Unexpected Reward

Gangzi's consciousness was already dimming, his entire body swollen, his pupils and lips tinged with a bizarre, bright purple.

Yet, he still struggled to remain conscious, keeping his focus on his disciple's Soul Ring absorption process.

When he saw the entire process conclude at lightning speed—a mere five minutes—his mood, which had already hit rock bottom, sank even deeper into the abyss.

The time taken to attach a Soul Ring is a very straightforward metric for gauging the gap between the target Soul Beast's age and the maximum limit a Soul Master can withstand.

Physical and mental reinforcement, Martial Soul Evolution, and the digestion of Soul Power are none of them things that can be achieved overnight.

Generally speaking, anything over half an hour is considered not too bad; if one wants something better, it usually takes an hour or more.

Five minutes—sometimes that's not even enough time to take a dump.

Just as he was about to tell Tang San to hurry over and help him detoxify, he heard his disciple's question.

Even with a face as thick as a city wall, he couldn't help but blush, feeling deeply astonished in his heart.

You've got to be kidding me, you still have doubts about this?

Has this brain been smashed by Tang Hao's Clear Sky Hammer?

Hailing from the Upper Three Sects and having once infiltrated Martial Soul Hall, Gangzi was well aware of how rare and precious weapon-type skills were.

Though it might be hard to explain exactly why everyone craved them so much.

And this skill of Tang San's, it just flings out the vines of the Blue Silver Grass...

How should one describe it?

Looking back at all the ten-year Soul Skills in the history of Nuoding Academy, he had never seen one so utterly useless.

Gangzi dared not agree with Tang San; it was easy to get caught lying about such obvious things, yet he didn't want to crush his disciple's spirit too harshly.

After a moment of thought, he simply tilted his head and collapsed onto the ground, fainting dead away.

At Nuoding Academy, Huang Tian was sweating profusely while training with Xiao Wu. He suddenly froze mid-pushup, a look of distinct surprise appearing on his face.

"Holy shit, this actually works?"

Before his eyes, the virtual screen suddenly flashed a notification of rewards.

[Defeated Tang San]:

Host's first Soul Ring: Blue Silver Emperor, Super quality, 99.99% compatibility, 1399 years, extremely rare skill: Blue Silver Saint Emperor Spear, provides significant boosts to Martial Soul, physique, and spirit.

The Soul Ring houses a 100,000-year soul essence, with the potential to be converted into a Soul Spirit ring in an alternative form and recover 100,000 years of cultivation.

Tang San's first Soul Ring: Silver Shuttle Snake, Intermediate quality, -66% compatibility, 91 years, trash skill: Blue Silver Thrust.

Due to the conflict between the Silver Shuttle Snake's poison attribute and the Blue Silver Emperor's life essence, and the failure to form a yin-yang balance, the Soul Ring's poison intensity has been drastically weakened to 10%, leaving only a faint numbing effect.

Blue Silver Emperor's life essence weakened by 20%, life attribute purity decreased, probability of successful secondary awakening lowered.

Host has defeated Tang San.

Reward: Achievement Points +100,000

"Good, good, good, hahaha!"

Huang Tian scrambled to his feet, hands on his hips, and burst into loud laughter, his joy impossible to suppress.

For such a celebratory occasion, he didn't want to hold himself back.

They were just kids; it was normal to act a little crazy sometimes.

All that searching, and here it comes without any effort at all.

He had just been worrying about being short a few tens of thousands of achievement points, and now they were delivered right to his doorstep.

Gangzi really was a decent fellow after all.

"Wait, no, I should probably thank Gu Yue for this."

"Even though I don't know how she managed it yet,"

"But, the Silver Dragon King is just too damn awesome!"

Beside him, Xiao Wu looked up, her expression full of confusion.

"Heeheehee, Huang Tian, what are you laughing at?"

"I suddenly remembered something happy. What about you? What are you laughing at?"

