The day after he returned from the Soul Hunting Forest—
Lin Yang went alone to the back mountain of the academy, to the place where he often practiced his sword techniques. He found a random patch of open ground and sat cross-legged.
Lifting his left hand, he summoned the Demon Blood Spirit.
Ever since it devoured the soul ring's energy a few days ago, he'd vaguely sensed that something was brewing inside it.
And during today's class, he clearly felt the Demon Blood start to throb restlessly.
So as soon as class was over, he came up here by himself.
Sure enough, before his eyes, the blood in his palm began to change violently.
At first, it thumped rhythmically like a heart, expanding and contracting.
Then, countless tiny spikes burst from its surface, like a bizarre, blood-red sea urchin.
In the next moment, the spikes softened and lengthened, turning into twisting brambles…
As time passed, the Demon Blood's transformations grew faster and more frequent.
Suddenly, all changes stopped.
It reverted to its original spherical form—but the already eerie blood color now blazed with light.
What happened next took Lin Yang's breath away.
A clear, faint yellow soul ring quietly condensed and floated above the Demon Blood, slowly rotating, radiating steady soul power fluctuations.
"A martial soul that self-condenses a soul ring… Isn't that something only ten-thousand-year soul beasts that reincarnate can do?"
He'd mentally prepared himself, but still couldn't help being shaken.
Had he become a ten-thousand-year soul beast?
No, that wasn't it.
Lin Yang slowly shook his head and quickly grasped the key point: it was because of the Demon Blood's special nature.
In the Demon Slayer world, any being that became a demon could grow stronger by devouring flesh and blood. The stronger they got, the greater their chance of awakening a unique Blood Demon Art.
But in the Douluo world, due to the world's laws, the demon blood had become the Demon Blood Spirit.
Its essence, however, hadn't changed.
As long as it swallowed enough flesh, or energy, once it had enough, it would awaken a Blood Demon Art.
No—here, it should be called a soul skill.
Lin Yang closed his eyes, calming his mind to feel the information within the soul ring.
A moment later, he opened his eyes, a hint of surprise flickering within.
"The first soul skill is actually… Blindfold?"
Blindfold—Yushiro's Blood Demon Art.
A figure immediately popped into his mind: the man who adored Tamayo, treasuring her like the most precious gem.
In the final battle, if not for Yushiro and Tamayo, the Hashira probably wouldn't even have found out where the Demon King's true body was hidden.
Especially Yushiro's Blood Demon Art—it was without exaggeration a strategic-level support skill.
Visual manipulation, shared vision, tampering with the five senses, constructing illusions…
If developed properly, each facet of its abilities could play a massive role.
However, the recent upheaval in the Demon Blood Spirit completely derailed his original plan for his martial soul cultivation.
Normally, twin martial souls were far superior to single martial souls.
The key advantage was that a twin-soul master could focus on cultivating one of their martial souls first.
Once strong enough, they could then attach far higher-aged soul rings to the second martial soul.
That was how monsters with insane soul ring configurations were made.
But Lin Yang's twin martial souls were a different story.
His Demon Blood Spirit had its own growth property. As his soul power rose, it naturally "grew."
That growth was something he couldn't stop—unless he never cultivated again.
On top of that, it even generated its own soul rings.
So he had no choice but to accept that both martial souls would be cultivated at the same time.
Still, he had a vague feeling.
These self-generated soul rings might not be fixed in age—they could very well increase as his strength grew.
If the martial soul could spawn its own rings, wasn't auto-leveling those rings the next logical step?
As long as he kept feeding it enough energy—enough "nutrients" for growth.
Of course, this was just speculation. He'd need time to confirm it.
…
News traveled fast in the academy.
The fact that Lin Yang had obtained a hundred-year soul ring quickly stirred up a small commotion.
No one even cared about Zhao Bufan's graduation.
All around Lin Yang were looks of envy and jealousy—and quite a few senior female students began circling around him.
The braver ones even tried to get handsy.
Anyone with eyes could see that with Lin Yang's talent, he was destined for great achievement.
On top of that, he was handsome. If they didn't secure a good relationship now, what chance would they have in the future?
"This is absurd."
After figuring out what these girls were thinking, Lin Yang was at a loss for words.
He was only six. Even the senior students were at most twelve.
In his previous lives, that was the age for watching Balala the Fairies and only being allowed juice at banquets.
Yet here on the Douluo Continent, they were already thinking about romance and marriage.
Was this normal?
A continent of lovebrains—so everyone's a hopeless romantic, is that it?
Harassed beyond endurance, Lin Yang simply drew his blade.
He pointed at a sixth-year senior right on the spot and challenged her to a real, formal duel in front of everyone.
The girl ran away in tears, clutching her face.
The effect was instant.
Everyone who'd had any thoughts about him backed off.
Lin Yang earned the nickname "Cold-Faced Blade Guy."
When female students saw him, they avoided him with a very wide berth.
Who'd ever seen a guy drag a girl into a duel and beat her until she cried?
Completely off-putting.
Lin Yang, however, went on with life as usual—attending class, cultivating, and haunting the library.
The only one who might have felt uncomfortable was Yu Xiaogang.
Because of the loss of face he'd suffered in front of Lin Yang, he now treated the boy like air.
Even when they passed right by each other, he'd ignore him completely.
Lin Yang couldn't care less.
If not for Yu Xiaogang's complicated background, and the involvement of that madwoman Bibi Dong, he wouldn't even bother with courtesy on the surface.
Life at the academy went on.
With the money from selling the soul bone, Lin Yang outsourced all the work-study chores.
To others, he simply said he was now receiving subsidies from Spirit Hall.
That was common knowledge for all soul masters, so no one suspected a thing.
In private, Lin Yang began using different channels in Nuoding City to purchase whale glue and various medicinal herbs.
In the pre–Soul Master Tournament era, no one had discovered whale glue's true value.
They only treated it as a tonic for vitality and virility, so buying it was fairly easy.
Most of what he got was ten-year whale glue; hundred-year stock was rare, let alone thousand- or ten-thousand-year whale glue.
Especially in a small place like Nuoding City.
Still, by spending freely, he got the major merchant guilds to help him keep an eye out for higher-year whale glue.
As for the herbs, those were for his daily physical training.
As the husband of the Butterfly sisters in his past life, he'd often served as a test subject for various medicines, and had picked up some basic pharmacological knowledge.
So putting together a body-tempering bath was a breeze.
He'd trained his body with the most primitive methods before because he was broke.
Now that he had money, it'd be a waste to keep beating himself up the hard way.