"Hey, I'm Xie Xie."
Xie Xie couldn't maintain his aloof demeanor in front of Gu La and took the initiative to introduce himself.
"Hello."
Gu La nodded in response. In the future, under Tang Wulin's influence, Xie Xie's martial soul would evolve—his Light Dragon Dagger and Shadow Dragon Dagger would merge into the Space-time Dragon.
Though its name sounded grandiose, its abilities leaned heavily toward assassination, making it akin to the shadow guard of the Dragon God. The relationship between Xie Xie and Tang Wulin mirrored this dynamic.
"Zhang Yangzi."
"Wang Jinxi."
The other two also stepped forward to greet him. Their martial souls were Shadow Phantasm Eagle and Bone Dragon King, respectively—top-tier martial souls that were rather ordinary during the era of Legend of the Dragon King, where monstrous talents abounded.
"Hello."
Gu La realized he had misremembered Zhang Yangzi's name, but it wasn't entirely his fault. Who would intentionally choose such a tongue-twisting name?
After introductions, the group dispersed to train individually.
When traversing through spacetime turbulence, all the soul-guided devices and clothing on Gu La had been destroyed. Fortunately, Gu La had the habit of storing valuable items in his system space, so most of his assets were still intact.
Without weighted gear, Gu La retrieved a block of deep-sea sunken silver, taller than a person, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and activated a gravity field to begin training.
"Thirty times gravity, activate!"
With the youth's clear shout, the air suddenly thickened like glue.
Nearby, Xie Xie was practicing speed around the field when he abruptly froze mid-step, astonished to find he couldn't move his body at all.
Spirit souls didn't enhance a soul master's physical constitution. This led to the phenomenon where, during the Legend of the Dragon King era, soul masters' martial soul quality evolved to an extreme degree, yet their actual combat power might not necessarily be proportionally high.
Gu La's exposed forearm muscles tightened like steel cables, with bluish veins snaking beneath his snow-white skin like dragons as he performed a series of exercises.
In the distance, Tang Wulin wiped the corner of his eye, confirming he hadn't misseen—his new companion had indeed brought out a two-meter-diameter block of deep-sea sunken silver.
Sunken silver was a relatively common rare metal, but still quite valuable. Deep-sea sunken silver, in particular, was the finest variety, and a piece this size likely weighed over 3,000 kilograms.
He doubted even Mu Chen, an Eighth Rank Saint Craftsman, had ever seen such a large piece of raw rare metal.
At this moment, Tang Wulin thought of his own poverty and felt a pang of envy.
"Is this guy really human?"
Wang Jinxi's bone claw unconsciously gouged five trenches in the sand. He had thought Tang Wulin was already a monster, but now someone even more outrageous had appeared.
Wu Zhangkong had been observing Gu La closely. He noticed that the grass within a ten-meter radius around Gu La had flattened into concentric circles, each blade cleanly severed at a perfect forty-five-degree angle.
"A gravity domain… twin martial souls… why didn't we discover this earlier?"
Wu Zhangkong grew increasingly frustrated. A genius like this not joining Shrek Academy was a loss for both sides.
Having just met, he refrained from prying too deeply and suppressed his desire to invite Gu La, deciding to inquire after they became more familiar.
Gu La hadn't trained this intensely in over a month. While he could exercise aboard the Sea God ship, it wasn't as liberating as training on land.
After an hour of intense activity, his muscles came alive, his blood surged, and the masculine energy he exuded was completely different from when he used the Celebi martial soul.
"Teacher Wu, I want to try that."
Gu La suddenly pointed to the soul-guided force-measuring device in the corner of the field. Made entirely of black iron, its surface was covered in dents, with the highest record being 3,800 kilograms, set by Tang Wulin three days ago.
Gu La was curious about his own strength.
Wu Zhangkong was equally curious, his icy blue eyes rippling as he silently activated the measuring device.
Gu La set down the deep-sea sunken silver, causing the ground to tremble slightly.
In an instant, as his right fist retracted to his waist, a blurry shadow emerged behind Gu La. It seemed to be a colossal beast embodying the wrath of the earth, its surging blood energy staining his skin a vivid red.
Boom—!
Under the stupefied gazes of the onlookers, the pointer on the force-measuring device surged past the red warning zone, finally stopping at "14,800 kg".
If it weren't for Tang Wulin's rapidly increasing strength prompting Wu Zhangkong to upgrade to a higher-capacity instrument, Gu La's true power wouldn't have been measurable.
A crisp sound of internal parts breaking echoed from within the device. Gu La was reasonably satisfied—fifteen tons of force, more than four times Tang Wulin's.
Considering Tang Wulin was only at the first ring, once the Golden Dragon King bloodline was fully unleashed, his strength would continue to skyrocket, eventually matching Gu La's.
It was worth noting that after Groudon's first upgrade, its attack stat reached 180 points—a very high value—and further breakthroughs became increasingly difficult.
Based on Gu La's estimation, if the Groudon martial soul upgraded again, raising its attack stat to 190 points, it should be equivalent to the God King level.
"Sorry, I'll cover the repair costs."
Gu La wasn't short on pocket change and offered compensation without hesitation.
The others were left utterly dumbfounded, even Wu Zhangkong—who had the highest expectations for Gu La—was speechless with astonishment.
---
As dusk deepened, Gu La followed Gu Yue into the uppermost floor of the Spirit Pagoda. Leng Yaozhu was adjusting design diagrams in front of a holographic projection, with hundreds of soul-guided matrices swirling and reconfiguring under her slender fingertips.
Seeing her disciples arrive, she waved her hand lightly, and the starry sky above condensed into a printed design blueprint.
Leng Yaozhu gazed contentedly at her two disciples and smiled warmly: "Secondary professions are crucial for battle armor. To become a Four-Word Battle Armor Master, one must reach level nine in at least one secondary profession."
"For example, I am a ninth-level mecha designer and an eighth-level mecha manufacturer. Gu Yue doesn't like forging, but she has exceptional talent in the other three secondary professions, so she studies mecha design with me."
"Gula, which secondary profession do you want to try first?"
Without hesitation, Gu La replied: "Since Teacher excels in mecha design, I'll start with mecha designing."
Considering he would eventually return to his original timeline, it would be best to learn all four secondary professions.
Most people lacked the capacity to master multiple secondary professions, often turning to study others late in life after hitting a dead end in their primary pursuit.
With the spiritual strength of a Titled Douluo, Gu La wouldn't encounter bottlenecks before reaching level seven in the three non-forging professions. Level eight would only require some time for insight to break through. The only real challenge would be level nine.
Of course, to avoid startling Leng Yaozhu, he couldn't reveal this now—it would slowly manifest over time.
"Young Gula wants to start with mecha design?"
Leng Yaozhu's crimson lips curved into a playful smile as a dark golden soul-guided chip flew out from her sleeve. "This is the examination question for a first-level mecha designer. Try it and see how much you can improve it."
In her view, with his Spirit Sea-level mental strength, Gu La could quickly master anything. The three non-forging secondary professions wouldn't pose a challenge until after level four. To prevent Gu La from becoming arrogant, she decided to give him a harder task.
The first-level mecha designer exam required improving certain systems of a mech component—a task that was no small challenge for beginners.
But what she didn't know was that Gu La's mental strength was actually at the Spirit Abyss level.
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