The First Soul Skill

"By the way, what does your first soul skill do?" Zhang Lexuan asked curiously.

She, too, wanted to know what kind of skill such an unusual martial soul would gain after absorbing an eight-hundred-year-old Diamond Tiger's soul ring as its first soul ring.

With its royal bloodline, the eight-hundred-year-old Diamond Tiger's soul ring should grant a skill no weaker than one from a thousand-year soul ring.

Jiang Hai came back to his senses. After taking a moment to feel it out, he saw no reason to conceal anything and directly unleashed his first soul skill.

"Diamond Body!"

Jiang Hai gave a low shout, and a brilliant yellow light suddenly flared around him. Threads of golden light streamed from the Golden Coffin inside the Bronze Coffin, then swiftly swept over his entire body. His exposed skin turned completely gold, as though he had been cast from solid gold.

"My first soul skill is called Diamond Body. As the name suggests, it inherits the Diamond Tiger's powerful defenses, making my bones like crystal glass and my body like diamond. My resistance to blows and physical endurance both improve significantly, and my strength increases by about ten percent. As long as I'm not fighting intensely, my soul power should sustain it for around half an hour!"

As Jiang Hai spoke, he clenched his fist and threw a punch. An explosive crack rang through the air, a testament to his tremendous strength.

Zhang Lexuan could also sense the increase in Jiang Hai's strength. Although he said his first soul skill only increased it by ten percent, she would never forget his own extraordinary might. Even a ten-percent increase was immense for him. Moreover, the soul ring had tempered his body, leaving her unable to estimate how strong he had become, or just how unimaginable that ten-percent increase might be.

More importantly, Diamond Body primarily strengthened Jiang Hai's defenses. Zhang Lexuan could already picture him, possessed of boundless strength and impervious to blades and spears, hefting a huge coffin and smashing people with it.

"That's a very powerful soul skill. Though it's only a hundred-year soul skill, you can already use it like an ordinary thousand-year one. And the benefits that eight-hundred-year-old Diamond Tiger gave you certainly don't end there. If I'm not mistaken, your soul power isn't merely at rank eleven. It may already have reached rank twelve or even thirteen. Your martial soul awakened too late, and your starting point was very low. The increase in soul power from a soul ring beyond your normal age limit will help you close the gap between yourself and soul masters your age more quickly."

Zhang Lexuan nodded, then looked at Jiang Hai with a smile and asked, "Jiang Hai, your martial soul has already evolved once, hasn't it?"

Jiang Hai froze. Zhang Lexuan knew about his martial soul evolution as soon as it happened? The Golden Coffin had formed inside the Bronze Coffin. How did she know? Then did she know everything inside the Bronze Coffin...

Seeing his stunned expression, Zhang Lexuan burst into laughter. "You little rascal, you're young, but you've got plenty of schemes. I was the one who helped awaken your martial soul. What are you still afraid of? It's actually easy to work out. Your innate soul power was only half a rank, yet you reached rank ten in three years, and your martial soul is so extraordinary. What explanation could there be besides martial soul evolution? Generally speaking, a mutated martial soul may start lower than many powerful martial souls, but as long as its soul master cultivates tirelessly, sooner or later it will evolve toward perfection, becoming no worse than any top-tier martial soul."

As Jiang Hai inwardly breathed a quiet sigh of relief, Zhang Lexuan's expression grew more serious. She said solemnly, "Jiang Hai, your martial soul may be good, but cultivating a martial soul requires a teacher's guidance. And hunting soul rings isn't something you can do alone. This time, you obtained the Diamond Tiger's soul ring through a fortunate coincidence, but given your circumstances, you'll have to exceed your limits when absorbing soul rings. The older a soul beast is, the more dangerous it becomes. As you progress, finding suitable soul rings will only grow harder. That's when joining a powerful faction becomes crucial."

"And when it comes to training soul masters, academies are the key. No one on the continent understands martial soul cultivation better than Shrek Academy. Besides, Shrek Academy has experts as numerous as clouds, including no fewer than ten Titled Douluos. I couldn't have reached the Soul Douluo realm at twenty-six without Shrek Academy's guidance. Now, on behalf of Shrek Academy, I formally invite you to join us and become one of our members!"

Shrek Academy!

If Shrek Academy had been a small, obscure academy ten thousand years ago, the present Shrek Academy was unquestionably the greatest academy on the continent. Its faculty and teaching resources alike were among the finest in the world. Seventy percent of the continent's powerful soul masters could be said to have come from Shrek Academy, which alone showed how formidable it was.

Seeing Jiang Hai's calm expression, Zhang Lexuan continued, "Jiang Hai, if you only had an ordinary martial soul, I actually wouldn't recommend going to Shrek Academy. Having only half a rank of innate soul power isn't a good thing in an academy packed with geniuses. But your own talent is exceptional. Only at Shrek Academy can it be brought out to its fullest, rather than wasted."

