While the three of them trained together, Song Weihan's training became more and more demanding, leaving them utterly exhausted at the end of it; no matter how much stronger and better coordinated they became, Song Weihan would just increase the difficulty accordingly.

Thanks to that, however, Sheng Feilong and Jian w.a.n.g reached completely new heights. At the beginning, all of them had a incredibly hard time to adjust to the new training load, but after the end of their second year at the Intermediate Academy, Jian w.a.n.g had already reached rank 25 as a Soul Master while Sheng Feilong had reached the peak of rank 29, ready to condense his third Soul Ring at any time. Jian s.h.i.+guan lagged behind considerably; only reaching rank 19 with much difficulty despite her determination and hard training.

In the second year at the Academy, they also entered the Spirit Ascension Platform again and while the partic.i.p.ants changed slightly, Sheng Feilong's team of 4 remained the same, as Jian s.h.i.+guan failed to obtain a place again. Sheng Feilong's team proceeded carefully and went out to hunt with a clear goal and system.

Under his leaders.h.i.+p, Jian w.a.n.g and Xiao Yuewu managed to evolve their artificial Spirit Soul to the 1.000 year level, while Sheng Feilong mainly focused on 1.000-years-old Soul Beasts, increasing the Ancient Hypnotic Toad's cultivation to that of an 2.100-years-old Soul Beast. He also attempted to communicate with it again, but the results were the same as before, other than the fact that the toad put more priority of the thought of 'getting stronger'.

This time, the team managed to survive inside the Spirit Ascension Platform for a full 24 hours, completely shocking the teachers and earning them sky high praises and later even rewards from the Academy. They were allowed to skip cla.s.ses they didn't like in order to focus on training; a privilege that even Wong Wushuang didn't enjoy in his prime.

A few weeks after the beginning of their third year, Jian w.a.n.g progressed even more, reaching rank 26 thanks to the more powerful 1.000-years-old Full moon Axe Spirit Soul to a.s.sist him. Just a few days after, Song Weihan finally allowed Sheng Feilong to make the breakthrough to rank 30 and condense his third Soul Ring from the Ancient Hypnotic Toad, granting him a rather unique, new Soul Skill called Mental Amplification.

By burning a proportionally huge portion of the user's Soul Power, it could, as the name implies, enhance the mental capabilities and attacks of the user and it could even be used in tandem with other Soul Skills. According to Sheng Feilong's and Song Weihan's experiments, the increase was, roughly, a bit over 30% at the moment. While that may sound weak compared to other amplification type Soul Skills, the extent of it's growth yet remains unknown.

Due to the increasing strength of the Ancient Hypnotic Toad, Sheng Feilong's Spirit Power also steadily increased despite Song Weihan not allowing him to manually train it for all this time. According to the latest test that Sheng Feilong took just a few days ago, his Spirit Power had safely reached 1.800 points and due to the highly intense training, his body could endure it without any complications, even leaving a lot of room for it to grow further.

About 4 months into their third year at the Intermediate Academy, they once again visited the Spirit Ascension Platform. As Jian s.h.i.+guan had not yet managed to break through to rank 20, she was, once again, left behind. This was their last year at the Academy and Sheng Feilong and the others really didn't know what to say to cheer her up this time.

After hunting inside the Spirit Ascension Platform for around a day, Su Liyun had managed to bring her artificial Spirit Soul to the 1.000 year level, while Jian w.a.n.g and Xiao Yuewu increased their cultivation to 2.400 and 2.300 years, respectively. Sheng Feilong had even gone as far as recklessly absorbing the remnant energy of Soul Beasts other then those of the Spiritual nature and managed to strengthen the Ancient Hypnotic Toad into a 4.400-years-old Spirit Soul, greatly enhancing his strength again. Afterwards, they set another goal for themselves this time around; To hunt down the Terrorghost Elk that they encountered two years ago!

They tracked it down in its territory, crafted a plan and attacked the Terrorghost Elk. With Sheng Feilong's greatly enhanced Spirit Power, he was able to resist the Terrorghost Elk's mental attacks and pressure quite well to some extent, but they failed in the end.

