Douluo: What the hell is the academic master development system?

Chapter 378 Exploding Mountain
As the capital of the Sun and Moon Empire, Mingdu was indeed vast in area. This enormous city, without walls, was just beginning to light up.

Nana walked briskly with ease, her height of over 1.8 meters giving her exceptionally long legs.

Although it was just walking, the light steps still gave the feeling of being fast-moving.

Even at her pace, it took her a full half hour to slow down.

Looking at an inconspicuous building in the distance, she murmured to herself, "We're here. It's about 300 meters ahead, that courtyard. The building inside the courtyard has a black roof."

Chen Ping's voice rang out: "I saw it. Once you go in, just proceed as normal."

"Once you find the opportunity to be alone, everything else will be easier."

“Since, according to you, the true core members of this branch are a branch elder, a great Holy Spirit, and a second Holy Spirit, we might be able to deal with them all at once if we find the right opportunity.”

Within the capital city, there are many tall buildings that cannot be seen in other countries. Thanks to the widespread use of soul tools, the Sun Moon Empire is also leading the continent in terms of architecture.

Nana walked to the corner of another street.

This time, she first put on a white hood, and then a conical hat with a veil hanging down. Then she quickly walked towards the place she had indicated earlier.

The courtyard was inconspicuous among the surrounding buildings. Nana raised her hand and knocked lightly on the door, knocking five times in total, three long and two short.

The Holy Spirit Church's secret code for opening the door also gave Chen Ping a touch of dark humor.

People fear three long and two short, and incense should not be two short and one long.

Is designing the door opening code in this way a way of showing that they themselves know they are already ghosts, not human?
Perfect, then this time he's here to kill ghosts.

Chen Ping, who kills, may still have a compassionate heart, but when it comes to killing ghosts, he only has the methods of a Vajra.

The door quietly opened a crack, and Nana slipped through it in a flash.

The person who opened the door was a young man dressed entirely in black, also wearing a bamboo hat.

The courtyard is a hidden gem, with winding paths and various plants growing throughout.

The courtyard was much larger inside than it appeared from the outside. Tall trellises were covered with various plants, which also blocked the view from above.

This is a common arrangement in Mingdu, after all, there are too many tall buildings, and no one wants to expose their privacy, so these plants are planted to block the view from the tall buildings.

The person wearing the straw hat nodded slightly to Nana, then stepped aside.

Nana nodded to him and then walked quickly along a path toward the building with a black dome in the center of the courtyard.

The building appeared to occupy only about a hundred square meters, not particularly spacious. The door was open. Nana stepped inside.

There were two people in white in the room. They weren't wearing straw hats, but rather hoods that matched the color of their clothes.

Upon seeing Nana walk in, one of them raised his hand to stop her and made a gesture to her.

Nana raised her hand, took out a round plaque, and handed it over. It was a completely black plaque with two skulls faintly carved on it.

A man in white said, "Master Quasi-Spirit, the Elder, the Great Holy Spirit, and the Second Holy Spirit are all here. Shall we go down now?"

"We heard that the prospective elders of the main altar are coming, so no one is allowed to leave the branch altar at will. They are allowed to enter but not leave."

"If you need anything, just let me know and I'll prepare the necessary supplies for you."

"Yes, not for now. I understand." Nana nodded.

The man in white returned the token to her and gestured for her to proceed.

Although Nana had rehearsed the battle plan with Chen Ping several times yesterday, she understood that the entire battle might end in just a few seconds.

However, when she heard that two level 60 Holy Spirits and a level 70 Elder were present, beads of sweat still appeared on her forehead.

Nana walked into the house. The house was simply furnished, looking like an ordinary family home, without any particularly luxurious decorations.

Nana walked to a table, raised her hand, pressed down on it, and exerted force. Instantly, the four table legs slowly sank into the ground.

With a creaking sound from the mechanism, an entrance of about one square meter appeared in the side of the table. A sliver of light shone through.

Nana strode in and walked down the straight passageway.

The passageway extends about five meters into a spacious hall.

Compared to the one above, this place is much larger, about 300 square meters. But it feels somewhat gloomy and empty.

Two people were sitting on either side of the innermost table; they were also dressed in white and wearing hoods.

