Douluo: I am the True Master

As days passed, the holiday season arrived in the blink of an eye.

Since Ah Yin was now Ye Wen's newly adopted younger sister—and had even upgraded to being his romantic interest—how could he not bring her back to meet Elder Ye Buyi? After all, this "younger sister" was no ordinary one.

However, during his free time, Ye Wen couldn't help but reflect.

Ah Yin, with her full innate soul power, had been abandoned by the Spirit Hall simply because her martial soul was Blue Silver Grass, relegating her to study in a remote place like Notting City. Even if they didn't know that martial soul quality was tied to innate soul power, Ah Yin's Blue Silver Grass could have at least been cultivated as an auxiliary soul master. A soul master with full innate soul power would typically grow to become at least a junior Soul Douluo, yet she had been completely overlooked.

It was truly lamentable. The officials of the Spirit Hall were nothing but incompetent fools, each one a product of the flawed education system for soul masters. 

How could they fail to notice such a massive mutated martial soul?

Didn't they know that martial soul quality was linked to innate soul power?

And how could they overlook such an adorable little loli… *Ahem*… 

Back to the point, Ye Wen wasn't solely focused on cultivating his martial soul at Notting Junior Academy. While he understood the original story, Tang San's various plot devices and blatant cheats often contradicted each other. Therefore, Ye Wen knew he couldn't blindly trust the original narrative—he needed to develop his own understanding of this world. In his spare time, he began gathering all sorts of information to refine his theories about the world.

Well, it was mostly due to his professional habits kicking in.

Moreover, Ye Wen planned to pursue the path of a scholar. After all, the average IQ of people on this romance-filled continent was rather concerning. Despite over ten thousand years of cultivation civilization, they still hadn't figured out the core logic behind absorbing soul rings. It wasn't until Yu Xiaogang came along that they finally formulated some so-called "Limit Soul Ring Absorption Theory." Seriously?!

Wasn't plagiarism just a matter of having hands?

Furthermore, a scholar's identity allowed him to avoid constant fighting. Honestly, the more Ye Wen learned about this world, the more he realized its distortions. Though soul masters represented extraordinary beings, those at the bottom had to fight tooth and nail for meager income—it was utterly disheartening. And even with healing soul skills, Ye Wen knew that these were merely temporary fixes. Misaligned meridians and untreated wounds meant their bodies were already riddled with damage, further limiting their future cultivation potential.

What was even more frustrating was that the medical field in this world hadn't progressed in tens of thousands of years—it was still stuck in the same old rut: soul skills, soul skills, and more soul skills. 

They completely ignored the abundance of medicinal herbs growing in the forests. Ordinary people who fell ill had no choice but to endure their suffering until death, with an average lifespan of less than thirty years. It was truly pitiful. Was this really a world of extraordinary abilities? No wonder it was called the "fantasy sewer."

And those soul master families who studied medicine wouldn't waste their energy researching treatments for commoners, nor would they lower themselves to concoct medicines for them—after all, commoners couldn't afford soul master goods anyway.

Thus, Ye Wen devised a plan: hide his strength, research medicines, cultivate a network of soul masters, and use his theoretical expertise to benefit the lower levels of the soul master community. Surely no bored Douluo powerhouse would come after someone like him, right?

Did they not understand the value of high-IQ talent!?

Ye Wen burst into maniacal laughter o(*￣▽￣*)o

Of course, all of this was still in the planning stages.

The reason for such thoughts stemmed from the original story, which mentioned that top-tier factions would assassinate prodigies from rival sects. Without a strong background, it was best to stay hidden and develop in obscurity, only emerging when fully grown to astonish everyone. Don't go around recklessly causing trouble like Tang San did in the original story—if it weren't for his powerful father, he would've died countless times.

So, for someone with an ordinary background but top-tier talent, joining a top-tier sect was out of the question. Who knew when an enemy sect might decide they didn't like you and send assassins your way?

By this point, Ye Wen, who had been enrolled in school for a year, began preparing for his first soul ring. However, neither his martial soul nor Ah Yin's had any offensive capabilities.

Though Ye Wen had brainstormed the idea of creating custom soul skills with Ah Yin—like the concept of "every flower petal and leaf can wound"—using soul power to enhance Blue Silver Grass and then hurling it with great force for an offensive advantage, their young bodies made it impossible to put such ideas into practice. For now, this concept had to be shelved.

Instead, Ye Wen turned to an alternative solution: a powerful cold weapon from his past life—the pulley compound crossbow.

Using the principle of pulleys to reduce the force required to draw the bow, this modified crossbow amplified the power of a regular hand crossbow several times over. It could be pre-loaded and stored in his storage ring, ready to deliver a fatal blow whenever needed.

After all, in the original story, Tang San's Zhuge Divine Crossbow had the terrifying precedent of being able to kill a Soul Ancestor who wasn't fully defending themselves. This demonstrated that the defensive capabilities of ordinary soul masters were quite limited unless they specialized in defense.

Tang San's spring-loaded crossbows, when you got down to it, were nothing more than mechanisms powered by springs, with limited power due to their size. Even so, they were capable of killing a Soul Ancestor. Imagine what a modernized compound crossbow could do—it might even pierce through a Soul King's defenses.

So, what kind of garbage was this Zhuge Divine Crossbow (╬▔皿▔)?

While crafting this compound crossbow, Ye Wen couldn't help but think about how useless Tang San's anti-counterfeiting mechanisms were. Although the first book of *Douluo* didn't explicitly mention spirit-type soul masters, it didn't mean they didn't exist—especially among those sneaky sects that surely had knowledge in this area.

A simple X-Ray vision or mental scan would reveal everything without needing to dismantle anything. Making things overly complicated only invited ridicule.

Still, this was a weapon capable of killing a Soul King. Ye Wen couldn't afford to be careless. He carefully split the design of his pulley compound crossbow into several component blueprints, which were crafted by different blacksmiths. Finally, he assembled them himself.

Looking at the finished product—a finely crafted crossbow gleaming with metallic luster—Ye Wen couldn't help but feel a surge of satisfaction.

Testing it, he fired a bolt that instantly pierced through a tree as thick as a child's waist, then flew several meters before embedding itself in the ground—all from a distance of 30 meters.

Ah Yin, who had the privilege of witnessing this terrifying display of power, looked at Ye Wen with wide, pleading eyes, clearly wanting one for herself.

Seeing her irresistibly cute expression, Ye Wen felt his heart flutter. He then gifted her his ancestral storage soul-guiding device.

It wasn't that Ye Wen was smitten—it was just that the soul-guiding ring had become somewhat redundant for him. After a year of research, he discovered that his Black Cloth martial soul naturally possessed a one-cubic-meter storage space, though it could currently only store inanimate objects. By now, he could skillfully retrieve and store items within it. The downside compared to the storage ring was that storing items consumed his soul power continuously—but this drain was negligible.

Moreover, this consumption actually accelerated his cultivation speed slightly, which was better than nothing. As a result, Ye Wen kept his storage space fully stocked while cultivating.

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