Early the next morning.
Xiao Lin, sporting a pair of dark circles under his eyes, washed up and ate breakfast with Tang San and the others before heading to the classroom.
This time, Xiao Lin simply wanted to learn about the real Douluo Continent from a teacher's perspective. After all, it was better to have no books at all than to believe them blindly.
Sometimes the content in books was too vague; professional guidance was still necessary. If the teacher's lecture turned out to be inferior to the knowledge Xiao Lin had gained from his own reading, he wouldn't hesitate to skip class.
Despite skipping classes, hitting classmates, or beating up Yu Xiaogang, he remained a "good student" and a "good boy" in the eyes of the Academy Dean and Grandpa Jack (cue the crooked smirk).
Upon entering the classroom, Xiao Lin glanced around and finally chose a seat in the very last row, right next to the back door.
This position made it convenient for him to slip away.
Meanwhile, Tang San and that "Rogue Rabbit" Xiao Wu sat together, right in the center of the classroom. Their relationship's progress likely traced back to the "shared blanket incident" from the previous night.
Perhaps it was the will of the Great Universe, but Tang San and Xiao Wu had still ended up together. If Xiao Lin didn't intervene, the two of them would likely follow the original timeline's plot.
But it didn't matter.
Xiao Lin honestly didn't care for the Soft Bone Rabbit's Soul Ring or Soul Bone. He only had eight slots left for Soul Rings; excluding the seventh ring for his Martial Soul Avatar, he only had seven spots remaining.
Why would he waste one on a Soft Bone Rabbit? As for the Soul Bone, a Soft Bone Rabbit's bone wasn't worth a single hair of an External Soul Bone.
Furthermore, the education Xiao Lin had received made it difficult for him to harbor murderous intent toward someone like Xiao Wu, who had already taken human form.
Was a Soul Beast that transformed into a human a human, a Soul Beast, or a half-human, half-beast hybrid? By that logic, was Tang San a human or a half-human hybrid?
Xiao Lin didn't want to waste mental energy on such internal conflicts. He lowered his head and, before the teacher arrived, continued reading the books he had borrowed yesterday.
The books were quite interesting, detailing many parts of the Douluo Continent.
For instance, regarding Soul Hunting Forests—aside from those managed by Spirit Hall, both of the two Great Empires had their own Soul Beast forests. The various Duchies within the Heaven Dou Empire were no exception.
Beyond that, Xiao Lin was particularly interested in a specific Soul Beast mentioned in the texts.
It was a personal biography written by a Soul King who had traveled across the land seeking a breakthrough. In it, the Soul King wrote about a place called Thunderbolt Valley, also known as Thunder Valley.
In that place lived a powerful plant-type Soul Beast called the Thunder Hell Vine, which attracted lightning. This was a location and a Soul Beast that Xiao Lin didn't remember from his previous impressions, and it was one of the reasons he had come to the classroom today.
Perhaps this was a region from the Douluo lore he hadn't encountered before.
Thunderbolt Valley—or Thunder Valley—was exactly as Xiao Lin had imagined. Living up to its name, it was a place where lightning struck incessantly, twenty-four hours a day.
Its location was near the sect of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.
The location and climate of this place were terrifying, completely defying the geographical environments and scientific principles Xiao Lin remembered.
As far as he knew, lightning required moist hot air currents to rise, condense, and collide with other water vapors to create an electrical charge and ionization, leading to thunderclouds and bolts.
Yet, Thunderbolt Valley didn't have any so-called "heat source" to generate these currents. It simply had lightning—constant, unending lightning for years on end.
This environment differed from a volcanic one.
A volcano, at the very least, was a high-temperature environment formed by internal core heat and magma. Thunderbolt Valley was more like the "Punk Hazard" island from his past life—a permanent environmental change caused by two Navy Admirals.
Therefore, Xiao Lin speculated that Thunderbolt Valley was likely caused by something similar. Taking the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well as a reference—though it wasn't as large as Thunderbolt Valley, the quality of its energy was extremely high.
That place had produced a unique "hot pot" environment that allowed numerous Immortal Herbs to grow. Ten thousand years into the future, those herbs would even become Soul Beasts with One Hundred Thousand Year cultivation bases.
He recalled that Huo Yuhao's ice-attribute Immortal Herb even had a cultivation of Two Hundred Thousand Years.
Such terrifying power was quite similar to Thunderbolt Valley.
It was just that the power in Thunderbolt Valley was more dispersed, but its duration wasn't short either. According to the records, Thunderbolt Valley had been struck by lightning continuously for as long as the history of the Douluo Continent existed.
The story in the book was written roughly 250 years ago.
Could it be that the lightning in Thunderbolt Valley had been striking for over two thousand years (the current year being 2637 of the Douluo Calendar)? Or was the timeframe even longer?
If that were the case, could there be a Thunder Dragon King buried beneath Thunderbolt Valley? Or perhaps a trial ground for the Thunder God?
Regardless, Xiao Lin was determined to visit Thunderbolt Valley in the future.
If for nothing else, he needed it for the speed of lightning-attribute Soul Beasts. His Horned Dragon Staff needed to balance both speed and power; while power was easy enough to find, speed-type Soul Beasts were much rarer.
Just as Xiao Lin's thoughts began to wander, a young man under the age of thirty walked into the classroom. Having experienced a student's life before, Xiao Lin immediately tucked the book into his desk, acting as if nothing had happened.
Even after years of not being a student, the instinct to sense a teacher was still there.
The young man walked straight to the podium, placed his teaching materials on the table, and narrowed his eyes slightly as he scanned the room.
Seeing that everyone was present and the students had quieted down, he wrote his name on the blackboard: Lin Quan.
"I am your homeroom teacher, Lin Quan. A Rank 25 Soul Grandmaster. My Martial Soul is a Writing Brush. For the next six years, you will be my students. Now, let's start with some self-introductions. The student in the first row by the wall goes first."
"Hello everyone, I am Jin Lai. My Martial Soul is a Rolling Pin. My family runs the Jin Lai Noodle Shop in Notting City..."
"Hello everyone, my name is..."
Soon, it was Xiao Lin's turn.
"I am Xiao Lin."
Xiao Lin had no desire for excessive contact with these classmates. He simply stated his name, sat back down, and went back to peeking at his book.
...
"My name is Xiao Wu, 'Wu' as in dancing. My Martial Soul is the Soft Bone Rabbit. You can call me Sister Xiao Wu; I'll be looking out for you from now on!"
"I am Tang San."
Tang San, like Xiao Lin, had no interest in his classmates, so he didn't even mention his Martial Soul.
...
Once the entire class had finished their introductions, Lin Quan used his Martial Soul to record every student.
"Alright, now that everyone knows each other, I'll go over our curriculum. We have classes every morning. In the afternoons, whether you rest or cultivate is up to you. We have a five-day school week with weekends off, and two semesters per year."
"Additionally, our lesson for today is Meditation."
Lin Quan used his Martial Soul to write the word "Meditation" on the blackboard. Upon looking at it, Xiao Lin felt many of his distracting thoughts instantly vanish.
Impressive. No wonder Lin Quan can be a teacher.
Six-year-old children were at their most restless age.
With such a teacher for enlightenment, this class would surely progress faster than the others.
Xiao Lin was finally not in the "worst" class.
However, Xiao Lin soon went back to secretly reading his new book.
A course like Meditation wasn't worth wasting his time on.