Two years.
That was how long remained until his Martial Soul Awakening.
For an adult, two years could pass quickly.
For a four-year-old child, they could feel like an eternity.
For Qiangu Longyu, they were somehow both.
“Longyu.”
His mother’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
The boy raised his eyes from the book resting on his lap.
Qiangu Lanyue stood by the doorway, watching him with an expression Longyu had learned to recognize perfectly.
“Yes, Mother?”
“How long have you been sitting there?”
Longyu glanced toward the window.
The sun was considerably lower than when he had started.
“Not long.”
Lanyue narrowed her eyes.
“How long?”
“…”
“Longyu.”
“Maybe two hours.”
His mother sighed.
She walked over and took the book from his hands.
Observations on the Soul Beasts of the Northern Region.
Lanyue read the title before looking back at her son.
“You’re four years old.”
“I know.”
“Four-year-olds are supposed to play.”
“I’m studying.”
“That is exactly the problem.”
Longyu was about to answer when another voice came from the doorway.
“I agree with your mother.”
Longyu turned his head.
Ye Zhenyuan entered the room.
His father had only recently returned from a mission and was still wearing part of his traveling clothes.
“You need to go outside more,” Zhenyuan continued.
“Get some fresh air.
Run around.
Fall off something.
Do normal things.”
Longyu stared at him expressionlessly.
“Fall off something?”
“It’s a fundamental part of childhood.”
Lanyue looked at him.
“Please don’t educate our son.”
“I thought I was doing quite well.”
“That’s the problem.”
Longyu hid a smile.
Over the past few years, he had discovered something he could never have learned from reading Douluo Dalu.
His family was strangely normal.
Not in terms of power.
His grandfather was a Titled Douluo of the Worship Hall.
His mother possessed the Coiling Dragon Staff.
His father was a powerful agility-type Soul Master.
And he lived in one of the most important places within Spirit Hall.
None of that could be considered normal.
But when the doors of their residence closed…
They were simply a family.
And that had changed many things for Longyu.
Spirit Hall was no longer merely a faction he knew from a story.
It was the place where his mother took his books away because he had been reading for too long.
Where his father returned from missions and told him exaggerated stories.
Where Qianjun appeared without warning to check how much he had grown.
Where Jiangmo arrived shortly afterward and argued with his brother over practically anything.
It was his home.
And because of that, Longyu had begun to understand something more clearly.
He did not want to save Spirit Hall simply because he knew its future.
He wanted to save it because now he had something to lose.
“Besides,” Lanyue said, “you have a visitor.”
Longyu blinked.
“A visitor?”
A small blonde head appeared from behind the doorway.
“Longyu!”
Longyu immediately recognized the voice.
Qian Renxue entered without waiting for permission.
Over the past year, that scene had become surprisingly common.
Ever since they had met, Renxue had unilaterally decided that they were friends.
And apparently, being Qian Renxue’s friend meant she could appear whenever she wanted.
“Come with me.”
Longyu looked at her.
“Where?”
“Outside.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Longyu looked toward his mother.
Lanyue was smiling.
Betrayal.
“Go,” she said.
Longyu slowly closed his book.
“Do I have a choice?”
“No,” Lanyue and Renxue answered at the same time.
Zhenyuan burst out laughing.
Several minutes later, Longyu discovered that Renxue had not come alone.
Three girls were waiting for them in one of the inner courtyards near the Worship Hall.
Longyu immediately recognized two of their backgrounds.
Not because he personally knew them.
But because he knew their families.
The first had golden hair and an expression that seemed to be constantly evaluating whether everything around her was interesting enough.
She was practicing strikes against a training post.
Each impact produced a dry thud.
The second sat beneath a tree.
Her long dark-blue hair fell over her shoulders as she carefully held a small feather between her fingers.
The third girl was kneeling beside her.
Her hair was light, almost silver beneath the sunlight.
She seemed to be examining a small scrape on the blue-haired girl’s hand.
Renxue pointed to each of them.
“Jin Yue.”
The golden-haired girl stopped hitting the post.
“Qing Luoyue.”
The girl beneath the tree looked up.
“And Qian Lingyu.”
The third girl smiled gently.
Then Renxue pointed at Longyu.
“Qiangu Longyu.”
Jin Yue looked him up and down.
“So you’re Longyu.”
“Apparently.”
“Renxue talks about you a lot.”
Longyu slowly turned toward Renxue.
“Does she?”
“I do not talk about you that much!”
Jin Yue grinned.
“Yes, you do.”
“Jin Yue!”
Qing Luoyue calmly intervened.
“She mostly says you’re strange.”
Longyu raised an eyebrow.
