Yu Xiaogang

Biodata

Background / History

Taking Tang San as a Disciple

Yu Xiaogang gains Tang San’s allegiance after making deductions about his Twin Martial Souls. Tang San kneels and performs the formal ceremony to accept him as his teacher. Xiao Xuan witnesses the encounter but chooses not to become involved 6.

Yu subsequently accompanies Tang San to the Soul Hunting Forest, where they encounter a four-hundred-year-old Mandala Snake. Tang San obtains a Hundred-Year First Soul Ring, while Yu returns injured and dependent on his disciple’s support. Despite his condition, he proudly presents the expedition to Wang Ping’an as a success 7.

Attempting to Recruit Xiao Xuan

Yu initially criticizes Wang Ping’an for taking a newly enrolled student into the Soul Hunting Forest. His attitude changes immediately upon learning that Xiao Xuan has reached level ten after only a month at the academy 8.

After inspecting Xiao Xuan’s records, Yu rejects the recorded level-one Innate Soul Power as an awakening error because it contradicts his theory. He concludes that Xiao Xuan must possess exceptional innate aptitude and imagines using both him and Tang San to overturn ridicule of his reputation 12.

Yu sends Tang San to summon Xiao Xuan, presenting the proposed apprenticeship as an exceptional favor. Xiao Xuan declines the invitation 13.

When Yu later intercepts Xiao Xuan personally, he attributes the boy’s rapid growth to a beneficial Martial Soul mutation but warns that hidden defects could destroy his future. He offers his own mutated Martial Soul and claimed recognition from the Spirit Hall Pope as reasons to accept his guidance. Xiao Xuan instead asks about Yu’s cultivation level, provoking an angry defense of theory over personal strength 15.

The Discipleship Dispute

Xiao Xuan explicitly refuses to become Yu’s disciple and tells him to resolve his own inability to break through level thirty. Tang San responds by challenging Xiao Xuan, demanding that a defeat result in a kneeling apology to his teacher 16.

Yu encourages Tang San to demonstrate the difference between someone with a teacher and someone without one. His confidence collapses when Xiao Xuan cuts apart Tang San’s enhanced Blue Silver Grass without using a Soul Skill and wins the exchange 16 17.

Afterward, Yu reassures Tang San that the defeat reflects insufficient combat experience rather than any fault in his instruction. He stops pursuing Xiao Xuan as a prospective disciple 17.

Judging Black Bamboo

At Shrek Academy, Tang San consults Yu about Black Bamboo, a masked arena fighter using a jade-like Lone Bamboo spear. Yu attributes the fighter’s success to brute force from mutation and predicts that hidden Martial Soul defects will eventually halt his progress 61.

Yu also dismisses Meng Yiran’s account of a young fighter possessing two purple and two black Soul Rings. He insists that such a configuration violates absorption limits and proposes that an expert in mental manipulation implanted an illusion 61.

While attending Black Bamboo’s matches, Yu repeatedly misjudges the spear’s durability:

After Black Bamboo reaches nine consecutive victories, Yu joins Tang San and the others in betting on his next match. He describes the decision as reconsidering a judgment in light of new evidence 65.

Tang San Questions His Teaching

Following their defeat by the masked fighter, Tang San and Flender return injured. Tang San directly challenges Yu’s absorption-limit theory, asking how the opponent could possess a Thousand-Year First Soul Ring and a Ten-Thousand-Year Third Soul Ring 69.

Yu first establishes that neither witness saw the fighter’s face. He then proposes that the opponent concealed his true cultivation and used an illusion to display a false Soul Ring configuration 69 70.

Tang San presses the issue: if the rings were an illusion, Flender’s severe injury still requires an explanation. Yu is briefly unable to answer. Flender supports the concealed-cultivation possibility, arguing that the spear strike was too powerful to come from an ordinary Soul Ancestor 70.

Appearance

• Face: Repeatedly described as stiff and expressionless, with narrow eyes 7 8 15.
• Posture: Frequently stands with his hands behind his back and his chin raised, deliberately maintaining the bearing of an expert 12 15 62.
• Clothing: Appears as a black-clad figure while waiting for Xiao Xuan and later straightens his robe after an embarrassing arena prediction 15 63.

Personality

Yu places great importance on his authority as a theoretician. He expects talented students to welcome his instruction and reacts angrily when Xiao Xuan questions whether his theories compensate for his limited cultivation. His recruitment efforts combine promises of exceptional future achievement with warnings that refusing his guidance will lead to disaster 12 13 15 16.

He is protective of Tang San’s confidence but resistant to explanations that threaten his own theoretical system. After Tang San loses, he blames inexperience; after Tie Lie loses, he blames poor tactics. When confronted with extraordinary Soul Rings, he repeatedly favors an illusion explanation over accepting an exception to his limits 17 61 63 70.

Yu nevertheless makes a limited practical concession after observing Black Bamboo’s repeated victories: he places a bet on the fighter and states that judgments should change with new evidence 65.

Abilities & Skills

Martial Soul Theory

Yu studies Martial Soul characteristics, mutation, cultivation routes, and Soul Ring absorption. His deductions concerning Tang San’s Twin Martial Souls persuade Tang San to become his disciple 6.

• Reviews student records to assess aptitude and cultivation progress 12.
• Claims to tailor a disciple’s growth path to their Martial Soul 15.
• Calculates Soul Ring absorption limits for Tang San 58.
• Identifies the jade-like Lone Bamboo spear as a beneficial mutation, but underestimates its strength against heavy weapons 62.

Soul Ring Absorption Limits

Yu treats age limits as foundational principles of his theory. These are his stated limits, not an explanation of Xiao Xuan’s actual capabilities 61 69.

Xiao Xuan’s actual purple-purple-black-black configuration contradicts Yu’s categorical dismissal of such rings. The narrative separately shows Xiao Xuan obtaining a twelve-thousand-year Third Soul Ring and later displaying all four rings 43 71.

Luo Sanpao

Luo Sanpao is Yu’s mutated Martial Soul. Yu uses this personal experience to claim unmatched expertise in Martial Soul mutation 15.

• No specific Luo Sanpao combat technique is demonstrated in the supplied encounters.
• Yu’s hunt with Tang San leaves him badly injured, despite his presentation of the expedition as a success 7.

Relationships

• Tang San — Formal disciple who initially treats him as an exceptional authority. Tang San defends his honor against Xiao Xuan, but later openly questions his Soul Ring theories after encountering contradictory evidence 6 13 16 69 70.
• Xiao Xuan — Unsuccessful recruitment target and critic. Yu hopes to prove his theories through Xiao Xuan’s talent; Xiao Xuan rejects both the apprenticeship and Yu’s warnings 12 15 16 17.
• Wang Ping’an — Nuoding Academy colleague. Wang shows concern for Yu’s injuries but resents his condescending criticism of Xiao Xuan’s Soul Ring expedition 7 8.
• Flender — Shrek associate who questions Yu’s arena predictions, profits by betting against those predictions, and later supports his concealed-cultivation explanation for the masked fighter 62 63 70.
• Spirit Hall Pope — Yu repeatedly invokes the Pope’s supposed recognition of his talents to support his authority. This endorsement is presented through his own claims 15 16.

Notable Quotes

“There are no useless Martial Souls, only useless Soul Masters!” 15

“Of course! My theories are never wrong!” 17

“Judgments cannot remain fixed. With new evidence, they should naturally be reconsidered.” 65