Yu Xiaogang sat on the edge of the bed, the little creature nestled in his arms.
It was supposed to be a dragon.
Luo Sanpao snorted softly, his round body warm against Xiaogang's chest. Up close he looked even more ridiculous—stubby limbs, tiny horns that couldn't decide whether they wanted to be antlers or decoration, and wide, confused eyes.
'Ancestral dragon, my foot.' Yu Xiaogang thought in frustration.
According to the memories from his past life, his martial soul was supposed to be the shadow of the legendary Light Holy Dragon. A proud bloodline tracing all the way back to the Dragon God through the Light Dragon King.
Instead he got… this.
Sanpao wriggled happily in his arms, completely unaware of the grand expectations he had apparently failed.
Xiaogang scratched under the little creature's chin.
"You know," he murmured, "for the embodiment of my shattered clan prestige, you're actually pretty cute."
"Luo~"
Sanpao puffed his cheeks proudly.
Xiaogang chuckled despite himself.
Failure of greatness or not, the creature wasn't some object or mascot. It was part of him. His martial soul. His little partner.
In fact… he wasn't even sure he should call it he.
Because in a way, Sanpao was just him.
Leaning back against the wall, Xiaogang stared up at the ceiling.
As an avid consumer of fiction in his previous life, he knew his tropes. Looking at his situation now, the familiar outlines of certain "main character" patterns were impossible to miss.
A disgraced clan heir.
A strange mutated power.
Hidden potential waiting to awaken.
Anyone else might have started convincing themselves they were the child of destiny, if only to soften the blow.
But Xiaogang knew something more important.
He wasn't chosen.
There was no destiny of greatness waiting to validate his struggles. No hidden fortune buried somewhere in his future.
Whatever came next would come from his own hands.
He turned his head toward the window, where a lonely moon hung in the night sky.
'In the end, there is only one person who could decide my fate. Me.'
His jaw set in determination.
A soft knock broke the silence.
Before he could answer, the door slid open.
A tall man stepped inside, his presence filling the room without effort. Broad shoulders, stern features, and eyes sharp enough to make most people lower their gaze.
The effortless presence of a Titled Douluo filled the room.
Others might have felt suffocated beneath that pressure.
But Yu Xiaogang felt only warmth—like Heaven and Earth themselves were quietly embracing him.
Yu Yuanzhen, Patriarch of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.
And his father.
Yu Yuanzhen's gaze moved immediately to the small creature in Xiaogang's arms.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Sanpao chose that moment to snort loudly and wiggle.
The corner of Yu Yuanzhen's mouth twitched.
"Your martial soul?" he asked.
Xiaogang lifted Sanpao slightly.
"This magnificent creature," he said solemnly.
Sanpao puffed his cheeks again.
Yu Yuanzhen studied it for a long moment.
Finally he sighed.
"A mutation."
Xiaogang shrugged lightly.
"Apparently."
Silence lingered in the room.
Yu Xiaogang noticed his father's jaw set in a familiar way. He recognized that expression immediately.
After all, he had seen the same stubborn look in the mirror every day for months before his martial soul awakened.
Knowing one's limits… yet clenching one's teeth and refusing to give up.
Because Yu Xiaogang had known what was coming from the moment he realized who he had become.
He had read Douluo Dalu, after all.
But he had refused to believe that fiction could resemble reality so closely.
Yu Yuanzhen finally spoke again, his voice calm.
"Martial souls do not decide everything."
It was a lie.
Both of them knew it.
The kind of lie a father tells his son when the truth would only hurt.
Yet somehow it felt like Yu Yuanzhen was reassuring himself as much as his son.
Yu Xiaogang nodded anyway.
"I know."
His father's gaze softened slightly.
"Rest tonight," Yu Yuanzhen said. "We will discuss your future later."
He turned to leave, then paused at the doorway.
Without looking back, he added quietly,
"No matter what others say… you are still my son."
The door closed behind him.
Sanpao wriggled again in Xiaogang's arms.
"Luo~"
Yu Xiaogang scratched his chin.
"Well," he muttered softly, "at least one person still believes in us."
>\/<
Yu Xiaogang opened his eyes.
Luo Sanpao whined softly beside him, clearly distressed from the day's cultivation.
The worst part of having a low-grade martial soul was that its quality didn't only affect the efficiency of cultivation.
It also determined how long one could cultivate each day.
High-grade martial souls could endure hours of soul power cultivation without strain.
Low-grade ones…
Not so much.
After barely an hour of meditation, Luo Sanpao had already reached his limit.
The little creature looked exhausted.
Yu Xiaogang sighed and rubbed Sanpao's head gently.
"Yeah," he murmured. "I know."
Sanpao huffed weakly.
The path ahead was already proving far steeper than he had hoped.
And yet—
Yu Xiaogang's jaw set once more.
Stopping had never really been an option.
>\/<
The first few months after his martial soul awakened were… strange.
Servants bowed as usual.
Elders spoke politely.
Life continued exactly as it always had.
