The Academy's Doomed Side Character
Chapter 193: Soul Bound Staff [2]

Chapter 193: Soul Bound Staff [2]

The [Soul Bound Staff]—or as it was originally called, Yuhun Bang.

That was its real name before someone decided to rebrand it with a flashier title.

Who, you ask? The author of this world. My friend, actually.

He never told me why he changed it. Maybe he just thought "Soul Bound Staff" sounded cooler.

Whatever the reason, it stuck. And now, here we are.

Names don’t matter much, anyway. Not when you’re staring down an artifact forged from divine iron and madness.

Yuhun Bang—a half-divine replica of Ruyi Jingu Bang, the legendary staff of Sun Wukong himself.

It was said to be crafted by a martial sage named Huò Xian, a man who once glimpsed the original Ruyi in a dream.

They say Huò Xian was the first and last man to ever try and imitate it. A half-hero, half-madman who dared to mock the gods.

He stole divine iron from heaven and forged his own version of the weapon.

Naturally, they banished him.

And what did he leave behind?

The Soul-Tamed Staff.

His legacy.

This legacy.

Over the centuries, only a handful of people have ever managed to awaken it. The last one did it two hundred years ago—during the first dungeon break in history.

From what I remember in the novel, he didn’t find the staff himself. His master gave it to him—after failing to awaken it.

But during that chaotic time, when mana surged into the world for the first time and everything turned upside down, something in him resonated with the staff.

He passed one of the trials. And just like that, he awakened it.

...That was two hundred years ago.

Now it’s my turn.

There are several ways to awaken the Soul Bound Staff. But let’s be honest—most of them are nearly impossible.

The "orthodox" methods are just ridiculous.

Option one:

Lift the staff’s original weight—13,500 geun.

That’s 8,100 kilograms.

Yes. Eight. Thousand. One. Hundred. Kilos.

I’d break my spine before I even managed to roll it an inch.

Option two:

Enter the inner world of the staff and defeat the consciousness of its last master in combat.

Sure. Because fighting a historical figure who awakened the staff during a global apocalypse sounds like a reasonable goal.

And then there’s the third trial:

Fulfill the staff’s original purpose by measuring the breadth of the sea.

...What the hell does that even mean?

So yeah. Orthodox methods? Absolutely not.

I’m not here to play fair.

I’m a transmigrator. I do things differently.

I’m not going to brute-force my way through this with raw strength or spiritual enlightenment. That’s not me.

I am going to face the previous master of the Soul Bound Staff. But not to fight him.

Because even if I tried, I wouldn’t win.

No, the goal is simple: get him to hand it over willingly.

And fortunately, I do know how to make that happen.

All I need is a chance to speak with him.

And a very specific item hidden in the heart of the academy.

One step at a time.

For reference, in the original story, the villain couldn’t break the seal, so he resorted to black magic and sacrificed offerings to forcibly break the seal, but of course, I had no intention of doing such a thing.

So what was I going to do?

I was going to cheat, as usual.

---

The thing about legendary artifacts?

They don’t just open up for you.

Especially not the Soul Bound Staff.

Even knowing everything I did—thanks to the novel—I couldn’t just barge into its inner world like I owned the place. That would’ve been too easy.

No, I had to challenge the previous owner first. His soul, or rather, the imprint of it that still clung to the staff like a stubborn ghost. A man who had awakened this weapon two centuries ago, at the dawn of the mana era.

The records never gave him a name, but I knew who he was. Everyone did.

Zhao Yuren.

A former monk turned martial warlord. He survived the first dungeon break with nothing but his fists, a broken mantra, and the Soul Bound Staff. A man who once shattered the spine of an elder dragon with a single swing.

He was a legend among monsters. And as foul-tempered as they come.

Getting an audience with him was a trial in itself. One wrong move and he’d strike you down on instinct, soul or not.

Luckily, I wasn’t here to fight.

To even reach him, I needed to formally challenge him. The process was simple in theory but dangerous in practice: channel mana into the bracelet and declare intent.

Not just any mana. It had to be strong enough to echo through the weapon’s core and loud enough to stir its slumbering will.

I prepared for it.

Ten hours of focused meditation.

One rare-grade spirit enhancement pill from the academy’s market.

And a single blood offering—mine, of course.

I sat cross-legged in the center of empty filed of the forest, incense burning low and thick with spiritual resin. The bracelet lay across my knees like a slumbering beast.

Then, I whispered:

"I challenge the one who came before me.

Let me enter. Let me speak."

At first, nothing happened.

Then—boom.

A pulse slammed into my chest like a war drum. My vision twisted, folding in on itself. Space inverted. My thoughts blurred.

And then... I was no longer in the forest near the Velcrest Academy.

The world that greeted me wasn’t elegant or serene like most inner worlds.

It was a battlefield.

Charred stone stretched into a red sky that never blinked. Ash rained from clouds that didn’t move. Weapons lay half-buried in cracked earth, long rusted. A storm hung overhead like a wound that refused to close.

And there, sitting atop a jagged throne of broken spears, was him.

Zhao Yuren.

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Author Note.

Thank you for reading the Chapter. I hope you continue to do read more in future.

Bye bye From your lovely author

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