Miss, You Wouldn't Want Anyone Finding Out You're an Evil Soul Master...

"That voice sounded familiar. It should be someone I know."

Lu Yu thought the voice sounded female. After thinking it over, he hadn't offended any female enemies lately, so it should be an acquaintance.

And apart from Xu Jiujiu, the strongest people he knew were only Soul Elders. He also knew their Soul Ring configurations inside out.

Even if his Blue Silver Entanglement + Gravity Control couldn't beat them, he could switch to his second skill set to counter them.

Yes, Lu Yu could switch Soul Rings. However, each Soul Ring could only be switched once, after which he had to cultivate for an hour to reset its cooldown. This meant that, in a certain sense, he could also count as having twin Martial Souls. In the early stages, even someone with twin Martial Souls wouldn't be as strong in combat as he was, unless they had already added Soul Rings to their second Martial Soul early on. But surely no one would be that stupid.

Soon, Lu Yu saw a girl wearing purplish-red clothes, her hair tied in a ponytail. Strangely, he didn't recognize her face.

"It's you!"

The moment the girl saw Lu Yu, she recalled him and gritted her teeth. Two yellow Soul Rings lit up behind her, and blue-purple vines instantly swept toward him.

It was Tang Ya!

Lu Yu discovered that the familiarity came from his Martial Soul. It was precisely because he had kept his Dark Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul active for so long that Tang Ya felt familiar to him.

Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon.

An invisible force diverted the vines. Lu Yu pushed off with his feet, his whole body dodging like a phantom.

Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track.

What a joke. In "Douluo Continent," the Tang Sect Secret Arts were unnerfed crutch skills. Even if Lu Yu wanted to attempt the difficult ending and leave Tang San alive, he would still find a way to get his hands on the Tang Sect Secret Arts early.

When it came to using the Tang Sect Secret Arts in the game, he was even more proficient than Tang San.

After getting Tang Ya to drop her secret manuals, he had quickly gotten the hang of them. Although that brat Tang San had nerfed their ceiling, it wasn't as though he couldn't refer to the original methods and figure out how to restore it.

As for whether he would actually do that, it depended on whether the Tang Sect Secret Arts still ranked as extra-large by then.

Anyway, if it's not extra-large, I'm not practicing it.

"You! You actually stole the Tang Sect Secret Arts!"

Seeing Lu Yu use the Tang Sect Secret Arts, Tang Ya instantly flew into a towering rage.

"So what if I stole them? Your Tang Sect ancestor stole his arts too. Why can't I?"

"Speaking of stealing, didn't you call my theories bullshit back then? Why are you secretly learning the cultivation techniques I wrote now?"

"Y-you, how did you know?!"

Tang Ya's heart immediately tightened at his words.

"Obviously, your Blue Silver Grass has turned blue-purple. One glance was all it took."

Lu Yu could tell this was another idiot. At a time like this, she should deny it to her dying breath. I'm from Shrek, anyway. Go report me to Shrek if you've got the guts.

As far as he knew, the Tang Sect and Shrek had once been very close. Judging by how pathetic the Tang Sect was now, it had probably exhausted those favors. But shielding a junior would still be child's play. After all, protecting their own without regard for reason was one of Shrek's fine traditions.

Back when Lu Yu played the Shrek route, he had loved going out to stir up trouble, luring NPCs to the academy so the teachers could help him farm gold off them, then splitting the proceeds seventy-thirty afterward. Unfortunately, Lu Yu had been too weak and could only kneel for his thirty percent.

"What do you know? This came from adding a poison Soul Ring! Do you even understand the theories of Shrek's forebear, Yu Xiaogang?"

"No one understands Blue Silver Grass better than I do."

Lu Yu mimed playing an accordion.

"When you add a poison Soul Ring to Blue Silver Grass, only its sap turns purple. If even the outside of your Blue Silver Grass has turned purple, your lips should pretty much be turning purple too."

A strand of Blue Silver Grass shot from Lu Yu's hand, grabbed a fat fish, and tossed it onto Tang Ya's Blue Silver Grass.

The fat fish immediately became unable to move, the luster of its body gradually fading. But looking at the wound Huo Yutong had made when she speared it earlier, its blood hadn't turned purple.

