In particular, Meng Baichuan was flawless, whether in his combat techniques or his control over his soul skills.
However, his strength was still within an acceptable range.
In a one-on-one battle, at most, he could fight a Soul Ancestor.
If he encountered a Soul King, however, defeat would be inevitable.
What Lin Yuan truly cared about was their performance when they fought together.
Their level of coordination was far beyond what he had imagined.
Lin Yuan was confident that he could quickly deal with either of them individually.
But if he had to fight both of them at once, the difficulty would increase several times over.
And that was without them even using their martial soul fusion skill, Serpent Dragon Joint Assault.
“When these two fight, their spiritual power seems to be connected.
They can actually achieve a state of spiritual communication.
I still need to observe them more carefully.
There’s no need to rush.
Once I break through to the Soul Elder level, I’ll look for an opportunity to make my move.”
Lin Yuan suppressed his thoughts and continued waiting.
During the following period, aside from staying at Suo Tuo City Intermediate Soul Master Academy and spending time in the library reading books that weren’t available at Nuoding Academy, he devoted himself to cultivation.
Every academy was lenient toward outstanding students.
Because of Lin Yuan’s exceptional talent, even when he skipped classes, no one pursued the matter.
He only needed to participate in the weekly practical training.
Almost every time, Lin Yuan managed to achieve the impressive result of “third place.”
This way, he could avoid letting the academy’s classes interfere with his cultivation while also preventing himself from attracting too much attention.
After all, he had registered as a twelve-year-old.
A twelve-year-old rank 24 Soul Grandmaster was certainly rare, but it wasn’t so extraordinary that one couldn’t find another such genius anywhere in the entire Soul Master world.
During his cultivation, Lin Yuan would also occasionally visit the Great Soul Arena to observe Meng Yiran and Meng Baichuan.
After nearly two years of observation, Lin Yuan had finally figured out their abilities.
Just like Huo Zhongxian’s and San Deng Fen’s one-hundred-percent martial soul fusion skill, they could share the results of their cultivation with each other, thereby increasing their cultivation speed.
As for whether Meng Baichuan possessed a second martial soul, that remained unknown for now.
However, Lin Yuan could roughly guess what he was planning.
Seeing that Meng Baichuan rarely bullied Ma Hongjun or Dai Mubai, he assumed that the boy probably intended to take the path of becoming the Eighth and Ninth Monsters alongside Meng Yiran and eventually ascend to godhood with Tang San.
After breaking through to the Soul Grandmaster level, Lin Yuan cultivation speed was no longer as fast as it had been during the Soul Master stage, when he could increase his soul power by one rank roughly every two months.
Even so, increasing his soul power by one rank every two and a half months was still an extremely impressive cultivation speed.
After one year and eleven months of bitter cultivation, Lin Yuan had reached rank 35.
His third soul ring had been obtained by hunting a Golden Sword Bamboo that was more than 7,000 years old.
Coincidentally, it was once again time for Flender to go out on his annual trip to recruit talent from the surrounding villages.
By this period, most children of the appropriate age had already awakened their martial souls.
The soul masters studying at junior soul master academies had also returned to their villages.
Ma Hongjun, that fat kid, had been picked up by Flender from Phoenix Village in exactly this manner.
Flender simply gave Ma Hongjun, Dai Mubai, Meng Yiran, Meng Baichuan, and the other Shrek students a month’s vacation.
Ma Hongjun naturally spent his time visiting brothels.
Dai Mubai, on the other hand, had been robbed by Lin Yuan and still owed Shrek Academy ten gold soul coins for his registration fee and another hundred gold soul coins for tuition.
Moreover, he had yet to break through to the Soul Elder level.
As a result, the moment the ten gold soul coins he received each month from Spirit Hall arrived, Flender took most of them to repay the debt.
He was even poorer than Ma Hongjun.
Yet Dai Mubai couldn’t bring himself to lower his standards and chase after those “common vulgar women.”
Meng Yiran suited his tastes, but unfortunately, while he was interested in her, she had no interest in him.
With his desire for immediate pleasure, he had no choice but to follow Ma Hongjun into the grass nests to seek out their “phoenixes.”
As for Meng Baichuan, who prided himself on maintaining his purity, he naturally went home with Meng Yiran to visit their grandparents, just as they had the previous year.
