Douluo Dalu: A reincarnated teen's pathway to ascension

Ryan yelled, "What the fuck?!!!!" As he looked at the pages after that. To his surprise, only four pages were unlocked this time. But each of them were really thick, as thick as a small wooden door. Each page contained a single word, as if it was a chapter in a unit in a book (which it actually was). The first page contained 'STRENGTH', while the second one had 'SPEED'. The third one was 'HEAL' and the last one just had 'DOMINANCE'. When he read them, his initial reaction was confusion, but as he took his time and absorbed the meaning of it, realisation dawned on him. He equated the words on the pages to one of the DD concepts:

Strength- Power attack system

Speed- Agility system

Heal- (self) Support system

Dominance- Control system

'These are the 4 basic classifications of spirit masters! Does this book want me to excel in all of these? Man! How long is that gonna take?' Ryan thought as he touched the word strength on the first page. Suddenly, it lit up in golden colour as he was warped into another place (more like his mental realm warped, as it is completely under his mind's control. He was now standing in the middle of an arena. A huge box appeared in front of him, which had six sections and each had an animal stored in it. It sort of resembled the Chinese zodiac, except the fact that it only had the wild animals among the twelve in it, like wild boar (pig), a bull, a snake, a horse, a tiger and a dragon. All of them were huge, at least 1000 years old. But, Ryan couldn't feel any spirit power spreading from any of them. Just their natural strength, which was still formidable. He understood the purpose of this chapter. He had to fight and defeat monster without using any weapons or spirit power. Pretty dope for a physical training. "Yeah, this will take some time", Ryan said to himself after a small sigh, as he willed his body to exit the chapter. He was back in his mental realm, with the book open in his lap.

He flipped the page and touched speed. It lit up and the realm changed again, now placing him in front of a huge tree, on top of it something shiny was placed in what looked like the cage of an eagle. Why would an eagle make a nest on top of a tree?, he wondered while climbing it. just as he was about to reach the top, a large flock of eagles suddenly flew towards him and started clawing at him. Overwhelmed by pain due to numerous cuts, Ryan fell onto the ground. Around the tree, floating in the air were at least a hundred eagles. No, on a detailed second look, he understood they weren't eagles, but Peregrine falcons, from his previous world. No wonder he didn't feel any spirit power coming from them either. However, even though they lacked spirit power, they were the fastest birds in his previous world, with a flight speed of 389kmph. And these 'special' mental falcons had sharper claws, which means if he didn't evade fast, he would have to wait a few days to enter his mental realm again. As they closed in again, he willed to exit, and was back in the mental realm the next second (its more like a home page). Although the cuts had disappeared, he still felt the pain from them, and made a mental note of not entering it again without proper strength or quick reflexes.

The next page took him to a level ground on top of a hill. As he stood there, he felt like all his trained power and reflexes were lost. He felt like a bona-fide two year old. And in front of him was the six animals in he saw in the first page, but, they had their spirit power released and were much smaller compared to the first ones. So, Ryan assumed they were 100 year old spirit beasts. 'Then what is with those frightening auras coming from behind them?', Ryan mused. The next second, he could see six silhouettes behind the 100 year olds. They were the 1000 year olds from the first page, with spirit power. But, they didn't have any intention of moving, while the small ones were all energetic. Soon, the snake moved and reached Ryan. The next thing he knew, he was in the air with a mouth full of blood. But, as his body was about to leave the border of the level ground, he hit something like an elastic barrier and bounced right back on to the floor. He coughed up blood, and could feel that his right hand was broken. But, another thing he could feel was a warmth spreading from his stomach, which caused a reduction in pain. What had happened was that, as he had taken serious damage, his meridians started absorbing energy furiously from the atmosphere, which slowly started to heal all his wounds. But, as he was still a beginner, the rate wasn't very high. While he was healing, none of the beasts made a move. Seeing this, Ryan exited to mental realm as he had found the objective of this chapter as well. It was to continuously get hit and train his energy intake and increase the rate of his natural healing process, like training muscles. No wonder he lost all his power and speed. He was a literal punching bag. Now, as he was back 'home', he felt better as he got his power back.

The content of next page was a bit more emotional, but easy to understand. Ryan was in the middle of a forest, with a bow made of hardwood in his left hand and a quiver on his back. In front of him was a dozen silver wolves, all of them at least 1000 years old, with spirit power released. They were all looking at something behind him. It was a 5000 year old giant titan gorilla, with a small pink rabbit behind it. This scene reminded him of Xiao Wu and Er Ming, although they weren't really there. This was all just a scenario created by the book based on his memories. Ryan knew that. So, he didn't dare to get too careless in there. But, no one was attacking each other. He felt like time had been stopped. 'Oh, so my job is crowd control. I must keep the wolves occupied with my arrows long enough for Er Ming to take them out. this is gonna be good. But, why isn't anyone attacking us?', Ryan thought. He then understood something; Control system was the most important of the four. So, he need all the abilities from the other three pages to help him here. Only then will he be able to support his "team" and be able to finish this page. So, he quickly exited from the page.

