"Any movement from Shrek?"
Toji asked Liang Wu.
Liang Wu hurriedly said:
"We haven't looked into that yet."
Toji gave a soft acknowledgment, and Zhang Lexuan's figure appeared in his mind for no apparent reason.
Zhang Lexuan had been enrolled for several months now, hadn't she?
She would be on break at the end of this semester. He would make time to pick her up then.
By the time she returned, he would have led the Zhang Family as far as it could go in this little place, restoring it to the glory of a noble family.
It might even surprise her.
"Where's Uncle Zhang?"
Liang Wu said in a low voice:
"He's still handling business. He's been very busy these past few days. Old Zhang didn't want to trouble you, and he promised to help you manage things, so he took everything on himself."
"Why aren't you helping him?" Toji took another sip of wine.
"My lord, Old Zhang isn't really suited to the gray areas. He's not tactful enough," Liang Wu said honestly after a moment's hesitation. "Once the Soul Tool side of things develops, though, we can leave it to him to manage."
"I know. I was planning to do just that." Toji glanced at Liang Wu. "Have you leveled up?"
Liang Wu gave a bitter smile:
"No, still sixty-four."
"You really should find time to cultivate properly. And your combat ability is an absolute mess." Toji snorted in dissatisfaction, making Liang Wu's body tremble.
"Yes, my lord, you're right to scold me. Last time, when we attacked Luo Tian, I was hardly any use. It was all thanks to Old Zhang and you, my lord."
Liang Wu's face was full of shame.
To put it nicely, two Soul Emperors had joined Toji in ganging up on Luo Tian, but in reality, Liang Wu had contributed almost nothing of importance.
Once the battle was over and the damage was tallied up, hey, Toji, the one with the lowest cultivation, got the MVP.
As for Liang Wu, all he did was take a beating and take another beating.
A dog who won while lying down.
A pure, complete dog who won while lying down.
"I should head back to the Body Sect."
As soon as Toji stood up, he noticed that the Soul Power in the Soul Tools he carried had almost run out, so he piled them up:
"Help me recharge all my Soul Tools with Soul Power."
"...My lord, I'm more and more convinced that developing Soul Tools is the right choice. At least later on, you definitely won't need to seek out Soul Masters just to help you recharge them."
"True."
With Lang Ya and Yu Tao leading the way, Toji returned to the Body Sect without trouble.
On the way, Lang Ya and Yu Tao looked at Toji with clear displeasure.
Although his Martial Soul Second Awakening was Gold Grade, and that talent alone made him certain to become the future sect master of the Body Sect,
he relied so heavily on Soul Tools.
"Disciples of the Body Sect never use Soul Tools," Lang Ya said coldly, a trace of disgust in his voice. "Yet not only do you use them, you've also chosen to pour your efforts into developing the Soul Tool industry."
"With such a powerful Martial Soul and such potential, you actually chose to tinker with Soul Tools. How laughable."
Toji wasn't angry. "Using tools is a human talent. If people can't even use tools, aren't they just monkeys? No, even monkeys know how to use tools."
Lang Ya and Yu Tao frowned even more deeply at Toji's answer.
They were dissatisfied with Toji's attitude. His high regard for Soul Tools in particular struck them as a betrayal of the Body Sect's principles.
"Tools?" Yu Tao snorted, his voice full of disdain as he showed Toji his powerful right arm. "Disciples of the Body Sect rely on their own Martial Souls and physical strength. Soul Tools are nothing but external objects. Relying on them will only make you weak!"
Toji shrugged, his voice still calm:
"Whether someone is weak or not doesn't depend on whether they use tools, but on the person using them. If someone can't even use tools, that's true stupidity."
Yu Tao's face darkened at that, and he clenched his fists slightly, angered by Toji's attitude.
But he didn't lash out. He merely gave Toji a cold look, then turned away and said nothing more.
He just repeated to himself ten thousand times that this was the sect master's personal disciple...
Lang Ya suppressed his dissatisfaction and said coldly:
"Say what you like, but remember that the Body Sect's purpose is to develop our own Martial Souls to their utmost limits and cultivate to the very pinnacle of Soul Masters. If you continue to lose yourself in Soul Tools and neglect your cultivation, sooner or later the sect will abandon you."
Toji smiled and said nothing more.
No wonder he called them stupid.
Tinkering with Soul Tools and using Soul Tools were completely different things.
It was like the difference between researching and developing tools and using them.
He merely used tools and invested money in researchers, so people could develop better tools for him to use.
But Toji also thought of some incredibly stubborn members of the older generation, who would rather trust themselves and do something stupid to prove they were right.
They absolutely refused to accept the ideas of a developing new age.
You could be smarter than everyone in the world, but you couldn't be smarter than your own family.
The Body Sect was even more stubborn than Shrek Academy.
He had never intended to waste his breath trying to change the Body Sect's ideas.
Later on, where people couldn't teach people, events would teach them in one lesson.
The three of them traveled in silence. Lang Ya and Yu Tao brought Toji before Du Busi at the Body Sect, then left.
Du Busi was an old monster. Naturally, he could see their dissatisfaction with Toji.
"Off tinkering with Soul Tools again?"
"Yes." Toji was much gentler with Du Busi.
That was how he conducted himself: he treated those who were good to him well.
Those who weren't, he repaid a hundredfold.
If Du Busi hadn't appeared when they went after Luo Tian, he really would have thrown Luo Tian alive into a pack of Soul Beasts.
Unfortunately, time hadn't allowed it. Luo Tian had died so quickly that it hadn't satisfied his hatred at all.
"Are Soul Tools really that tempting to you?" Du Busi didn't say anything else about it. "You're level forty-one now. Go and bring your body into perfect condition. Tonight, prepare to absorb the Dark Gold Dreadclaw Right Palm Bone."
"I've provided you with a good environment for tempering your body, and, as you asked, I've also prepared weighted training equipment for you."
"Thank you, Teacher."
"Not holding it against the sect's other disciples is the greatest thanks you could give me." Du Busi sighed. "The sect has few talents, barely a hundred people in all, so everyone in the sect is as close as family. Even with that match openly giving everyone a chance to take revenge on you, they'll still hold something against you."
"I know, so I won't force myself to press my warm face against a cold backside." Toji didn't particularly mind.
Being able to enjoy the Body Sect's resources was enough.
"In the future, spend more time with the Body Sect's disciples. At the very least, don't let your relationships stay so strained." Du Busi patted Toji on the shoulder.
"Otherwise, when you've grown up, I won't know whether I should hand the position of sect master over to you."
"I didn't join the Body Sect for the position of sect master," Toji said bluntly.
"But right now, you're the Body Sect's only hope for the future." Du Busi was just as frank. "Your importance concerns the future continuation of the Body Sect."
"All right, it's too early to talk about this. Let's leave it there for now."
Du Busi brought Toji to the cultivation environment prepared especially for him and told him to bring his body into perfect condition.
"Absorbing this Soul Bone will put your body through an experience in which you'll come close to death, but the improvement it brings you will also be immense. So you only need to prepare three things."
"The courage to face death without fear, the will to never admit defeat, and the resolve to break through the shackles of the self amid death."
"I've walked past the God of Death four times already." Toji smiled confidently.
"One more won't make a difference."