A week passed

Douluo Mainland

Eastsea Academy.

Fan Lin was sitting in his class, half an hour before the classes would start.

The whole class was nearly empty if not for him and the class representative of Class 3 who was doing something, maybe his duties.

Fan Lin sat there in silence, staring at the back of the class representative, making the class representative uncomfortable.

"You were here, come with me."

Wu Zhangkong came to the class and told Fan Lin to follow him.

Fan Lin looked at Wu Zhangkong's back while following him. He was taken aback by the sudden invitation from Wu Zhangkong as he wasn't, and didn't seem like, the type of person to invite others on his own.

Fan Lin just had a little mood upliftment, if you can say that, and he just wanted to enjoy some time alone by himself.

'You know, to jot down some things and to prepare for the future, if I have any. Hahaha😃.'

And then not so suddenly he was following Wu Zhangkong to the teacher's area.

"Enter."

Wu Zhangkong opened the door of his room and invited Fan Lin in.

'This guy really likes to talk in his room.'

Fan Lin thought as he entered Wu Zhangkong's room.

"You came to find me yesterday. What happened?" [Wu Zhangkong]

Wu Zhangkong sat down on the table near his bed and said to Fan Lin.

"I got offered to join Spirit Pagoda. They even put a Darkgold Dreadclaw Bear spirit soul as a token of appreciation, you know, as an apology for not believing in my story last time." [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin said while finding a place to sit.

"What did you say?" [Wu Zhangkong]

Wu Zhangkong said in his icy cold voice. His expression just a little heavier than before. Just a little bit.

"A week time's to decide. They promised that even if I refused them, the Darkgold Dreadclaw Bear spirit soul will be given to me." [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin nonchalantly said while looking at the piece of parchment with a printed picture of Blue Silver Grass on it.

"What do you want to do?" [Wu Zhangkong]

Wu Zhangkong asked while following Fan Lin's line of sight to the printed parchment.

"I have a grand goal... for that I need to change the things happening in the Spirit Pagoda; like their inner workings, corruption, rules and regulations that they have hidden from the world. Will joining the Tang Sect allow me to do that?" [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin said while calmly looking at Wu Zhangkong.

"The Tang Sect won't interfere with the workings of another organisations, more so when it is an organisation like Spirit Pagoda which was founded by a member of the Tang Sect, till the time the organisation doesn't do anything that's inhumane or questionable. In simpler terms, no." [Wu Zhangkong]

Wu Zhangkong said without any change in his tone. He realised that Fan Lin had already decided whom he wanted to choose long ago, he was just reassuring his decision from him.

"Thanks. What was the method for Shrek's quota that you were going to tell me?" [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin asked while looking at the parchment once again. He knew that Wu Zhangkong didn't need his answer on whom he was joining and the Blue Silver Grass on the parchment had a weird golden pattern on it. Fan Lin knew that the Blue Silver Grass on the parchment was Tang Wulin's the moment he watched it carefully.

'Why is it here though?' [Fan Lin]

"The method was to join the Tang Sect or Spirit Pagoda and get the quota from there." [Wu Zhangkong]

Wu Zhangkong said, disturbing Fan Lin's thought.

"That Blue Silver Grass is a picture of my student, Tang Wulin. You know him already. His Blue Silver Grass is different as well." [Wu Zhangkong]

Wu Zhangkong added, leaving the important information about Wulin.

"Oh, okay. The Tang Sect has Shrek admissions quotas?" [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin said as he turned to look at Wu Zhangkong.

He clearly remembered that Wu Zhangkong kneeled in front of his teacher to let his students take the exams. Why would he do that if he had the quotas or Tang Sect had quota's.

'Well I can think of Tang sect not even thinking of giving any quotas to Xie Xie and Xu something but Tang Wulin?' [Fan Lin]

'No wait a second, didn't Long Hengxu or the president of Eastsea got the quota's with trouble.' [Fan Lin]

'Why the heck did he kneel then? I am forgetting something.' [Fan Lin]

As Fan Lin was thinking about this, Wu Zhangkong took a look at Fan Lin and remarked.

