Stripping the Grandmaster of His Fig Leaf

Firmament-Time Space, Notting Academy's Great Hall.

Shredded paper fluttered down through the air and settled on Yu Xiaogang's rigid face.

No one had imagined that a six-year-old work-study student in patched coarse clothes would dare, under the eyes of hundreds, to tear the Grandmaster's theoretical manuscript to shreds and call it "garbage that locks shut the path for commoners to rise"!

"You... you..."

Yu Xiaogang trembled all over. He pointed at the small child before him, whose presence was terrifying, but his lips quivered for ages without producing a single coherent rebuttal.

Because Lin Fan's scathing attack had struck the weakest point at the heart of his theory!

But Yu Xiaogang had spent half his life trading on the title of "Grandmaster."

After his initial surge of shame and fury, a last-ditch calculation flashed through his eyes.

He stepped forward, lowered his voice, and spoke in a tone meant to exert pressure, quiet enough for only the two of them to hear:

"Boy, do you think you're clever?"

"Do you know why I waited here for you? Why I was willing to lower myself to take a work-study student as my disciple?"

Yu Xiaogang gave a smug sneer, convinced he had seen through everything. He leaned close to Lin Fan's ear and, just as in the original story, played what he believed was the ultimate trump card, one that would surely make this six-year-old bow and accept him as his master:

"Do you think all that talk of equality can hide your secret? How could a standard Trash Martial Soul like Blue Silver Grass produce Innate Full Soul Power?"

"You must have another, powerful Martial Soul, don't you? You're the Third in a Century to possess Twin Martial Souls!"

"No one in this world but me can teach someone with Twin Martial Souls! Kneel and accept me as your master, and I can guarantee you—"

Yu Xiaogang never finished.

Smack!

A resounding slap!

Before the horrified eyes of the entire school, six-year-old Lin Fan swung his little hand and slapped Yu Xiaogang hard across his smug face!

The blow spun Yu Xiaogang halfway around. Blood sprayed from his mouth, and several teeth flew out!

"Kneel? You think you're worthy?!"

Far from being cowed by Yu Xiaogang's knowledge of his secret, Lin Fan looked at him as though he were a revolting heap of garbage.

Then Lin Fan did something that sent Yu Xiaogang plunging into an icy abyss!

Lin Fan did not lower his voice at all. He turned to face the hundreds of teachers and students and, in his young voice, made Yu Xiaogang's whispered words public!

"Everyone, listen carefully!"

Lin Fan pointed at Yu Xiaogang, who had collapsed to the floor clutching his face. His voice rang through every corner:

"This Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang, who's always preaching virtue, just told me in secret that he wanted to take me as his disciple for reasons that had nothing to do with his bullshit claim that 'there are no useless Martial Souls'!"

"It's because he's decided I possess powerful Twin Martial Souls!!!"

Boom—!!!

At those words, the entire Great Hall of Notting Academy erupted!

Every teacher and noble student stared at Yu Xiaogang in disbelief.

And Lin Fan's merciless takedown had only just begun!

He planted a foot on Yu Xiaogang's chest:

"Yu Xiaogang! Your hypocrisy makes me sick!"

"You keep saying Blue Silver Grass can be cultivated into greatness, but deep down, you look down on Trash Martial Souls more than any noble does!"

"You didn't approach me because you wanted to prove a commoner's humble Martial Soul could defy fate! You just wanted to use my hidden Second Martial Soul to prove your ridiculous theory wasn't garbage! You wanted to use my life to wash away your reputation as 'trash'!!!"

"What am I to you? A laboratory mouse? A stepping stone for your fame?!"

"You'd steal ideas and scheme against a six-year-old commoner child just to prove yourself. A parasite like you has no right to teach anyone!"

"Rip off that mask of false virtue! You, Yu Xiaogang, are a hypocrite through and through!!!"

Every word struck the heart!

Lin Fan's public exposé, flawless in its logic, dragged the filthiest ambition hidden beneath Yu Xiaogang's aura as "Grandmaster" into the sunlight!

"No... that's not how it is... you're lying!"

Yu Xiaogang lay on the floor, his face ashen, shaking his head desperately as he tried to defend himself.

But the contemptuous gazes fixed on him, as though he were a fraud, had already pierced him like ten thousand arrows and nailed him to history's pillar of shame.

[Host detected exposing a hypocrite in public and defending the dignity of commoners!]

[You refused a bargain for personal gain and held fast to the absolute principle of Universal Impartiality!]

[Congratulations, Host! You have perfectly displayed the sage's traits of "hating evil with a passion and seeing all with perfect clarity"! Sage Roleplay Level has soared!]

"Hahahahaha!"

Lin Fan was nearly laughing himself senseless inside. Yes! This feels so damn good! That idiot Tang San in the original story practically worshiped this old creep like a father and willingly became his lab rat! Today, I hit this old charlatan with a whole combo and stripped him down to his underpants! This point-farming efficiency is practically cheating!

He was simply immersed in the thrill of a perfect clear, with the mindset of a player crushing a low-IQ NPC.

Outside the Firmament, in the real world, during the era of the Peerless Tang Sect ten thousand years later.

Shrek Academy, outside the first-year dormitories.

Huo Yuhao, only eleven and newly arrived at Shrek Academy, was looking up at the Firmament in the night sky.

His eyes, which housed his Spirit Eyes Martial Soul, were streaked with frightening veins of blood.

"So... so that's how it was..."

He thought back on his own life.

He had entered Shrek with his Body Martial Soul, Spirit Eyes, only to endure countless cold looks and slights because his cultivation was slow.

Whether it was Teacher Zhou Yi's harshness or the noble students' mockery, it had all left him struggling to breathe.

