Critical Threshold, Breakthrough!

In the dark chamber's tunnel.

Bai Xiaowen picked up the gray bead.

Prompt: "You obtained an unknown Soul Stone. This item is a guaranteed drop and is not included in the loot reward list."

"Soul Stone! It was actually inside this Elite Zombie Rat's stomach? I never would have expected that!"

Bai Xiaowen was both startled and delighted. No wonder he had been unable to find the Soul Stone in the dark chamber.

Bai Xiaowen tried to examine the Soul Stone's attributes, but all he received was a series of prompts:

"The Soul Stone has been sealed by a powerful force."

"The Soul Stone's energy has been depleted."

"Please remove the seal and recharge it before examining its attributes."

Needless to say, the Soul Stone's energy had been absorbed by Farga.

Bai Xiaowen's joy had been for nothing. He sighed and put away the Soul Stone. Suddenly, a dim gleam flickered across its surface, and a faint song seemed to sound beside his ear.

"Hm?"

Bai Xiaowen took out the Soul Stone again and examined it carefully.

The song was somewhat indistinct, but its melody possessed an indescribable beauty that made him unable to resist listening closely.

Then, with a boom, the song vanished. Terrifying wails from Vengeful Spirits and vicious ghosts rose and fell, battering Bai Xiaowen's mind!

"Damn it, it really is an 'Evil' Soul Stone!"

Fortunately, Bai Xiaowen had been cautious and mentally prepared. Otherwise, caught off guard by the sudden shift from utter beauty to utter horror, the consequences would have been hard to predict.

The ghostly wailing continued. An illusory banshee appeared on the Soul Stone's surface. Her pale lips opened and closed as she unleashed Banshee's Wail. Her eyes, flickering with red light, locked onto Bai Xiaowen's, trying step by step to erode his mind.

However, Bai Xiaowen's Spirit was as high as 7.9, even higher than that of an ordinary Awakened! This meant his resistance to mental attacks exceeded the banshee's expectations. More importantly, the Soul Stone's energy had already been depleted, greatly reducing the power of Banshee's Wail.

As the two sides remained locked in a stalemate, red light flashed in Bai Xiaowen's left eye. His normal eye suddenly transformed into a blood-colored eyeball!

The blood-colored eyeball radiated immense majesty, seeming to gaze without the slightest emotion at the banshee illusion on the Soul Stone's surface.

"No!"

The banshee let out a shrill cry and suddenly shrank back into the Soul Stone. She had already suffered grave damage.

At the same time, Farga, who was fighting fiercely elsewhere, let out a miserable roar. His formerly nimble steps slowed considerably, and his attacks were no longer as sharp as before.

The battle-hardened royal female knight Goliya naturally would not let this opportunity slip away. She stepped forward with her left foot and swung her two-handed sword in a magnificent arc.

Combat skill, Arc Slash!

Screech!

A large spray of blood burst from Farga's chest. He had already been worn down over a long battle, and this heavy blow immediately sent him into a severely wounded state, leaving him collapsed on the ground. If Goliya had not wanted to capture him alive and force him to reveal the Soul Stone's whereabouts, that strike would have been enough to kill Farga.

"Pant, pant..." The madness in Farga's eyes gradually faded as he looked unwillingly toward the dark chamber.

"Hand over the Soul Stone!" Goliya shouted sternly.

"Hehe..." Farga revealed a faint smile. "Goliya, the Soul Stone isn't with me."

"You're lying!" Goliya pointed the tip of her sword at Farga's throat, its cold gleam threatening.

"I'm not lying," Farga said with difficulty. "I suggest you hurry to my laboratory and find your companion... Hehe, if you're any later, he'll take the Soul Stone away."

Goliya snorted coldly. Her left hand, wrapped in a studded gauntlet, seized Farga by the collar and strode straight toward the dark chamber.

Farga's dark chamber tunnel.

Bai Xiaowen shook his head. The Blood-Red Eyeball vanished, and his left eye returned to normal. When the blood-colored eyeball had appeared just now, his thoughts seemed to have frozen. He had not realized what happened, nor did he understand why the banshee had retreated. He could only attribute it to the banshee's lack of energy.

"Whew... Malgao's journal kept calling this an Evil Soul Stone, and it truly was. Luckily, I secretly raised my guard the moment the song began."

Prompt:

"You passed the Soul Stone's mental trial and received a reward."

"Your base Spirit has increased by 2 points."

The simple prompt made Bai Xiaowen's expression change.

The reason was simple. Bai Xiaowen's total attributes had originally reached 18.7. With this sudden increase of 2 points, the total had reached 20.7!

The next second, another prompt arrived:

"Your base attributes are: Strength 4.5, Agility 4.2, Constitution 2.1, Spirit 9.9, total attributes 20.7. You have reached an Awakened's critical threshold."

"Your base attributes have been locked and cannot be raised again before undertaking the Awakened Trial."

"Please enter the Spirit Realm within one Earth week to undertake the Awakened Trial. Failure to do so by the deadline will be considered a failed trial, and the next trial's difficulty will increase by 50%."

