Chapter 107 - Development

"If one place turns you away, there will always be another that takes you in."

With such a thought in mind, Yu Xiaogang packed up his belongings, stuffed all his books into a storage soul tool, and left Nouding Academy without looking back.

He had already seen through it all: a commoner, no matter how talented, would always be seen as petty, worldly, and insignificant—a small man would always remain small, never capable of great things!

Thus, Yu Xiaogang decided to seek out Flenderhis one and only hope of proving himself...


"Yu Xiaogang left Nouding Academy?"

When Tang San returned and informed Zhou Qing, the latter was a little surprised, but also a bit relieved.

"Good. At least now there's one less thing to be annoyed about."

Of course, this meant they had now cut off one potential fallback path for survival should chaos break out in Nouding City in the future, but at that moment, Zhou Qing still felt it was better to keep his peace of mind.

If it went on any longer, he really might have ended up bowing and scraping for the rest of his life!


"Yeah, I saw him when I came back I even greeted him."

In truth, Yu Xiaogang had wanted to bring Tang San along with him. He even revealed that Tang San had twin spirits... and that was the end of that. Tang San had already added him to the mental list of people walking down the road to death.

Although Yu's guess seemed coincidentally accurate, he guessed it nonetheless!

Had Tang San not spent so much time with Zhou Qing and gained a deeper understanding of "think thrice before you act," and had he not considered that Yu's surname might mean he was a member of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan possibly being watched by hidden forces then after leaving Nouding City, Tang San might have tracked him down and used the Soul Tool: Zhuge Divine Crossbow to eliminate him, removing any future threats.

After all, his father Tang Hao's hidden identity hinted at a greater mystery. If Yu Xiaogang exposed the fact that Tang San had twin spirits, it might attract the attention of powerful figures across the continent...


But in the end, Tang San gave up.

The main reason was that Yu Xiaogang seemed to genuinely care for him. He even suggested that Tang San and Xiao Wu could join him at Shrek Academy after graduation.

But—he never mentioned Zhou Qing.

Back then, Tang San had already suspected that some kind of conflict had occurred between Yu Xiaogang and Zhou Qing. However, Tang San was someone who always sided with those close to him, not those in the right. Even if Zhou Qing had been at fault, he would still blame everything on Yu Xiaogang—and never choose him.


"That guy is obsessed with fame, desperate to prove himself, yet doesn’t understand that true success comes from a solid foundation," Zhou Qing sneered. Then he pulled Tang San toward the mountain behind the academy.

When Tang San saw the damaged portion of the forest, he was dumbfounded for a long moment before asking,
"What kind of experiment did you do?"

"Take a look."

Zhou Qing chuckled. His spirit activated, and a deep yellow soul ring appeared, etched with blood-colored patterns resembling horns of the Moo Spring Bull.


"That’s...!"

Tang San’s eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at the markings on Zhou Qing’s first soul ring. Then a realization struck him.
"You succeeded?"

"What do you think?"

Zhou Qing then described the process of using the Skydream Iceworm's ability to perfectly “graft” a soul ring onto his martial spirit.


"I call this process Secondary Refinement.
When a Soul Master first absorbs a soul ring using their spirit, that’s the first refinement—essentially absorbing the energy and forming a basic link between spirit and ring.
However, that process doesn’t allow for the more delicate internal structures to be fully connected.

I speculate that normally, only Titled Douluo-level Spirit Masters, perhaps even level 95 and above, would have the spiritual power necessary to attempt this.

But, as far as I know, no one at that level has ever tried it—probably because it’s never occurred to them that a soul ring could be refined twice.”


“As for how I did it it’s not because my spiritual power matches a level-95 Titled Douluo’s.
I simply took advantage of the Skydream Iceworm's gifts: spiritual detection and spiritual sharing.
I could observe my spirit and soul ring with perfect clarity and ‘see’ the structures within.

That allowed me to use brute-force trial-and-error, using my soul power to manually connect all those internal links one by one.”


Tang San was utterly stunned by Zhou Qing’s wild yet brilliant theory.

And more importantly—he actually conducted the experiment... and succeeded!

In this world, no one would have thought a soul ring could undergo secondary refinement, and even if they did, no one had the conditions to attempt it.

But Zhou Qing did. And he dared to test it himself.

Tang San respected that deeply. In his past life, he had also dared to experiment—eventually recreating the long-lost Buddha’s Fury Tang Lotus.

By comparison, Yu Xiaogang was utterly ridiculous too cowardly to experiment on his own. When his "fruit tree" bore no good fruit, instead of grafting a better branch, he simply went looking for a young sapling that could.

Perhaps Yu Xiaogang had experimented once—but in the end, he gave up.

He quit halfway.

To Tang San, such a person was no different than someone who never even tried—perhaps even worse.

“Can I try out the effect?”

“Naturally.” Zhou Qing pointed at the 50-meter-long destroyed area in the forest.
“But I can’t use it here anymore, or the headmaster will make me write a confession. Still, I can explain in detail—”

“First: after secondary refinement, the soul ring shows visual features of the originating soul beast.
For example, my first ring came from the Moo Spring Bull, so the ring now displays its horn pattern.
When I activate a soul skill, the bull’s image appears in the inner circle of the ring, forming what I call a Soul Disk.”



Under the flow of soul power, Zhou Qing’s first soul ring displayed a vividly detailed scarlet Moo Spring Bull, etched in blood-red lines, hooves pounding and horns raised it looked incredibly lifelike.

“This leads to the next point the soul skill becomes fully controllable.
The ring glows, but I don’t have to release the skill immediately.
I can pull the soul power back at will, pause the skill without side effects.”



“Perhaps Titled Douluo can do this as well, but for people like us, it’s nearly impossible to retract soul power once it enters the ring.”


Tang San nodded heavily. He himself had tested it before and he knew even he couldn't retract soul power so easily after channeling it into a ring.

The so-called “interrupting” of a soul skill was simply interfering with the meridian and energy pathways, not a true reversal.


“A soul ring that’s undergone secondary refinement can fully replicate the soul beast’s strongest attack from its lifetime!”



Tang San believed that too—after all, the massive 50-meter trench in the forest was proof enough.


“Even more importantly, as I speculated, the age of the soul ring can grow alongside the Soul Master’s strength and martial spirit’s development which means the soul skill will also grow stronger over time.”

“And finally under equal conditions of ring age and power, a secondary-refined ring consumes less soul power to activate.”