The yellow Soul Ring spun around his feet a few times before settling firmly around him.
Tang San hurried over and looked him up and down.
"How is it? How do you feel?"
Huang Fei felt the Soul Ring that had appeared inside him, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
He had a Soul Ring. He really did.
But it wasn't the one the system had ultimately awarded him.
"Not bad." Huang Fei stood up and dusted the dirt off his pants. "It's about the same as yours, a vine skill that can entangle things."
He didn't activate his Soul Skill to show Tang San.
There was no rush.
He could show it off later, once they were back and his real Soul Ring was in place.
Yu Xiaogang stood to the side, looking at the yellow Soul Ring around Huang Fei. The corners of his mouth twitched involuntarily.
A 120-year-old Green Vine.
Compared with Tang San's 430-year-old Vine of Life, it didn't even come close. The difference in age was more than threefold, so the Soul Skill's strength was bound to be far lower too.
That was what happened when you settled for whatever was at hand.
Huang Fei wasn't his target anyway. He could absorb whatever he wanted; it had nothing to do with him.
"Since you've both obtained your First Soul Rings, let's head back." Yu Xiaogang turned and walked toward the edge of the forest. "It'll be dark soon. Don't dawdle on the way."
Tang San acknowledged him and led Huang Fei after him.
By the time they left the Soul Hunting Forest, night had fallen.
Lights were twinkling in the distant Nuoding City, stretching across the horizon like a glowing ribbon.
Huang Fei walked at the back. He touched the Forty-Eight Moons Embracing the Stars fused into his waist, then lowered his head to look at the yellow Soul Ring by his feet.
A 120-year-old Green Vine Soul Ring.
It was just for show.
His real First Soul Ring was still waiting for him in the system's inventory.
By the time they returned to the academy, it was completely dark.
A few oil lamps burned in Dorm Seven, where the work-study students sat in twos and threes on their beds, chatting.
The moment Tang San and Huang Fei pushed open the door, Wang Sheng was the first to jump up.
"Boss! Brother Fei! You're back! Did you get your First Soul Rings?"
"We did." Tang San nodded.
"What color are they? How old?" Wang Sheng asked curiously, leaning closer.
"Yellow. Four hundred and thirty years." Tang San answered honestly.
A wave of astonished exclamations rang through Dorm Seven.
A 430-year-old First Soul Ring was top-notch among the work-study students.
Wang Sheng's own First Soul Ring had only been a little over two hundred years old. Hearing that number left him completely dumbfounded.
"What about you, Brother Fei?" Wang Sheng turned to Huang Fei.
"A 120-year-old Green Vine." Huang Fei yawned, his tone as casual as if he were saying what he'd had for dinner.
Half the astonished voices in Dorm Seven died away at once.
A hundred and twenty years really was nothing next to Tang San's four hundred and thirty.
But no one said anything.
Given how lazy Huang Fei usually was, getting a 120-year-old Soul Ring was already pretty good.
Tang San looked at Huang Fei, seeming about to speak, then stopped himself.
He wanted to say, "You could've found a better one," but worried it might make Huang Fei uncomfortable, so in the end he said nothing.
Huang Fei acted as if he hadn't noticed Tang San's look.
He sat on his bed, took off his shoes, and slipped under the covers.
"I'm going to take a bath," he said.
Tang San froze. "Didn't you just sit down?"
"I mean later." Huang Fei closed his eyes, muttered an indistinct reply, and went still.
Tang San watched him go into standby mode in less than three seconds, sighed, and left him alone.
Huang Fei wasn't really asleep.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the dead of night, for everyone in Dorm Seven to fall asleep, for the footsteps in the corridor outside to stop.
Then he would go to the bathhouse.
There, the real thing he'd been waiting for would be ready for him to claim.
Night deepened.
The dorm was filled with snores rising and falling.
Wang Sheng snored like a bellows, one rumbling breath after another, with an almost perfect rhythm.
Across the room, two work-study students huddled together on a bed, legs tangled, neither of them stirring.
Xiao Wu was curled up on the bed at the very back. Her ponytail had come undone, and her hair spread across the pillow. Surprisingly, she slept very quietly.
Huang Fei opened his eyes.
He hadn't been woken by the noise. He'd never fallen asleep.
He'd been waiting for this moment—when everyone was fast asleep, the footsteps in the corridor had vanished completely, and all of Notting Academy had sunk into the deepest part of the night.
He gently pushed back the covers and put his bare feet on the floor.
The wooden planks were icy cold, making his toes curl.
He didn't put on his shoes, carrying them in his hand as he crept across the long dormitory, placing each step in the gaps between snores.
Tang San slept near the door, lying on his side and breathing evenly.
Huang Fei paused as he passed him and looked down.
Moonlight slipped through the gap in the window and fell across Tang San's face.
When he was asleep, the seven-year-old boy looked much younger than he did during the day.
His brows were relaxed, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly, as if he were dreaming about something nice.
Huang Fei looked away, lifted the latch, and slipped outside.
The corridor was deserted.
Moonlight shone through the windows on either side, laying a silvery frost across the floor.
Huang Fei walked barefoot down the corridor, his soles touching the cold bricks with the faintest of taps, like a cat prowling through the night.
The communal bathhouse was on the ground floor of the teaching building. During the day, people came and went, but at night it was one of the quietest places in the whole academy.
No student wanted to come all the way here to bathe in the middle of the night, especially with the weather starting to turn cold.
The bathhouse door was ajar.
Huang Fei pushed it open and slid the latch into place behind him.
He didn't light a lamp.
Moonlight streamed in through the high window, casting a silvery patch of light across the pool.
That was enough.
Huang Fei walked to the far end of the bathhouse and sat on a bench, closing his eyes.
"Claim."
The system's notification rang in his mind, clear and cold.
"Ding—Detected that host has completed the basic acquisition of a First Soul Ring (Green Vine, 120 years). Claim system reward Soul Ring now?"
"Claim."
"Reward distribution in progress... Target Tang San obtained Soul Ring: Vine of Life, 430 years. Host obtained reward Soul Ring: Vine of Life, 860 years. Soul Ring level: Hundred-Year (yellow). Soul Skill: Life Entanglement (enhanced version). Fuse now?"
"Fuse."
As soon as the words left his mouth, Huang Fei felt that force within his body.
It was completely different from when he'd absorbed the Green Vine Soul Ring during the day.
That had felt like dropping a single drop of ink into a bowl of water—almost impossible to notice.
This time, it was like someone had poured an entire river into his body.
Warm energy surged from his dantian and spread along his meridians to every part of him.
It wasn't a violent impact, but a dense, weighty force, like magma churning deep beneath the earth.
His meridians stretched and filled, every inch of them letting out a comfortable sigh.
The feeling was hard to describe.
If absorbing a 430-year-old Soul Ring was like stuffing a brick into Tang San's body, then Huang Fei was now pouring an entire wall into his.
They were both Hundred-Year Soul Rings, but an 860-year-old ring contained more than twice as much energy as the other. Yet Huang Fei's body bore it effortlessly.
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