"Heehee, I saw you laughing, and I just couldn't help myself, heeheehee."

"Then let's laugh together, haha, hahahaha!"

"Heeheehee."

In an unnamed deep mountain, Tang Hao wore a set of ragged clothes that hadn't been washed in ages; the seams under the arms were split, and there were holes in the chest and back.

At the cuffs and hem, grime had solidified on the surface, pressed down and polished until it took on a bizarre, oily sheen.

He looked a mess, his complexion sallow, his hair and beard growing wild for years without a trim or a wash, matted and tangled into a bird's nest.

Only those eyes remained calm, without a single ripple, as if nothing in the outside world could shake him—a gaze that didn't seem to belong to an ordinary man.

Tang Hao did not fly, nor did he run to accelerate; he simply walked forward, step by step, at a slow and steady pace.

It was as if he did not care about the passage of time at all, letting the sun rise and set as it pleased.

After an unknown amount of time, he arrived at a mountain col surrounded by peaks on all sides, lush with greenery, where a small hill rose in the center with a magnificent waterfall cascading down from its summit.

Only then did a trace of reminiscence, mixed with a certain complexity, finally ripple through his calm, unmoving gaze.

After a long silence, a massive black forging hammer appeared out of thin air in his right palm; with a gentle swing, he forced the waterfall to flow backward, revealing the rock wall behind it.

"Hm?"

Just as Tang Hao was about to leap into the air, his foot froze mid-stride, and he looked up in utter astonishment.

In an instant, his pupils contracted violently, his mind buzzed, his heart skipped a beat, and a look of immense panic exploded across his face.

He accidentally failed to restrain his aura, and his vast presence swept outward like a tsunami, shocking many small animals and fish in the water until they fainted.

He saw that behind the waterfall, the mechanism that should have been seamless and devoid of any abnormalities was now wide open.

Moreover, the structure was incomplete, as if it had been struck by something, leaving behind countless fractures and pits.

"Ah Yin!"

Tang Hao screamed in panic, his entire body erupting upward with a boom, flying precisely into the cave entrance, the wind whistling as he squeezed through the narrow passage.

In just a moment, he saw the small mound of earth in the center of the stone chamber at the end, and the Blue Silver Emperor planted there was indeed gone.

The spot where the Soul Bone had been stored was also empty; the thief hadn't even bothered to close the mechanism, leaving the lid hanging open as if in mockery.

Tang Hao stood stunned for a moment, his expression suddenly turning hideous, and a thick, murderous light shot from his eyes, as if he were ready to devour someone.

He roared in a ferocious voice:

"Who is it?"

"Who on earth is it?"

In the deep, secluded forest he had specifically chosen for its lack of human presence, there was obviously no response; only his own ferocious voice echoed repeatedly.

"Ah~~~"

The Clear Sky Hammer suddenly expanded, swung violently within the narrow space, causing the mountaintop to explode with a deafening roar as countless shards of rock scattered like falling flowers.

But no matter how he raged, the heavens, the mountains, and the lakes remained unmoved, and there was never anyone to answer his questions.

What caused Tang Hao to lose control of his emotions the most was not that the Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone had been stolen, but why the thief would take Ah Yin?

She was merely a Blue Silver Grass with less than a hundred years of cultivation; at most, her leaves had golden veins and looked a bit strange, but she was hardly worth noticing.

She could be ignored, or even destroyed, so why take her?

Six years ago, when that grass seed sprouted just two hours after being planted, he knew that—

If the environment were sufficiently unique and blessed, there was a high probability that Ah Yin could be resurrected and return.

But if that happened, given the things he had done, both he and the Clear Sky Sect would be in danger.

A Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast that had taken human form could reach the Title Douluo realm with almost no bottlenecks, and even the accumulation of soul power far exceeded that of human geniuses.

Tang Hao regretted his actions deeply and slapped himself hard across the face.

"One truly shouldn't be soft-hearted; leaving that grass seed behind was too stupid."