Nothing had changed.
And yet everything had.
Yu Xiaogang was walking through the backyard when a small figure ran up behind him.
"Brother!"
Five-year-old Yu Xiaolei skidded to a stop beside him, looking up with bright curiosity.
He stared at Luo Sanpao for a long moment.
Then he asked with complete seriousness,
"Brother… are you a mule?"
Yu Xiaogang blinked.
"…What?"
Xiaolei tilted his head.
"Elder Uncle said you are," he explained matter-of-factly. "He said only a mule would keep cultivating with a martial soul like that."
There was no mockery in the boy's voice.
Only simple curiosity.
Yu Xiaogang looked down at the small child, then at the little creature in his arms.
Luo Sanpao puffed his cheeks.
"…I suppose I am," Xiaogang said slowly.
"What?" Xiaolei asked, bewildered.
Yu Xiaogang suddenly let out a loud bray, complete with exaggerated movements.
Xiaolei burst into laughter and turned to run.
The scene quickly devolved into a chase across the courtyard as Xiaolei's laughter rang like a bell.
>\/<
Late that night, Yu Xiaogang let out a frustrated sigh as he closed the thick hardback book.
Every established theory, every pattern he had deduced, kept reinforcing the same conclusion.
The quality of a martial soul decided everything.
Martial souls weren't merely beasts, tools, or even body parts.
They determined how efficiently, how long, and how much a Soul Master could cultivate.
Because Soul Masters absorbed the energy of Heaven and Earth through their martial souls, and through that process refined it into soul power.
A better martial soul meant refining more energy.
With better quality.
In greater quantity.
For longer periods of time.
Yu Xiaogang leaned back in his chair, staring at the pages spread across the desk.
'The logic is flawless.'
He almost growled at the glaringly obvious conclusion.
Which was exactly the problem.
>\/<
Since his daily cultivation time was limited, Yu Xiaogang spent most of his time either exercising or buried in books.
Honestly, Yu Xiaogang would have much preferred cultivating and training like the other disciples.
Unfortunately, stubbornly continuing after his martial soul had reached its limit would have far worse consequences.
So he turned to books instead, hoping to find a way out.
A loophole.
Some method that would allow him to cultivate despite his limitations.
Physical exercise became his way of relieving stress and clearing his mind.
Unexpectedly, his exercise routine was eventually adopted by the clan.
Apparently, this world had never developed particularly optimized methods of physical training.
Most disciples simply trained their martial souls and sparred. Strength of the body was considered a secondary matter, something that improved naturally alongside cultivation.
Yu Xiaogang, however, had different ideas.
>\/<
While the elders still disapproved of his insistence on pursuing cultivation, his written summaries of existing martial soul theories gradually became popular among the younger disciples.
After all, very few teenagers enjoyed digging through dusty archives and deciphering the dense, tedious texts that elders kept insisting were "essential reading."
Yu Xiaogang was slightly embarrassed by the attention.
After all, he had simply organized and summarized already existing theories.
Clear explanations. Simpler wording that made them easier to understand.
And, most importantly, references pointing exactly where to find the original material.
For many of the clan's younger members, his writings were far easier to read than the original texts filled with complicated terminology.
Eventually, his father and the clan elders allowed him to publish his theories.
Most of what appeared in his first work was knowledge considered little more than common sense among experienced Soul Masters.
The clan did not permit anything more than that to be made public.
His father spoke at length about reputation and clan prestige.
But it was fairly obvious what the real purpose was.
If Yu Xiaogang's work gained recognition outside the clan, it would make it much easier to justify the cultivation resources he continued to receive.
>\/<
Thus Yu Xiaogang became known as the "Grandmaster" at the age of ten.
He felt like a fraud.
After all, the entirety of his first work consisted of knowledge every Soul Master was expected to learn in a Junior Soul Master Academy.
Common sense.
The only difference was that Yu Xiaogang had written it down clearly.
Still, the reputation felt undeserved.
The fact that its contents closely resembled the "Ten Great Core Spirit Competencies" he remembered reading about in Douluo Dalu only made his feelings more complicated.
'At least I didn't present my hypotheses as unquestionable fact.'
Yu Xiaogang consoled himself.
Years passed.
Little Xiaolei grew up and awakened the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon martial soul.
The pressure on Xiaogang eased noticeably afterward.
He felt slightly guilty for how relieved that made him.
One afternoon, Xiaolei sat down beside him.
"Everyone thinks you should become a scholar full time," he said.
Xiaogang did not look up from the book in his hands.
"People are getting frustrated," Xiaolei continued. "They respect you… but their patience is wearing thin."
Xiaolei sighed.
It was true.
The clan respected him.
After all, his far more advanced theories—now archived in the clan library—had helped many disciples achieve better results by choosing slightly different spirit rings.
Yu Xiaogang sighed.
The children who had awakened their martial souls at the same time as him had long since left him behind.
Simply through the advantage of their innate soul power.
