Future Plans

First came his studies.

From the notice board he had passed by outside the Academic Affairs Office, Lu Yuan learned that he had been assigned to Freshman Class Nine.

In his memories, the class teacher was called Mu Jin. She was positioned as a minor villain who would serve up money and Soul Bones for the protagonist group. Speaking of which, she was also a victim of the Ten-Turn Love Gu. In her youth, she, Zhou Yi, and Fan Yu had been caught up in a classic Douluo Continent-style love triangle. After failing to win the one she loved, her younger brother was later expelled by Zhou Yi in retaliation, and love turned to hatred.

But none of that had anything to do with Lu Yuan. He only needed to attend class properly.

Then there were two supporting characters from the original story, Ning Tian and Wu Feng of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. Those two were also a textbook pair of tragic lovers. Ning Tian, a straight woman, faced the pursuit of lesbian Wu Feng and was directly gender-swapped into a man by Tang Buddha in Qiankun Questioning Love Valley. What utterly thunderous, gutter-level writing.

However, one was an auxiliary-type Soul Elder, while the other was a level-twenty-five assault-type Soul Grandmaster. During the upcoming Freshman Assessment, Mu Jin would most likely arrange for him, a control-type Soul Elder, to team up with them to improve their chances of taking first place.

In that case, it would be worthwhile to build a good relationship with the two of them. The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect was wealthy and powerful, and if Lu Yuan had any resources he wanted to cash out later, he might need to go through Ning Tian, this little rich girl.

In addition, Lu Yuan planned to visit the library whenever he had time. After all, the original Seven Monsters were practically all warriors, but with Shrek's ten-thousand-year legacy, the library was absolutely a treasure trove overlooked by many. Even in Shrek's Sea God's Pavilion, there was a special Elder position reserved for a seven-ring Soul Sage proficient in theory.

Then came opportunities.

After gaining Elder Yi's assistance, Lu Yuan's first choices were opportunities like the Soul-Eating Dagger and Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Rubber—things whose times and locations of appearance were clear in the original story and could be bought directly with Gold Soul Coins.

The Soul-Eating Dagger was especially crucial. The true form of that Ranked Engraving Knife, which had appeared at the Starlight Auction House and failed to sell multiple times, was actually a massive piece of Gold of Life. As one of the top must-have opportunities in The Ultimate Douluo series, Gold of Life had many wondrous uses. Besides nurturing Elder Yi's Divine Sense as it had in the original story, it could open up a Second Sea of Consciousness and strengthen the body, allowing one to absorb Soul Rings beyond their normal age limit. It could even break down an object's life force and grant its host traits such as an "undying body" and "regeneration of severed limbs."

That dagger would be Lu Yuan's primary target during the next holiday. In the original story, it had sold for one hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins.

Although the wealth left behind by Lu Yuan's parents was currently insufficient to buy the dagger outright, the wager between Mu Jin and Zhou Yi would later be a secret-method Soul Bone, while the reward for first place in the Freshman Assessment would also be a Soul Bone. As long as Lu Yuan won both the wager and the assessment, he could use his team-up with Ning Tian and Wu Feng to directly trade his share to Ning Tian for Gold Soul Coins. That should get him close enough to one hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins.

Then there was the second piece of Gold of Life.

Besides the Soul-Eating Dagger, the original story contained traces of Gold of Life in two other places—one was deep within the Lake of Life in the Star Dou Great Forest, where the Silver Dragon King was using Gold of Life to recover from injuries left by the Divine Realm war. The other was inside a Golden Tortoiseshell with one hundred thousand years of cultivation.

Lu Yuan did not have the nerve to steal the Silver Dragon King's Gold of Life, but he certainly had the nerve to steal from the Golden Tortoiseshell. Not only did he have it, he had plenty of it!

Before Elder Yi and the Great Tortoise Shell Technique, the ancestor of all turtle-kind techniques, he figured the Golden Tortoiseshell would surely understand the saying: treasures belong to the virtuous.

If things went smoothly, perhaps his fourth soul ring and first Soul Bone could also be settled.

After roughly mapping out his future path, Lu Yuan cleared his mind and sat cross-legged on the bed to cultivate.

The meditation method Lu Yuan currently practiced had been created by Elder Yi after he recently sorted through his memories and combined them with his former cultivation arts. Its unique feature was that during cultivation, it could draw in light elements to nourish the body while also using the opportunity to temper spiritual power.