"The founder of the Spirit Pagoda got into Shrek because of the recommendation of Tang sect. So why wouldn't we have some quotas for Shrek now. The Tang Sect not just has the quota's for Shrek's entrance examinations but also the inner court examination quota as well. The same with the Spirit Pagoda." [Wu Zhangkong]

Wu Zhangkong said, a little surprised by Fan Lin's lack of common knowledge.

Fan Lin was right on the fact that he was forgetting something about the scenario where Wu Zhangkong kneeled infront of his Inner court entrance gate, not his teacher's.

It also wasn't due to the fact that they didn't have any quota, it was due to Wulin's second stage dragon transformation that they were going to be late for the exams and his other students stubborn refusal of not participating without Wulin that made him do it.

Wu Zhangkong went to his teacher to allow his students to take the exams at a later time but thankfully the protagonist luck got activated, Wulin woke up after Wu Zhangkong went to kneel and they were able to finish the exams.

Then they entered Shrek and some weird stuff happens. [Foreshadowing🤐]

Coming to the present.

Fan Lin had no memory of this event and henceforth was in the thought process that Wu Zhangkong got the protagonist group to enter through backdoor means.

"How should I practice on increasing my spiritual power? I need it for the Dreadclaw Bear." [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin asked while putting the forgotten storyline on the back of his mind. He really wanted to ask this question to Wu Zhangkong.

"I would have recommended Tang Sect's six hidden techniques since they are the best for spiritual power control but you aren't a part of Tang sect. In that case, you can either learn the secondary profession of Mecha Designer or Mecha Maker, both raise spiritual power control while also nourishing your spiritual power." [Wu Zhangkong]

Wu Zhangkong said to Fan Lin.

"So you are saying that there is no shortcut to increasing spiritual power in a few days. I would have to train it steadily like the others." [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin said. He needed the spiritual power for the to absorb the Darkgold Terrorclaw Bear spirit soul. It was also needed for his Mecha Maler occupation and now Wu Zhangkong was telling him that his secondary profession was the way to increasing his control on spiritual power, but this comes to the problem of spiritual power control for his Mecha Maker profession once again.

All in all, it was a circle, Fan Lin needed spiritual power control for using the Engraver to increase his spiritual power ; Using the engraver was one of the best way to increase his spiritual power control, but he lacked the spiritual power control to even use the Engraver/inscriber.

Fan Lin realised that he had returned to where he was in the beginning and advance further, a simple straightforward answer came, practice like everyone does and achieve a foundation. Then with the help of the foundation, it will be easier to move forward in multiple destination.

The foundation was of course being able to properly use the Engraver. That meant he has the spiritual power in control and can use it to engrave and stuff which will slowly increase his spiritual power in return. This was a slow process and would likely take a lot of time.

Fan Lin was of course not content with this but did he have a choice?

None.

"Anything else?"

Wu Zhangkong asked.

"Well a lot....."

Fan Lin asked everything that he wanted to in the measly time he had and Wu Zhangkong patiently answered every question of his.

Soon half an hour passed and his class had started.

Fan Lin was sitting in his class and listening to the teacher. He had been nearly late if Wu Zhangkong hadn't reminded him of the time which made him take a mad sprint for his class.

Thankfully his enhanced Psuedo Energy Body didn't just improve his strength but his agility as well. It was an overall improvement although Fan Lin still wasn't sure of how much of the God's gift was involved in his physical improvement.

Not did he care.

Fan Lin attentively paid attention to the classes without missing anything and even asking questions of his own since the topic of the class was soul devices and it's history.

He knew that information was power. It was just that he didn't want to associate with that many people considering that he might kill them one day, be it through collateral damage or mass murder.

He didn't want to get close and have any sort of feelings for them that would impede him on his future endeavours.

