After passing through a long corridor filled with futuristic technology, the middle-aged man led Tang Wulin and the others into an entirely different space. They seemed to have descended deep underground. The metallic surfaces around them had vanished, replaced by walls built from ancient, massive stone blocks. An air of age and desolation lingered here, as though they had crossed through time and space.
It was a circular hall of roughly five hundred square meters, its surrounding stone walls covered in enormous murals. The most prominent painting, right in the center, depicted a boy standing alone in the middle of a plaza. A crowd surrounded him, wearing uniforms slightly different from those of the present-day Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy. Their uniforms looked more old-fashioned, but the emblems belonged to the same lineage.
What drew the eye, however, was that the boy standing in the center of the plaza wore the uniform of Shrek Academy.
"This is the Great Soul Arena's waiting area." The middle-aged man pointed to the stone benches on one side, his tone as cold as ever. "You'll be notified when it's time to enter for the match."
During their brief wait, Xie Xie approached the mural and craned his neck to study the proud, solitary figure in the painting. Scratching his head, he asked, "Hey, who do you think this Shrek Academy guy in the mural is? He looks pretty cocky, staying that calm with a whole crowd surrounding him."
Tang Wulin gazed at the mural for a long time, a trace of recollection and reverence flashing through his eyes. He said softly, "My sister told me about him. Ten thousand years ago, Spirit Ice Douluo spent some time at the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy as an exchange student from Shrek Academy. Before