Star Dou Settles into Dust, Spirit Domain Takes Shape

Night fell over the student dormitories of Shrek Academy's outer court, and the quiet bedroom shut out all the clamor of the outside world.

The window was half open. The evening breeze carried the faint chill of late autumn as it drifted in, stirring several dead leaves scattered at the corner of the desk and lifting the boy's long black hair where it fell over his shoulders. Tang Wulin sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, not releasing the slightest fluctuation of soul power. He was as still as a jade statue that had stood untouched for years.

Half a month had already passed since he completed his three-year training in the Star Dou Great Forest and returned to Shrek.

For ordinary soul masters, three years might have been nothing more than an unremarkable period of gradual cultivation. But for Tang Wulin, who had rooted himself alone in the heart of Star Dou, it had been a tempering that remade him from the inside out. During those three years, he had stayed far from the conflicts of the human world, accompanied day and night by the forest sea and its winds, contending with the pressure of ferocious beasts. Amid endless trials of life and death, he had honed his body, refined his soul power, and tempered his heart.

Outsiders only knew that after three years of arduous cultivation, his soul power had steadily risen and his foundation had grown ever more solid. Only Tang Wulin himself vaguely sensed that his transformation over those three years had gone far beyond what appeared on the surface.

Especially his spiritual power.

From beginning to end, Tang Wulin had believed that the rapid growth of his spiritual power came merely from the nourishing spiritual energy unique to the Star Dou Great Forest, along with the constant strain of countless life-and-death battles. As he withstood the spiritual attacks of high-level ferocious beasts and sensed the veins of the vast forest sea time and again, his spiritual power had indeed grown fuller, more condensed, and clearer by the day. It far surpassed that of soul masters his age and even firmly exceeded many Three-Ring and Four-Ring Soul Ancestors.

But only a trace of extremely faint, gentle, nearly imperceptible silver-blue divine power hidden deep within his spiritual core knew the true source of it all.

It was Gu Yue Na's gift, left behind within the origin of his soul.

During those three years together in Star Dou, no one knew that every late night, every time cultivation left him exhausted, every time he faced a powerful enemy and his spiritual power was depleted, or even when he was trapped at a bottleneck, an invisible silver radiance would quietly seep into his sea of consciousness. Gu Yue Na never disturbed his awareness. She only carefully used her own elemental divine power to gently nourish the source of his spirit, temper the barriers of his sea of consciousness, remove the restless impurities from his spiritual power, and broaden the territory of his divine sense.

This nourishment was utterly silent, blending into every strand of his soul and every inch of his sea of consciousness. Gentle and enduring, it nourished him without a sound. Three years of constant accumulation had long planted the seed to break through his restraints deep within his spirit. It had merely remained dormant, waiting for the most suitable moment to burst forth.

The relaxed state he had entered after returning to Shrek half a month ago, having shed the constant life-and-death vigilance of Star Dou, happened to become the spark that ignited that seed.

Sitting cross-legged in meditation, Tang Wulin slowly closed his eyes and cast aside every stray thought in his mind. His insights from daytime cultivation, his sparring and training with classmates, and every scene from his three years in Star Dou gradually faded away, leaving behind only a clear and empty world of consciousness.

He turned his awareness inward.

His flesh, bones, and sinews had long been tempered by the Golden Dragon Blood Aura until they were harder than refined steel, while the Dragon God's Martial Essence lay hidden within his muscles. His soul power was warm and vast. His cultivation as a Four-Ring Soul Ancestor was incomparably stable, every strand pure and heavy without the slightest trace of instability. Yet the instant his awareness sank into his sea of consciousness, an entirely different sense of vastness suddenly swept through his entire body.

His former sea of consciousness had been like a clear lake—broad, pure, and deeply rooted—enough to support intense spiritual probing, soul power control, and the use of the Bluesilver Domain.

But at this moment, that lake was expanding and ascending at a frantic pace.

The spiritual power that had once been solid like water gradually became ever more translucent and condensed. The invisible spiritual barriers were no longer rigid and taut; instead, they resembled warmed jade that had melted, soft yet resilient. The territory of his sea of consciousness expanded wildly at an imperceptible speed, slowly spreading outward from the confined space within his mind, widening as it shattered through the bottleneck restraints that had bound him for so long.

Hum—

A faint tremor that only his consciousness could perceive resounded deep within his soul.

There was no earth-shaking phenomenon, nor any vast surge of energy spilling outward. This breakthrough was restrained to the extreme, yet it carried the force of a complete transformation.

The spiritual foundation accumulated over countless years, the resilience of divine sense forged through three years of life-and-death trials in Star Dou, and Gu Yue Na's gentle, unceasing nourishment with divine power over those same three years—all of it completely merged, converged, and erupted at this moment.

The shackles shattered, and the barriers dissolved.

