"Heh!"
"Heaven-Pain Kick!"
"Boom."
On the grassy lakeshore, Ning Rongrong leaped into the air and brought her right leg down like a battle axe, smashing it into the Rock-Crushing Turtle before her. The beast had tucked itself entirely into its shell, making it look like a small mountain.
A massive, muffled boom rang out.
Yet the shell before her didn't budge in the slightest.
The same scene had played out again and again over the past few days.
Having mastered the technique behind Super Strength, she had naturally picked up Heaven-Pain Kick with ease.
But held back by the strength of her Soul Power, she still couldn't break the shell before her.
Instead, the recoil kept leaving her legs numb.
With the deadline for her trial drawing closer and nothing to show for her efforts, Ning Rongrong began to grow anxious.
In the end, Gu Rong, who had watched the whole time, raised a question.
"Hey, Rongrong, did the trial ever say you couldn't use the Glazed Pagoda to help?"
"Hm?"
At his words, Ning Rongrong, Ning Fengzhi, and Chen Xin all looked up and glared at Gu Rong.
Their stares made him feel thoroughly uncomfortable.
"W-what? If you can't, you can't. Why are you all looking at me?"
"If it were really that simple, do you think we'd need you to point it out, old Bone?"
Chen Xin had barely finished his jab when Ning Rongrong cut him off.
The little girl's face was now alight with joy, as if she'd spotted a shortcut to completing her trial.
"No, it really doesn't seem to say I can't use the Glazed Pagoda to help."
The Battle God wanted to strengthen the successor's physique, so Ning Rongrong had instinctively assumed outside help was forbidden.
But after carefully checking the trial details, she couldn't find any such restriction.
"Haha, thanks for that, Bone Grandpa. Let me try again."
"Seven Treasures Have Names: First, Strength; Second: Speed!"
She summoned the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda and quickly applied two layers of support to herself.
As two streams of light flowed into her, Ning Rongrong instantly felt her strength and speed surge by thirty percent.
"I've been throwing punches and kicks so much lately that I forgot I'm a support-type Soul Master."
"Watch my Heaven-Pain Kick!"
With her strength greatly increased, Ning Rongrong backed away a few steps, then charged forward again and leaped high.
Her right leg slammed down at the shell with the force of a thunderbolt.
"Boom!"
This blast was louder than any of the ones before it.
The force seemed to pierce through the shell and reach the ground.
Cracks spread slowly across the grass beneath the Rock-Crushing Turtle, like a spiderweb.
And on the shell that had previously remained perfectly still, a tiny crack appeared.
There was no way such a scene could escape the eyes of a Titled Douluo.
Seeing it, Gu Rong immediately called out in delight:
"It's working! Quick, quick!"
"Rongrong, give it a little more!"
"Got it! Watch my Heaven-Pain Kick!"
Ning Rongrong backed away dozens of meters and repeated the same move.
"Boom."
With another Heaven-Pain Kick, the cracks on the Rock-Crushing Turtle's shell suddenly spread, extending across its whole body.
"One more and it'll break!"
After repeated efforts, Ning Rongrong finally broke through the Rock-Crushing Turtle's formidable defenses.
A Hundred Year Soul Ring quietly rose into the air.
At the same time, a notification sounded in Ning Rongrong's mind, telling her that she had completed the trial.
"Battle God Trial Fourteen, I Achieve My Dreams With My Feet I, completed."
"Reward: 40 days of cultivation; increase the age of all Soul Rings by 15 years."
"Battle God Trial Fifteen, I Achieve My Dreams With My Feet II."
"Maintain balance on all four limbs."
"Use your feet as hammers to smash the shells of ten Hundred Year Rock-Crushing Turtles."
"Time limit: ten days."
Ning Rongrong, who had just been basking in the joy of completing the trial, froze in place.
She hadn't had a day off in over a month! Were they trying to kill her?
Watching Ning Rongrong's resentful back, Sword, Bone, and Ning Fengzhi were dumbstruck, unsure what had happened.
"Rongrong, where are you going?"
"I'm gonna take on ten!"
In Suotuo City, inside the Broom Shop.
The corner of Lu Xian's mouth curled up.
"You just love exploiting loopholes. Fine, exploit this one to your heart's content."
He really hadn't considered the support from the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda.
Of course, he didn't mind too much. It was her Martial Soul, after all, so there was nothing wrong with using it.
Still, that feeling of being outsmarted had made him decide to crank up the difficulty for her.
Time and again, he had given Ning Rongrong missions to beat up turtles.
Only the number kept increasing by dozens of times.
After earning the title of Mighty Lumberjack, Ning Rongrong had now gained the title of Tortoise Terminator.
It wasn't until Ning Rongrong could easily smash through the Rock-Crushing Turtle's shell that Lu Xian changed his approach to the trials.
Part of the reason was the increase in Ning Rongrong's Soul Power after completing several trials. More importantly, she had already mastered Super Strength to a certain degree.
These trials were no longer difficult for her.
"In that case, I'll give her a full-body conditioning quest chain, and keep it going until the next major trial."
Far away at the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, Ning Rongrong looked at the Hundred Year Soul Rings scattered across the ground and felt a hint of pride.
There was no way a little support-type Soul Master like her could have managed this before.
"Ugh, I wonder how many more turtles I'll have to kill. These few hundred aren't enough!"
"Those baby turtles will take a hundred years to grow up!"
Fortunately, it seemed the Battle God understood her predicament. When the next trial was issued, Ning Rongrong finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Battle God Trial Seventeen: Advance Your Physique."
"Your current physique is no longer worthy of who you've become."
"Run ten laps around the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect."
"Requirement: carry a fifty-kilogram load."
"Time limit: one week."
Ning Rongrong had been relaxed at the sight of running laps, but the requirement to carry fifty kilograms left her dumbfounded.
"Your great-aunt weighs less than fifty kilograms!"
"Isn't that a bit much?"
"Would the challenger like to change the trial? If you choose to change it, the trial will become kicking a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast in the butt and successfully escaping!"
"Would you like to change it?"
"No, no, no, no need!!"
"It's just a fifty-kilogram load, right? Sounds great!"
The moment she heard about kicking a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast in the butt, Ning Rongrong wilted. You'd need a pretty tough hide to dare try something like that.
Grumbling all the while, Ning Rongrong went to Ning Fengzhi and asked him to make suitable weights for her.
Ning Fengzhi was initially astonished. Fifty kilograms would be difficult even for him, let alone his daughter, who was only a Soul Grandmaster.
But after hearing that it was a God Trial requirement, Ning Fengzhi had no choice but to suppress his objections. In just one day, he had made a full set of weights for his daughter.
A ten-kilogram weighted vest, plus ten-kilogram wristbands and anklets.
They were all crafted from rare metals, beautifully and intricately made, without looking bulky at all.
Yet once Ning Rongrong had put on all the weights, she still found it hard to take a single step.
"Good grief, I really have to run ten laps like this?"
"Forget it. I'll just start running."
Every step Ning Rongrong took left a deep footprint in the ground. She kept going until she disappeared through the sect gates. Ning Fengzhi and the others could only sigh with worry.
"The Battle God is trying to turn Rongrong into a Battle Soul Master by force!"
"I wonder if that's a blessing or a curse for the sect."
Ning Fengzhi shook his head with a bitter smile.
"Whatever the case, that's a god. We have no choice."
"Spirit Hall has become increasingly covetous of the continent's various powers in recent years. We need Rongrong, a top-tier combatant, to support the entire sect in the future."
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