Douluo Dalu 2: Reincarnated as the Auspicious Beast

Drawing lots... huh.

Letting the emperor auspicious beast, who controls fate itself, go on stage to draw lots...

Whether luck is a part of one's strength might be debatable for others, but for Wang Rui, luck is undeniably a part of his strength.

He preferred to call the process of drawing lots "choosing your opponent."

To put it simply, after connecting attributes with Huo Yuqing, Wang Rui's control over the power of fate had risen to yet another level.

With his current abilities, just by slightly adjusting his luck, he could absolutely achieve "words become reality"—if he wanted luck, he'd get luck; if he wanted misfortune, he'd get misfortune; if he wanted to draw something, he'd draw exactly that.

...If he had this power before crossing over, playing gacha games would have been an absolute dream.

So, Shrek Academy relying on drawing lots to determine the assessment matchups was completely unfair. Wang Rui mentally stepped on Shrek once again.

That being said, it didn't actually matter who he ended up facing, and he didn't need to make any deliberate adjustments.

Keeping his mind empty and thinking of nothing, Wang Rui casually stepped up and drew a lot.

...Hmm, lot number 28.

Wonder which unlucky group got the other number 28?

Bringing Huo Yuqing and Ning Tian to their designated zone 28, they found themselves face to face with Wu Feng, Nanmen Yuner, and Yu Lan—all looking equally dumbfounded.

Goodness gracious, a Class 9 internal battle!

And between two seeded teams at that.

Wu Feng: ...

Ning Tian: ...

Wang Rui: ...For some reason, his (nonexistent) conscience started to ache a little.

Mu Jin: ...

On the referee's side, Wang Yan wiped the nonexistent sweat from his forehead and carefully glanced at Mu Jin, whose face was full of resentment.

Each class could have five to eight teams qualify for the top sixty-four, but Mu Jin's class had only two top-tier seeded teams—these two, right here!

From Wang Yan's perspective, Wang Rui's mysterious team had the potential to win first place, while Wu Feng's team was slightly weaker but could still make it to the top eight with some luck. The new student assessment results were directly tied to the teacher's performance review—which affected their promotions!

...And now, those hard-earned points were flying away. Mu Jin was truly out of luck.

"Ah, Class President..." On the battlefield, Nanmen Yuner looked at Ning Tian, then at Wu Feng—who seemed to have lost all color and was questioning life itself. She hesitated for a moment.

If they fought… they'd definitely lose. Wu Feng and herself together probably weren't even enough to handle Wang Rui alone, let alone factoring in the buffs from Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Pagoda.

"How about we just surrender?" she asked, looking to her tall and thin teammate, Yu Lan, for confirmation.

"...Let's surrender," Yu Lan replied with a wry smile. "Who could've guessed Wu Feng's luck would be this bad, pulling the class president's team as opponents?"

"Sigh, Referee! We surrender!" Nanmen Yuner raised her hand. "Class President, you don't even have to fight this round—you can save your energy. We're contributing to your championship victory! I know your family isn't short on money, so if you win first place, you have to treat us to a meal!"

Ning Tian couldn't help but smile. "Of course."

Mu Jin nodded in satisfaction—Nanmen Yuner was quite tactful.

Wang Yan, on the other hand, was a little disappointed.

He had been very curious about Wang Rui's mutated martial soul and the seemingly useless Huo Yuqing. That's why he had swapped duties with another teacher to come referee Wang Rui's match.

But now, they didn't even make a single move.

Most spectators were focused on the two Soul Elders, not paying much attention to the quiet Huo Yuqing in the back row. But Wang Yan had studied Wang Rui's team in detail and was sure that the main body martial soul had to be special.

Well, there were still other rounds of the tournament—he'd have a chance to see them fight later.

So, he let the teams leave.

"Wang Rui, come here for a moment." Mu Jin called out.

Wang Rui paused for a moment and glanced at Huo Yuqing. She gave him a subtle nod.

"Teacher Mu, what's the matter?" he asked.

"I have some intel on the other teams for you." Mu Jin gestured for him to come over and signaled for Ning Tian and Huo Yuqing to leave.

"I'll take you to observe the other matchups so you can prepare accordingly." She shook the files in her hand. "There are eight teams that went undefeated in the round-robin stage…"

Wang Rui found it amusing that she focused on the two undefeated teams from Class 1—her grudge against Zhou Yi was practically written all over her face.

"This kid is quite formidable. If you face his team, don't let your guard down." Mu Jin pointed at An Wen's file, speaking seriously. "His team is only three Rank 20+ Soul Masters, which means their homeroom teacher deliberately targeted them. But he still led his teammates into the top 64, which is terrifying."

"It looks like he's taking the soul skill control + weapon technique output route. This path isn't very scalable at high levels, but in the early stages, it's incredibly versatile."

