Mu Ye, standing nearby, seemed to know exactly what was going through Zhen Hua's mind and said disdainfully, "Such a fuss over nothing."
"What's so surprising about that? If you're bad, just practice more."
"Old fossil." Zhen Hua flew into a rage, because he really was bad.
His strength had never been particularly outstanding to begin with, and now, having been hollowed out by Heavenly Forging, he could fairly be called the weakest Titled Douluo alive.
Zhen Hua said, dripping with sarcasm, "Oh my, you're not bad at all, so breaking through to Super Douluo must be a piece of cake for you. When exactly are you planning to break through?"
This time it was Mu Ye's turn to see red, and the two old men instantly grappled with each other.
Early the next morning.
Arthur crouched at the entrance of the Blacksmith Association, seemingly lost in thought, shaking his head and sighing from time to time.
His "soldiers" stood lined up in neat rows behind him.
Na'er, playing along perfectly, stepped forward. "Why does the general sigh?"
"I'm troubled." Arthur said, rubbing his temple. "All the evil soul masters we could find have already been killed off, and yet plenty of students still haven't finished the exam for this city."
"We only have fifteen days, and there are still nine more cities to go."
"Where is this general supposed to find soul masters five ranks above them?"
"Worry not, General." Na'er's voice was cool and clear, her purple eyes sweeping across the neatly formed ranks of students. "Heaven Dou City has two of the largest gathering places for soul masters. One is the Blacksmith Association right in front of us, seeing as this city is the Association's headquarters."
"The other is the Spirit Pagoda!"
"Since we're pressed for time, in my opinion, the Blacksmith Association is the perfect place."
A staff member passing by nearby immediately widened their eyes, turned around, and walked off, deciding not to bother coming in to work today.
"Good idea."
"Good idea!" Arthur slapped his thigh hard, and his crouched body shot upright in an instant.
"All soldiers, heed my order!"
"Present!"
"Target: the Spirit Pagoda! Move out!" Arthur charged ahead, leading the way. "Take it down within two hours. Once the exam's complete, we head to the next city!"
"Stop, stop, stop!" The teachers secretly monitoring the exam couldn't take it anymore.
Shen Yi's figure appeared, stepping in front of Arthur with a look of helpless exasperation. "You're joking, right?"
Arthur asked, puzzled, "Why would you think that?"
Shen Yi covered her face. "You think the Spirit Pagoda is something you can just attack whenever you please? If you actually turn Heaven Dou City upside down, forget about your final exam, Shrek Academy itself will owe the Spirit Pagoda an explanation!"
"Hmph, ridiculous." Arthur pulled Na'er over. "Her teacher is the Sky Phoenix Douluo. And my uncle holds some standing at the Spirit Pagoda too. It'll be fine."
"If the Spirit Pagoda tries to make trouble for Shrek over this, just tell me. I'll go have a word with them."
Hearing this, Shen Yi was equal parts furious and amused, and finally let out a helpless sigh. "Fine, you all pass the exam for this city. Now get moving, and stop causing trouble."
Arthur's eyes lit up, and he immediately spun around to call out to the students behind him. "Did you hear that! Exam passed! Everyone, listen up, form ranks right here, we depart for Tianling City in ten minutes!"
"Gu Yue, go buy the train tickets."
"Oh, and use this to buy them." Arthur pulled out the badge Mo Lan had given him. "Should get you a discount."
Gu Yue took it curiously, then her figure dissolved into a streak of pale cyan light and vanished.
Over the following days, Arthur led the group like a swarm of locusts descending, sweeping through every city along the way and clearing out the evil soul masters.
When there weren't enough evil soul masters to meet the exam quota, they'd go stir up trouble at the doorstep of the Spirit Pagoda, or the Tang Sect instead.
After all, those two organizations had branches everywhere, so it wasn't as if it could be helped.
Under his masterful command and mastery of the battlefield, not a single first-year came away with so much as a scratch.
Gradually, this little band of troublemakers began drawing the attention of the upper echelons of various factions.
And leading the charge, of course, was Arthur.
As a result, Agravaine bore the brunt of it, endlessly writing up self-criticism reports.
