An Unexpected Reward

Yu Xiaogang's consciousness was already growing hazy. His whole body was swollen, and his pupils and lips had turned a bizarre, bright purple.

Still, he did his best to stay awake, keeping an eye on his disciple's Soul Ring absorption.

When he saw the entire process end at lightning speed after a mere five minutes, his spirits—which had already sunk to rock bottom—plummeted even further.

The time it took to add a Soul Ring could give a very straightforward measure of how far the Soul Beast's age fell below the Soul Master's maximum limit.

Strengthening the body and spirit, evolving the Martial Soul, and absorbing Soul Power were not things that happened all at once.

Generally speaking, anything taking at least half an hour could be called not too bad. If you wanted something good, it had to take over an hour.

Five minutes—sometimes even taking a dump lasted longer.

He was just about to tell Tang San to hurry over and help him with the poison when he heard his disciple's question.

Even someone with a face as thick as a city wall couldn't help blushing a little. He was utterly baffled.

You've got to be kidding me. You're actually unsure about this?

Was your brain hit with the Clear Sky Hammer by Tang Hao or something?

Born into one of the Upper Three Sects and having once infiltrated Spirit Hall, Gangzi knew all too well how rare and precious weapon skills were.

Though he might have struggled to explain why everyone coveted them so much.

And Tang San's skill was just flinging out the vines of Blue Silver Grass...

How was he supposed to describe it?

He had seen every ten-year Soul Skill in Nuoding Academy's history, and never had he seen one this useless.

Gangzi didn't dare agree with Tang San. It was easy to get caught lying about something so obvious, and he didn't want to discourage his disciple too much either.

After thinking it over, he simply tipped his head to one side, fell to the ground, and passed out.

At Nuoding Academy, Huang Tian was sweating buckets as he joined Xiao Wu in their workout. In the middle of a push-up, he suddenly froze in midair, a look of clear astonishment appearing on his face.

"Holy crap, that works too?"

A reward notification had just appeared on the virtual screen in front of him.

[Defeat Tang San Three Times]:

The host's first Soul Ring is the Blue Silver Emperor, with superlative quality, 99.99% compatibility, and an age of 1,399 years. It grants the extremely rare skill Blue Silver Saint Emperor Spear, which significantly enhances both the Martial Soul and the host's physical and spiritual constitution.

It also contains the essence of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast's soul. In another form, it may be converted into a Soul Spirit Ring and regain its Hundred-Thousand-Year cultivation.

Tang San's first Soul Ring is the Silver Shuttle Snake, with medium quality, -66% compatibility, and an age of 91 years. It grants the useless skill Blue Silver Thrust.

Because the Silver Shuttle Snake's poison attribute conflicts with the Blue Silver Emperor's life origin, and no yin-yang balance was achieved, the Soul Ring's poison strength has been drastically reduced to 10%, leaving only a faint numbing effect.

The Blue Silver Emperor's life origin has been weakened by 20%. The strength and purity of its life attribute have declined, and the probability of successfully undergoing a Second Awakening has decreased.

The host defeated Tang San,

Reward: +100,000 Achievement Points

"Good, good, good! Hahaha!"

Huang Tian scrambled to his feet, planted his hands on his hips, and burst into laughter. He couldn't suppress the delight on his face at all.

It was such a joyous occasion. He didn't want to hold himself back too much.

He was a kid, after all. Suddenly acting like a lunatic was perfectly normal.

He had searched high and low, only for it to fall into his lap.

He had just been thinking he was still short by tens of thousands of Achievement Points, and now they'd practically been delivered to him.

Yu Xiaogang really was an honest fellow.

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

"Even though I still don't know how she did it,"

"Silver~Dragon~King~is~awesome~!" he shouted, his voice cracking.

Beside him, Xiao Wu raised her head with a puzzled look.

"Hehehe, Huang Tian, what are you laughing about?"

"I just thought of something funny. What about you? What are you laughing at?"

"Hehe, I saw you laughing, so I couldn't help laughing too. Hehehe."

"Then let's laugh together. Haha, hahahaha."

"Hehehe."

In an unmarked mountain range, Tang Hao wore a tattered set of clothes that hadn't been washed in ages. The seams beneath his arms had split open, and there were tears across his chest and back.

Grime had caked the cuffs and hem, pressed flat and polished smooth until they gleamed with a strange, oily sheen.

He was a mess himself, with a sallow face and unkempt hair that had gone years without being cut or washed. It grew in tangled clumps, matted into a nest.

Only his eyes remained different. They were so calm, utterly without the slightest ripple, as if nothing in the outside world could shake him—an expression almost beyond what a normal person could possess.

Tang Hao neither flew nor broke into a run. He simply walked forward, one slow step at a time.

As if he didn't care about the passage of time at all, letting the sun rise and set as it pleased.

After who knew how long, he arrived at a mountain hollow, surrounded by ranges on all sides and lush with verdant life. A small peak rose in the middle, with a magnificent waterfall pouring down from its summit.

Only then did a trace of reminiscence, along with some complicated emotion, finally ripple through his placid gaze.

After a long silence, a massive blacksmith's hammer appeared out of thin air in his right hand. With a light swing, he sent the waterfall flowing back upward, revealing the rock face behind it.

"Hm?"

Tang Hao was just about to leap into the air when his raised foot suddenly froze. He looked up in utter disbelief.

His pupils contracted violently. His head buzzed, his heart stopped, and enormous panic erupted across his face.

He had accidentally let his aura slip. His vast presence surged in every direction like a tidal wave, stunning a number of small animals and fish in the water.

The hidden mechanism behind the waterfall, which should have been perfectly sealed with no trace of anything amiss, stood wide open.

Its structure was incomplete, too, as if something had smashed into it, leaving countless breaks and dents.

"Ah Yin!"

Tang Hao cried out in alarm. With a thunderous boom, he shot into the air and flew straight through the entrance, forcing his way into the cramped cave until the wind howled around him.

It took only a moment for him to see the little mound of earth in the stone chamber at the very end. The Blue Silver Emperor that had been planted there was indeed gone.

The place where the Soul Bone had been kept was empty, too. The other party hadn't even bothered to close the mechanism again, leaving its cover dangling open as if to mock him.

Tang Hao froze for a moment. His expression abruptly turned hideous, and murderous light shot from his eyes as if he could tear someone to pieces.

He roared in a ferocious voice:

"Who was it?"

"Who the hell was it?"

He had deliberately chosen a remote mountain forest where no one ever ventured, so of course no one answered. Only his ferocious shouts echoed again and again.

"Ah~~~"

The Clear Sky Hammer suddenly swelled in size. He swung it with wild force in the narrow space, and the mountaintop exploded with a thunderous crash. Countless rocks scattered through the air like flowers flung by a goddess.

But no matter how madly he raged, the heavens, the mountains, the rivers, and the lakes remained unmoved. No one ever came to answer his questions.

What sent Tang Hao into the greatest emotional turmoil wasn't the theft of the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Bone. It was why the thief had taken Ah Yin.

She was merely a Blue Silver Grass with less than a hundred years of cultivation. At most, her leaves bore golden veins, making her look a little strange. She wasn't worth caring about.

She could have been ignored, or even destroyed. Why take her away?

Six years ago, when that seed had sprouted just two hours after it was planted, he had known:

If the environment were blessed enough, there was a great chance Ah Yin could revive and return.

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

A transformed Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast could become a Titled Douluo with virtually no bottlenecks, and even its accumulated Soul Power far surpassed that of human geniuses.

Tang Hao regretted it bitterly and slapped himself hard across the face.

"People really can't afford to be softhearted. Leaving that seed behind was idiotic."