God-Bestowed Martial Soul: Ten-Year Solitary Bamboo

Though Cai Kun had done nothing but complain, he was quite satisfied deep down.

The Thousand-Year Soul Ring combined with his right leg bone gave him an absurdly powerful explosive launch. A four-hundred-year Soul Beast was no different from something made of paper.

The puddle of snake on the ground was permanently unconscious, but its body was still moving, as if having a nightmare. Cai Kun fought down his nausea and took out his camera.

He walked over to the snake's head, its skull blown wide open, held his breath, and gave a thumbs-up from a distance.

"Click!"

Cai Kun put the camera back into his spatial storage, then turned around and strolled over to the old tree, treading on the sticky shredded leaves covering the ground.

Yu Xiaogang lay sprawled on his back beside the roots, dazed and glassy-eyed, his chest heaving. Even now, he had yet to come to his senses.

Not far away, Tang San had just crawled out. He looked at the scattered pieces of the Mandala Snake's body, then at the completely unharmed Cai Kun, and froze as though a spell had been cast on him.

A four-hundred-year Mandala Snake... had been smashed into meat paste in a single hit?!

Cai Kun crouched down, tilted his head at Yu Xiaogang, and asked with a smile:

"Grandcorpse, are you dead all right??"

Yu Xiaogang shuddered and stiffly turned his head to look at the little terror in front of him. His lips trembled, but no words came out.

"Grandmaster, there's something I still need to say."

Cai Kun raised a finger and wagged it slowly.

"That big fat snake was just about to swallow you whole for a midnight snack, and I dragged you out of its mouth at the painful cost of getting my brand-new clothes dirty."

"What I'm saying is, can saving your life count as repaying the favor I owe you? From now on, are we completely even? Neither of us owes the other anything, right?"

Seeing the eager look in Cai Kun's eyes, Yu Xiaogang regained a little clarity.

He swallowed a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva and nodded as if pounding garlic, answering over and over in a trembling voice:

"Definitely even. Completely even."

"But next time, if something like this happens and you have a plan, could you give me a heads-up so I can prepare myself?"

"Don't worry, Grandmaster. There won't be another time."

Cai Kun clapped his hands in satisfaction and helped him up.

Looking at Yu Xiaogang, who was as bedraggled as a dog, then glancing at Tang San's unwell expression, Cai Kun couldn't help grinning wickedly again.

"Jie jie jie jie-!"

The villainous cackle echoed through the gloomy forest, sending a shiver down Yu Xiaogang and Tang San's spines at the same time.

Just as Cai Kun was laughing to his heart's content, the system finally notified him in his mind that the check-in had succeeded.

[Ding-!!]

[All tourist attractions for this trip successfully checked in]

[Distributing local super specialty...]

Cai Kun perked up, immediately stifled his laughter, and sank his consciousness into the dark blue screen in his sea of consciousness.

But when the light faded and a line of glittering golden text appeared in the center of the screen, the smile froze on Cai Kun's face.

[Congratulations, host, you have obtained a mythical-grade specialty:

God-Bestowed Martial Soul: Ten-Year Solitary Bamboo (transferable to another person)!]

[Included bonuses: one set of exclusively customized Soul Rings (age randomized), a complete set of six Soul Bones exclusive to Ten-Year Solitary Bamboo (age randomized), and innate full level 100 Lone Bamboo Soul Power!]

[Authoritative system big data assessment: statistical analysis of billions of transmigrator comments retrieved from the backend shows that "Ten-Year Solitary Bamboo" is mentioned in 99% of them! This is the supreme god-tier martial soul that 99% of transmigrators long for day and night and dream of obtaining, a treasure one may encounter but cannot seek! The host may refine it into his own Second Martial Soul or bestow it upon someone with a fated connection!]

Cai Kun stared at the icon of a bamboo pole with two wilted leaves still hanging from it, nearly spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"What the hell do you mean, a supreme treasure 99% of transmigrators dream of?!"

Cai Kun jumped up and down in his sea of consciousness, cursing furiously.

"That was people in my previous life spamming the comment sections with a meme, a stale joke specifically used to mock Gangzi!"

