Chapter 123: Soul Land 1 (part 4)

Chapter 123: Soul Land 1 (part 4)

Word count = 1707 on 12/6/2023

With a downtrodden mood, Flender and the others try to cheer up the group when they hear about the Blue Tyrant Academy recruiting. The group also encounters Dugu Bo and Dugu Yan who proclaim that Dugu Yan is joining Shrek which picks up everyone's mood, especially since they now have a team of 4 men and 4 women which would typically be ideal but Dugu Yan reveals that she isn't interested in Ma Hongjun, or Oscar at all. Hongjun is heartbroken while Oscar is fine with it since he is technically pining for Ning RongRong.

Dugu Bo reveals that Liu Erlong is the headmistress of Blue Tyrant academy which perks up Flender who encourages everyone to move forward. He ties up Xiaogang and picks him up as they travel. The grandmaster protests such an action but Flender convinces him that this is for the good of Shrek and the golden trio. The Seven Devils learn about the origin of the group when they encounter Tai Long of the strength clan before leaving Heaven Dou City. He is immediately bewitched by Xiao Wu and challenges Tang San who is standing shoulder to shoulder with her.

Tang San easily overwhelms him and his father, Tai Nue, comes forward to exact revenge for his son but he too is beaten up. They originally planned to continue moving as they thought the problem was over with but Tai Tan the clan leader of the strength clan suddenly appears and exacts pressure upon the group. Dugu Bo is a bit annoyed at this point as is about to move when heaps of Blue Silver grass bundle together to drag Tai Tan out of the sky and slamming him into the ground. He is quickly bound when the ethereal beauty, Ah Yin makes her appearance. The Seven Devils, with the exception of Xiao Wu and Dugu Bo, learn that this is Tang Sans's mother and how she had been watching over them.

Ah Yin crouches down next to the bound Tai Tan and shows him the Clear Sky clan leader pendant that originally belonged to Tang Chen but was later given to Tang hao before he left for Sea Gods island and later died. Tang hao gave the token to his wife just in case she needed to control the sect for any issue. Tai Tan, who originally planned to insult Ah Yin, quickly pales and slams his own head on the ground as repentance. He only further pales once he hears, "you know, my husband gave this to me for emergencies. Who knew that even when grandfather came back and fixed the clans up. You all were still choosing to be rampant".

Tai Tan is released as a sobbing mess as he promises to re-educate his family and clan. The Seven Devils, including Tang San himself, are shocked by what happened as they didn't see the token itself. As such, only Dugu Bo is aware of Tang Sans affiliation with the Clear sky Clan. Flender has some ideas based on Ah Yins words but Xue Tie had only introduced Tang San as a talented villager, so he was not privy to who his parents actually were.

In the end, they finally arrived at the Blue Tyrant Academy which is in a different location as canon. It's relatively close to the border of Empyrean. They got to meet with Liu Erlong who after some subtle coaxing from Flender, gave her school to him in exchange for the gift wrapped Yu Xiaogang. Dugu Yan officially joined New Shrek Academy as the 8th member of the Shrek Devils and they trained together over the course of the next half a year before [1] Spirit Hall released news of a new age Spirit master competition with the grand prize being spirit bones. All major academies in Heaven Dou were sent an invite along with the former Blue Tyrant Academy which is now known as Shrek Academy.

They even had a reunion with Tai Long who visibly shivered at the sight of them before effectively running away.

During this time, Tang San and the others reach level 40 and get their next spirit ring after leaving for personal training at the well due to its better environment. Tang San even goes to absorb the original fire and ice herbs combo while going skinny dipping into the yin-yang well itself. Oscar and Ma Hongjun were fairly scared during the ring adventure due to Liu Erlong's rage sprouting out after Yu Xiaogang once more denies her during their journey there.

The Slaughter Circle member of the Golden Trio rears her head by ripping out the helpless beasts that they meet along the way. The only reason that the appointed lord of Sunset forest doesnt come out to smack them down is because Ah Yin stopped him and explained their relation to Xue Tie. It turns out that this so-called lord was one who benefited from Xue Tie's refinements but it was one of the last ones who was not able to reach 100k years old. It was after all, the 10k year old child of a 100k year old beast who gave up their chance to it. While they didn't reach the full 100k years old, they are exceptionally close and thus have comparable to human intellect.

