Library Pavilion

The roast meat at Papal Hall really did taste good. They'd used plenty of cumin.

Full and satisfied, Su Chen strolled over to the highest-level Library Pavilion in Spirit Hall.

His identity token as the newly appointed Holy Son hung at his waist, granting him unobstructed passage all the way.

Old Zhao, the elder guarding the Library Pavilion, was a little old man with graying hair. He stared curiously at the short-haired boy before him, only six years old and already responsible for turning Wuhun City upside down.

"Your Highness, floors one through seven of this Library Pavilion contain martial soul theories and soul beast illustrations from across the continent. Even a Title Douluo couldn't finish reading them in a lifetime. Which book would you like to start with?"

Su Chen rubbed his stomach and let out a satisfied burp.

"Start with the first book on the first shelf. Read them all."

Old Zhao froze where he stood. Before he could recover, Su Chen had already reached the shelves and casually pulled out a thick copy of Hundred-Year Soul Beast Behavior.

He turned the pages.

His fingers rapidly flipped through the book. He finished one volume in seconds, shoved it back into place, then pulled out the next.

Old Zhao really couldn't bear to watch anymore and stepped forward.

"Your Highness, these texts are the painstaking work of Spirit Hall's predecessors. If you're bored, you can go play in the garden outside. Flipping through them so casually is disrespectful to knowledge."

Su Chen didn't stop. His gaze remained fixed on the dense words covering the pages.

Other people relied on their brains to remember what they read. Su Chen relied on his cheat to scan it all.

The cheat in his mind operated at high speed. Countless disordered martial soul theories, Soul Ring combinations, and meridian diagrams transformed into the purest streams of information, continuously merging into the knowledge base of the Supreme Guidance Art.

The cultivation method, which had originally possessed only a framework, greedily absorbed the underlying logic of this world and grew ever more complete.

"Uncle Zhao, the second paragraph on page thirty of the fifth book in the third row, Analysis of Earth-Splitting Bear Habits, is wrong. An Earth-Splitting Bear's weakness isn't its abdomen, but the Shanzhong Acupoint three inches below its armpit. The fat around its abdomen is too thick; soul masters of the same rank can't break through its defenses at all. Remember to correct it later. Don't mislead the brothers down below who go out hunting soul beasts."

Old Zhao's eyes widened.

He hurried over, pulled out that book, and flipped to page thirty. The page indeed recorded information about Earth-Splitting Bears.

He'd really taken it all in? He could even spot the errors at a glance?

Su Chen couldn't be bothered with the dumbfounded Old Zhao and continued his insane book-scanning spree.

One shichen.

Two shichen.

He'd flipped through every one of the tens of thousands of texts on the first three floors of the Library Pavilion. That vast reserve of knowledge gave Su Chen a comprehensive understanding of Douluo Continent's cultivation system.

Just as he was about to head to the fourth floor, Su Chen's gaze fell on a dust-covered booklet in the corner.

Its title was Ten Core Competencies of Martial Souls.

Its author: Yu Xiaogang.

Su Chen raised an eyebrow, pulled out the thin booklet, and blew away the dust.

"The master's famous work? Interesting."

He opened the first page.

"First point: There are no useless martial souls, only useless soul masters."

Su Chen sneered.

He flipped several more pages.

"Third point: The amount of innate soul power at the time of martial soul awakening is directly proportional to the quality of the martial soul. The stronger the martial soul, the greater the innate soul power."

Su Chen slapped the book onto the table and pointed at the page.

"Uncle Zhao, come take a look. Is there something wrong with this guy's brain?"

Old Zhao leaned in, his face full of disdain.

"Yu Xiaogang's trash? This book is a joke in Spirit Hall. If not for certain special circumstances back then, it wouldn't even qualify to enter the Library Pavilion."

Su Chen pointed at the two theories in the book.

"First, he says there are no useless martial souls. Then he says the stronger the martial soul, the higher the innate soul power. By that logic, how is someone with a useless martial soul and zero innate soul power supposed to cultivate? With his head? Isn't that just slapping himself in the face?"