Only after he revealed his Ultimate Ice Second Martial Soul had Shrek's higher-ups rushed over like stray dogs spotting a bone, fussing over him and making him a focus of their training!

Before, he had thought that was Shrek's kindness.

But today, he had watched the six-year-old "ancestor Tang San" in the Firmament tear away Yu Xiaogang's mask of hypocrisy with such clarity!

Huo Yuhao felt as though lightning had split apart the fog in his mind!

They never cared about my hard work! They never cared whether commoners lived or died!

From Yu Xiaogang ten thousand years ago to Shrek Academy ten thousand years later... all they ever did was search for Twin Martial Souls and Ultimate Attributes to decorate their "we only accept monsters" façade!!!

They treated me like a laboratory mouse meant to prove how good they were at teaching!

But the truly selfless Tang San in the Firmament... he saw through it all. He exposed this hypocritical, man-eating logic ten thousand years ago...

Huo Yuhao raised his head toward the two enormous statues standing side by side in the center of Shrek Square—Sea God Tang San and Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang!

The towering fury of having been deceived for ten thousand years erupted in the chest of Huo Yuhao, this child of destiny!

"But... but why?!"

"Why, after becoming a god, did the Sea God himself in the Divine Realm not smash this old system as he did in the Firmament? Why did he instead honor that selfish hypocrite Yu Xiaogang as Grandmaster?! Why did he let Shrek Academy use this man-eating logic to oppress us commoners for ten thousand years?!!!"

Huo Yuhao was not alone.

Inside Shrek Academy's Sea God Pavilion.

Bang!

Yan Shaozhe, dean of the Martial Soul Department, went weak at the knees and fell back into the Grandmaster's Chair.

His face turned deathly pale as he watched Yu Xiaogang's wretched, beaten-dog display in the Firmament.

The "founder of their theories" whom Shrek Academy had celebrated for ten thousand years, the "Grandmaster" in whom they took such pride.

He had been stripped bare, without so much as a fig leaf left!

He was nothing but a selfish parasite seeking lab rats to win himself fame!

"It's over... Shrek's ten thousand years of good name... it's all over..." Yan Shaozhe's voice shook.

If even the founder's original motives were this filthy, then wasn't Shrek Academy's so-called "glory" of the past ten thousand years built on a tower of lies piled high with commoners' bones?!

Yet.

When it came to striking at the heart, there was no cruelest blow—only a crueler one!

Inside the Firmament.

Lin Fan kept his foot on Yu Xiaogang's chest and looked at the commoner students below the stage.

To push his "sage persona" to its absolute limit, Lin Fan did something that plunged the entire Divine Realm, ten thousand years in the future, into despair!

"Knowledge has never been a privilege for a chosen few to monopolize!"

Lin Fan turned and strode to the Great Hall's enormous Blackboard.

He picked up a piece of chalk, his wrist moving in a blur.

Before the eyes of every teacher and student!

Lin Fan wrote out the complete circulation routes and the Meridian and Acupoint Method for the first three levels of the Tang Sect's supreme internal cultivation art, the "Mysterious Heaven Skill," right there on the Blackboard!

"Anyone in this world whose meridians are open can follow this method to cultivate Internal Energy! Even without a Martial Soul, you can strengthen your body and extend your life!"

Lin Fan tossed aside the chalk and spread his arms like a universal god embracing all humanity. His voice rang with absolute selflessness and grandeur:

"I, Tang San, swear that for as long as I live, I will break the monopoly of Martial Soul bloodlines! I will make everyone under heaven a dragon among men! Everyone shall have a cultivation art to practice!!!"

Rumble—!!!

Inside and outside the Firmament, across two different times.

At that moment, the sacred oath—"everyone a dragon among men, everyone with a cultivation art to practice"—set both ablaze!

At Notting Academy, every commoner student pulled out paper and pen, copying the cultivation method on the Blackboard with all their might, their eyes red-rimmed.

And in the real world ten thousand years later.

In countless slums across the Douluo Continent's Three Great Empires and the Sun Moon Empire, countless commoners who would never be able to cultivate their Martial Souls looked up at the miraculously clear "Mysterious Heaven Skill" in the sky.

They knelt on the ground, sobbing as they engraved its verses deep into their minds!

This was the ladder to heaven the sage had given them!

This was true selflessness! A true savior!

But.

The commoners' celebration was the death knell of the old god!

In the Divine Realm, inside the Sea God Temple.

"Blargh—!!!"

Sea God Tang San himself sat high upon the God King Throne.

When he saw Lin Fan in the Firmament truly make the "Mysterious Heaven Skill" public as though handing out leaflets, then swear before the entire universe to make everyone a dragon among men.

At last, he could no longer suppress the Divine Power Backlash raging through his body!

Tang San doubled over and spewed a great mouthful of golden divine blood, splattering divine radiance across the floor!

"No... don't..."

The God King who had schemed for ten thousand years sat there with his hair disheveled, helplessness written across his hypocritical face.

He clutched his chest, feeling his Divine Core begin to tear apart in terrifying fashion.

Across the two worlds, true selflessness and false virtue stood in stark, brutal contrast.

The "true sage Tang San" had torn away Yu Xiaogang's hypocritical mask without mercy and made his secret art public—a devastating blow from an entirely higher plane!

Across the continent ten thousand years later, the faith of billions of commoners and low-ranking Soul Masters in Sea God Tang San turned into the deadliest poison and surged back into the Divine Realm!

Crack—!!!!

A shattering sound so piercing it could make the entire God Realm Committee tremble rang out.

Beneath Tang San, the towering God King Throne that symbolized supreme rule over the Divine Realm.

With faith collapsing on every side, it could no longer bear the terrifying Karma.

A crack spread from its base all the way to its backrest.

At that moment, the massive divine throne... split in two with a thunderous crash!!!