Chapter Thirty-Six

The disheveled old man paid no mind to the thick layer of dust covering him. Laughing loudly, he walked over to Mu Qing.

Mu Qing frowned. As the old man approached, a dense, foul stench hit him head-on. It was unbearable.

"Heh heh, don't mind it. I've been sealed away here for over a decade. I haven't bathed in more than ten years, so of course I smell like this." The old man laughed at Mu Qing's expression.

"Senior." Mu Qing took a deep breath. "Where are we? How do I get out? And what did you mean earlier when you said my Blood Spirit needs water-attributed energy?"

He asked several questions in quick succession.

The disheveled old man before him looked even more wretched than Mu Qing, who was badly injured. He was short, and every so often a nervous, almost crazed smile appeared on his face.

Yet Mu Qing could easily sense that Purple Lightning Bamboo had trembled faintly in his mind when the old man appeared, as if it was deeply wary of him.

That discovery made Mu Qing feel he had to be cautious. He didn't look down on the old man because of his appearance.

After all, even when facing Lei Kai, the vice principal of West Lake High School, Purple Lightning Bamboo had never reacted like this.

"Oh?" The old man was clearly surprised by Mu Qing's attitude. He gave him a curious look, then said, "Just as you can see, this is a graveyard. But it isn't for burying the dead."

"Getting out of here is basically impossible. A Barrier surrounds this graveyard, and even I can't get out."

"As for your Blood Spirit..."

After patiently answering Mu Qing's first two questions, the old man's eyes suddenly blazed with brilliant light.

He studied Mu Qing with keen interest before finally saying, "I'd always heard that certain organizations and powers were researching something called a Blood Spirit Potion, which could give someone a Second Blood Spirit. I never thought they'd really manage to develop it!"

Mu Qing's heart gave a lurch, and his eyes instantly turned wary.

The old man's words made it obvious that he knew the secret of Mu Qing having two Blood Spirits.

His mysterious father had told him that the Blood Spirit Potion was a top secret and must never be revealed.

"Heh heh heh, don't be nervous. I won't do anything to you." The old man scratched his tangled hair, showing that he meant no harm.

He said, "Dual Blood Spirits are nothing special. Only ordinary powers think they're precious."

The old man picked his nose without a care.

Once Mu Qing was sure the other man meant him no harm, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Your Blood Spirit should be the fabled Mutated Blood Spirit," the old man said.

"Bloodline inheritance means most people inherit their Blood Spirits from their parents. But in a small number of people, the Blood Spirit mutates. Its attribute remains the same as their parents', but its form and abilities undergo a world-shaking change."

The old man explained this to Mu Qing.

"You mean my Blood Spirit is a Mutated Blood Spirit?" Mu Qing looked stunned.

He thought it over and felt that the old man's words made some sense.

His father, Mu Yu, had told him that the Blood Spirit he awakened would be a Mad Shark Blood Spirit. But the Blood Spirit he had actually awakened was a Little Black Fish.

The old man grinned, showing a mouthful of yellow teeth. "There are two kinds of Mutated Blood Spirits. One needs a large amount of energy with the same attribute; the other changes form every time its owner breaks through a major realm."

"Clearly, your Blood Spirit is the first kind." He looked at Mu Qing and clicked his tongue in wonder. "Dual Blood Spirits and a Mutated Blood Spirit—both exceptional cases have appeared in you. How remarkable!"

"So that's it." Mu Qing nodded, suddenly enlightened.

The old man looked at Mu Qing. The next moment, a terrifying surge of Mental Power welled up inside him, crashing like a raging sea. Ripples spread through the surrounding space.

Mu Qing's pupils contracted. He thought the old man was about to attack and tried to fight back, only to discover that the terrifying Mental Power had immobilized him.

That immense Mental Power flooded into his body, but it didn't touch his mind or his dantian. Instead, it spread out and gathered around the wounds covering him.

Incredibly, Mu Qing's serious injuries began healing at a speed visible to the naked eye. Even the scars vanished without a trace.

"This..." Mu Qing stared in astonishment. All the pain in his body had disappeared, his injuries were gone, and he felt refreshed from head to toe. Even breathing felt effortless.

The old man withdrew his Mental Power and smiled. "What do you think? An old friend of mine taught me this. People call him Quack Doctor, but he does have a few tricks up his sleeve. This Mental Power Healing Method was one he invented himself."

"Now do you believe I won't attack you?"

Mu Qing looked at him with newfound respect. "May I ask your name, Senior? I'm deeply grateful."

He had been seriously injured and would have needed a long time to recover. He wouldn't have been able to continue the mock exam and might not have made the top ten.

Now that his injuries were healed, he had his fighting strength back and could face Liu Tianyu and Wang Haixuan again.