Realizing the severity of the situation, the beast uses its meager intellect to ignore the sounds of anguish from its fellows. Planning to take in and care for its family if it had any.

By the time the competition is in full swing, the main cast of 8 Shrek Devils are all relatively at level 44 with the exception of Dugu Yan who was already ahead of them and close to level 49 herself. Tang San himself reached level 47 thanks to his own training methods at the well.

The situation of the competition follows a similar path as the original with the 2nd Heaven Imperial team, Elephant Armored school, a nameless school that dropped out followed by Tang San and his team being ambushed by Shi Nian who was promptly killed by tang san who used his far stronger body to eliminate him without utilizing his hidden weapons.

The competition follows with the Blazing Academy, Blue Sunshine academy and with some trouble against the Skywater academy due to them revealing their martial spirit fusion technique-Drifting snow.

Unlike the original, Tang San is not even given a chance to fall into a depression over how his blue silver grass is falling behind in it's capacity as his mother kidnaps him during this brief interlude. She reveals her existence as the Blue Silver Empress and takes him to the blue Silver hidden grove where he acknowledges his heritage and through Ah Yin's help, reaches level 50 through his martial spirit evolving into the Blue Spirit Grass, he then acquires a sacrificed 100k year old ring of a blue silver emperor that Ah Yin personally nurtured for Tang San. It was originally the guardian of the grove but it has completed it's duty and she appoints a new clone guardian that is relatively weaker and needs time to properly grow and replace the original's position.

Tang San returns properly reinvigorated thanks to the help of his family and he returns to the school for the second stage of the competition. The inter-national ranking match.

They first faced off against Balak Academy which continued even after Xue Tie took over the kingdom. Unfortunately they were relegated to an even worse fate than the original as they heavily got their asses beat. Xue Tie had set up his own imperial academy, that school took in a ton of the more talented people from Balak Academy, leaving it as nothing more than a husk of its former self.

The competition continued with Shrek winning against Blaze Academy once more, Tang San and Xiao Wu kiss which cements their relationship after Huo Wu from the Blaze academy tried to give up her own first kiss to prevent any animosity between their schools.

Tang San reveals to Xiao Wu that he knows about his mothers origin which leads to Xiao Wu explaining her own backstory to him. Tang San states that he already knew for some time whilst flashing his eye technique. Xiao Wu bites him due to her embarrassment but their relationship grows greatly stronger with far more trust with each other.

They face off against many other schools before they once again take the first ranking and they travel to Spirit City where Shrek as a whole is targeted instead of just Tang San.

Dugu Bo, The Sun Douluo, his brother, the Moon Douluo and a few other spirit douluo elders team up to bitch slap the Spirit Hall offense on them. Once the entourage arrives at Spirit City, all the prominent Empyrean Titled Douluos, including Dugu Bo and Tang Hao who arrived at their invitation all plan to take down Spirit Hall. Tang Hao and Dugu Bo have a vested interest in this as they have a long animosity with Spirit hall while the Empyrean elders and the brother sun moon Douluos reveal a prototype spirit artifact called an awakening orb which could easily replace Spirit Halls purpose in helping the common folk awaken their martial spirits. Best of all, the final product should only need to be recharged once every 5 years. The prototype still has battery problems so it just needs to be recharged during every awakening session.

With such a tool, Spirit Hall's benefits and purpose is greatly diminished as Empyrean working with Heaven Dou is more than enough to suppress Star Luo from invading Heaven Dou.

The brothers provide the most information about the key locations of Spirit hall as the previous Emperor and Empress were influential figures there and so unless something was changed, the composition of locations and defenses should still be the same. A plan is made in the works while the youngsters compete

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[1]:this is the original time period where Dugu Bo had kidnapped tang san and they stayed together in the Yin Yang well until Tang San cured him of his poison.