Tang Wulin could clearly sense that his spiritual realm had undergone a qualitative leap. He had completely broken free of the restraints of the Spirit Sea Realm and stepped into the next spiritual realm that soul masters dreamed of—the Spirit Domain Realm!

In the Spirit Sea Realm, spiritual power was like rivers and seas: broad and deep, able to cover a range of hundreds or even thousands of meters. It was the norm for all high-level soul masters.

But the Spirit Domain Realm was a true qualitative transformation!

Upon entering this realm, spiritual power was no longer merely used for perception, scouting, and assisting the control of soul power. It possessed the rudiments of a domain. With a single thought, divine sense could form a domain of its own. Every blade of grass, every strand of soul power, and every faint disturbance within several thousand meters could be clearly sensed in the finest detail.

More importantly, the spiritual power of the Spirit Domain Realm was enough to perfectly control high-level battle armor, withstand the eruption of extreme soul power, support the full activation of top-tier domains, and serve as the core foundation for controlling divine power and touching the threshold of godhood in the future.

A gentle silver-blue glimmer flashed silently from the origin of his soul, vanishing so quickly that he could not catch it. It was the divine power Gu Yue Na had left behind, witnessing his breakthrough, giving him a gentle push and stabilizing his brand-new spiritual realm so that it would not waver or leave his foundation unstable.

Tang Wulin's heart shook violently, filled with disbelief.

He had long known that his spiritual power surpassed that of ordinary people, but he had never imagined that at his age, while only at the cultivation of a Four-Ring Soul Ancestor, he could break through into the Spirit Domain Realm!

Across the entire Douluo Continent, ordinary soul masters, even those with outstanding talent and smooth cultivation, generally only had a chance to challenge the Spirit Domain Realm after reaching the Soul King or Soul Emperor stages and accumulating countless years of foundation. Even the rarest geniuses needed to pass five rings before they could touch its threshold.

Yet he was barely over twenty years old, only at four rings, and his spiritual power had already entered the Spirit Domain Realm!

His deep and vast spiritual power flooded his entire sea of consciousness like a tide—clear, immense, and stable, carrying an all-encompassing sense of mastery. He subconsciously released a trace of divine sense, instantly enveloping the whole bedroom before passing through the walls and floorboards, spreading outward.

The whispers of students downstairs, the sound of the wind, the lingering soul power fluctuations from the distant training grounds, the minute rhythms of vegetation growing in the courtyard, even the paths traced by soul power particles drifting through the air... Countless fragments of information poured into his sea of consciousness, all incomparably clear and perfectly ordered.

His divine sense spread outward, and everything within three thousand meters lay under his control!

Such extreme perception was something his former self could never have imagined.

Tang Wulin slowly exhaled a long breath of turbid air. His taut body completely relaxed, and a trace of shock flashed through his eyes before turning into deep understanding.

At last, he understood the reason for his anomaly.

No wonder that during those three years in the Star Dou Great Forest, he had always been able to sense the hidden auras of high-level ferocious beasts in advance and predict approaching danger. No wonder that even when facing the oppressive force of Title-level ferocious beasts, his spiritual sea had remained as steady as a rock, never suffering turbulence or losing control of his mind. No wonder his mastery of the Bluesilver Domain had become ever more exquisite, the exertion of his Golden Dragon Tyrant Body ever more flawless, and his spiritual focus and precision in forging battle armor had advanced by leaps and bounds.

It had never been the result of hard cultivation alone.

Somewhere beyond his awareness, it seemed that a gentle force had always been silently protecting him, nourishing him, and tempering his soul.

An image of silver hair and violet eyes involuntarily surfaced in his mind. So did the years they had relied on each other in the depths of Star Dou, her cool yet gentle eyes and brows, and her silent protection.

Tang Wulin closed his eyes, and a warm tremor rose in his chest.

He still did not know who that hidden nourishment came from, nor did he understand the meaning behind that silent protection. But deep in his heart, he knew with absolute clarity that this spiritual breakthrough, one that defied the heavens, was no accident.

Within the bedroom, the youth remained seated as before, his aura perfectly restrained without a trace.

The soul power of a Four-Ring Soul Ancestor was warm and steady, while the spiritual power of the Spirit Domain Realm was as vast and unfathomable as an abyss.

Three years in Star Dou had tempered his body and soul. Silent gentleness had accumulated a foundation that defied the heavens. Today, with a single breakthrough, the hidden dragon built an even firmer foundation.

No one knew that within this ordinary bedroom at Shrek Academy, the continent's youngest spiritual prodigy of the Spirit Domain Realm had already been born. Nor did anyone know that this bond buried deep within his heart would eventually kindle a love that spanned ten thousand years, laying the firmest path for his future ascent to godhood and his command over heaven and earth.

The evening breeze drifted softly over the youth's clear features. Within his sea of consciousness, a brand-new divine domain quietly took shape.