Douluo: I Am the Lord of Mysteries

When Nan Fusheng returned to the dormitory, he was completely exhausted. Still, he forced himself to sit cross-legged and enter a state of meditation.

"My current cultivation speed has already reached its limit. If I want to improve further, I'll have to strengthen my physique… or reinforce my meridians."

Back during the group battle against Wu Zhangkong, Nan Fusheng had already retrieved the three Time Worms he had planted on his dormmates. Then, while fighting Wu Zhangkong, he had stealthily parasitized the teacher during his Steal activation.

"As expected of a Soul Emperor—Wu Zhangkong's cultivation speed is equivalent to the output of eight regular hosts I'd parasitized before. And the soul power circulation technique he's using… is that Xuantian Technique?"

After successfully parasitizing Wu Zhangkong, Nan Fusheng couldn't wait to test the soul power absorption speed of a Soul Emperor–level cultivator. To avoid being discovered, he had attached three Time Worms to Wu Zhangkong simultaneously—each affecting his senses subtly to make him ignore the slight decrease in cultivation efficiency.

"From what I can tell… even a six-ring Soul Emperor can't detect my parasitism. Wu Zhangkong isn't pretending either—he's not playing dumb to bait me."

Why was Nan Fusheng so sure?

Because Tang Sect's techniques and secret arts were guarded more fiercely than life itself. And now, as the Time Worms clung to Wu Zhangkong, Nan Fusheng could observe the internal flow of the Tang Sect's cultivation methods in perfect detail.

With Wu Zhangkong's character, there was no way he would have risked exposing Tang Sect's treasured techniques just to bait a non-Tang Sect disciple like Nan Fusheng.

After some thought, Nan Fusheng recalled two Time Worms from the senior students he'd parasitized. Keeping them was a waste of energy.

Nan Fusheng could absorb others' soul power through their cultivation efforts, but that didn't mean he was using some kind of "Soul-Devouring Skill." And because his meridians and physical body had their limits, he could only maintain an intensive but controlled absorption rate.

Unless… he chose to directly siphon life force and raw soul energy, which he hadn't yet attempted.

At present, he had three Time Worms on Wu Zhangkong, three more on senior students, and three in reserve, waiting for worthy targets.

Starting the next day, Tang Wulin received special permission to skip physical training. The reason was simple:

In Wu Zhangkong's eyes, even he wasn't as physically capable as Tang Wulin.

Standard physical drills were pointless for a monster like him.

It was better to have him focus on practicing control over his Blue Silver Grass.

Nan Fusheng also received a similar exemption—he was instructed to prioritize soul power cultivation and research into his Martial Soul instead.

Meanwhile, the rest of Class Five began to crack.

By the third day of training, many students had collapsed from exhaustion.

From that day on, the academy resumed a normal schedule: physical training in the morning, theory classes in the afternoon.

Having only half a day of physical training, the students suddenly felt much more relaxed, and no one dared to complain anymore.

Soon after, Wu Zhangkong had the four students—Nan Fusheng, Tang Wulin, Xie Xie, and Gu Yue—undergo a spiritual power test.

The results were shocking.

Xie Xie: 29 points — already an excellent result among peers, near the mid-tier Spirit Origin Realm.

Tang Wulin: 44 points — directly in the mid-tier Spirit Origin Realm. He didn't mention that his last test had only been 38, meaning he had improved significantly in a short time.

Both scores were enough to surprise Wu Zhangkong—but compared to Nan Fusheng and Gu Yue, they paled in comparison.

Nan Fusheng, even while deliberately concealing his true strength, still tested at 92, the peak of the Spirit Origin Realm.

Gu Yue was even more outrageous: 119!

Once spiritual power exceeds 100, it enters a new tier: the Spirit Connection Realm.

Spirit Connection meant "mind linked with spirit, intent reaching thought."

At this level, a Soul Master could consciously control their spiritual power and even host two yellow spirit souls or one purple one.

Wu Zhangkong now confirmed his theory: Gu Yue's Elemental Master Martial Soul was likely a rare spiritual-type Martial Soul—one that communicated and controlled elements through sheer spiritual power.

In the current soul master world, spiritual-type soul masters were extremely rare and highly valued, especially due to their perfect compatibility with mechas. This made Wu Zhangkong pay even more attention to both Gu Yue and Nan Fusheng.

Naturally, more attention from the cold, aloof teacher meant harsher training.

The following days were full of rigorous practice.

Six days a week: intense cultivation and meditation.

One day of rest in the dorms—or more precisely, it was used by Nan Fusheng to train his Dream Stealing techniques by parasitizing fellow students with Time Worms and harvesting their dreams.

Whenever Nan Fusheng took an interest in a student, he'd plant a Time Worm and wait for nightfall to extract their dreams. Most of his targets were fellow intermediate division students.

Time passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, two months had gone by.

Nan Fusheng's soul power had reached Rank 16—about one level per month.

Then one day, Wu Zhangkong summoned him, Tang Wulin, Xie Xie, and Gu Yue to his office and informed them:

"The class advancement tournament begins next week."

Over these past two months, everyone has grown tremendously.

Most importantly, thanks to Wu Zhangkong's inhuman training methods, the four of them had developed a strong team synergy.

Their relationship was solid, well, except that Gu Yue still occasionally stared at Xie Xie like he was deadweight.

Without a doubt, Gu Yue was the strongest among the four.

Even Nan Fusheng couldn't handle her if she first used light element to conceal herself, followed by spatial teleportation, and then launched a barrage of fireballs, ice spikes, and wind blades. Only someone like her—with mastery over multiple elements—could pull that off.

Despite giving it his all during training, Xie Xie still couldn't catch up to Gu Yue.

Still, in just over two months:

Xie Xie's soul power had reached Rank 19, just one level away from absorbing his second soul ring and advancing to Soul Grandmaster.

Gu Yue had reached Rank 17, improving by two levels.

Tang Wulin, despite having Blue Silver Grass, had worked diligently on controlling his Martial Soul. With high-level meditation techniques and Wu Zhangkong's guidance, his soul power had risen to Rank 12.

Teacher, do we know who Class Four will send to fight us?

Xie Xie asked excitedly.

Wu Zhangkong responded coldly,

It's just Class Four. If you need to look up their information before fighting them… do you even deserve to be my students?

Your objective for next week's match is only one thing—crush them.

Understood?

Yes, sir!

The four of them responded in unison.