However, each of them had some silver decorative patterns on their white clothes.

The two were eating and drinking. An exquisite feast was laid out on the table. Their masks were pulled up to just above their noses.

Nana quickly stepped forward and respectfully said, "Holy Servant Number Six pays respects to the Great Holy Spirit and the Two Holy Spirits."

Sitting on the left, the more robust-looking man said in a deep voice, "You're here early, aren't you? Today isn't a day for you to be here."

The two Holy Spirits beside him twitched their noses warily before finally relaxing slightly: "Well, it's good that no strangers have entered the altar. I didn't smell any living beings."

"Let her see if she wants to, just don't offend the elders inside. Anyway, it won't be long after she ascends to higher spiritual levels."

These words of the two Holy Spirits were naturally spoken to the Great Holy Spirit.

Although he hadn't finished speaking, the Great Holy Spirit understood what he meant, chuckled, and waved his hand to indicate that Nana could go in.

Nana could naturally sense the ill intent in the other person's tone, but she could only feign a grateful expression and enter the altar.

The so-called altar was actually a small, secret chamber filled with a chilling atmosphere. Anyone with a slightly sensitive soul could feel the wailing of countless wronged spirits within, including Nana's parents. At this moment, a hunched old man in a white robe stood not far from Nana, a small flag floating before him, emitting a faint black aura.

If Nana could only sense the eerie atmosphere in the room before, she knew nothing else.

At this moment, after that gray tinge appeared in Nana's eyes, all the wronged souls imprisoned in the room were laid bare before her!

At this moment, the white-robed old man inside the secret chamber appeared to be meditating, but in reality, he was brazenly extracting the souls from the chamber one by one and refining them into the small flag in his hand!

The opponent's soul-refining speed was not fast, and the number of vengeful spirits in the small flag was only four or five hundred. Even so, the scene in front of her still made Nana want to grit her teeth and crush them.

The souls of her parents are inside this secret room.

Once she breaks through level 60 and completes that bullshit Spirit Ascension Ritual, she will no longer need her parents to control her branch elders. What will she do with her parents' souls?
Looking at the walls of the secret chamber, the souls whose rationality was decreasing from high to low, whose expressions were slowly changing from clarity and fear to madness and resentment, were only one step away from becoming vengeful spirits.

Nana had already guessed the ending and wished she could devour the flesh of this branch elder right now.

No wonder that every time the elders of the branch altar or the Holy Spirit let her see her parents, her parents spoke less and less, and their words became more and more intermittent.

Clearly, once the parents' souls have completely lost their power to restrain themselves, their souls will be refined into vengeful spirits and absorbed into the small flag emitting bursts of black energy in the other party's hands!
Seeing the branch elder still focused on refining the vengeful spirit, Nana felt an uncontrollable surge of killing intent within her.

"Don't let your emotions affect our plans. The fact that we're here means they're already dead."

"Remember, after I take down this guy first, the most important thing you need to do is activate the Red Dust Protection I gave you, and wait for me."

Chen Ping's words echoed in Nana's mind, but just as Chen Ping was instructing Nana to calm down and proceed with the next step of the plan, footsteps sounded again at the door of the secret room.

It was a middle-aged man with a hooked nose, who looked younger than the branch elder in front of him, but his skin was covered with strange and twisted patterns, and his white robe was painted with streaks of blood-red demonic runes.

The moment the other party appeared, the branch elder who was seemingly absorbed in refining the wronged souls in the secret room suddenly stood up nervously, jogged over to the hook-nosed man, and held the flag in both hands.

"Lord Yan, the Holy Spirit Banner of my branch altar has now reached a minor completion stage, containing five hundred living souls."

Just as the branch elder was respectfully reporting the progress of the branch to Lord Yan, Lord Yan, with his hooked nose and zombie-like face, simply waved his hand.

"I received instructions from the main altar a couple of days ago, requiring me to eliminate a Soul Master. It was because I was worried that this guy might accidentally run away that I assigned your branch altar to follow him."

"It just so happens that the person is not far from Mingdu. It would be most convenient to use your branch altar in Mingdu to supplement manpower and get things done."

