bottleneck in this lifetime, he had conducted extremely deep research into Martial Souls. His Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul surpassed the entire Douluo Continent, and he was hailed as invincible in Martial Soul theory!

Liu Erlong clenched her fists, indignation filling her heart:

Xiao Gang was only held back in cultivation by his Martial Soul defect! His vision, his breadth of mind, his theoretical knowledge—who in this world could compare? What right did he have to maliciously smear him and slander him so recklessly?!

Yet no matter how furious Liu Erlong was, she could not affect the truths revealed in the diary...

[For the first Soul Skill of the Blue Silver Emperor Martial Soul, Yu Xiaogang had nearly chosen ten-year withered bamboo as the Spirit Ring. If he had really attached it, Tang San's first Soul Skill might have become Blue Silver Pole Vault.]

[His own mother doing pole vaulting would work too...]

[Besides, wasn't there a fifty-year-old Yu Xiaogang standing right beside them? If they were really short on Spirit Rings, choosing him wouldn't have been impossible either...]

[Didn't he still raise it into trash afterward? A perfectly good life-element Martial Soul, Blue Silver Grass, already had a weak foundation, yet he insisted on taking the poison route. Blue Silver Grass simply wasn't suited for that path!]

[This idea even continued into Soul Land II. The Tang Sect kept selecting highly gifted Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul users as sect masters, making them imitate that brat Tang San's Spirit Ring configuration.]

[From this alone, the Tang Sect deserved its decline. Tang San's Martial Soul wasn't Blue Silver Grass at all—it was the Blue Silver Emperor, the royal family among plants!]