His own had been measured at 0.5. Barely enough to qualify as a Soul Master at all.
Even if he could cultivate at the same rate as them—which he could not—he still would have fallen behind eventually.
Still, for a clan like the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan to adjust their soul ring configurations based on his theories spoke volumes about the trust they placed in him.
After all, every soul ring became a permanent part of a Soul Master.
Each one shaped their abilities, their development, and ultimately their future.
Choosing the wrong ring could limit a Soul Master for the rest of their life.
The fact that the clan allowed disciples to modify their choices based on Yu Xiaogang's recommendations was no small matter.
Most importantly, the clan had taken his theory about the long-term effects of soul rings very seriously.
Yu Xiaogang had argued that soul rings did more than simply grant abilities.
Over time, they could subtly influence the origin and characteristics of a martial soul, shaping the traits that might appear in future generations.
In other words, the rings a Soul Master absorbed might affect not only their own power—but the martial souls inherited by their descendants.
For a bloodline clan, that possibility was impossible to ignore.
Previously, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan considered soul rings from lightning-attribute dragon-line beasts to be ideal, but rings that possessed either lightning affinity or dragon lineage alone were generally considered acceptable.
"Good enough," as many elders put it.
After Yu Xiaogang presented his theory to the clan council, that standard quietly changed.
The criteria for selecting soul rings became far stricter.
From that point forward, the clan insisted that the first soul ring must come from a spirit beast possessing both dragon lineage and lightning attribute.
Anything less would no longer be tolerated.
Interestingly, Yu Xiaogang also noticed another pattern.
Soul rings that possessed a high compatibility with a martial soul often produced enhancement-type abilities.
Strength.
Speed.
Defense.
Energy output and throughput.
These effects frequently manifested as percentage-based improvements, rather than fixed techniques.
Because of that, they scaled extremely well as the Soul Master's cultivation increased.
The stronger the cultivator became, the greater the effect of the enhancement.
This realization gradually changed the clan's approach to combat.
Instead of relying solely on soul ring skills, more and more disciples began focusing on the inherent characteristics of their martial souls.
For the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, that meant lightning and the draconic constitution that came with their martial soul.
Yu Xiaogang proposed something unusual.
If lightning was the natural attribute of their martial souls, then disciples should train to control lightning directly, rather than treating it merely as a byproduct of their soul rings.
It began with a few small exercises.
Messing around, really.
Xiaogang and his cousins were mostly just bored and looking for ways to pass the time.
At first they simply observed how lightning from their martial souls conducted through different materials—how it spread, what it did, and how the materials reacted.
At one point Xiaogang even recreated a crude Tesla coil from something he remembered in his previous life.
They tried to make it play music.
It worked. Sort of.
It did not take long before they began testing the same ideas on themselves, trying to guide the lightning through their arms and strikes during sparring.
Later, a few disciples noticed something interesting during sparring.
When they used their martial souls directly in close combat, their movements naturally fell into a handful of similar patterns.
A strike. A claw. A surge of lightning released through the arm.
The same motions appeared no matter who was fighting.
At first, no one paid much attention.
But certain movements carried lightning more smoothly through the body. Some strikes produced stronger discharges. Others wasted energy entirely.
Eventually, children began repeating what worked.
Nothing refined, obviously—they were children. But they slowly started discovering what worked and what didn't.
Those discoveries were shared between cousins during sparring sessions.
Before long, younger disciples began imitating them.
Elders eventually noticed the trend and began formalizing the exercises.
And so, almost accidentally, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan began developing something entirely new.
The first systematic martial arts this world had ever seen.
>\/<
And so time passed.
Eventually, Yu Xiaogang was forced to confront the situation he had been trying to distract himself from.
In those seven years he had reorganized cultivation theory, influenced the clan's soul ring standards, and helped countless disciples improve their training.
Yet none of it had solved the one problem that stumped him.
At the age of thirteen—seven years after his martial soul had awakened—Yu Xiaogang finally reached Level 10.
For most Soul Masters, that moment marked the true beginning of their cultivation.
For Yu Xiaogang, it was a paradox.
His first soul ring had to come from a very specific type of spirit beast.
A dragon-line beast.
With the light attribute.
Anything less would permanently limit the potential of his martial soul.
Unfortunately, every beast that met those criteria was a high-level spirit beast.
Far beyond the strength of a newly advanced Level 10 Soul Master.
Which meant he needed to grow stronger before he could obtain such a soul ring.
But to grow stronger…
He first needed a soul ring.
"Ugh."
Yu Xiaogang groaned and buried his face in his hands, kneading his temples in frustration.
"Why?" he demanded at the small creature in his lap. "Why do you have to be so demanding!?"
He grabbed Luo Sanpao and gave the poor creature a vigorous shake.
Sanpao's stubby legs flailed helplessly.
Its eyes began to spin in their sockets.
"Luo…!"
Yu Xiaogang stopped and stared at the dizzy little creature.
"…Right," he muttered.
"Not your fault."
Sanpao continued wobbling slightly.