Yang Podi carefully reviewed the original novel and kept feeling that it was full of pitfalls. The Breaking Clan had clearly already been screwed over by the Clear Sky Sect more than twenty years earlier, nearly suffering total annihilation.
Yet twenty years later, Tang San screwed them over again, getting them to join some Tang Sect. From beginning to end, apart from receiving a single Aromatic Silk Beauty, they seemed to have gained nothing else.
Instead, after the clan disciples joined the Tang Sect, they became its so-called Medicine Hall disciples, inexplicably gaining another father over their heads. The other three clans seemed to have been screwed over even worse. They received nothing, yet kept risking their lives for the Tang Sect and Tang San. Why bother?
Especially during the final battle at Jialing Pass, Clan Leader Yang Wudi had even fought the Titled Douluo Snake Lance. Although he won, he was severely wounded himself. How had any of that helped him or his clan? Had Tang San done anything to help his clan? Would Tang San actually teach his Mysterious Heaven Skill to anyone else?
Clearly, what the Four Single-Attribute Clans gave was nowhere near proportional to what they received. They would have been better off spending that time working hard to improve themselves.
Having thought all this through, Yang Podi returned to his own problems. How could he avoid the battle that would annihilate his clan? How could he improve himself afterward?
What followed was relatively straightforward. After he turned two, at Yang Podi's repeated insistence, his mother began arranging for someone to teach him to read and write.
Although he had read the original Douluo Continent novel, once he actually entered the world of Douluo Continent, everything was different from the original. The differences were enormous.
Even the most basic matter of knowledge was an issue. Books about Soul Beasts alone numbered in the hundreds, large and small. The most distinctive features of the Douluo World were Martial Souls and Soul Beasts. Soul Beast species were as numerous as the stars. Anything from a blade of grass to an entire mountain could be a Soul Beast.
Different Soul Beasts varied in size, diet, and even methods of attack. Add in the differences in their ages, and there were even more variations.
Then there were Martial Souls. The world's Martial Souls came in countless strange forms. Pairing different Martial Souls with Soul Rings from different Soul Beasts, or even Soul Rings of different ages, would produce all kinds of different skills, and even mutations.
Seeing this, he could not help recalling something Yu Xiaogang had taught Tang San: [More rings, more bones-unleash your skills and power in one wave. Fewer rings, fewer bones-turn tail and run.]
At first, Yang Podi had been rather dismissive. He had always felt that this amounted to bullying the weak and fearing the strong. Besides, who said having more Soul Rings necessarily made someone stronger? But as he read more and more books, he gradually came to understand the differences between Soul Masters of different ranks.
Soul Masters might be able to fight opponents above their rank, just like his grandfather Yang Wudi. But that was true of only a tiny minority. Most were ordinary Soul Masters who struggled even to obtain Soul Rings. Many spent their entire lives troubled by the acquisition of Soul Rings, and countless people had no choice but to absorb Ten-Year Soul Rings to become Soul Masters.
As for Soul Masters whose fifth ring was only a thousand-year ring, they were everywhere. In the original novel, both Snake Lance and Qin Ming had thousand-year fifth Soul Rings. Was that because they lacked ability or connections? Neither. It was because obtaining a Soul Ring that both suited oneself and had the right age was extremely difficult. In particular, a fifth Soul Ring had to be just over ten thousand years old, but not too far over. Without powerful backing, that was very difficult to achieve.
Looking back at the various fanfics of later years, practically all of them bashed Yu Xiaogang. Indeed, from a certain perspective, Yu Xiaogang had wronged two women and could be suspected of being something of a turtle hiding its head in its shell.
Academically speaking, however, he had still made some contributions. At the very least, after he released his so-called Soul Ring age chart, although it was not necessarily entirely accurate, it spread widely among commoners and reduced, to some extent, the number of Soul Masters whose bodies burst from absorbing Soul Rings beyond their age limits.