"What normal person would want a Ten-Year Solitary Bamboo as their martial soul?"

"When you bunch of travel-platform systems scraped that data, couldn't you tell sincerity from irony or sarcasm? And you actually turned it into a mythical-grade grand prize and handed it out?!"

It even came with Soul Rings, a full set of Soul Bones, and innate level 100?

A full set of ten-year white Soul Rings and ten-year Lone Bamboo Soul Bones-even if he piled them up to level 100, wouldn't it still just be a slightly tougher bamboo pole?!

"Whoever wants this piece of junk can have it. My own super good luck is enough for me!"

His face dark, Cai Kun was just about to toss the bamboo into the system space to gather dust.

Suddenly, he stopped.

An idea flashed through Cai Kun's mind. He looked at Yu Xiaogang and came up with a brilliantly amusing idea.

This thing was trash if he kept it, but on the entire Douluo Continent, who deserved this Ten-Year Solitary Bamboo more than the Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang before him, "invincible in theory, speechless in practice"?!

If he gave Gangzi this Ten-Year Solitary Bamboo, complete with "a full set of Soul Rings and Soul Bones plus innate level 100," as his Second Martial Soul...

Cai Kun's gaze grew fervent and strange, the corners of his mouth harder to hold down than an AK.

The Mandala Snake, broken in two, twitched twice more and fell completely still.

A bright yellow Hundred-Year Soul Ring slowly rose above its corpse.

Tang San stared at the bright yellow ring of light, a pang of pain shooting through his heart.

What a fine Soul Ring!

Four hundred years of cultivation, with both a poison attribute and the toughness for Entanglement—it was as if heaven had tailor-made it specifically for his Blue Silver Grass.

But according to the continent's ironclad rule, a Soul Ring could only be absorbed by the person who had killed the Soul Beast.

Now Cai Kun had rammed the creature into minced snake-meat noodles. Even with the Soul Ring floating right in front of him, all he could do was watch helplessly as it dissipated!

"What a pity..."

Tang San bit his lower lip. He should have acted sooner.

Meanwhile, atop a large tree dozens of zhang behind them.

Tang Hao looked at the gradually dimming Soul Ring with deep regret.

"Hell's bells..."

Tang Hao gave Cai Kun a complicated look.

That was the brat who had sent him flying that morning. His chest still hurt a little.

He had gone to great lengths to catch a four-hundred-year snake, and it was bad enough that the good-for-nothing Yu Xiaogang hadn't dared to fight it. But then this brat had floored the accelerator and rammed it to death!

"Forget it. I can't very well let Little San absorb that lousy bamboo."

Tang Hao sighed inwardly, glanced at his disappointed son below, then turned and became a black shadow once more, darting into the depths of the forest.

He still had to play the laborer again and catch another four-hundred-year Soul Beast.

On the ground, Yu Xiaogang had finally recovered. As the night wind blew, the wet chill in his crotch made his old face burn.

He wiped the green blood and mud from his face and caught sight of Tang San's disappointed expression from the corner of his eye. His heart skipped a beat.

He was finished!

Both of them had seen the whole sorry spectacle of him, a Soul Grandmaster, scared shitless by a four-hundred-year venomous snake.

For someone like him, who valued his reputation above all else, how could he maintain a foothold in the Soul Master World after this?

He had to find an excuse to fool them first, to keep the two of them from spreading the story.

"Ahem... cough, cough!"

Yu Xiaogang coughed twice, trying to salvage the situation.

"Little San, Kunkun, don't misunderstand..."

"Just now, it wasn't that I couldn't defeat the beast. The dew was simply too heavy tonight, making the ground wet and slippery, so I lost my footing for a moment. Otherwise, that Mandala Snake could never have been my match..."

Even he felt guilty reciting such a flimsy excuse, and his voice grew quieter and quieter.

Tang San turned away, too embarrassed to watch.

Just as Yu Xiaogang was breaking out in a cold sweat, wishing he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

Cai Kun, standing beside him, suddenly slapped his thigh!

"Smack!"

To their surprise, Cai Kun's face was filled with sudden understanding and lofty admiration.

"Grandmaster! Say no more, I understand everything!"