Liu Erlong, defeated!

[Host, there is one more thing to tell you (`･ω･′)ゞ.]

"Speak."

[Qian Renxue's and Ah Yin's exclusive missions are now completed and awaiting settlement. The rewards will take a little longer to be issued.]

"Details."

[Qian Renxue has completed the mission to severely punish the royal wastrels, but the order to punish Heaven Dou's Prince Xue Beng must be issued personally by Xue Ye of the Heaven Dou Empire.]

[Ah Yin has completely lost heart in the Tang father and son, but because her change in attitude was so thorough, it has become bone-deep hatred toward them. According to the system's evaluation, this constitutes exceeding the mission requirements. The system needs to revise the rewards to match the mission's difficulty.]

[The reward of 1,000 Fortune Points for Ah Yin reaching 70 affection will be issued at the same time.]

"Got it. One needs to go through procedure, and the other exceeded the program's expectations?"

[Yes (`･ω･´)ゞ!]

After System Sis's explanation, which also informed him of two group members' exclusive missions, Lu Chen gradually understood everything.

No wonder a Fortune Points reward panel had not popped up when Ah Yin's affection reached 70, as it had with Xiao Wu. He had thought it was something like a first-time achievement, with rewards only issued the first time it was reached.

So they had been bundled together.

After a brief moment of delight, Lu Chen quickly calmed down. Having two rewards about to come in was certainly pleasant, but he had not forgotten that he still had business to attend to.

[Lu Chen: I've already written quite a bit about Tang San and Tang Hao in the Notebook, and my impression of those two is far too deep. So I'll first record something about Yu Xiaogang and the Shrek Academy he's involved with.]

[Lu Chen: Yu Xiaogang, a piece of trash whose talent, personality, mentality, and looks are all thoroughly ugly.

Shrek, a peculiar creature with an ugly, bizarre appearance, called a monster even among Soul Beasts.

These two really are a match made in heaven~]

Bibi Dong's affection: 39 (new acquaintance) → 35 (new acquaintance)

Liu Erlong's affection: 9 (disgust) → 5 (disgust)

Glancing at the affection panel, Lu Chen paid it no mind and continued writing.

[Lu Chen: Yu Xiaogang calls himself Grandmaster and proposed the notorious Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul theory in the Soul Master World. In reality, all of it was research plagiarized from Spirit Hall's library.

With no theoretical foundation of his own, he had no ability to distinguish anything, and he had no authority to enter the library's core area. He could only go through Bibi Dong to "borrow" books, which resulted in many of his copied theories being fragmentary or long outdated.

He even cobbled things together and added plenty of things from his own imagination to keep others from accusing him of plagiarism. You can imagine the final result...]

[Lu Chen: First, he accurately classified Soul Ring colors and the maximum Soul Ring age that Soul Masters could absorb at each rank.

Never mind that Soul Ring colors were already common knowledge throughout the Soul Master World, yet Gangzi simply claimed them as his own theory.

Just that maximum Soul Ring age for each rank alone has led who knows how many commoner Soul Masters without inherited family knowledge to their deaths...]

Lu Chen's Notebook was updating, while the Chat Group had already erupted.

[Liu Erlong: He's talking nonsense!]

[Liu Erlong: Xiao Gang's Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul theory has long circulated among commoner Soul Masters. His Soul Ring age theory in particular has helped countless people, guiding who knows how many lost commoner Soul Masters!]

[Liu Erlong: Heh, earlier he said he wanted to understand the environment ordinary Soul Masters grew up in. Now it seems he really wasn't wrong. He has absolutely no idea how much Xiao Gang has helped ordinary Soul Masters!]

Liu Erlong flooded the chat like a barrage of cannon fire. Before the other members could respond, Lu Chen's Notebook had already continued updating.

[Lu Chen: If these words in the Notebook got out, Bibi Dong and Liu Erlong would probably go crazy whitewashing Gangzi.]

[Lu Chen: I don't even need to guess. It'd just be stuff about how many commoner Soul Masters the Soul Ring age theory has helped.]

[Lu Chen: Bibi Dong, I can understand. Although she was an orphan in her early years, Spirit Hall named her Saintess and began grooming her very early on. She rarely had contact with ordinary Soul Master circles.

But Liu Erlong, a woman who spent decades among ordinary Soul Masters... does she really not know how harmful the Soul Ring age theory is?

One glance confirms it: a complete and utter moron.

