As the saying went, the day's plans began in the morning.
Li Mingzhu planned to fill his stomach first, then consult an illustrated soul beast guide so he could hunt something a little stronger.
With his body enhanced by the ancient void dragon, a mere thousand-year soul ring was hardly worth mentioning.
Although he could currently only hunt soul beasts over nine hundred years old to keep a low profile while growing stronger, divine trials could increase the rings' ages later. A slightly lower starting age was no big deal.
Besides, there was little difference between a soul beast over nine hundred years old and one over a thousand. If his foundation truly proved insufficient, he could kill more hundred-thousand-year soul beasts later to bolster his second martial soul.
Before he even stepped out of his room, he spotted a furtive fellow with a crew cut sneaking over, his movements exceedingly awkward. Back in his previous life, anyone who didn't know better would have thought he was stealing electric scooter batteries.
"Ganzi's making quite a stir." Li Mingzhu turned his gaze toward him, wanting to see what this fart king Grandmaster from the original story was up to!
Ganzi was still looking around, wondering whether he had found the right place.
Then he saw a handsome young boy in ordinary clothes standing outside the room.
Ganzi didn't give it much thought. Looking at Li Mingzhu's face, he felt the boy deserved to have innate full soul power. If nothing else, he possessed half the elegance Ganzi had enjoyed in his youth. The more he looked, the more he liked him!
He immediately strode forward with an arrogant swagger, heading straight toward Li Mingzhu.
Li Mingzhu wasn't alarmed by Ganzi's approach. He thought the man was nothing more than a fart king—as well as disgusting people, he didn't have a scrap of strength.
Was I supposed to be afraid Ganzi would blast me to death with a fart?!
Ganzi wasn't ugly, but his full beard, crew cut, and air of a cultural worker somehow gave off a distinctly Chengdu vibe.
Although Ganzi wasn't far from Li Mingzhu, he put on an exaggerated swagger as he walked, shuffling with every step.
An uneasy chill crept over Li Mingzhu's backside, and he grew increasingly curious about what the man was plotting.
"You're Li Mingzhu, aren't you?" Yu Xiaogang stood before him, asking a question whose answer he already knew.
His smile spread across his face like a chrysanthemum in full bloom.
"That's right. That's me."
Yu Xiaogang said solemnly, "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Yu Xiaogang. Everyone calls me Grandmaster."
Li Mingzhu looked at Ganzi. "And?"
The corner of Ganzi's chrysanthemum face twitched. Why isn't this brat following the script?
I already told you everyone calls me Grandmaster.
Even if you don't immediately kowtow and become my disciple, you should at least bow to show respect, shouldn't you?
Commoners really have no manners!
Once he becomes my disciple, I'll have to teach him to respect his teacher and honor the teachings.
Yu Xiaogang considered it. Directly asking someone to become his disciple would not only be abrupt but cheapen his status.
Then inspiration struck. He could simply reveal the boy's secret of possessing twin martial souls, letting him feel the unfathomable depths of his knowledge and bow in admiration.
Offering to take a disciple couldn't possibly feel as good as having the other person beg to study under him.
Yu Xiaogang reached out to pat Li Mingzhu's shoulder, but Li Mingzhu immediately slipped aside.
Ganzi was instantly embarrassed. It seemed his method of closing the distance between them wasn't working.
Looking at the wary Li Mingzhu, he could only say:
"Young student, I imagine you're the third person in the past hundred years to possess twin martial souls."
Li Mingzhu was startled by Ganzi's words, and the look in his eyes shifted. Could Ganzi actually have some ability?
Seeing that Li Mingzhu remained unmoved, Gangzi immediately grew anxious.
He continued, "Are you wondering how I know you have twin martial souls?" As he spoke, he shook the information sheet Dean Lin had given him. "It's because of this document. Others might not see the discrepancy, but if I couldn't see it either, I wouldn't deserve the title of Grandmaster."