He was once again sitting in the mental realm with the book.

But this time, there was a small change in the realm. There was a crack in the space in front of him, through which came a faint yellow light. 'What is this?', He thought as he walked towards it. As he closed in towards the crack, the dim yellow light became more apparent. To further inspect what it was, Ryan walked right through the space.

He was back in his room, with his eyes wide open. As he looked to the side, he understood that the faint yellow light he saw though the crack was the dying light from the lamp in the hall, which came into his room through the gap under the door. He realised that he had gained the ability to have awareness of outside world while in the mental realm. He didn't know how it happened as he didn't do anything special in the fourth page. The truth was that it was a result of the third page, but it had only taken effect after he exited the fourth page. You see, when his meridians started absorbing energy furiously from his mental realm, as this training affects his real body, they took in a little energy from the actual atmosphere too, which led to this connection. Ryan waved his hand dismissively as he stopped sweating over it. After all, this was too complex for even him to figure out.

His next thought was, 'If I can come out directly, can't I take some people inside my realm too? It has lot of spirit energy and it will be beneficial for those entering it. I should test it out'. He slowly got out from his bed, opened his door and went into his parents' room. There, he saw both of them lying on the bed, cuddling under the blanket, with their clothes on the hook near the door. He screamed inside, 'Their kids are right in the next room and they engage in such shameless activities multiple times every night (although I don't blame them)? What are they rabbits? I am glad I didn't have any external awareness in my mental realm for as long as I did. Otherwise I would have heard this every night. Anyway....'. As he thought the last word, his expression went from shame to curiosity. Then he slowly walked towards the head of the bed and placed his hands on their foreheads. They were out cold. The fatigue from doing it all night and the confidence of being titled douluos made them unable to feel his presence. With his hands in position, he entered the mental realm.

He stood in front of the pagoda. From there, he could see two bodies cultivating at two ends of the realm. One feminine and one masculine. Yes, his parents were successfully brought into his mind. However, as they were now in his mind, there was one disadvantage; He could not maintain this state for too long, at maximum an hour. But, an advantage was that he could see how much his parents' cultivation had progressed, and also the details of their spirits, though he didn't look at that info, as he wanted his parents themselves to tell him. When he checked their cultivation levels, he found out that, in the past year, his father's cultivation had risen to around 25% of Rank 97. It was increasing by one percent in every half hour, due to the concentrated spirit power around. The energy intake was pretty normal too. If he keeps this up, along with the occasional help from the mental realm, he could reach the next rank in the next three or four years. As expected of a powerful douluo valued very much by Spirit Hall. However, what he saw when he checked his mom left him in a little town south of 'shocked'. He was terrified. She had cultivated to around 90% of Rank 95 in just one fucking year! How the fuck was that possible?! Even his father said he would take a couple of years to breakthrough. And the weirdest thing was, it kept rising every 5 minutes by one percent! This way she's gonna breakthrough today! What monstrous speed of absorption was this. Although the realm could afford it, it was barely doing so. What kind of beast did she absorb as her 9th ring? Although this power cannot equal the 6th or Apex level beasts in the pagoda, it was still mighty. It was certainly stronger than a 100000 year old beast. As he stood there amazed at this, without cultivating himself (duh, if he too starts sucking energy during training, the realm is gonna collapse), an hour passed by. The female's body had started glowing green 10 minutes ago. That was a sign that she had broken through, as now her level was at 1% of Rank 96. Ryan saw that her speed decreased to half of the previous level, as the extra 10 minutes of cultivation only gave her 1% increase in spirit energy. If this continues, her speed would somewhat be similar to that of Xiao Shan once she reaches Rank 97. Speaking of whom, Shan's progress was now at 27% of Rank 97. As the one hour passed, Ryan was forcefully removed from the mental realm and opened his eyes in his parents room. He slowly retracted his hands from their foreheads and slowly walked out of their room. It was only after carefully walking out did he understand how much of a toll this 'experiment' had taken on his body and mind. He was dead tired (much like me yesterday). To prevent passing out in the hall, he walked as fast he could to his room and got on the bed carefully to avoid making any noise and passed out instantly (as I'm about to do after writing author's thoughts).