The maximum Soul Ring age a Soul Master can withstand is largely tied to their physical constitution and mental strength. How can those impoverished commoner Soul Masters compare to sect disciples who had solid foundations laid with all sorts of heavenly treasures from childhood?]

[Lu Chen: The truth is, aside from those whose Martial Souls are powerful enough to enhance their bodies, letting them absorb Soul Rings successfully through sheer luck, the other commoner Soul Masters who dare challenge the age limit probably die with every attempt!

Survivorship bias has gone completely off the rails!]

In the Chat Group, Ning Rongrong, who was still at the stage of fearing neither heaven nor earth, was the first to attack.

[Little Princess: @Liu Erlong, hahaha, confirmed: a complete and utter moron.]

[Angel: This is the result of Bibi Dong letting him run unchecked. That trash Yu Xiaogang's trash theories are poisoning commoner Soul Masters like this. Sooner or later, they'll squander Spirit Hall's entire foundation!]

[Yanzi: This is the current situation my grandpa told me about~]

[Liu Erlong: Nonsense... he's talking nonsense! Then what about Xiao Gang's other theories?]

[Netherworld: Still refusing to admit it.]

[Spirit Cat: She's getting desperate~]

[Ah Yin: @Liu Erlong, looking at you is like looking at my own foolish former self. ε=(´ο｀*))) Sigh.]

[Lu Chen: Still, Yu Xiaogang's theories have done some good.]

[Liu Erlong: !!!]

[Liu Erlong: See? Even Lu Chen himself admits Xiao Gang's theories are good!]

[Lu Chen: After all, Tang San is Yu Xiaogang's disciple. Without his mistaken theories weakening Tang San's combat strength, things might be much worse than they are now...]

Liu Erlong: ???

[Lu Chen: Martial Soul Mimicry Theory says Plant-type Martial Souls can absorb beast Soul Rings under various conditions. A textbook example of a theory cobbled together from bits and pieces. He even knew to set conditions to leave himself some wiggle room. Gangzi really has no shortage of petty cleverness.

Only a theory like this, mixing truth with falsehood, could successfully bluff the early God King Tang into being impressed by something he didn't understand.

According to my two grandfathers' research, a Soul Master's priorities when selecting a Soul Ring should be-

Excluding Soul Rings over a hundred thousand years old: compatibility between the Soul Beast and Martial Soul (a suitable Soul Ring may cause the Martial Soul to evolve) > quality of the Soul Ring produced by the Soul Beast (higher-quality Soul Rings have a greater chance of yielding top-tier Soul Skills) > Soul Ring age

And a perfect Soul Ring should satisfy all three conditions above.]

[Yanzi: !!!]

[Little Princess: !!!]

[...]

[Lu Chen: And what did Grandmaster do? On the grounds that Blue Silver Grass itself was too weak to reject the attributes added by any Soul Ring and would only passively incorporate them, he found Tang San a Mandala Snake close to the maximum age limit for his first Soul Ring. And what conditions did he set?

On the premise that Blue Silver Grass was a tool Martial Soul, add toughness to Blue Silver Grass, preferably with poison.

In the end, Tang San got an Entanglement skill with a paralyzing but nonlethal toxin.

Just thinking about the scene of God King Tang fighting me makes me want to laugh...]

[Ah Yin: Utter nonsense!]

[Ah Yin: Blue Silver Grass's most prominent feature is its tenacious vitality, and it isn't a tool Martial Soul either!]

[Ah Yin: Toughness and toxins are one possible approach, but they can only be secondary. Enhancing vitality must come first.]

[Ah Yin: Choosing a snake as a Soul Ring, with the conflict between beast and plant Soul Beasts, not only means completely abandoning any enhancement of Blue Silver Grass's vitality, but just how much toughness and poison could it inherit?]

[Xiao Wu: Isn't entanglement an instinct for the vast majority of plants?]

Although she already regarded Tang San as an enemy, Gangzi's mistaken understanding of Blue Silver Grass still infuriated Ah Yin, the Blue Silver Emperor.

[Angel: So under the intense conflict between a beast Soul Ring and a Plant-type Martial Soul, Tang San gained entanglement, one of snakes' major strengths, as his Soul Skill, while the added effect was a tiny amount of the Mandala Snake's paralyzing toxin?]

[Yanzi: I'm dying of laughter. He really got the short end of both sticks~]

[Ning Rongrong: Thank you, Gangzi!]

[Netherworld: +1]

[Spirit Cat: +1]

[...]

Liu Erlong, defeated!