Shaken Convictions

By evening, Wang Dong had received full treatment in Shrek Academy's infirmary and returned to the dormitory, still seething with anger she had bottled up all day.

"That hateful bastard, he actually hit me so hard... Even my first and second dads have never hit me!

And Shrek Academy, too! I submitted my request to change dormitories, and the answer just came back. They actually refused!

Bai Jingtian, just you wait! Once I've cultivated the Clear Sky Hammer too, I'll smash every bone in your body to pieces!"

Whenever Wang Dong thought of that morning's fight, she felt more and more aggrieved. She even felt phantom pain in her chest again.

Although the healing-type Soul Saint at Shrek Academy was exceptionally skilled, for some reason, Wang Dong kept feeling pain flare up all over her body from time to time.

Her chest in particular hurt with startling realism, as though Bai Jingtian kept appearing before her and driving a vicious punch into it.

In her imagination, Wang Dong had already used the Clear Sky Hammer and the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer to smash Bai Jingtian down again and again, then hammered him repeatedly until not even bone fragments remained, just as Bai Cinan had done to Jitousi after recovering his health.

But when she actually returned to the dormitory door, her fantasy instantly shattered without a scrap left. All that remained was fear, a fear she herself could not quite explain.

It was as though a tiny, helpless butterfly were facing a ferocious tiger shark.

"Forget it. I'm magnanimous enough not to hold it against him.

Anyway, he and I are ultimately not from the same world."

Taking a deep breath, Wang Dong finally mustered the courage to push open the dormitory door.

But when she entered, she found Bai Jingtian sitting on his bed, fiddling with a pile of Soul Tool parts.

An inexplicable feeling of disgust immediately welled up in her heart, leaving her unwilling to pay Bai Jingtian any further attention. She laid out plenty of luxurious animal pelts as bedding on her wooden bed and sat on them to face the wall and reflect on her mistakes—or rather, to enter a meditative state.

Bai Jingtian also noticed that something was off with Wang Dong and raised an eyebrow slightly.

Is this the spell God King Tang put on his own daughter? It really makes no sense.

Soul Tools are one of the answers to the current meta. Instead of going along with the meta, she clings to the glory of ten thousand years ago and the answer to the meta back then. How is that supposed to revitalize the Tang Sect?

Or does God King Tang want his daughter to keep her bloodline pure?

Forget it. That earth-shattering wisdom is beyond me. If I actually understood it, I'd turn into a dog-donkey myself.

Bai Jingtian shook his head gently and continued with his leisure activity: researching Soul Tools.

With the bonus from the "Blue Scientist" option, Bai Jingtian had gained a thorough understanding of all the principles behind low-level Soul Tools. He had even mastered some of the principles behind mid-level Soul Tools such as the Invincible Shield.

Although he did not have much need to rely on Soul Tools in his own fights, he still had family. They did not possess Bai Jingtian's immense strength and supreme wisdom, and Soul Tools could help make up for their shortcomings in combat and keep them safer.

"Still, the Soul Tools on the Douluo Continent are at far too low a level. There's so much room for improvement..."

Bai Jingtian sighed, sorted the parts, unfinished products, and blueprints before him into categories, and put them away in his Storage Soul Tool. Then he sat cross-legged on his bed and continued cultivating according to the Bodhidharma Sutra.

The Bodhidharma Sutra was a legendary scripture, thousands of times stronger than the Tang Sect's Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record.

Hell, by studying it normally, could create so many powerful hell-type martial arts and even cultivate the utterly formidable War God of Hell.

Darkness cultivated the Bodhidharma Sutra in reverse and developed the Asura Path, which could bring a practitioner's health bar and recovery ability to a terrifying level.

Although the option he had chosen had already given Bai Jingtian the qualifications to learn both types of martial arts, how much he could actually learn and how well he could use them still depended on his own efforts.

Meanwhile, in Shrek Academy's infirmary, Tang Ya had finished receiving treatment but remained unconscious.

Bei Bei stayed faithfully at Tang Ya's bedside, hardly leaving her side all day. Even his lunch had been delivered by Huo Yutong.

The healing-type Soul Master responsible for treating Tang Ya was the same one who had treated Wang Dong that day: the Soul Saint with the Tree of Life Martial Soul.

But after seeing Tang Ya's injuries, his expression immediately grew much more complicated.

"Was she beaten by one of the inner court's Soul Emperor students who specializes in physical strength? The bones in her chest are nearly shattered to pieces..."

He silently noted Tang Ya's injuries, intending to make inquiries through his own channels once he returned to the inner court.

An inner court disciple beating an outer court student so severely was no small matter.

And the person who had been beaten was that Bei Bei's girlfriend...

Bei Bei had no idea the Soul Saint was thinking so much, and even if he had known, there was nothing he could have done.

A Soul Grandmaster had struck a Soul Elder with a punch that made a veteran Soul Saint think it came from a physically powerful Soul Emperor. If Bei Bei told the Soul Saint that, the Soul Saint would most likely not believe him and would instead find a Mental Attribute Soul Master to check his mental state.

Moreover, Huo Yutong's words that day, along with Tang Ya's behavior, had shaken some of Bei Bei's convictions.

Was the Tang Sect as it was now really worth all his effort?

To help Tang Ya keep up with Shrek Academy, Bei Bei had already given up many resources that would otherwise have been his. He had even chosen to repeat a year for her sake. Otherwise, he could easily have become a Soul Ancestor over a year earlier and then become an inner court disciple of Shrek Academy.

He had never felt this way before, but Bai Jingtian's reaction and Huo Yutong's reminder made him think of his own parents, whom he had scarcely ever seen.

He had lost both his parents too! He couldn't forget his mother, who had died giving birth to him, or his father, who had chosen to follow her in death, just because he had Sister Lexuan, who had always looked after him, and a great-great-grandfather who was the Sea God Pavilion Master.

"Xiao Ya... I hope Junior Brother Bai's punch can bring you to your senses a little.

Otherwise, if the Tang Sect wants to rise again, I'm afraid it can only rely on Great-Great-Grandfather to force people into it."

Bei Bei gently touched Tang Ya's forehead. In the end, the thousand words in his heart became a single sigh.