Blue Silver Pole Vault

Asura God slowly raised his right hand, and golden light formed an illusory fist shadow whose power had been suppressed countless times over:

"As a god, practical combat ability is the foundation on which you stand. Come, take a punch from me."

Yu Xiaogang was scared out of his wits.

But to get a Divine Realm green card and become the Divine Realm's version of Grandmaster from then on, he could only grit his teeth and go through with it.

"I... I'm ready! Come on!"

"Boom!"

Asura God casually flicked out a burst of force, without even using divine power. The sheer physical pressure alone made contact-

"Crack!"

The Ten-Year Solitary Bamboo in Yu Xiaogang's hand snapped in half on the spot. In the distance, Luo Sanpao was still eating, with no intention of helping.

Yu Xiaogang was sent flying dozens of zhang backward, slamming heavily into a tree and coughing up mouthful after mouthful of blood.

"Forget it. Let's stop."

Looking at Yu Xiaogang, who had been thoroughly beaten into a pulp on the ground and could barely move, Asura God waved helplessly and shook his head at Sea God:

"If we keep going, one of us might put a little too much force into it and kill this piece of trash. If word got out, it would look like we God Kings were bullying a Soul Master from the lower realm."

Sea God gave Yu Xiaogang's arm a disdainful kick:

"Get up. Stop playing dead."

The night wind in the Soul Hunting Forest grew increasingly biting.

Tang San's tightly shut eyes suddenly snapped open.

The Ten-Year Soul Ring, white and almost transparent, trembled as it rose from the Blue Silver Grass in his palm, its light like an oil lamp on the verge of going out.

Tang San's face darkened instantly as he looked at the white Soul Ring.

During the process of absorbing the Soul Ring, he had heard everything Cai Kun had just said.

Level one hundred, complete!

A withered tree blooming again in spring!

Spring Bamboo Douluo!

Ascending by night and day!

That trash of a teacher had actually become a god!

Tang San felt pain all over.

Pain!

Pain!

It hurt too much!

The other party had already become a god high above, while he himself had become a laughingstock at the bottom of the pile, stuck with a white ten-year ring!

With a blood feud as deep as the sea, he was not even qualified to take revenge now!

"Third young master, finished absorbing it?"

Beside him, Cai Kun brushed the fallen leaves from his trouser legs, stood up, and yawned with a smile:

"All right, seeing you alive and kicking puts my mind at ease. I've been your bodyguard here for quite a while in the middle of the night, so I'd say I've done right by our ties as fellow villagers."

"Your teacher's already gone up to heaven to enjoy a life of ease. It's freezing in these woods, so I'll be off first. You can pole vault back on your own."

Before he had finished speaking, Cai Kun pushed off abruptly and turned into a streak of white-gold afterimages, vanishing in a flash.

In the clearing, Tang San was left standing alone in the gloomy wind.

At the top of a large tree dozens of zhang away, Tang Hao, cloaked in black, held a Four-Hundred-Year Mandala Snake that had yet to breathe its last in one hand. He stood frozen on a branch, so furious he nearly spat out a mouthful of blood.

"One step too late... I was one step too late in the end!"

The son of the mighty Clear Sky Douluo had a Ten-Year Soul Ring as his First Soul Ring!

Right now, he wanted nothing more than to challenge Yu Xiaogang to a duel!

Unfortunately, he had become a god.

"Forget it... forget it..."

Tang Hao forcibly suppressed his anger, casually tossed aside the snake in his hand, and let out a heavy sigh.

Fortunately, the Clear Sky Sect's blood still flowed through Tang San's veins, and the Clear Sky Hammer, the number one Tool Martial Soul under heaven, remained hidden in his left hand.

As long as he carefully honed the Clear Sky Hammer in the future and attached a full set of Soul Rings ten thousand years old or even a hundred thousand years old, there would still be room to make up for the ten-year stain on his First Martial Soul.

Tang Hao shook his head, his figure quietly fading into the shadows.

Under the tree, Tang San had no idea his father was lurking in the dark.

He took a deep breath of cold air, forcibly suppressed the humiliation in his heart, and slowly raised his right hand.