An Wen's two teammates were Lin Zhizhi, a food-type Soul Master with the martial soul "Grapes," and Mo Li, a control-type Soul Master with the martial soul "Phantom Spider." They never appeared in the original story, meaning Zhou Yi probably expelled them.

"If you're talking about their team… no need to worry," Wang Yan interjected. He had also been paying attention to An Wen's group.

He didn't have any objections to Mu Jin sharing intel with Wang Rui—after all, intelligence gathering was an essential part of Soul Dueling. Other teachers were doing the same for their classes.

"They got unlucky. They're up against a Soul Elder team." Wang Yan sighed. "Xie Huan Yue's team has a power-type attacker and two agility-type attackers… his teammates are simply too weak."

Yeah, that wasn't winnable.

No matter how skilled An Wen was, he was still human. Even with immense combat experience and physical strength, there was a limit to how much he could handle alone. A one-versus-three against stronger opponents was too much.

…And even if he won, it would raise suspicion.

Damn, whose luck was so bad that they drew this matchup? Wang Rui bared his teeth.

Black cat misfortune? Completely normal!

Auspicious Beast sneering in the background.

Another team from Class One that also achieved a perfect record was Wang Dong's team.

Wang Dong didn't seem to have great luck either, as they were matched against a team from Class Seven that had appeared in the original story—Huang Chutian's team.

People might not remember who Huang Chutian was, but his two teammates were definitely recognizable—the twin girls whose martial souls were their hair. They even had a martial soul fusion skill called Heavenly Net.

Without Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong was still teamed up with Xiao Xiao, but their new teammate was a Level 27 Agility-type Spirit Master named Ta Lingling, a pretty girl with brown hair. Her martial soul was unique—the Clever Spirit Otter, a soul beast.

Although they no longer had the assistance of Spiritual Detection Sharing, they now had a powerful agility-type attacker… which made the outcome of this match unpredictable.

Come to think of it, the original work rarely featured freshwater soul beasts or martial souls.

But otters weren't simple soul beasts… If Shrek Academy could properly nurture her, this martial soul could be quite formidable.

If the Emperor Auspicious Beast were to rank the most sinister soul beasts in the Star Dou Forest, he would push the Thousand-Tons Ants way down the list—ant-type soul beasts were extremely friendly! How could they be considered sinister?

The Top Three might be debatable, but at least five out of the Top Ten most sinister soul beasts would be related to weasel-type creatures.

In other words, most of the soul beasts with "weasel," "marten," or "otter" in their names.

These creatures looked incredibly cute but were also extremely vicious—they thrived on killing.

This entire category of soul beasts was excessively bloodthirsty. They instinctively enjoyed killing prey far beyond what they could eat, then lining up the corpses neatly. They didn't eat them—they just arranged them in order.

For example, weasels sometimes slaughter an entire coop of chickens.

This is where the term "獭祭" (Tǎjì, "Otter Festival") originated—otters would catch fish, bring them to shore, line them up neatly, not eat them, and then leave.

In Wang Rui's previous world, people explained this behavior as animals playing with their food. When hunting was easy, they killed more just for fun—domestic cats did this too.

But in the Douluo world...

"Otter Festival" actually had a functional effect—weasel-type soul beasts that excessively slaughtered weaker prey could temporarily enhance their own power.

Those creatures weren't offering sacrifices to please any god. Instead, this behavior allowed them to gain a power-up buff.

You could think of it as a temporary version of the "Killing God Domain", but for soul beasts.

Wang Rui couldn't explain the exact mechanism behind this, but this was simply one of their innate abilities.

From his perspective, this kind of mass slaughter followed by abandoning the corpses was even more sinister than consuming flesh and blood for cultivation. Even though the bodies would eventually return to the ecosystem as nutrients, the damage was still significant and took a long time to repair.

And when weasel-type soul beasts reached the 100,000-year level, their "sacrificial offerings" needed to be even larger—way beyond what a healthy ecosystem could sustain. At that point, the only real solutions were either being hunted down by a stronger beast… or being eliminated by humans.

…Even the Secret Technique for Spirit Bones had some similar principles to the weasel-type "sacrificial rituals".

Back then, Wang Rui had spent an enormous amount of effort suppressing a pair of 100,000-year-old Golden Spirit Weasels and a 90,000-year-old Crystal Purple Marten in Star Dou Forest, forcing them to control their kind and swear not to conduct unnecessary "sacrificial killings."

It honestly traumatized him a little.

That said, Star Dou Forest never had high-level otter-type soul beasts, probably due to the limited size of its lakes.

That girl named Ta Lingling was probably a commoner. Wang Rui had never heard of any family with otter-type martial souls. If she could develop an ability similar to "Otter Festival," she would become quite strong.

But in Shrek Academy… well, that was uncertain.

Also, he wasn't sure what an otter-type martial soul would need to "sacrifice"… It couldn't be expecting her to stack human skulls, right?

That would be way too much.

Shaking his head, Wang Rui pushed these thoughts aside.