Spiritual power was one of the most important measures of combat strength in every version of Douluo One, Douluo Two, and Douluo Three. In a Soul Master's later cultivation, whether condensing dual Soul Cores or absorbing high-age Soul Rings and soul spirits, powerful spiritual cultivation was required as support. Yet in Douluo Two, aside from the Tang Sect's Purple Demon Eyes, which could barely be considered a method for tempering spiritual power, all other factions across the continent lacked systematic methods of spiritual cultivation. They could only let their spiritual power grow slowly alongside their own cultivation.

When Elder Yi had learned that Lu Yuan possessed no method for cultivating spiritual power and had forced it to this level purely through talent, he had been mildly shocked. He found it hard to imagine that a world with so many inheritances and protections from deities had no systematic spiritual cultivation methods at all.

Thus, combining the cultivation arts of the Holy Demon Continent, he had tailored this meditation method specifically for Lu Yuan.

Just as Lu Yuan was about to begin cultivating, the noisy discussion rising from below the dormitory building interrupted his thoughts—

Whoa! Someone's fighting!

He quickly left his room and rushed downstairs. Relying on his exceptional physical fitness and sharp elbows, Lu Yuan successfully squeezed through the hostile glares of the bystanders and secured a prime spot to watch the show.

As expected, it was the dormitory war between Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong.

Lu Yuan had no interest whatsoever in Wang Dong, the fusion material for the five-star Tang Wutong formed from three soul fragments. That Buddha-customized dog leash could stay for Yuhao to enjoy.

Let Yuhao suffer a little. I'll bear the infamy!

"Little student, what do you think of the outcome of this match?"

Just as Lu Yuan was enthusiastically watching the show, an aged voice sounded beside his ear.

After looking around for a while, Lu Yuan quickly noticed Mu En lying there happily, secretly blinking at him.

Heh, that rotten old man was wicked. Sneaking a look at the show and still trying to start a debate.

After clearing a path with a few iron elbows, Lu Yuan quickly elbowed his way through the glaring crowd again and reached the corner where Mu En lay.

"Old man, if you ask me, I think Yuhao will win—the little student with one ring." Lu Yuan sat beside Mu En and muttered softly.

"Oh? Why?" Mu En clearly did not open his mouth, yet his interested voice still appeared beside Lu Yuan's ear.

"If you ask me—" Lu Yuan rubbed his chin and added, "To use an inappropriate analogy, 'a biting dog doesn't bark.'"

"Uh, of course, I'm not saying Yuhao is a dog. What I mean is..." Seemingly realizing that his analogy was improper, Lu Yuan began explaining himself to Mu En.

There was an old saying that rough words could still hold sound reasoning, but weren't his words a little too rough?

Lu Yuan's thunderous language system left Mu En speechless, but he knew Lu Yuan was right—

There was a ferocity in Huo Yuhao's eyes, the kind that said even if he died, he would still tear off a piece of flesh from you!

After a moment, Mu En changed the subject and asked, "Then what if he were replaced by you?"

"Replace Yuhao with me?" Watching Wang Dong's movements, Lu Yuan tried to put himself in the opponent's place.

"His forehand is unrefined, his backhand lacks strength, his footwork is unsteady, and his reactions are sluggish. Not a single move is worth looking at. Before me, he is nothing more than a marked-head peddler!"

"Oh? You're that confident?" Mu En could not help but laugh at Lu Yuan's words.

"Absolutely! My strength is just that outstanding!"

"Then this old man will wait and see what you can do in the Freshman Assessment~ Let's see whether you're really as outstanding as you claim!"

Looking at the confident and spirited Lu Yuan before him, Mu En seemed to see his own younger self when he had first emerged into the world—equally radiant, equally in the prime of youth.

"Then just watch closely, old man!"

As his words fell, Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong's match also reached its conclusion. Just as in the original story, Huo Yuhao ultimately won through that ruthless, life-or-death ferocity.

With the match over, Mu En closed his eyes and became once more the sleepy old dorm manager. Lu Yuan also happily emerged from the crowd and accompanied Huo Yuhao to the Outer Court infirmary to treat his external injuries.

The two of them tacitly avoided mentioning Mu En's true identity.