The old man narrowed his eyes and asked in return, "Are you a student at West Lake High School? What are you doing here?"

Mu Qing answered, "The College Entrance Exam is coming up, and our school is holding a mock exam on Lake Heart Island!"

"I can't believe so much time has passed. But you're lucky. The students who wandered in here during the previous mock exams all died," the old man said with a sigh.

"Died?" Mu Qing didn't understand.

The place was certainly strange, but it didn't seem dangerous.

"Yes... they all died." The old man grinned. "I killed them all."

A bone-chilling cold rose up Mu Qing's spine. He couldn't help taking a step back, his pupils narrowing as he stared at the smiling old man, who seemed utterly unconcerned. His heart shuddered.

The old man's smile faded, and he walked over to the gray-black curtain of light.

According to him, that gray-black curtain of light was actually a Barrier.

"I was once the principal of West Lake High School. My name is Ke Fei." He placed his withered palm against the Barrier, triggering its backlash.

The symbols on the gray-black Barrier trembled as wave after wave of terrifying power surged forth. Flames blazed one moment; icy cold filled the air the next.

It was plain to see that flames covered one half of Ke Fei's body, the heat terrifyingly intense, while frost had already formed over the other half.

He paid no attention to it, letting the frost and flames ravage his body.

Standing behind him, Mu Qing saw an apparition appear over Ke Fei and gradually solidify. It was a flying dragon with three heads, sharp claws, and black scales covering its entire body. Its terrifying pressure spread through the air, making it hard to breathe.

Ke Fei said, "I used to live in pain. People called me Madman because I suffered from a mental disorder—I had two personalities inside me."

"One was bloodthirsty, the other gentle. In the end, the Bloodthirsty Personality took control of my body and killed many people, Fierce Beasts and humans alike."

"When the Gentle Personality took control again, he found that the Federation had already issued a warrant for my arrest, and even my friends and family looked at me differently. He didn't want the Bloodthirsty Personality to return and harm anyone."

"So the Gentle Personality sealed himself away on Lake Heart Island. Using the power of the Dual Blood Spirit, he set up the strongest Barrier and buried himself!"

Ke Fei's hand trembled slightly. "The Bloodthirsty Personality was trapped. When he realized he couldn't get outside the Barrier, he went completely mad. He brutally killed every West Lake High School student who wandered inside."

"Then, Senior, are you... the Gentle Personality?" Mu Qing asked, trembling with fear.

From the very beginning, he had felt that something was off about the man who claimed to be the former principal. He didn't seem like the so-called Gentle Personality at all.

"No." Ke Fei shook his head. After a pause, he added, "But I'm not the Bloodthirsty Personality either."

"Both of my old personalities are dead, in a sense. I'm a brand-new personality." Ke Fei said this, then withdrew his hand and dismissed his Blood Spirit.

As the Three-Headed Dragon Blood Spirit disappeared, Mu Qing finally noticed that the middle head's eyes were full of life, while the pupils of the heads on either side were pitch-black, as if lifeless.

"Looks like you noticed," Ke Fei said with a grin.

He continued, "The reason I used to suffer from a split personality was my Blood Spirit. After an unexpected encounter, it mutated, and a third head grew between the original two. That head was my personality."

"I took control of everything, while the other two personalities fell completely silent."

Mu Qing listened as if he were hearing a strange tale. He took a deep breath. He had only awakened his Blood Spirit recently, and this was the first time he had seen anything so extraordinary.

He hadn't expected a Blood Spirit to affect a person so profoundly.

"So, kid, you're lucky. At least you don't have to die," Ke Fei said, dropping onto the ground without the slightest air of a powerful figure.

"But you'll need to prepare yourself," he said.

"What do you mean?" Mu Qing frowned, then looked toward the Barrier, as if he had figured something out.

"The Gentle Personality set up this Barrier. It's incredibly powerful. This graveyard has a total of one hundred and eight tombstones, each one an entire seal. It's taken more than a decade, and only just now did the first seal break." Ke Fei sighed.

He looked rather dejected. He had finally cured his split personality, only to find that he couldn't get out.

"Is there really no way out?" Mu Qing asked urgently, unable to accept it.

"If even I, with a bloodline at the peak of the ninth rank, can't do it, do you think you can?" Ke Fei said.

He seemed to have given up. In more than a decade, he had only managed to smash one tombstone and break one of the hundred-plus seals.

"Maybe if those two personalities were still around, I'd have broken through the ninth rank long ago and become someone beyond the Martial Venerable realm." Ke Fei smiled bitterly.

He admitted that he was no match for those two personalities. He told Mu Qing that if they were still around, his strength would be terrifying beyond measure.