He stirred the faint Soul Power within him.

"First Soul Skill..."

Tang San gritted his teeth, squeezing the words out from between his back teeth with an unprecedented sense of shame:

"Blue Silver... Pole Vault!"

"Pfft!"

The once-delicate Blue Silver Grass suddenly grew wildly, condensing in the blink of an eye into a long, rigid grass-stalk pole as thick as a thumb.

Its form achieved the same effect by different means as Yu Xiaogang's Lone Bamboo Pole Vault; it could be called a copy.

Tang San gripped the long pole tightly and, his face dark, planted it against the ground.

"Boing!"

The grass pole bent into an arc and sprang back with tremendous force!

The recoil launched Tang San more than three zhang off the ground, sending him stumbling through the air toward the front.

One day later, at Nuoding Junior Soul Master Academy.

Morning light fell in front of the teaching building, and life at the academy continued without a ripple.

But strangely enough, neither Cai Kun, who had returned to school ahead of him, nor Tang San, who had unlocked a new Soul Skill, breathed a word to anyone about Yu Xiaogang's ascension.

Tang San simply did not dare mention it, and wanted to even less.

No one would believe him if he did, and they would take him for a daydreamer.

After all, that was Yu Xiaogang's reputation.

In Dorm Seven, when Xiao Wu came over curiously and pressed him, asking, "Grandmaster took you to the Soul Hunting Forest, so how come you're the only one who came back?" Tang San merely pressed his lips tightly together and gave her a perfunctory answer, his gaze dark:

"Teacher encountered an extremely important and urgent matter. He's already left Nuoding City on a long journey and won't ever come back."

As for Cai Kun, he simply thought no one would believe it if he told them, either.

More importantly, with Yu Xiaogang, that walking check-in NPC who was a meme from head to toe, gone, Cai Kun suddenly found the whole of Notting Junior Academy dull and flavorless.

Every day, aside from listening to those old pedants chant their sleep-inducing scriptures from the lectern, he watched the work-study students do all kinds of jobs around the school.

After being tricked, Tang San seemed to have gone mad. As soon as school ended, he plunged into the smithy, swinging a forging hammer and frantically hammering iron day and night to vent, while earning his living expenses on the side.

Cai Kun, meanwhile, felt that his Martial Soul seemed to have no place to be put to use in this era.

"In this godforsaken place where even a carriage takes half a day to get anywhere, there isn't even a food-delivery business for me and my speed, which starts at a hundred kilometers an hour?"

Cai Kun sighed, feeling as though he had been born in the wrong era.

Run a reverse SF Express? No courier stations.

Deliver food around the city? People nowadays did not even have the concept of ordering delivery.

Run a long-distance passenger service? Sometimes he could not even stop himself; if he carried people, he would probably get into traffic accidents every day.

What a headache!

Cai Kun pulled up the system interface in his mind. There were only a few places worth checking in at in Nuoding City, and including some extremely obscure spots, he had checked in at all of them.

The rewards were all inconsequential things, such as Postpartum Care for Sows, A Guide to Cultivating Hybrid Plants, and the Complete Primary School Morality and Rule of Law Series.

His pockets were cleaner than his face; the few Copper Soul Coins Old Jack had given him had been spent on two flatbreads.

Bored out of his mind, Cai Kun suddenly recalled the scene on the day of his awakening, when Su Yuntao had patted his chest and made him a firm promise-

"If you run into trouble, bring your proof and come find me at the branch hall anytime!"

"That's right! I almost forgot about Brother Tao!"

Cai Kun slapped his thigh, stood up, and brushed the dust off his backside.

The Spirit Hall had vast resources, and its branch in the Balak Kingdom was especially filthy rich. However small the Nuoding City branch was, it was still a public institution.

If he landed an official position doing odd jobs and running errands, he could not only get a public meal allowance, but might even get sent on publicly funded trips to check in at other cities!

Having made up his mind, Cai Kun slung on his backpack and left the academy gates with light, quick steps, heading straight for the Spirit Hall Branch in the city center.