Jian w.a.n.g didn't act according to plan when he saw Sheng Feilong and Xiao Yuewu restricting the Elk and sneakily attacked it from behind. He didn't antic.i.p.ate it to notice his approach thanks to its strong Spirit Power and was met with a merciless kick to the end, instantly killing him and kicking him out of the Spirit Ascension Platform. With just Sheng Feilong and Xiao Yuewu left, they couldn't defeat it as they were severely lacking in explosive strength. Su Liyun diverted its attention for a moment, allowing Sheng Feilong and Xiao Yuewu to run, but the Elk forced Su Liyun to exit out near instantly instead.

As they couldn't outrun it, Sheng Feilong and Xiao Yuewu had no other choice but to bail out as well, leaving the fuming Terrorghost Elk to rampage through the forest. A Guardian was a Guardian after all! They really weren't meant to be defeated. Later that day, their team of 4 was wildly scolded by Song Weihan as their attack on the Elk and its rampage caused over 30 partic.i.p.ants that were in the vicinity to lose their lives to it. Naturally, no one outside of their group was informed of this to ensure the safety of the children.

Just 8 months after that, Sheng Feilong, Jian w.a.n.g and the others of their cla.s.s graduated from the Heaven Dou Intermediate Academy. Sheng Feilong cursed at his own misfortune, as he was elected to be the cla.s.s representative for their third year, which meant that he had to hold a speech in front of the whole school at their graduation. Quickly finis.h.i.+ng it, he gave the microphone back over to the princ.i.p.al who also held a speech before the teachers continued with their own.

Although Sheng Feilong's speech wasn't grand by any means, the audience, especially the females, were still happily cheering for him afterwards. Without wanting to sound cynical, even Sheng Feilong himself had to admit that he had become handsome in the last few years. He grew out his pitch black hair a bit more until it reached about medium length, while his piercing blue eyes took an even deeper and stronger colour due to his increasingly strong Spirit Power and the influence of his Spirit Eyes. He was quite tall, reaching 152cm in height, with a well proportioned body and toned muscles thanks to his extensive physical training. Paired with the school's standard uniform, he really gave of the aura of a ace student.

Many people flinched after Sheng Feilong took his seat beside Jian w.a.n.g. The latter had become even more ridiculously looking. As if reaching a staggering height of 183cm at the age of thirteen wasn't enough, Jian w.a.n.g became even more round then before. With his fat belly, even a grown man would have problems embracing him at waist level. Thanks to his training in blacksmithing and Power Attack Type Spirit Soul, his arms and chest became increasingly muscular that it looked nearly unnatural. Still, one shouldn't be deceived by Jian w.a.n.g looks; due to Song Weihan's specialized training, the boy was even more agile than a cat despite his size!

(A/N: Imagine a strongman like Brian Shaw, for example.)

After the ceremony, Sheng Feilong talked a while with his friends, as well as his father and Jian Wushuang. Bao Li and Bao Zha also came to congratulate Sheng Feilong personally. Both of them had really gotten attached to Sheng Feilong because of his character and incredible talent as a Mecha Maker. Despite being only 13, the boy had broken the records for becoming the youngest second ranked, third ranked and even fourth ranked Mecha maker of the Maker's a.s.sociation of the Douluo Continent and at the current pace of improvement, it would not take long for him to break the record of becoming the youngest fifth ranked Mecha Maker.

After a long while, Sheng Feilong and Sheng Lingtian left for the Spirit PaG.o.da. Yesterday, Song Weihan had informed Sheng Feilong to come there and meet him at his office together with his father. Arriving at the Spirit PaG.o.da, Sheng Feilong and Sheng Lingtian headed to the elevator and then straight to Song Weihan's office. Without saying much, he beckoned for them to follow him back to the elevator where they headed to the 84th floor of the Spirit PaG.o.da.

Up there wasn't very much. It was a spa.r.s.ely decorated, wide hallway with a ma.s.sive metal door opposite of the elevator. Song Weihan took out an ID-card from his pocket and scanned it at the door's unlocking mechanism before typing in a long code on a number pad. The door opened with a hissing sound and Song Weihan turned to face Sheng Feilong and Sheng Lingtian.

"Beyond this door lies one of the Heaven Dou City's Spirit PaG.o.da's most restricted area. Even a number of elders are not allowed entry here. Take off any communication, photo- or video recording devices you have on you and leave them here. Take off your s.p.a.cial Treasures as well. You can not take anything in there."