“That sounds more believable.”
Lingyu covered her mouth to hide a small laugh.
Longyu looked at the three girls again.
Their names were unfamiliar.
That was important.
In his previous life, he had never heard of Qian Lingyu, Jin Yue, or Qing Luoyue.
However, their origins were obvious.
Jin Yue was a descendant of Golden Crocodile Douluo.
Qing Luoyue belonged to Blue Luan Douluo’s lineage.
And Lingyu came from a secondary branch of the Qian family.
Three girls who, because of their backgrounds, should have existed somewhere in this world.
Yet they had never appeared in the story Longyu knew.
A new warning silently formed in his mind.
The story had never shown him everything.
Remembering the original work did not mean knowing the entire world.
Perhaps these people had always existed.
Perhaps this reality was already slightly different.
He could not know.
And that was precisely why he could never blindly trust his memories.
“What were you doing?” Longyu asked, looking at Luoyue’s hand.
Lingyu answered.
“She hurt herself.”
“It’s only a scrape,” Luoyue said.
“It’s still an injury.”
Longyu examined the small wound.
“How did it happen?”
Luoyue pointed upward.
Longyu followed her finger.
A blue feather was caught among the branches.
“I wanted to reach it.”
“She fell,” Jin Yue added.
Luoyue looked at her.
“That detail was unnecessary.”
“But it was funny.”
Longyu was quickly beginning to understand the personalities in front of him.
“And you?” Jin Yue asked.
“Me what?”
“What can you do?”
Longyu thought for a few seconds.
“Read.”
Silence.
Jin Yue looked at him as though he had just said something profoundly disappointing.
“That doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t.”
“Excellent argument.”
Renxue started laughing.
Jin Yue frowned.
“Can you fight?”
“No.”
“Do you train?”
“Not seriously yet.”
“Then you’re weak.”
Longyu nodded.
“At the moment, yes.”
His response seemed to confuse her.
“You’re not going to get angry?”
“Why should I get angry if it’s true?”
Jin Yue took a moment to answer.
“You’re weird.”
“We already established that.”
This time, even Luoyue smiled.
The afternoon passed in a way Longyu had not expected.
Jin Yue eventually convinced Renxue to compete in a race.
Luoyue decided to watch.
Lingyu tried to establish rules.
Nobody listened to the rules.
And Longyu ended up participating because Renxue refused to let him remain seated.
He lost.
By quite a lot.
Jin Yue crossed the finish line first.
Renxue arrived immediately after her.
Longyu finished third.
Luoyue chose not to participate, while Lingyu abandoned the race halfway through because, according to her, the entire thing was ridiculous.
Jin Yue placed both hands on her hips.
“I told you that you were weak.”
Longyu took a deep breath.
His childish body protested.
“And you were right.”
“Don’t you want a rematch?”
“Right now, the result would be exactly the same.”
Jin Yue frowned.
“Then train.”
Longyu looked at her.
It was a childish statement.
Simple.
But she was not wrong.
Reading about Soul Masters was no substitute for becoming one.
Every theory Longyu could ever develop would be useless if his body could not execute it.
“I will.”
Jin Yue smiled.
“Good.
Then we’ll race again.”
Longyu remembered those words.
The following months slowly changed his routine.
He did not stop studying.
That would have been impossible.
But he began dividing his time more efficiently.
Reading.
Observing.
Moving.
Experimenting.
His father began teaching him basic exercises for balance and coordination.
Nothing related to Soul Master techniques yet.
Simply learning how to properly control his own body.
Qianjun immediately approved.
Jiangmo wanted to give him a staff.
Lanyue immediately refused.
“He’s four.”
“A small staff.”
“No.”
“Wooden.”
“No.”
“I trained at that age.”
“That explains many things about you, Uncle Jiangmo.”
Longyu wisely decided not to interfere.
But the most important change was not physical.
It was the four other people who began appearing more and more frequently in his life.
Renxue was competitive about practically everything.
Jin Yue was even worse.
If one ran a hundred steps, the other wanted to run a hundred and one.
If Jin Yue managed to lift something heavy, Renxue tried to lift something heavier.
Longyu quickly discovered that directly competing with both of them was an excellent way to end the day completely exhausted.
Lingyu was different.
She was interested in plants.
Not simply because they were beautiful.
She wanted to know which ones could heal wounds.
Which ones reduced pain.
Which ones were poisonous.
One afternoon, Longyu found her comparing two leaves.
“They look alike,” Lingyu said.
“Very much.”
“But I was told one can be used to treat fevers, while the other causes vomiting.”
Longyu sat beside her.
“Then appearance alone isn’t enough to classify them.”