"Hmph, with that pathetic paralysis, you still dare claim you added a poison Soul Ring? You Evil Soul Master!"

"I-I'm not an Evil Soul Master!"

Tang Ya shouted, a flicker of fear passing through her eyes.

Oh? A weakness?

Lu Yu immediately rubbed his hands together and put on a sleazy expression.

"Not an Evil Soul Master? You're absolutely an Evil Soul Master. That looks like a Shrek school badge you're wearing. If Shrek found out about this..."

"Don't... don't tell the school."

Tang Ya's expression froze, as though she'd been caught by the police after skipping school to go online. The Blue Silver vines that had been waving about just moments earlier wilted and slumped to the ground.

"Heh heh heh, miss, you wouldn't want Shrek Academy finding out you're an Evil Soul Master, would you?"

Lu Yu said with a sinister grin.

"I... I understand. As long as you don't tell the academy, I'll do anything."

Tang Ya held one arm with her other hand, an expression of unwillingness on her face. If the academy classified her as an Evil Soul Master, forget avenging her great grudge-she would probably have her Soul Power crippled and no longer even be able to remain a Soul Master.

Am I going to lose my virginity to him tonight? Damn it, I've never even had a boyfriend.

Watching Lu Yu's sinister grin from the side, Huo Yutong thought that with her master's face, he couldn't look sleazy even when he deliberately tried to make himself ugly.

"Good. Then tell me what Soul Beast you're planning to kill for your third Soul Ring."

"I understand... as long as..."

Before Tang Ya finished speaking, she froze. "What did you just say?"

"I said: good. Then tell me what Soul Beast you're planning to kill for your third Soul Ring."

Lu Yu was a little speechless. People on the Douluo Continent were a little precocious in their thinking.

"I... I'm planning to hunt a Man Faced Demon Spider for my third Soul Ring."

Unable to make sense of the situation, Tang Ya answered blankly.

"A Man Faced Demon Spider? Didn't I write in the book that Blue Silver Grass's skill pool already includes a Net Skill, so you shouldn't choose Soul Beasts that spit webs?! You can't even get stealing techniques right!"

Lu Yu unleashed a torrent of scolding on Tang Ya.

"But the Man Faced Demon Spider is an evil Soul Beast renowned across the continent for devouring things. I thought it could..."

"Holy crap, you deliberately picked an evil Soul Beast? Young lady, do you have a death wish? Your Martial Soul is already on the verge of awakening into Dark Blue Silver Grass. If you add a Man Faced Demon Spider on top of that, I think your only option will be to drop out of Shrek Academy."

"Ah!" After hearing Lu Yu's words, Tang Ya broke into a cold sweat. She usually spent her time cultivating Soul Power, practicing the Tang Sect Secret Arts, Tang Sect Hidden Weapons, and Soul Tools. As for theory, she had barely studied it at all.

"What exactly have you been learning at Shrek Academy? Does the continent's number one academy not even know this much?" Lu Yu was puzzled. Shrek was the continent's vanguard against Evil Soul Masters, much like Spirit Hall ten thousand years ago. It should have understood how to prevent people from falling into becoming Evil Soul Masters.

"Th-the school only tests combat strength. I'm in the combat camp."

"Your combat strength doesn't look that great to me either. Even without me activating my Martial Soul, you can still touch me."

"That's because you stole Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon."

"Then why don't you use it? Is it because you don't want to?"

"Y-you, you! Fine, yes, yes, yes! I'm useless, all right? My Soul Power is no good, my theory is no good, my hidden weapons are no good, my Soul Tools are no good, and even my Tang Sect awakening is no good, all right?"

Tang Ya flopped onto the ground and began throwing a tantrum, rolling around.

"And now you're a shameless tough nut, too." Looking at Tang Ya giving up entirely, Lu Yu sighed. This idiot couldn't take a little teasing. She was far worse than Princess Jiujiu.

Seemingly because Tang Ya had already admitted defeat, a black-purple speck of light floated out of her body and landed on Lu Yu.

Lu Yu also successfully obtained Dark Blue Silver Grass's second Soul Skill.