"What's wrong with that kid Lin Xi? Why does he keep himself locked in his room?"
"No idea. He's been like that ever since he got back from hunting Soul Beasts. It's been three days already."
"Huh? Don't tell me he saw something shocking and got scared senseless?"
"Let's hope not. We're still counting on a genius with innate full Soul Power like him to make something of himself and look after us."
"...Excellent!" In a room in an orphanage somewhere in the Star Luo Empire, a child of just six clenched his fist triumphantly on his bed.
He was Lin Xi, the boy those people had just been talking about.
Although the people discussing him were only speaking in hushed voices downstairs, every word reached his ears.
This was not because he possessed extraordinary gifts, but because his Martial Soul was at work.
"A Command Spell Martial Soul, huh?" Lin Xi looked at the three markings that had appeared on the back of his hand during the Martial Soul Awakening ceremony a month earlier, his lips curling smugly. "I thought I was done for. Who knew this Martial Soul would turn out to be so much more useful than I imagined?"
Lin Xi had originally been an ordinary university student living an ordinary life. He had never expected an accident one day to bring him into the world of the Douluo Continent.
It was a novel he had read as a child in his previous life, featuring elements including but not limited to Dead Wife Douluo, Mother's Entanglement, chastity locks, Dog-Training Valley, and killing people in tournaments... In short, it was a world that made it impossible to keep a straight face in all sorts of ways.
Especially when he discovered that he had arrived in the timeline of the second installment, his entire face had darkened despite himself.
Because out of the five installments, Buddha Tang was hardest to deal with in the second.
In the first, Buddha Tang had yet to grow strong; in the third, he had been swept away by spacetime turbulence; in the fourth, he was rushing back; and in the fifth, he had buggered off to reincarnate. Only in the second did Buddha Tang have ample free time to indulge his twisted tastes.
Without disparaging or praising him, going purely by the original setting, defeating Buddha Tang without relying on power from outside the Douluo Continent was practically impossible.
The strongest being on the Douluo Continent, the Silver Dragon King, was still recovering from her injuries, and even fully healed, she could not beat Tang San with his dual God King positions.
Soul Tools were useless, too. Even a rank-twelve Fixed Soul Cannon Shell from ten thousand years later could not blast Yun Ming, who had not even reached godhood, to death.
The path of becoming a god through faith was even more absurd. It would take far, far too long. That fellow had a nose as sharp as a dog's and would never allow him so much time to develop.
One could say that under the circumstances of Douluo II, Buddha Tang was a source of despair against whom nothing could be done.
Just look at Huo Yuhao, the protagonist of the original story. A dignified son of destiny, yet he had ended up trained into his esteemed father-in-law's loyal dog.
Naturally, Lin Xi was unwilling to fall to such an end. He also had no idea whether Buddha Tang had detected him as a transmigrator. The only thing he could do was strengthen himself as much as possible.
Unfortunately, he had brought no cheats with him when he transmigrated.
No system, no cultivation techniques-even his background was a poverty-stricken orphanage.
His only hope was to awaken a good Martial Soul.
After six agonizing years of waiting, he had finally encountered a turning point at the Martial Soul Awakening ceremony a month earlier.
Innate full Soul Power, and a Command Spell Martial Soul.
Command Spells were an important item in a game series he had played in his previous life. The series itself was very famous, and Command Spells, with their unique power of compulsion, had shone especially brightly in the realm of doujin porn.
How should he put it? This really was news that left him equally delighted and worried.
He was delighted because innate full Soul Power meant his Martial Soul had to be quite powerful. Moreover, a Command Spell Martial Soul meant he would most likely be able to summon Heroic Spirits to serve him alone, which should be enough to get by on this continent.
He was worried because his original plan to snatch the protagonist's opportunities had gone up in smoke. He could not see the slightest compatibility between his Martial Soul and Huo Yuhao's opportunities.
Hmm... Perhaps I could try for Electrolux?
In short, the appearance of this Martial Soul had disrupted his original plans.
After wrestling with the matter, Lin Xi had ultimately decided not to compete with Huo Yuhao.
What was meant to be his would be his, and there was no need to force what was not. Those cheats of Huo Yuhao's-Tian Meng, Ice Empress, Snow Empress... No matter how he looked at it, fitting them into a Heroic Spirit Summoning system was bizarre. He did not think forcibly snatching them would end well.
Having made up his mind, he had cast aside his distracting thoughts and devoted himself wholeheartedly to studying the ingenious uses of Command Spells.
He soon discovered that the power of this Command Spell Martial Soul exceeded his imagination.
First, it had to be clarified that these Command Spells followed the Chaldea format: three strokes in total, with one replenished each day.
In the game, Chaldea was responsible for replenishing them. He did not know how his recovered, but as long as the result was right, that was good enough.
The total power contained in one stroke of a Command Spell equaled all the Soul Power he currently possessed at full capacity.
What did that mean? Conservatively speaking, it meant his mana bar was three times that of other people.
Had that been all, it would have been one thing, but supplying magical power was not the original purpose of Command Spells!
Their purpose was to enhance combat strength through compulsory commands.
In a famous work by a certain Warrior of Love, the Mapo Priest had once used Command Spells as a magical power resource to greatly strengthen his own body.
After some experimentation, Lin Xi discovered that the same worked here-and that the enhancement could be permanent.
In other words, every day, he gained an extra mana bar to spend on raising his stats.
This had allowed his Soul Power to grow even faster than that of children from wealthy families. Despite having few resources, he had broken through to rank twelve not long ago.
Even more notably, on the very night he finished absorbing his first Soul Ring three days earlier, Lin Xi had conducted an experiment and proved that Command Spells could increase a Soul Ring's age.
Although the increase was small, it had the advantage of accumulating day after day.
These abilities alone were already enough to make Command Spells a top-tier Martial Soul worthy of innate full Soul Power.
Yet all these were merely extras.
Anyone familiar with them knew that using Command Spells to strengthen oneself was the worst of all possible options. That was not what they were truly for.
At that thought, Lin Xi softly called his companion's name.
"Artoria, are you there?"
"Yes, Master. What is it?"
As a dignified voice rang out, a blonde girl appeared out of thin air before Lin Xi.
She was King Arthur-Artoria, famed in Lin Xi's previous world for having "a million devoted King fans."
She was also Lin Xi's first Heroic Spirit.
Lin Xi's Heroic Spirit Summoning used Soul Rings as holy relics to summon Heroic Spirits, in the order of Saber, Lancer, Archer, Berserker, Assassin, Caster, Rider, and Extra.
He had agonized for a long time over whom to choose as his first Heroic Spirit, the Heroic Spirit of the sword.
Among the conventional Saber Class candidates, the strongest should be Artoria, Siegfried, and Sigurd.
All three held great appeal for him. Comparatively speaking, Siegfried was more obedient, while Artoria had superior attack power.
Thus, after much hesitation, Lin Xi had ultimately chosen Artoria as his target.
The Soul Beast he chose was a hundred-year-old Red Dragon Grass. Artoria was known as the Red Dragon of Britain, so using this as a holy relic would give him a higher chance of success.
Judging by the result, his gamble had paid off. The summoning had gone very smoothly.
"Remember that protagonist I told you about?" Lin Xi rose with a smile. "Let's go. It's time we made contact with her."