What annoyed everyone even more was that he was clearly only a Soul Grandmaster, yet loved showing off. His strength was poor, but he put on great airs.
In particular, much of the knowledge he published was already possessed by the great clans; commoners simply had no access to it. As for Yu Xiaogang, he combined the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's knowledge with some of what he had learned in Spirit Hall, then published it as his own work. Appropriating Spirit Hall's academic achievements was rather like the plagiarism everyone in later years hated most.
Moreover, Yu Xiaogang personally rejected and hated Spirit Hall, yet lived on the Gold Soul Coins it issued. It was an attitude of lifting his bowl to eat, then setting it down to curse the hand that fed him.
Even more outrageously, while living at Nuoding Academy, he was not a teacher and made no contribution to the academy, yet put on a teacher's airs. There was also something of the fox borrowing the tiger's might about him.
All these behaviors had given Yu Xiaogang an extremely poor reputation in fanfiction.
After his grandfather Yang Wudi learned that he particularly enjoyed reading, he found all kinds of books from who knew where. Strange and varied, they covered every conceivable subject. There were even anecdotes about Soul Master cultivation and cultivation notes written by high-ranking Soul Masters.
Of course, these days of reading lasted a full year.
A year later, when he turned three, his grandfather and father began imposing strict requirements on him.
Besides reading, his daily routine now included spear training and medicinal baths.
For spear training, he mainly practiced the Breaking Clan's Soul Breaking Spear Technique. Although he personally rather scoffed at this City Breaking Spear Technique, always feeling that it was far too crude compared with the spear techniques his countrymen had mastered in his previous life, and even somewhat unpresentable, he would still practice it for the time being.
Thus, early every morning, he carried a heavy iron spear and trained alongside a group of people. Only when he was so exhausted that he was about to collapse would his mother haul him off for a medicinal bath.
As for the Soul Breaking Spear's weight, the training ground had Soul Breaking Spears of all sizes. They shared the same shape and structure, but differed in dimensions, weight, and material. Each day, he only needed to choose one suited to his height and strength.
As for medicinal baths, those had already begun when he was three. This was also standard practice among certain great clans. Some core disciples began their training at three or four years old.
The Breaking Clan was a clan of medicine refiners, and its research into medicinal ingredients and formulas far surpassed that of others. Even the Clear Sky Sect used the Breaking Clan's medicinal bath regimen internally. His grandfather Yang Wudi personally prepared his medicine according to his constitution.
After he turned four, Yang Podi added physical conditioning to his routine. His exercises included frog jumps and running. Of course, because he was too young, he did not carry any extra weight.
Over these years, Yang Podi also came into contact with quite a few people from the Clear Sky Sect. In his view, everyone from the Clear Sky Sect shared one characteristic: they were arrogant and self-righteous, and some even held the entire world in contempt.
This attitude was fairly widespread in the Clear Sky Sect, and even the Four Single-Attribute Clans had similar temperaments. In short, they looked down on everyone under heaven and always thought themselves the strongest.
With personalities like that, they probably would not survive two episodes in a television drama from later years.
No wonder Spirit Hall insisted on targeting the Clear Sky Sect. The current Clear Sky Sect could be said to oppose Spirit Hall at every turn. In particular, with the Upper Three Sects united, they gave Spirit Hall no face at all in many matters. Anyone in its position would want to wipe out the Clear Sky Sect.
As for the Clear Sky Sect's so-called allies, they probably also wanted to push it out in front to take the blade. Spirit Hall was not yet as powerful as it would be twenty years later in the original novel. Together, the Upper Three Sects had more than ten thousand Soul Masters, enough to contend with Spirit Hall.
Whenever Yang Podi thought of this, he could not help sighing inwardly. Was the Clear Sky Sect's decline really without reason? On one hand, it had simply made too many enemies. On the other, its reputation was simply too great.
But only its inner core members knew that the old sect master had been missing for decades. The Clear Sky Sect's current strength fell far short of its reputation.