"Damn, You're Illiterate!"

Bang!

The rustling rattle of the iron door echoed through the dungeon. Leaning against the wall, Lin En gulped down fresh air, and his mind gradually cleared as oxygen flowed in.

His body was covered in scars, and his arms were riddled with needle marks. The Immune System within him was already operating at full speed, clearing out every foreign substance.

"Does it hurt?"

A slightly trembling girl's voice came from behind the wall. Lin En tilted his head back. His arms had long since gone numb, but he answered with a smile.

"It doesn't."

"I just need some time to recover. What about you? Are you hurt?"

On the other side of the wall, Zhang Lexuan curled herself up. She did not cry. Children on the Douluo Continent generally matured early.

"..."

"I'm fine. They injected me with some strange things, and shone all kinds of weird lights on me."

"Do you want some ointment? I still have a little left."

The little girl stretched out her hand, trying to pass the ointment through the gap in the bars into Lin En's cell. But she was too weak. Her wrist had been rubbed red, yet she still failed to reach him.

Lin En stopped her and chuckled.

"No need. My Martial Soul is the Immune System. It can regenerate on its own."

The little girl still seemed unwilling to give up. Her soft voice carried a trace of determination. "Then... then should I sing to comfort you?"

"When I was little, whenever I got hurt, my mother would comfort me like this. After she sang, the pain would fly away."

Lin En's mouth twitched. Two transmigrations, three worlds—he was apparently born with the destiny of someone whose parents were always missing. Like those Black guys next door in America, he had never seen either parent. There was only one person listed in his household register: himself.

In his previous world, he had not wanted to stay in the orphanage, so he had run away at a very young age and forcibly honed his urban zero-cost survival skills.

Listening to the little girl's slightly stammering singing, Lin En teased her.

"In that case, can I call you Mom?"

The little girl's singing abruptly stopped, followed by a flustered whimper. Even without extending his spiritual power, Lin En could imagine the girl's blushing face.

In this pitch-black dungeon, teasing a child was far more interesting than chatting with an old man or thinking about the rest of his life.

Though his current body was only three years old.

"I... I can't be your mother. You're too old."

A voice softer than a mosquito's buzz echoed next door. Lin En wore a faint smile when Uncle Yu spoke from the other side.

"You brat, you don't seem like a three-year-old at all."

"Child, what did those Evil Soul Masters do to you? You two are the only children who personally went through it and still came back alive."

People on the Douluo Continent generally matured early. Being able to speak clearly at three was considered a sign of heaven-gifted intelligence, comparable to Sea God Tang San.

Ancient records said Tang San could run at one, work at two, and was used by Tang Hao as a nuclear-powered donkey by the age of three.

It was not just Tang San. Every remarkable figure in history had shown signs of greatness in childhood.

With so many precedents, Lin En's maturity did not draw much special attention. He had been forcibly awakened at three and possessed Level Seven Innate Soul Power. Such behavior was only natural.

Facing Uncle Yu's question, Lin En sank his consciousness into the Sea of Spirit and sensed the raging immune war within his body.

All kinds of foreign cells were being slaughtered by the Immune System, but some were too powerful for even the Immune System to defeat.

"That old bastard injected me with Soul Beast bloodlines—many different Soul Beast bloodlines—and there was also some light that could forcibly grant a dark attribute."

After seeing Lin En's formidable vitality, the old bastard's second round of experiments involved injecting him with various unknown Soul Beast bloodlines.

Little Sage classified those bloodlines through the Immune System. There were local Sub-Dragons, rabbits, snakes, bears...

There were as many as ten different varieties. After the injections, perhaps afraid of killing Lin En, that guy injected him with a tube of emerald-green liquid as well.

The vitality contained in that liquid was terrifying. According to the old bastard, all that life force had been extracted from "materials."

The immense life force had even repaired his damaged internal organs, providing Little Sage with a considerable amount of energy. His brain modification was progressing quite smoothly now, and the issue of an energy source had been resolved.

"Damn beasts!"

"Forcibly injecting bloodlines will cause one's own bloodline to collapse! At best, the Martial Soul will shatter and the origin will dissipate. At worst, one will mutate into a monster, and even the soul will not escape unharmed!"

Furious cursing came from a cell farther away. The shackled burly man tugged at the chained Soul Tools around him, but his weakness and suppression left him unable to mount any effective resistance.

His condition was even worse than Uncle Yu's. He might not last more than a few years. His origin and soul were being gradually contaminated by sinister Soul Power. This feeling of having one's soul stripped away was deliberately inflicted by those Evil Soul Masters.

They could have killed the burly man, or even Uncle Yu, immediately. But they insisted on torturing the wills of these adult powerhouses, making them sink bit by bit. The souls obtained that way were more evil—and more powerful.

Uncle Yu had already grown accustomed to the methods of these Evil Soul Masters. Ever since being imprisoned here, they had refreshed the limits of his understanding every day.

Sometimes, he truly felt that Shrek Academy and his great-grandfather had been wrong!

Spirit Hall had been right back then. They should have dispatched their armies without restraint, swept through every dark corner of the continent, rebuilt the Slaughter Capital, and thrown these beasts in there to slaughter one another!

And those damned aristocrats! Shrek Academy had already treated them well enough! It had provided them with so many benefits, yet they still dared to collude with Evil Soul Masters?

"Child, send your spiritual power over here. I'll teach you something."

Lin En walked over and sat against the opposite wall, then sent a wisp of spiritual power through it toward Uncle Yu.

Uncle Yu traced words on the ground with his finger, writing the three characters for Mysterious Heaven Skill.

"Do you know what this is?"

Lin En looked utterly confused. "What is that? What did you write?"

Uncle Yu raised his brow. The Mysterious Heaven Skill was the most famous cultivation method on the continent. After all, it belonged to that Sea God, and the Tang Sect had once flourished as well.

Many wandering hero biographies described this cultivation method, praising it as something almost divine.

Even older martial hero novels claimed that it could cultivate Innate Soul Power. Only those who had truly practiced it knew that was complete nonsense.

Uncle Yu pointed at the ground, his tone serious. "How many characters are these?"

"Five characters," Lin En said.

Uncle Yu slapped his forehead, and laughter rang out from the surrounding cells.

The adults imprisoned here were all at least Soul Emperors. Extending their spiritual power was merely a minor trick to them.

In a boring dungeon, watching someone teach a child was also quite entertaining.

"I was wrong. You're illiterate, kid! You can't read!"

Uncle Yu was quite helpless, but Lin En could do nothing about it either. He was also curious why he could understand the language here but could not recognize its written words.

Could it be that the plane consciousness had only transmitted half the basic information? If it was going to transmigrate him, it should have done the job properly!