Singularity

It is hilarious how it seems like Lan De is the principal and also only staff member of the school now, besides Xiao Gan. He's principal by default! Could they really not afford to hire one more person to be a teacher or vice principal?

Cool, looks like that's about the halfway point of the book. Long-ass book lol

WDYM, Er Long was always the third point of the golden triangle. That dude was never involved, he was just the vice principal

It's 100,000, "wan" is 10,000, ten wan is 100,000

Yeah, that's not really something one can learn, only 100k year spirit beasts (and gods) can do it

Guess late teens? Like 18? In the book they join shrek academy when they're like 11-12, Mu Bai was the oldest at around 15 but obviously they not going for that young in the drama

Later on in the novel, XG is described as being visibly aging and frail, when TS was in his 20s so I would assume he started out in his 40s and maybe 50s by the end of the book. I think there's one scene where XG was teaching students making them run laps and one of them was like if this is so doable why don't you do it and Er Long wouldn't let him because he's getting old.

How far along is the Donghua? If the one on Tencent's youtube channel is how far along it is I think it still has a good way to go before the end of the book

Ahhh that actually would be cool, could have a nice voice over of somebody recounting his life, maybe a younger Tang San finding it and having a couple years to sink in

Agree with the novel focusing on TS far too much at some points haha, the problem is that the scenes focusing on TS mostly happen after the tournament arc which is probably where this season will end. So next season will focus on TS far too much because he's alone or just with HLN or XW for large portions of it but this season doesn't focus on him enough, or at least not yet.

I don't think it really matters what skills and techniques Tang San has, the screenwriter can easily make those stronger or weaker. The main difference between drama TS and novel TS is the lack of experience, novel TS is unflappable because he's already seen and lived a whole life, drama TS is just a 18 year old with skills. Novel TS got both skills and experience from transmigration but you'd only get skills from a buried tome, and he already got those skills from Tang Hao so I'm not sure how this would make a difference.

I guess you could have an ancient spirit in the tome merge with drama TS when he opens the book (like Yugioh lol) but I assume that also wouldn't make it past the censors.

Yes, it seems like a lot ppl like this version but I definitely still prefer the book version. He's like a cool uncle in the drama instead of a wise father, seems more edgy but doesn't have the gravitas.

I still don't like the smaller age gap between him and Tang San, don't remember ages exactly but I always got the impression that he was in his 40s maybe even 50s while Tang San was in his mid-teens whereas in the drama its more like 30s for Xiaogang and 20s for Tang San, they have a much different relationship dynamic

It'd be hilarious if we went from fully introducing the shrek 7 devils in ep 12 to lvl 100 and godhood at ep 40 haha, story would be such a disaster. It HAS to be part 2 to finish book 1, I think it'd be hard to finish the story even in 2 seasons if the second season has a similar pace and episode count.

Wonder why Duolou, which had a trailer drop much later then this and has the same production company and screenwriter, is already aired but no word on when this one is airing. Maybe in March in the same time slot?

I buy your argument that if this show doesn't do great there may not be a second season. The thing about Tencent skipping the rest of the book and then going on to try to adapt the second book seems super unlikely at that point though? Like if there wasn't enough juice in the IP to finish the first book why would they keep on with it? I thought the first book in most series is generally the most famous and well-liked? Seems like if Tencent declines a second season the IP is just done and they'll just move on to the plethora of other webnovels out there?

So most of the village plot thing I'm not sure about as it is only in the drama, there's no similar event in the book.

As far as being born with spirit rings, AFAIK that shouldn't happen, Tan San was born at level 10 so he had the ability to absorb a spirit ring immediately after his soul awakens (happens like age 7 ish) but typically you would not actually have one until you kill a spirit beast too. There is one character who is not in the drama yet (and possibly has been cut? not sure) who was born at level 20 so she could absorb 2 spirit rings. Xiao Wu can manifest her own rings without murder for plot reasons but I don't think she was born at level 10

As far as the alternate space I'm not sure exactly which book point they're referencing but there are two kinds of powers in the book that are similar.

One, there are people who can create illusion realms and trap people's minds in them. Inside the illusion realm they can affect reality and even kill people in the real world who are trapped in the illusion world. There are a few characters in the book who can do this although I don't think it's explained if the physical body goes in or just the mind.

Two, there are a special kind of soul ability called domain abilities which allow users to greatly affect the world in an area. Tan San's can make plants grow extremely quickly all around him and lets him absorb a little bit of energy from every plant in the area. Obviously this is not the same as creating a pocket dimension but seems similar.

Teleportation is a known ability and actually Xiao Wu learns to teleport pretty early. Only very short distances though, so it's tactically useful but not useful for actual travel.

I don't remember anybody who can create a separate physical realm of existence in the book but could be forgetting.

I just love how Fatty is the skinniest male now.

I am glad they cut the part where he has to copulate every so often or he dies

So martial souls are typically inherited hereditarily, you get either your dad's or your mom's, usually whichever one is stronger. Very rarely somebody gets both, in the book they say this happens more often if the two martial souls are very different in character but very similar in strength. As far as we know there are only two living people with double martial souls.

The mutation thing is a random event where sometimes a child will have a martial soul based on their family soul (the martial soul that most of the family has) but changed in some way. In Ma Hong Jun's case his family soul is the chicken but his is the phoenix. In the book it's not explained how this came to be (there's just some throwaway lines where Mu Bai makes fun of Ma Hong Jun for having a fire chicken instead of a phoenix) so the lines from the village chief about experimentation in the drama are as much as we know about that plot point.

AFAIK there is no exploration of people forcing other people's martial souls to mutate in the book, although I still have about 10% left (the drama is not yet 10% of the way through the book for perspective).

Grandmaster's soul is also a mutation, his family soul is the blue lightning emperor dragon, one of the family souls of the seven clans, but his martial soul mutated for some reason so he got Luo San Pao.

A couple other main characters also have their martial souls mutate during the book but I won't get into that since those are pretty deep spoilers.

Yeah I'm curious where Rong Rong went. She's on the cast list so I assume they didn't just get rid of her character. Oscar is lonely!

I didn't notice at first but now that you mention it, he doesn't really enunciate very well huh

I would agree whoever this drama character is, he is not really Tan San

However, Tan San is a wish fulfillment webnovel protagonist who did basically everything better then everybody and this character is a much more realistic person

If you pretend he is not Tan San from the webnovel but is instead another, unrelated person also named Tan San maybe it will feel better :)