Bai Xiaowen steadied himself and sighed inwardly.

"I'd originally planned to put those final 2 points of growth into Constitution... If not that, Strength or Agility would have worked! But they had to go to Spirit... With nearly 10 points of Spirit, when first entering the Spirit Realm without any skills at all, it's far less useful than an equal amount of Strength, Agility, or Constitution!"

Strength directly increased damage, making every punch and kick powerful.

Agility increased attack speed, running speed, flexibility, and more. It was just as useful. One only had to see how the Elite Zombie Rat, with 10.4 Agility, had beaten Bai Xiaowen until he could barely fight back to understand how terrifying high Agility could be.

After entering the Spirit Realm, the body would become "fully datafied," and Constitution would become the base attribute determining Life Value! The higher the Constitution, the greater the Life Value. Once Life Value was emptied, it meant death.

Therefore, high Constitution increased one's margin for error. It was a crucial attribute for everyone undertaking the Awakened Trial.

As for Spirit... it determined spell power and mental energy recovery speed. So here was the problem: did Bai Xiaowen currently possess any active skills? His 9.9 Spirit was practically useless!

In other words, Bai Xiaowen's "effective combat attributes" were actually only 10.8, roughly a little more than half that of other Quasi-Awakened. Entering the Awakened Trial, with its extremely high elimination rate, at such strength—the difficulty was obvious.

Bai Xiaowen took a deep breath and shook his head.

"I won't think about all that for now. There's always a way when the cart reaches the mountain. I'll figure out how to pass the Awakened Trial after entering the Spirit Realm. Right now, Goliya or Farga should be coming soon. I'd better leave first."

Naturally, Bai Xiaowen would not return the way he had come. That would only bring him face-to-face with Goliya. He followed the tunnel deeper inside.

Yes, Bai Xiaowen firmly believed that the other end of the tunnel definitely led outside.

This was not blind speculation, but a conclusion drawn from the information he already knew.

Malgao's journal had described how they sealed the cave entrance with stones and lived inside for a long time—during that time, the master and servant could not possibly have remained cooped up in a rat hole forever, could they?

Leaving aside food and water, even when answering nature's call, they would need somewhere scenic and well-ventilated, lest they pollute the air in the basement they had painstakingly excavated.

Therefore, another hidden exit, known only to the master and servant, definitely existed.

Based on the universal rule—when danger came, the leader went first—it could be concluded that the tunnel leading outside was in Farga's dark chamber, namely this very tunnel where the Elite Zombie Rat Black Fang had been hiding.

"Stop!" The female knight's shout faintly drifted from the tunnel entrance.

"Looks like the royal knight was still the better fighter. Farga, you useless scrub, your rank probably isn't even above Bronze Tier!"

Bronze Tier Master Tier's baffling confidence: I can still turn this around!

Bai Xiaowen cursed inwardly. If Farga had been the winner, it would have been more advantageous for Bai Xiaowen. Holding the Soul Stone meant Bai Xiaowen possessed Farga's greatest weakness, and he also understood Farga better than he understood Goliya.

After checking and confirming that he could enter the Spirit Realm at any time, Bai Xiaowen calmed down considerably.

Behind a low thicket, Bai Xiaowen pushed open a stone slab concealed by weeds and crawled out of the tunnel. He did not leave in a hurry, instead waiting dozens of meters away.

Boom!

Half a minute later, the royal female knight Goliya appeared. Her furious strike sent the stone slab flying ten meters into the air, where it exploded into countless fragments.

"That's quite the grand entrance." Bai Xiaowen curled his lip and offered his assessment.

"Hand over the Soul Stone... this is your last chance!" Goliya dragged Farga with her left hand as though he were a dead dog, while her right-hand greatsword pointed at Bai Xiaowen.

The two were about thirty meters apart. To the powerful royal female knight, that distance could be crossed in just a few breaths.

In truth, though Goliya was somewhat angry, she was not nervous. The gap in strength was plain to see. In the boundless wilderness, this cunning Earth human could not possibly escape.

"Let me ask you something." Bai Xiaowen's roguish eyes swept over Goliya's chest, wrapped in an iron bra. "Miss Goliya, are you a C-cup?"

Although she did not understand the word "cup," Goliya could still tell that Bai Xiaowen was being lewd. Her face turned cold as she plunged her greatsword into the ground with one hand and drew a slender rapier from her waist.

"Die!"

A streak of light shot forth.

A faint smile hung on Bai Xiaowen's face, but his body glowed and dissolved into particles of light. The streak passed straight through, piercing only a phantom of spiritual particles.

Bai Xiaowen cast one final look at the Plague Rat Burrow.

"Teacher Xiao, Jiang Wen... within my abilities, I've delayed as much as I could. Take care of yourselves."

Across the empty wilderness echoed the furious, unwilling roar of the royal female knight Goliya:

"You despicable Earth human! I swear upon the honor of a royal knight that even if I must chase you to the ends of the earth, I will make you accept justice's punishment!"