Mingdu Central Advanced Soul Master Academy.
Inside the first-year classroom,
"Next, I want to give special praise to Li Chen for winning first prize in the citywide mecha design competition. His work was titled: Dedicated to My Father, the Speaker!"
"Let's give him a round of applause!"
Clap, clap, clap, clap...!
Every student turned, their gazes falling in unison on a seat by the window at the back of the classroom.
A black-haired young man, 1.8 meters tall, propped his chin on one hand and gazed gloomily out the window.
"Brother Chen! Go up and collect your award!"
His deskmate, Xiao Pang, nudged Li Chen.
"Ah, this damned talent of mine. Was a casual effort already the limit of what this entire city could manage?"
Li Chen stood, smoothed the fringe over his forehead, and took the certificate from the teacher's hand with an air of nonchalance.
Xiao Pang's eyes widened. "Was this a fucking contest of talent? Wasn't it a contest of fathers?!"
"Heh, Xiao Pang, how is being born into the right family not a talent?"
Li Chen returned to his seat, stuffed the certificate haphazardly into his desk, then dropped his head onto the desktop to sleep.
Xiao Pang was speechless.
There was nothing he could do. Who could help it when the guy's father was the speaker?!
The teacher began the regular lesson.
This was an advanced Soul Master Academy. Even the weakest first-year students were fifteen-year-old Soul Elders.
A few were already Soul Ancestors.
Moreover, Mingdu Advanced Soul Master Academy was extremely unusual: it was a school the Sun Moon Federation specifically used to train military officers, politicians, and the children of powerful families from various regions.
Every student here had an illustrious background.
And Li Chen's background stood out even among them, as solid as could be.
Thus,
Even when Li Chen openly slept through class, the teacher dared not say anything.
He slept until school ended that afternoon, when Xiao Pang nudged Li Chen awake.
"Boss, school's over! Someone's outside looking for you!"
"Hm?"
Li Chen sat up and rubbed his eyes. "School's over already? Xiao Pang, remember to come out for an all-night internet session tonight. The usual place."
"Big Sis Mo Lan's here, and you're still thinking about staying out all night! I'm out of here!"
Xiao Pang grabbed his schoolbag and made himself scarce.
He was a friend Li Chen had known since childhood, and the son of a deputy speaker of the Federation Parliament.
Li Chen casually slung his schoolbag over one shoulder, yawned, and walked out of the classroom.
"Li Chen! You slept all day again, didn't you?!"
At the school gate, Mo Lan grabbed Li Chen's arm.
Mo Lan was in her early twenties, with long, dark hair tied back, fair skin, and sharply defined brows and eyes. Her looks had the lively vitality of a young woman.
She wore a Soul Guidance Train conductor's uniform and seemed to have just gotten off work.
"Hey, hey, Big Sis Mo Lan, what brings you here?"
Li Chen asked with a grin.
"Heh! I just got off work and came to pick you up so we could go home together. Your teacher told me everything. You slept through another whole day!"
"A new semester should mean a fresh start. You're fifteen now. You ought to put some effort into cultivating."
Mo Lan spoke earnestly.
Mo Lan's father, Mo Wu, was Heaven Dou City's chief administrator and an important member of the Federation Parliament.
Thus,
Mo Lan and Li Chen had also known each other since childhood. However, like her father, Mo Lan had been born without Soul Power and was only an ordinary person.
As Mo Lan looked at this younger brother now, she sighed inwardly.
As the current federal speaker's only son, Li Chen had no ambition whatsoever and coasted whenever he could. He had only just met the threshold for enrollment, with a Soul Power Level of exactly 31, not one level more or less.
"All right, I understand, Big Sis Mo Lan. I'll definitely pay attention next time."
"You... ah, I brought you Yuhao grilled fish from Heaven Dou City, along with pastries and clear soup. Here, take them."
Li Chen's eyes lit up as he accepted them. "Thanks, Big Sis Mo Lan! You're so good to me!"
Li Chen picked up a Yuhao grilled fish and ate it in a few bites.
As Heaven Dou City's signature dish, Yuhao grilled fish borrowed Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao's fame and popularity, and it tasted quite excellent.
"Get in. We can head back together."
"Okay."
Mo Lan stepped on the accelerator, and the soul guidance car immediately headed straight for the parliamentary compound in central Mingdu.
As the speaker's only son, Li Chen had grown up in the Mingdu compound.
After dropping him off at home, Mo Lan could not help reminding him again.
"Li Chen, being able to become a Soul Master makes you a genius many people envy. You need to seize the opportunity and study hard."
"Yes, yes, yes~"
Li Chen answered perfunctorily.
Mo Lan sighed helplessly and drove away.
Once she had left, Li Chen returned to the speaker's residence and casually tossed down his schoolbag.
"You're back?"
A middle-aged man with graying hair sat at the dining table. The meal was already prepared.
The middle-aged man was none other than the current speaker of the Sun Moon Federation's parliament, Li Yuntian.
"Mm."
Li Chen sat down, and father and son began eating.
Li Chen placed a chopstickful of food in Li Yuntian's bowl.
"Dad, you're getting more and more white hairs."