'Same line but with more emotion.' [Fan Lin]

Feelings had always made him weaker. So till the time he hasn't verified exactly what side he and the others were on, he wanted to stay far away from them.

'Once more!'

He didn't want any liability or weakness at a moment where he already had an annoying voice of conscience in his head.

'Hell yeah!'

He thought while going to his dorms.

He took out the basic principles of Mecha designing book and started memorizing it the moment he reached his room.

The only thing he could do was to grind for hours and slowly and steadily learn to control his spiritual power to be able to use the Engraver and then, only then, would he be able to increase his spiritual power at a constant, rapid rate.

"I need to buy more advanced books. This one wasn't that helpful."

He quoted after turning the last page.

"Can I return these books? It has been just a day since I brought them."

He thought while looking at the pile of basic knowledge books that he now understood as just introductory guides with no actual useful content on how to proceed with the Mecha Designing.

Mecha Maker, engraved the mecha designs while higher rank ones even does the assembling and creating the pieces of the Battle Armour.

But they needed a design to engrave, the designs that were given by Mecha Designer. The same was true for the different parts that they create, if there was no blacksmith to give them the required metal of the required refining, they won't be able to create anything.

The creation of a Battle Armour or Mecha required a group of secondary occupations, while a Spirit Engineering was enough to create a soul device of their respective ranks.

"Why are we even talking about soul devices?"

Fan Lin thought while leaving for the Mecha Designing association to get some useful books that will actually teach him how to create a workable soul circuit designs.

He can't just draw a circle over a square and call it done.

For now, he was going to memorize everything on the basic workings of the Mecha Designing and then work on creating his own unique design patterns. Once he had enough soul circuits(official name for design patterns), he will check if they are working and then create more complex ones based on those previous circuits.

As he creates more useful, profound and powerful circuits, he will be able to supplement them in his Mecha Maker profession to rapidly increase his rank.

But all that would only work if he knew how to create those workable designs. Not just anything drawn by him could become a soul circuit.

It has some basic and some not so basic rules, he needed to learn them. But since he had a strong memory and in hurry, he had decided to build a solid foundation through the corpses of books from the Mecha association.

He will create the perfect foundation for his Mecha Maker profession and reach the higher ranks in one fell swoop.

A week later.

A week has passed since he last went to the Spirit Pagoda and today was the appointment time.

The past week was a weird experience for Fan Lin because he just read and read and cultivated and read and memorized nearly 60 books worth of fundamentals and basic principles of Mecha Designing and now his brain required a much needed break.

He didn't even look at the guide that he ordered, even ignored the looks of his classmates as he left them far behind in the physical training since he didn't feel like holding back.

And with a week's worth of knowledge that he got in the classes, he learnt that getting a spirit soul also increased spiritual power.

Which made him ecstatic and irritated at the same time because he needed the increase of spiritual power so that he could absorb the Duskgold Dreadclaw Bear, not the other way around.

He wouldn't have focused on his secondary occupation and could have used that time in cultivation or combat improvement if that wasn't the case.

"Now I have the know how on creating a simple working design. I will just have to continue to more complex and efficient while still workable and then I can start on the engravings."

'That is the most optimal way to utilise my time and as my strength increases, my spiritual power and its control would increase as well, but as my cultivation increases, my cultivation speed is going to decrease by a lot.'

'How many should I kill?'

As Fan Lin was lost in his thoughts, the stop for the Spirit Pagoda came.

He got off the bus and slowly walked towards the Pagoda.

'I should focus on the deal with the Spirit Pagoda and the Darkgold Dreadclaw Bear for now.'

"If I got it, my strength wouldn't be limited to rank 10 and the effects from the spirit soul would be beneficial for my future. I could raise my cultivation to Rank 20, get a spirit soul ability and I would finally be a Soul/Spirit Master.'

Fan Lin calmly thought as he entered the Spirit Pagoda in the watchful eyes of someone.