The caravan's wagons slowly crossed the border between the Heaven Dou Empire and the Sun Moon Empire.
They reached the Mingdou Mountains.
Inside a wagon laden with provisions...
Chen Mo sat cross-legged, meditating and cultivating.
There was a reason he had followed a caravan rather than traveling to the Sun Moon Empire on his own.
It was simple.
What nine-year-old boy would brave the dangers and ride alone across the border into an enemy country?
Even if he said he was there to attend school, the border troops would never believe him.
He would inevitably be subjected to searches and questioning.
Traveling with a caravan, however, was a different matter.
Although friction had frequently arisen along the borders between the Sun Moon Empire and the Douluo Three Kingdoms over the years...
Those had only been minor skirmishes over certain interests.
The overall situation remained stable.
Since the empires each needed different resources...
They did not impose particularly strict restrictions on traveling merchants.
As long as a little money changed hands...
The border guards would turn a blind eye and let the caravan through.
In the blink of an eye, another five days passed.
After crossing the Mingdou Mountains and trekking over mountains and rivers...
The caravan finally reached Sun Moon City.
And because the Chinese characters for sun and moon combined to form the character for "ming"...
Sun Moon City was also known by the shorter name—Mingdu.
Although Chen Mo had formed a rough picture of Mingdu before arriving...
When he saw it with his own eyes...
He still could not keep the astonishment from his gaze.
"So this is Mingdu... It really is huge!"
"The Heaven Dou Empire's capital, Heaven Dou City, looks like a third- or fourth-tier city next to this."
Chen Mo muttered to himself.
As the Sun Moon Empire's capital...
Mingdu undoubtedly far surpassed other cities in politics, culture, economy, technology, scale, and more.
Mingdu also had another feature that distinguished it from other cities.
The entire city had no walls.
Even with the endless streams of people coming and going...
There was not the slightest sign of congestion.
Yet the absence of walls did not mean Mingdu's defenses were weak.
On the contrary, as the capital of the nation with the most advanced soul tools...
Mingdu was surrounded by all manner of detection, defensive, and offensive soul tools.
These soul tools were all of fairly high grades, too.
If an enemy rashly launched an attack on Mingdu...
They would probably be detected before they could even strike, then immediately subjected to a baptism of fire from all kinds of soul cannons.
Moreover...
Compared with the Douluo Three Kingdoms, the Sun Moon Empire possessed the most expansive territory.
Its capital, Mingdu, stretched farther than the eye could see.
Its area was even somewhat larger than the Heaven Dou Empire's.
One thing it shared with other cities...
Was its division into an inner city and an outer city.
The imperial palace marked the boundary; everything outside it belonged to the outer city.
The farther Chen Mo ventured, the more he felt he had entered a modern city.
Tall buildings stood in rows, their designs neat and orderly.
The main roads, paved with stone slabs and alloy, ran straight in intersecting lines, neatly dividing the streets.
Civilian soul airships and low-altitude flying soul tools occasionally passed overhead.
"Technology means progress."
Looking at the Sun Moon Empire's advanced technology, Chen Mo could not help voicing his admiration.
In the original story...
The Douluo Three Kingdoms had remained immersed in past victories, smugly congratulating themselves while completely neglecting technological development.
They had sealed themselves within their old ways.
The Sun Moon Empire, by contrast, had suffered repeated defeats.
Yet it had continued rapidly developing its technology with a spirit of tireless self-improvement.
Thus, the Sun Moon Empire's eventual unification of the continent was inevitable.
Had it not been for a certain lofty Buddha Tang and his bullshit ten-thousand-year plan...
He had intervened time and again, interfering with the development of the lower realm.
Ultimately, the continent, which should have been on the verge of unification once more, had been obstructed yet again.
At that thought...
Chen Mo shook his head.
Unifying the continent and the Divine Realm were still far too distant for him.
His immediate priority was enrolling at the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy.
With his talent, passing the entrance assessment should not be too difficult.
As for why he had passed over the nearby Shrek Academy and the other academies of Douluo...
Instead trekking over mountains and rivers, traveling thousands of miles to enroll at the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy...
The reason was extremely simple.
As the old saying went...
Fall behind, and you'll take a beating!
At present, there were only two top academies on the continent.
One was Shrek Academy, which focused on martial souls; the other was the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy, which focused on developing soul tools.
The former had developed over ten thousand years, held absolute authority in nurturing Soul Masters' martial souls, and claimed to accept only monsters.
The latter possessed the most advanced soul tool technology on the Douluo Continent.
Before coming here...
Chen Mo had carefully weighed his options before ultimately choosing the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy.
For Chen Mo, who possessed twin ultimate martial souls...
Shrek Academy was undoubtedly the best choice.
But Shrek Academy also had plenty of problems.
For instance, its double standards and shameless cheating in the Soul Master Tournament were actually dressed up as "Shrek's glory."
But in truth, cheating was cheating.
Besides that, Shrek Academy's teachers were not particularly bright, either.
Especially that chicken-leg-loving Chicken Leg Douluo, nicknamed the "Holy Spirit Cult's Supreme Elder."
A mighty level 98 Super Douluo had led a team on an Inspection Corps mission.
Yet an Evil Soul Master barely above level fifty had used Corpse Explosion to inflict devastating casualties on his students.
Of the Shrek Seven Devils, Yao Haoxuan had died, while the other six had been gravely injured.
Not to mention that this Evil Soul Master had fucking escaped right under a level 98 Super Douluo's nose.
Escaping alone would have been bad enough.
But he had even abducted Huo Yuhao on his way out.
With a record like that...
Not even an idiot would believe it had not been deliberate.
Of course, those were all minor issues.
The crucial problem was that most people throughout the academy held extremely backward views and had sealed themselves within their old ways.
They lacked even the slightest foresight.
They knew only how to develop martial souls and paid no attention whatsoever to developing soul tools.
In their eyes...
Soul tools = scrap metal; studying soul tools = a waste of time.
Had Mu En not overridden all opposition to establish the Soul Tool Department, and had the Child of Destiny, Huo Yuhao, not later joined...
Shrek Academy would have been wiped out back in Douluo II.
So, after considering everything, Chen Mo had crossed Shrek Academy straight off his list and firmly chosen the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy.
After all, a genius was a genius anywhere.
As for cultivating his martial souls, he was the Body Sect's young sect master and foremost heir.
With Du Busi teaching him, he had absolutely nothing to worry about regarding his martial souls.
Not to mention that he now had a system, too.
The future held plenty of promise.
As for the latter academy...
It had plenty of faults as well.
Especially its later cooperation with the notorious Holy Spirit Cult.
That was its sole black mark.
Setting that aside, the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy was reasonably good.
As for the other academies, he could disregard them entirely.
New student recruitment lasted a month in total.
There were currently three days left.
At dusk...
The caravan passed the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy.
Chen Mo bid the caravan farewell.
He entered a hotel near the academy and booked a room.
Since it was already too late in the day...
The academy would not resume admissions until tomorrow.
So Chen Mo planned to get a good night's rest and, before that, experience a little of Mingdu's nightlife.
Then he would head to the academy first thing tomorrow morning to register.
Before you continue