"Heh, there's nothing I can do. At this meeting, my proposal to stop funding Shrek Academy was rejected again."
Li Yuntian sighed helplessly.
Li Chen said calmly,
"Dad, it's not as if you don't know how parliament works. There are 231 seats in total, and the War God Temple, the Spirit Pagoda, and the Tang Sect hold half of them. Although Shrek doesn't hold many seats, most of the remaining members once studied there."
"And the Tang Sect and the War God Temple deliberately favor Shrek. With only the Spirit Pagoda supporting you, it's normal for your proposal to be rejected. It'd be a miracle if it passed."
Li Yuntian sighed.
"That's true, but Shrek City enjoys extensive autonomy and pays no taxes, yet it still demands enormous federal subsidies every year.
"The federal deficit keeps growing. If this drags on, eventually our revenue won't even cover the interest on the bonds the federation issues..."
Li Chen kept his head down and ate.
"Dad, getting anxious won't help. Shrek calls itself the best on the continent. If you want reform, it'll take force. The Sea God Pavilion won't even give you a proper glance if all you do is flap your lips."
Li Yuntian laughed and scolded him. "You little brat. Match Shrek by force? We couldn't even get past Yun Ming..."
"Don't rush, Dad. Take it slowly."
Li Yuntian shook his head and chuckled. "I really must be out of my mind with worry, talking to you about these things. All that matters is that you grow up safe and sound. Whatever you do, don't get mixed up in this in the future."
Speaker Li Yuntian sighed.
Soul Guidance Technology on the Douluo Continent had long since advanced beyond anything of the past, but the world's underlying rules had never changed: the weak were meat for the strong. Without sufficient strength, trying to shake Shrek was simply impossible.
Li Yuntian also hoped his son would stay out of it in the future. He had had his son late in life. Even if Li Chen was a good-for-nothing, living happily for the rest of his life would be enough.
Besides, Li Chen's martial soul, the Tree of Sorrow, was ordinary to begin with. He had only just broken past level 30 at fifteen, so Li Yuntian no longer expected his son to achieve anything as a Soul Master.
"Dad, I'm done."
Li Chen set down his bowl, returned to his room, and summoned his martial soul.
A small tree with a pink crown and a green trunk appeared.
This was Li Chen's martial soul, the Tree of Sorrow.
Yes, it was the very Tree of Sorrow from Fox Spirit Matchmaker.
As a martial soul appearing on the Douluo Continent for the first time, the Tree of Sorrow had an Innate Soul Power of a full level 10. Coupled with Li Chen being the speaker's only son, its awakening had caused a sensation throughout Mingdu.
It had even drawn Shrek Academy's attention.
However,
The Tree of Sorrow's subsequent performance had left all the factions watching Li Chen utterly astonished.
The Tree of Sorrow was neither as versatile as the Blue Silver Emperor nor as destructive as the Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum, and it certainly lacked the Nine Heart Begonia's supreme healing abilities.
Its performance was ordinary in every respect.
Even the academy's teachers could not make heads or tails of Li Chen's martial soul.
Now, almost ten years had passed.
The major factions had essentially stopped paying attention to Li Chen. A Soul Elder of only level 31 at fifteen truly had only average talent.
Yet they did not know that Li Chen had deliberately arranged all of this.
Three Soul Rings appeared beneath Li Chen's feet.
Yellow, purple, purple.
"I finally broke through to Soul Elder. Hmm, I should be able to try Reincarnation and Renewal of Fate for the first time now, right?"
Anticipation welled up in Li Chen's heart.
His first Soul Skill was the Gate of Space and Time, his second was Spiritual Link, and his third was Reincarnation and Renewal of Fate!
[Reincarnation and Renewal of Fate: Find lovers who meet the conditions and renew their bond through reincarnation to receive rebate rewards!]
These were the three Soul Skills exclusive to the Tree of Sorrow, especially the third.
From the moment he awakened, Li Chen had known he needed to cultivate to level 30 before he could activate the Tree of Sorrow's innate Soul Skill.
With this third Soul Skill, [Reincarnation and Renewal of Fate], Li Chen's future would be completely rewritten!
Not only that, his cultivation speed had been restricted before level 30, which had also allowed Li Chen to use this to conceal himself.
That way, he would not attract the Holy Spirit Cult's attention, or that of anyone else with ulterior motives, and get killed before he had developed.
Now that he had broken through to Soul Elder, Li Chen was ready to unleash the divine power of the mechanics.
Li Chen sat cross-legged, and all three Soul Rings shone at once!
A spatial gate appeared, and Li Chen's spiritual power crossed into the space.
The plot in the Dragon King timeline had only just begun, and Tang Wulin had only just enrolled at Shrek.
Thus, there were no particularly powerful lovers in this timeline.
So Li Chen planned to cross space and time, traveling farther back to the eras of Douluo I and Douluo II to find his targets!
"Hehe, who will I find? Tang San and Xiao Wu? Or Grandmaster and Bibi Dong? Or perhaps... Ye Xishui and Long Xiaoyao? Tang Chen and Bo Saixi?"
Filled with anticipation and excitement, Li Chen sent his spiritual form into the Gate of Space and Time.