Setting Out to Hunt Soul Beasts! A Lost Ancient Language

Early morning.

While many students were still asleep, five freshmen in white school uniforms had already gathered before the Sea God statue.

They clearly did not know one another, so little conversation passed between them. One was so bored that he started teasing the ants on the ground.

Lu Yi sat beside a flower bed, practicing simple breathing exercises as he waited.

Before long, a young teacher approached from the direction of the Martial Soul Department. He looked to be in his thirties and had a scholarly air.

After reaching the freshmen and confirming that they were the students joining this Soul Hunting trip, he briefly introduced himself.

"I'm the teacher leading this Soul Hunting trip. Just call me Teacher Wang. I'm sure you all know the rules, so I won't go over them again. Let's set off and try to get back early."

He led the five students to the school gates, hired two carriages, and set off.

Shrek Academy bordered the Star Dou Great Forest, and its gates faced the forest from afar. Yet when students from the outer academy went Soul Hunting, they always had to take a detour to enter it.

That was because Shrek's extensive Soul Hunting over thousands of years had left Soul Beasts both hateful and wary of Shrek Academy.

To keep humans out, the Soul Beasts in the Outer Zone facing Shrek were far stronger than those in other directions. Ordinary low-age Soul Beasts had long since vanished from that area.

All five students on this trip were hunting for their Second Soul Ring. Even with a teacher leading them, they still had to travel hundreds of miles out of their way.

Lu Yi was assigned to the first carriage. Riding with him were Teacher Wang and the only female student on the trip.

As soon as they boarded, Teacher Wang took out two books. One was clearly an old volume, while the other was packed with his notes. He remained silent throughout, absorbed in his research.

The girl sat across from Lu Yi. She was small, with a round face that still held a little baby fat. Her green hair was darker than Nanmen Yun'er's, and she was even shyer.

As for Lu Yi, he was hardly sociable himself. Dealing with his chatterbox roommate every day was tiring enough; a few days away promised some peace and quiet.

Only the rolling of the carriage wheels and the jolts and rattles whenever it hit a bump could be heard inside. It was far quieter than the carriage carrying the other three boys.

This was Lu Yi's first time riding in a carriage, but the novelty wore off fast, replaced by the miserable ride.

Even though this was a high-end carriage, faster and steadier than an ordinary one, he could not help comparing it with transportation in the previous two worlds.

There was no need to mention the modern world. Even its cheapest old green trains left this carriage in the dust.

Muggles in the magical world still used carriages too, but the Industrial Revolution had already brought a few cars onto the roads.

Wizards, of course, did not have to stick to conventional transport. Their methods were far more efficient than anything ordinary people used.

Flying broomsticks, Apparition, Portkeys, and Floo Powder... Well, perhaps not Floo Powder. One wrong turn and he might end up in another world.

But in Douluo, people had apparently traveled by carriage ten thousand years ago, and ten thousand years later, carriages were still the first choice for long journeys. Why?

Lu Yi could not figure it out, and no one could give him an answer, so he stopped thinking about it.

The journey was dull. Lu Yi had no intention of cultivating just then, so he took a book from his Storage Ring and began reading.

With both her fellow passengers reading, the girl opposite him grew a little uncomfortable. All she could do was close her eyes and meditate.

"Huh?"

The teacher leading them stretched, then noticed, to his surprise, that a student in his carriage was reading a book.

Since when did Shrek have students interested in theoretical knowledge?

But when he glanced at the contents of Lu Yi's book, the unfamiliar writing, with its faint trace of familiarity, caught his attention.

"Student, what book are you reading?"

Teacher Wang closed his book over his notebook and leaned forward to examine the pages in Lu Yi's hands. "Why do I feel as though I've seen this writing somewhere?"

Lu Yi was surprised. The book in his hands was a collection of magical herbs, written mostly in Old English. That the teacher claimed to have seen the writing piqued his curiosity.

"Nothing special. Just something to read to pass the time." Seeing that the teacher's gaze remained fixed on the book, Lu Yi handed it over freely.

He did not believe the man could understand it.

Teacher Wang took the book and flipped through a few pages, frantically searching his memory.

A moment later, something seemed to occur to him. He immediately rummaged through his Storage Soul Tool.

Before long, he carefully pulled out a battered old book. He opened it with equal care and held it before Lu Yi. "Can you read what's written here?"

Lu Yi looked at the badly yellowed pages, some of them stained and damaged. Much of the writing was illegible, but the few intact words and phrases he could make out sent a jolt through him.

"Sea God calendar... continents colliding... war... extinction."

With each word Lu Yi spoke, Teacher Wang's eyes grew brighter.

The book had practically been sold as scrap. Teacher Wang had stumbled across it by chance and, seeing a volume so worn its original appearance was lost, bought it for next to nothing out of a collector's interest.

But the writing system had long since died out. Its history reached back ten thousand years, and today only scattered fragments could be deciphered.

Teacher Wang had spent a great deal of time tracking down the meanings of some of the very words Lu Yi had just spoken.

He had never expected to meet a student who knew the language today.

"Student, did you know that ten thousand years ago, the ancestor of the first headmaster, Flender, used this very language to name Shrek Academy? It means 'monster'!" Teacher Wang's breathing quickened.

Lu Yi nodded at Teacher Wang's words, while realizing something important.

So the languages of Douluo Continent had a history like this!

Teacher Wang now looked at Lu Yi as though he were a treasure... No, a whole trove of treasures.

As the oldest and most powerful academy on the continent, Shrek stood above the other empires. The resources it had accumulated over ten thousand years were staggering.

Its collection of books was one such resource.

As far as Teacher Wang knew, the number of books written in this lost language alone was staggering.

Countless records left by those who came before—some useful, some not—along with cultivation insights and even secret techniques, might lie buried among them. Unfortunately, no one had been able to unearth them.

Now that he had found Lu Yi, it felt like the best gift heaven could have given a teacher devoted to theoretical research.

"Ahem."

Intent on making a good impression, Teacher Wang cleared his throat and grew solemn again.

"Allow me to introduce myself properly. I'm Wang Yan, a theory teacher in the outer academy's Martial Soul Department. Would you be interested in joining theoretical research?"