The first-years were drawn from every corner of the Federation, the most gifted students produced in the past three years. Few of them came from simple backgrounds either.
Even with Agravaine being a Super Douluo, the pressure on him was maxed out.
At Spirit Pagoda headquarters, the stack of self-criticism reports piled up in front of Agravaine had grown into a small mountain.
Ever since Arthur had absorbed the auspicious beast's soul spirit and his ability to protect himself had grown stronger, Agravaine had rarely stayed close by his side anymore.
At that moment, Agravaine, busy writing his self-criticism, hummed a little tune, without a trace of the gloom one might expect from someone being held accountable.
Killing evil soul masters, well done!
That's exactly how it should be!
Hunt down every last one of those beasts and kill them all!
"Bang!"
"Damn it!"
The door was kicked open, and Leng Yaozhu shouted furiously, "Look what your good-for-nothing kid has done! Never mind everything else, that yellow-haired brat actually dared to take Na'er along to hunt evil soul masters."
She was so angry she looked ready to breathe fire. "If anything happens to Na'er, you'll be the first one I kill!"
"What!" Agravaine said, utterly unbothered. "That's absolutely outrageous. When he gets back I'll have a good talk with him."
Leng Yaozhu: "...?"
At a certain evil soul master stronghold that had just been wiped out, the first-year students were also getting an earful over the phone from their families.
"Mom, what's wrong? What? No way. I'm going with what the class president says."
"Dad, you don't understand. The class president, he's different."
Phone calls like these rang out one after another.
The students clustered in twos and threes around the campfire at the stronghold, communicators clutched in hand, nodding away like they were pounding garlic, voicing their agreement over and over.
Yet their eyes kept drifting toward Arthur, who was off studying the next destination, full of conviction.
After so many battles together, they had come to revere Arthur as though he were a god.
The campfire crackled and popped, its light playing across the youths' spirited, glowing faces.
Arthur turned to look at everyone, a glint of sharpness flashing in his eyes. "All done talking? Pack up, head back to the hotel, and get some proper rest."
"Last stop: Sun Moon."
Sun Moon was the most modern city on the Douluo Continent, standing at the western edge of the continent, the very core of the entire west.
Its soul guidance technology sat at the absolute cutting edge.
After arriving in Sun Moon, Arthur once again sank deep into thought.
Before Na'er could even thoughtfully ask what was wrong,
Shen Yi appeared, as practiced as ever, and said helplessly, "Now what."
Arthur scratched his head. "I'm not planning to have them fight the evil soul masters in Sun Moon."
"So the exam targets, there clearly aren't enough of them."
"Where am I supposed to find opponents for everyone?"
"Why?" Shen Yi found this rather strange. The whole way here, Arthur had led the students hunting evil soul masters wherever they went, so why stop now that they'd reached Sun Moon?
"It's hard to explain." Arthur didn't answer.
Over the past few days, he had already begun tentatively weaving his own thread of fate together with that of the evil soul masters.
In some obscure way, he could vaguely sense that there were two big fish currently in Sun Moon.
Not exactly huge, perhaps, but Titled Douluo-level all the same.
"Hm." Shen Yi thought it over for a moment, then an idea struck her, and her eyes lit up. "How about this: why don't you all go challenge the Sun and Moon Royal Soul Master Academy?"
The Sun and Moon Royal Soul Master Academy and Shrek Academy had long been rivals.
Now that this year's class happened to have a freak of nature like Arthur, Shen Yi figured this was the perfect chance to crash their party.
"That doesn't sound fun at all."
"I think it works." Gu Yue suddenly walked over and cut in. "I'll take the lead when the time comes."
Looking at Gu Yue, Arthur remembered that she planned to build her future at Shrek Academy. Beating the Sun and Moon Royal Soul Master Academy would look good on her record too.
"Sure, why not." Arthur didn't particularly care either way, as long as there were enough opponents to help his kids finish the exam, that was all that mattered. "Though I might not be able to make it myself."
"You're not going?" Shen Yi frowned, a little displeased. The whole reason she'd proposed this was to watch Arthur crush everything in his path.
Just thinking about it was thrilling.
If Arthur wasn't even going, how was she supposed to enjoy it?