"I once investigated six hundred and forty-seven people with trash martial souls. Of those, sixteen possessed soul power-a rate of less than three percent. Even among those sixteen, not a single one had soul power above level one, yet you have innate full soul power. According to one of the Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul that I researched, innate soul power is directly proportional to the quality of one's martial soul. Your trash body martial soul clearly cannot satisfy that condition. Therefore, I can be certain that you must possess another martial soul, and an extremely powerful one at that."
After Ganzi finished, Li Mingzhu's gaze gradually calmed. He had almost been fooled into thinking Ganzi really knew something.
Ganzi's initial claim about his twin martial souls had surprised him, but the series of examples that followed put him completely at ease.
Put simply, even if Li Mingzhu had only possessed a single body martial soul, he would still have had innate full soul power.
Qian Renxue's innate level 20 soul power was bestowed by a god. For all he knew, she might have been the Angel God's reincarnation.
Aside from that, no matter how talented someone was, innate level ten soul power was the absolute ceiling. That was a rule of the Douluo Continent, just as soul beasts couldn't become gods.
Yu Xiaogang called his body martial soul a trash martial soul because he didn't understand it at all. His claim about the twin martial souls was purely a blind guess. Wasn't that entire spiel just the same routine he had used to swindle Little Scumbag? Nothing had changed except replacing Blue Silver Grass with a trash martial soul.
By now, Li Mingzhu understood Yu Xiaogang's intentions. He wanted Li Mingzhu to become his disciple!
After saying so much, Yu Xiaogang saw that Li Mingzhu still remained unmoved.
He immediately panicked!
"You don't need to be afraid. As long as you become my disciple, I'll teach you how to cultivate twin martial souls."
Having said that, Yu Xiaogang stood ramrod straight, assuming the bearing of a master accepting a disciple.
He was utterly confident that his conjecture was flawless. He refused to believe Li Mingzhu wouldn't take the bait.
He simply waited quietly for Li Mingzhu to kowtow and become his disciple.
Li Mingzhu quietly listened to Yu Xiaogang's grandiose prattle, afraid he might fail to keep a straight face.
Teach me how to cultivate twin martial souls?
Isn't that a little too confident?
Li Mingzhu didn't even know how to judge Ganzi. His reasoning was wrong, but he really had guessed the correct result.
In the original story, Ganzi had needed to ask Bibi Dong for the method of cultivating twin martial souls!
"Ganzi—oh, no, Teacher Yu Xiaogang, I don't understand what you're saying. If there's nothing else, I'll be going."
Li Mingzhu had no desire to become Yu Xiaogang's disciple. Aside from offering some knowledge about soul beasts, the man could do nothing to help his cultivation.
Besides, that knowledge was of little use in the nearby Soul Hunting Forest. Nuoding Academy already had whatever information he needed.
After all these years, he hadn't even figured out his own Luo Sanpao, yet he wanted to teach Li Mingzhu!
It was a beast martial soul-at least feed him some meat! Feeding him white radishes every day, what could he do besides fart?
The man truly had not a shred of shame!
He wanted to make Li Mingzhu his guinea pig? Dream on.
In the original story, Tang San's Blue Silver Grass would truly have been ruined if not for his bloodline awakening and his absorption of the Blue Silver Emperor's soul bone.
For a plant martial soul, what was the point of absorbing poison instead of plant soul rings to strengthen its vitality?
Did he really think everyone feared Mother's Entanglement?
To put it bluntly, Tang San would have been better off absorbing ten-year solitary bamboo. At least he wouldn't have strayed down the wrong path.
When Ganzi took Little Scumbag to hunt for his first soul ring, he had no plan whatsoever. They only hunted the Mandala Snake because they happened to encounter one.
If Tang San hadn't possessed some hidden weapons and the Tang Sect Secret Arts, he would long since have become a pile of dung.
Tang San's early combat strength surpassed that of soul masters at the same level because of his secret arts and hidden weapons. Those were also what ultimately secured his victories. His soul rings were utterly useless; even when he used them, they merely supported his hidden weapon techniques.
Seeing that Li Mingzhu was about to leave, Ganzi no longer intended to hold anything back. He anxiously removed a Space Soul Tool from his waist.
He hurriedly asked, "Do you know what this is?"
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