But whether the boy was simply too confident, foolish, or had some other reason, he once again chose not to have anyone from the Dragon Serpent Clan come to pick them up.
Instead, he decided to travel back with Meng Yiran on their own.
This gave Lin Yuan an opportunity.
First, he carefully observed the route they would have to take to return to the clan.
After confirming that there were no ambushes or reinforcements waiting for them, he followed them for more than a hundred li, repeatedly confirming that they were truly alone.
Only then did he finally decide to make his move.
This wasn’t the first time he had done something like this.
The previous time, Dragon Duke and Serpent Granny had been waiting outside Suo Tuo City to receive them, so Lin Yuan hadn’t made a move.
This time, however, he had made every possible preparation.
…
The sun hung high overhead.
It had just passed noon.
Meng Yiran and Meng Baichuan were hurrying along the road from Suo Tuo City toward the Dragon Serpent Clan.
When they passed through a bamboo forest, Meng Baichuan suddenly stopped.
He grabbed Meng Yiran by the collar as she was rushing forward and pulled her back.
“Ah!”
Meng Yiran let out a startled cry.
The next moment, a stone flew past the spot where she had been standing.
Bang!
It struck the ground at an angle, leaving a shallow crater.
Realizing what had happened, Meng Yiran was both shocked and furious.
“Who is it?
How dare you ambush this young lady!
Get out here right now!”
Meng Baichuan, however, remained unusually calm.
You’re the friend who took our whale rubber back then.”
As his words fell, fog gradually spread through the surrounding area.
Within moments, visibility was reduced to less than five meters.
Then a blurry figure wearing a black robe, a black veil over his face, and a bamboo hat slowly emerged from the fog.
He looked almost like a ghost.
“You seem to have known I would come.”
Lin Yuan rarely spoke while wearing this identity.
At the same time, he had already planned his escape route and was prepared to retreat at any moment.
Meng Baichuan spoke in a deep voice, almost like the legendary Detective Di Renjie.
“At first, I didn’t suspect you.
I simply thought you were Dai Mubai and assumed you had bought the whale rubber to use as an aphrodisiac.”
“But after actually spending time with Dai Mubai, I discovered that he was so poor that he had to go to brothels with Ma Hongjun.”
“After asking around, I learned that he had been robbed.
All the money and even his soul tool had been taken from him.
Naturally, that included the gold card bearing the emblem of the Star Luo Imperial Family.”
“That’s when I realized that you weren’t him.”
He deliberately emphasized his next words.
“You’re my fellow transmigrator.”
Originally, Meng Yiran didn’t have to die.
Hearing this, Lin Yuan smiled.
According to his original plan, after using a stone to strike Meng Yiran’s sleeping acupoint, he would simply leave her alone.
He only needed to place the Star Luo Imperial Family token he had found in Dai Mubai’s soul tool into the dead Meng Baichuan’s hand and make it look as though he had been assassinated by the Star Luo Imperial Family.
After all, assassinating talented members of hostile forces was hardly uncommon on the Douluo Continent.
The Dragon Serpent Clan was located in the Barak Kingdom and naturally leaned toward the Heaven Dou Empire.
The Star Luo Empire assassinating Meng Baichuan, a genius soul master who had already reached rank 39 with a yellow-purple-purple soul-ring configuration, would be entirely plausible.
But Meng Baichuan had pulled Meng Yiran out of the way, allowing her to dodge the stone.
That meant she would inevitably witness their battle.
To prevent his identity from being exposed, Lin Yuan had no choice but to kill her as well.
Meng Baichuan’s expression was helpless.
“Can’t we just avoid fighting?”
“With your talent and strength, and mine, becoming gods by following Tang San is practically guaranteed.
So why fight to the death?”
“The God Realm doesn’t lack three god positions for you, me, and Yiran.”
“As for all that hypocrisy, the Tang family’s private garden, and all the other nonsense, what does any of it have to do with us?”
“If we really can’t stand watching it, then after destroying Spirit Hall, we can simply build an organization of our own that’s powerful enough to replace it.”
“If you want beautiful women, you can choose from Qian Renxue, Hu Liena, or even Bibi Dong.”
“I only want Ning Rongrong and Zhu Zhuqing.”
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