"This kind of self-contradictory, nonsensical logic can be called core competencies? It's practically an insult to the intelligence of the soul master world."

Old Zhao nodded repeatedly.

"Your Highness, you may not know this. Yu Xiaogang himself is a mutated, useless martial soul from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Lineage, stuck at rank twenty-nine his entire life. He wrote this stuff only to comfort himself, to prove it wasn't that he was incompetent—it was that no one else understood."

Su Chen continued reading the later statistics on soul beast ages and Soul Ring absorption limits.

The more he read, the more absurd it became.

"The limit for the first Soul Ring is four hundred and twenty-three years. Could a beast who never even broke through rank thirty really research data this precise, down to the single digit?"

Su Chen's eyes turned cold.

"These are clearly statistical records paid for with the lives and blood of countless low-level soul masters throughout Spirit Hall's history! Yu Xiaogang took them, changed the name, summarized them, stamped his name on them, and suddenly they became his theories?"

"He plagiarized homework without even changing the name. Does a freeloader who feeds on others' blood deserve to be called a master?"

Old Zhao was filled with righteous indignation and punched a nearby pillar.

"Your Highness is right! Spirit Hall's cardinals have long hated that bastard!"

Su Chen closed his eyes.

In his mind, Yu Xiaogang's fallacies collided with the countless martial soul texts he had just absorbed.

[ Ding! ]

[ Having studied countless martial soul texts and identified the logical flaws in Ten Core Competencies, combined with the fundamental Dao of cultivation, enlightenment has been achieved! ]

[ Comprehended Martial Soul Origin Evolution Law! ]

A realization surged through him.

There were no useless martial souls—those words themselves weren't wrong. The mistake was that Yu Xiaogang had no idea how to evolve a useless martial soul!

He only knew how to rigidly apply methods, using crude stacks of soul power to squeeze out a martial soul's potential.

True evolution meant excavating one's origin. It meant communing with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, washing away mortal impurities.

Even mundane iron could cleave the heavens; even Blue Silver Grass could Entangle the stars.

Su Chen opened his eyes, and faint swordlight flickered within his pupils.

He turned and walked to the desk, spread out a parchment scroll, and picked up a quill soaked in ink.

Old Zhao leaned over curiously.

"Your Highness, what are you doing?"

Su Chen turned his wrist, and his pen danced like a dragon.

"Since Yu Xiaogang likes playing with theories, I'll settle the score with him properly."

Six large characters appeared at the top of the parchment.

Treatise on the Truth of Martial Souls.

Su Chen's pen raced across the page.

Chapter One: On the Resonance Between Martial Soul Origins and the Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth.

Chapter Two: Refuting the False Proposition of "Useless Martial Souls," and Discussing the Decisive Role of Meridian Expansion in Martial Soul Reshaping.

Chapter Three: Stripping Away the Plagiarized Disguise of Ten Core Competencies and Restoring the Truth Behind Spirit Hall's Predecessors' Data.

Every word was incisive, every sentence struck at the heart.

There was no flashy, empty rhetoric—only the immense body of data he had just summarized and organized, supported by cultivation principles.

By the bronze doors of the Library Pavilion.

A tall figure had appeared there at some unknown point.

Bibi Dong wore simple purple clothes, without her scepter, quietly watching the short-haired boy write furiously at the desk.

She watched as Su Chen, his face full of mockery, refuted Yu Xiaogang's theories until they were utterly demolished.

The trace of gloom buried deep in Bibi Dong's eyes, which had lingered for years, began to loosen.

That man who had once proclaimed his theories unmatched had become, beneath the pen of a six-year-old child, a plagiarist and a clown.

How laughable that she had once held hopes for him.

Half a shichen passed.

Su Chen stopped writing and blew the ink dry on the parchment.

Without even raising his head, he tossed the parchment full of writing behind him.

"Teacher, since you're here, take a look at this."

Bibi Dong reached out and caught the parchment.

Her gaze fell on the first line.

She could no longer look away.