"I know you still harbor some resentment toward Shrek Academy. But Shrek didn't do anything wrong three years ago. Evil soul masters were running rampant, plunging living beings into misery, and your father's martial soul was unusual. Besides, even if we hadn't chosen to act, given those evil soul masters' ruthlessness, your father might very well have met the same end."

"As for Pinghai City's city lord, after I reported that incident, the Shrek Inspection Team issued an investigation assignment. After all, he was a city lord personally appointed by the Star Luo Empire, as well as a Soul Elder. Without following the proper procedures, I couldn't simply seize him. But by the time the students from the Shrek Academy Inspection Team arrived, he had already disappeared. Shrek Academy has continued looking for information about him all these years."

"I'm not saying all this to make excuses for anyone. I only hope you'll think it over carefully. I believe that if your father were still here, he wouldn't want you to live in hatred and prejudice forever, either. Let go of that hatred, and you'll live a better life!"

Zhang Lexuan truly didn't want Jiang Hai to head down a path of obsession.

Although she hadn't spent much time with the boy, she could sense the loneliness in his heart. That was precisely why she didn't want him to take an evil path.

Jiang Hai looked at the breathtakingly beautiful woman in white before him. Through her, he had felt, for the first time, a trace of kindness still remaining in this world. He couldn't quite bear to disappoint her. "All right. I'll give it a try!"

When Jiang Hai nodded in agreement, Zhang Lexuan's mood brightened considerably. She smiled and said, "I'm currently the senior sister of Shrek Academy's inner court. Perhaps you'll join the inner court soon, too. Then I'll be your senior sister."

Jiang Hai nodded silently, but he couldn't smile inwardly. By Shrek Academy's standards, perhaps he was a genuine evil soul master himself!

Pinghai City's city lord, Lin Youtian, a Soul Elder approaching rank forty, was inside Jiang Hai's Golden Coffin at that very moment.

After learning of Shrek Academy's involvement, Lin Youtian had indeed wanted to flee. But he had underestimated one person's thirst for revenge, and he had underestimated Jiang Hai's abilities.

Even at the moment of his death, he had never imagined that he would die at the hands of a child who wasn't even a soul master.

It was only after killing Lin Youtian that Jiang Hai's soul power and strength had begun advancing by leaps and bounds, allowing him to become a rank-ten Soul Scholar in just three short years.

Zhang Lexuan couldn't see Lin Youtian's corpse inside Jiang Hai's martial soul, but that didn't mean Shrek Academy's Titled Douluos, or even its Super Douluos, would be unable to see it.

That was precisely why Jiang Hai was unwilling to go to Shrek Academy.

Besides, even if they couldn't see it, Jiang Hai's martial soul had already determined that his life would inevitably be accompanied by blood and killing. Shrek Academy would impose too many restrictions on him.

Yet, faced with Zhang Lexuan, he couldn't refuse someone who treated him so well.

Jiang Hai sighed inwardly. Perhaps I can only wait until I get to Shrek Academy, then find a reason to leave!

The two continued onward, heading toward Shrek Academy.

As they walked, Zhang Lexuan told Jiang Hai many things about Shrek Academy, even though much of it was widely circulated, common knowledge.

Ever since signs of the soul beast kings in the Star Dou Great Forest had emerged, Shrek Academy had relocated to a place not far from the forest and built an academy there, choking off the route by which soul beasts could advance into the human world. As long as Shrek Academy stood, the soul beast army would struggle to breach Shrek's defensive line and threaten the countless millions living behind it.

No matter how many messes Shrek's first generation of students had left behind on the Douluo Continent, Shrek Academy had always remained true to its original purpose, standing guard over this land.

Suddenly, Zhang Lexuan and Jiang Hai stopped.

"There are people ahead. Should we go around them?" Jiang Hai asked.

In the Star Dou Great Forest, even on its outskirts, encountering humans wasn't always a good thing.

Although the present soul master world was no longer a chaotic, lawless arena of rival powers where the strong devoured the weak as it had been ten thousand years ago, people were scarce in the Star Dou Great Forest. Every sin could be perfectly concealed within this vast forest, and the ugliness in human hearts was still being acted out at every moment!

Thus, when encountering humans in the Star Dou Great Forest, the first choice was to avoid them.

"No need!" A trace of joy first lit Zhang Lexuan's eyes, then her expression grew complicated as she shook her head.

"People you know?" Jiang Hai asked. But something immediately occurred to him, and he swallowed what he had been about to say next. Instead, he asked, "Then do we need to go over to them?"

Who else but that group could appear on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest now and draw such a complicated expression from Zhang Lexuan?

Zhang Lexuan's expression returned to normal. "No need. As it happens, people from the sect I wanted you to join are there, too. You are already rather old, after all. With their help, getting into Shrek Academy will be a little easier. Come on, I'll take you to meet them!"

So it really is them. Jiang Hai sighed inwardly and followed Zhang Lexuan over.