Just as Yan was giving instructions, the Great Holy Spirit and the Second Holy Spirit, who had been somewhat condescending towards Nana, were now following behind her, heads bowed and silent, appearing completely submissive.

Seeing that the branch elder in front of her had been paying attention to the surroundings, Nana's forehead was covered with a few beads of sweat. Luckily, she hadn't acted rashly just now!

“The three of you are not enough,” Yan with the hooked nose continued, “Didn’t I tell you to take control of all the holy servants at the branch altar?”

With a flick of his wrist, Yan produced a number of level-four soul tools, which turned out to be the Joint Defense Soul Tools.

"Have all the fourth and fifth ring holy servants in the branch altar follow along. Then, use this linked defensive soul tool to seal off all four directions. With the Holy Spirit Flag and the strength of the three of you, it will be enough to make it difficult for the target to break through quickly from any direction."

"As long as this guy can't escape, I can easily wipe out a mere eight-ring Soul Douluo who isn't good at fighting."

At this moment, Nana had no idea that the plan would deviate so drastically in an instant.

At this moment, there were two Soul Emperors, one Soul Saint, and even a Holy Spirit Cult's preparatory elder at the level of an eight-ring Soul Douluo in the secret chamber.

Even Chen Ping knew that this was not a good time to act rashly. He could only observe the people in front of him through Nana's eyes and signal Nana to adapt to the situation for the time being.

Just two hours later, the evil soul masters, led by Yan, the prospective elder from the main altar, arrived at a scorched mountain range with Nana and other holy servants whose strength was generally between the fourth and fifth rings.

This is the place where high-level soul masters of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Master Academy most often come to test their long-range and defensive soul tools. It is less than 200 kilometers away from Mingdu and is known as the Explosion Mountain Range.

The name "Exploding Mountain" was not originally there, but rather it was earned through thousands of years of testing of the effects of soul tools by the soul masters of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Master Academy.

As a Soul Master who uses a melee Soul Tool, this was Nana's first time visiting the legendary Explosion Mountain Range, which was renowned throughout the academy.

The entire mountain range here is covered with black soil turned up by the explosion, and almost no vegetation can survive in the blasted mountains.

As far as the eye could see, the landscape was ravaged and devastated. The entire mountain range seemed to have been repeatedly ravaged and devoured by a raging beast, and then burned to ashes by the flames of hell.

The shockingly large craters are like scars scattered across the earth.

Some are tens of meters deep, with edges made of twisted, melted, and then solidified rock; others are like huge bowl-shaped depressions, with murky black water accumulating at the bottom, emitting a metallic, rusty smell.

Countless oddly shaped metal fragments were scattered everywhere, some half-covered by dust, others piercing the leaden-gray sky with sharp edges.

There is almost no sign of life here. Deathly silence is the dominant theme.

Apart from the occasional howling of the wind as it swept past the jagged rocks, stirring up a cloud of dust, there were no other sounds.

Looking out over this mountain range, one sees countless missile warheads that have been destroyed, or molten fragments from explosions.

The mountains were repeatedly eroded and peeled away layer by layer by shock waves, leaving only bare, scarred spines.

Many once majestic mountains are now reduced to jagged cliffs, as if cleaved by a giant axe, the highest of which are no more than a few dozen meters high, silently telling the story of what once happened in this mountain range.

Before even stepping into this area, a pungent smell, a mixture of the aftermath of an explosion and the burning of metal, hit you, making it hard to breathe.

The ground beneath our feet was no longer solid, covered with a thick layer of charred, loose, and fragile loose soil. With each step, our boots would sink into it, raising choking dust.

Yan seemed accustomed to this hellish scene, and with his sharp, hawk-like gaze, he swept around and said, "The target applied for the Soul Tool Test qualification in the Explosion Mountain Range today. He is the only one in the entire Explosion Mountain Range who is qualified to test Soul Tools."

"All of you lie in ambush. Once the target enters the designated location, take my action as the signal and make sure to block all of the target's escape routes without fail."

Yan gave a brief explanation, then took out a token bearing the emblem of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Master Academy. In a few leaps, he disappeared from the sight of everyone at the branch altar.

　Thank you to our reader, the Bizarre and Wonderful Creation Society, for providing the minor character 'Yan'. Your idea was great, but it'll be mine in a second.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)