Lingyu looked at him.
“Exactly.”
Longyu smiled.
That conversation was far more interesting than a conversation between two children had any right to be.
Luoyue had a different obsession.
Soul Beasts.
Especially flying ones.
She could spend long periods observing birds from the inner walls.
One day, they argued about the age of a Soul Beast described in one of Longyu’s books.
“It says its feathers turn silver after a thousand years,” Longyu said.
Luoyue shook her head.
“My grandfather says that doesn’t always happen.”
Longyu looked up.
“Why?”
“It depends on where it lives.”
That immediately caught his attention.
“The environment can change its appearance?”
“He thinks so.”
Longyu closed the book.
A small idea appeared in his mind.
If that was true, then relying solely on physical characteristics to determine a Soul Beast’s age could lead to mistakes.
He needed more information.
More observations.
More examples.
That same night, he wrote down a note.
Not a conclusion.
A question.
To what extent does the environment alter the indicators used to estimate a Soul Beast’s age?
It was exactly the distinction Longyu wanted to maintain between himself and the people he had criticized so much in his previous life.
A possibility was not a theory.
A theory was not the truth.
First, he needed evidence.
Time continued to move forward.
Four became five.
And five slowly began approaching six.
The friendship between the five children no longer depended on Renxue.
They were no longer simply acquaintances from important families.
They argued.
Competed.
Studied.
Played.
Got angry with each other.
And met again the next day.
Longyu sometimes began to forget that he had once known the future of one of them.
Qian Renxue was no longer simply the future inheritor of the Angel God.
She was the girl who cheated whenever she was losing a race and then spent twenty minutes insisting that, technically, she had not cheated.
Jin Yue was no longer simply a descendant of Golden Crocodile.
She was a rival who seemed to consider every activity a competition.
Lingyu was not a piece on Spirit Hall’s board.
She was the person who always carried something to treat the injuries the others inevitably ended up getting.
Luoyue was not a name absent from the original story.
She was someone capable of spending half an hour silently observing a Soul Beast before asking a question that forced Longyu to reconsider something he thought he understood.
They were people.
That was precisely what made it dangerous.
Because the more he came to know this world…
the harder it became to treat it like a story.
Shortly before they turned six, all five were summoned to the Worship Hall.
Qian Daoliu was there.
So was Qianjun.
Golden Crocodile.
Blue Luan.
And the other Worships.
Longyu immediately sensed that this was not an ordinary gathering.
Renxue looked excited.
Jin Yue was practically vibrating with impatience.
Lingyu kept her hands clasped together.
Luoyue silently observed the adults.
Qian Daoliu’s gaze swept across the five children.
Finally, he spoke.
“Your sixth birthdays are approaching.”
Nobody responded.
There was no need.
They all knew what that meant.
“Normally,” he continued, “your Martial Soul Awakenings could be conducted separately.”
Renxue immediately looked at her grandfather.
Longyu noticed the faint smile hidden in Qian Daoliu’s expression.
He understood who was responsible for what came next.
“However, Renxue has insisted that all five of you should awaken your Martial Souls together.”
“Grandfather!” Renxue protested.
“You said you wouldn’t tell them it was me.”
“I don’t remember promising that.”
Jin Yue burst out laughing.
Renxue glared at her.
Qian Daoliu continued as though nothing had happened.
“I have agreed.”
Longyu remained still.
Finally.
He had waited for this moment for almost six years.
He had studied everything he could.
He had wondered countless times what Martial Soul he would awaken.
The Coiling Dragon Staff was the most obvious possibility.
His mother possessed it.
His grandfather possessed it.
His bloodline would preserve it for thousands of years.
But there were no guarantees.
And Longyu knew better than anyone that this world could produce unexpected results.
Jin Yue clenched a fist.
Lingyu took a deep breath.
Luoyue raised her head slightly.
Renxue smiled.
Longyu looked at his four friends.
Then he looked at Qianjun.
His grandfather held his gaze.
For an instant, Longyu remembered that afternoon many years ago.
When he had still been a baby.
When Qianjun had held him in his arms and expressed his hope that Longyu would inherit their family’s Martial Soul.
Soon, they would discover whether that wish had come true.
But Longyu knew something none of the adults present could possibly imagine.
For him, this awakening meant far more than simply discovering his Martial Soul.
It would be the true beginning.
The moment when he would finally obtain the first tool necessary to transform all his knowledge, hypotheses, and memories…
into real power.
Qian Daoliu spoke the final words.
“Prepare yourselves.”
“In seven days, we will conduct the awakening.”
Longyu felt his heart begin to accelerate.
Seven days.
After nearly six years of waiting…
the time had finally come.