Two and a half years had passed in the blink of an eye.
On the academy playground, a young boy ran tirelessly with weights strapped to his body. Muscles rippled under his bronzed skin, honed from countless hours under the sun. Sweat slid down his sharp jawline and onto the track below. There could be no doubt—this young man was none other than Du Feng.
For the past two and a half years, Du Feng had endured an unrelenting regimen. He would rise at six in the morning, run five kilometers to warm up, then return home for breakfast before attending morning classes at the academy.
Afternoons were reserved for grueling physical training. He would pound sandbags with precise strikes, run thirty kilometers while carrying weights, perform three kilometers of frog jumps, and another three kilometers of duck walks. He refined leg techniques by repeatedly kicking sandbags in complex patterns.
After leg and endurance training, he moved on to strength exercises, using dumbbells, parallel bars, and other gym equipment he had crafted from his memories of the previous world. Each day was a cycle of joy and pain, lifting himself to new heights of strength.
To prevent his body from becoming "dead muscle," practical combat training with Du Tu or Jiang Mu followed every night. The sessions were brutal. Even when they suppressed their soul power to match Du Feng's, the depth of their experience and the quality of their martial control far surpassed the young boy's novice skills.
Daily, Du Feng bore his torment with a forced smile, telling himself that every bruise, every strike, was forging resilience. After each session, he would be immersed in a medicinal bath prepared by Du Tu to accelerate recovery and enhance his physical constitution.
Once out of the bath, Du Feng would meditate instead of sleeping, channeling his soul power to grow stronger.
Though these years were exhausting, Du Feng's progress was extraordinary. He mastered his first soul skill with near-perfect control, began to endure attacks from Du Tu and Jiang Mu for longer durations, and his awareness of battlefield dynamics became increasingly acute.
At just eight and a half years old, he had already achieved the level 20 threshold. This rapid advancement was due not only to his grueling training but also to the medicinal baths that dramatically enhanced his recovery.
By comparison, most of his classmates lingered around levels 13 or 14. Du Feng's growth was in a league of its own.
In terms of raw soul power, Du Feng's abilities were comparable to Tang San's at the same age. Yet in combat, he still fell short. Tang San's mastery of hidden weapons and specialized martial skills made him an incomparable opponent. Even the mighty Immovable King Zhao Wuji had struggled against similar challenges, and the legendary Purple Demon Eye added layers of complexity beyond Du Feng's current reach.
If Du Feng had a "cheat code," he would have gladly challenged Tang San and demonstrated the true meaning of a cheat. But reality offered no such shortcuts. Instead, he relied on meticulous training, patience, and strategy.
Now, reaching level 20, Du Feng was ready to hunt soul beasts for additional spirit rings and to claim the title of Great Soul Master. The prospect of visiting the Spirit Hall, increasing his rank, and collecting free spirit coins thrilled him—the joy of freebies never diminished, especially when repeated. (This was, of course, said with no disrespect to Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang.)
While Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang had theorized that even without a spirit ring, one could cultivate and store soul power to be unleashed upon breakthrough, Du Feng had no patience to wait. Obtaining a spirit ring meant immediate improvement—an advantage too precious to postpone.
He also had no concern about absorbing spirit rings efficiently. The grueling training of the past two and a half years had laid a solid foundation, preparing him for precisely this challenge. But he had no intention of recklessly pushing his limits. Life remained more important than reckless ambition.
For ordinary Soul Masters, hunting spirit beasts was a gamble. Most junior academy students had first spirit rings of minimal quality. If the second ring was also weak, their path forward became perilous. Encountering an experienced Soul Master wielding a hundred-year-old spirit ring could end in disaster.
Powerful soul beasts were dangerous. One wrong move could cost a young Soul Master his life. Not every student had Tang San's fortune of having a mentor select rare beasts or hire a spirit sect to assist in the hunt.
Du Feng, however, was protected. With Du Tu and Jiang Mu watching over him, he could choose the species and age of his soul beasts with confidence.
Reality was often cruel, and the world rarely allowed one to defy fate easily.
It was worth noting that in the past two and a half years, Du Tu had ascended to Soul Saint, obtaining a Martial Soul True Body, while Jiang Mu had reached Soul Emperor. When hunting Soul Beasts, they enlisted powerful friends and Soul Saints to ensure success. The effort and resources they invested were immense, but they guaranteed results.
Their positions within the country had also risen, for a Martial Soul True Body was a mark of incomparable strength.
The hierarchy of Soul Masters was like a pyramid: the higher one ascended, the scarcer the ranks became, making Du Feng's accomplishments all the more remarkable.