Cleansing Marrow and Tendons, Level 17 Spirit Power

Zhu Lu felt as if she had been struck by lightning. She stumbled back three steps, her face turning deathly pale.

"Huabin, Huabin... he's been left without an heir?" Zhu Lu's expression turned vacant.

"Then what are we supposed to do from now on?" Her expression slowly shifted toward despair.

The White Tiger Duke Mansion and the Zhu Family of the Star Luo Empire were bound together for generations. Once paired as partners, it was a lifelong commitment; unless one party died, there could be no other.

In a sense, it seemed Zhu Lu was destined to live as a widow in all but name.

Could it be that I'll have to address Huabin as my sister from now on? A truly absurd thought suddenly crossed her mind.

The story of how my husband turned into my sister.

A moment later, Zhu Lu snapped back to reality and glared at Du Weilun with resentment. "Dean Du, the culprit who attacked Huabin must be caught. We were assaulted within Shrek City; the Academy must give us an explanation."

Du Weilun's expression turned exceptionally grim at these words.

He knew clearly that Zhu Lu was right. Shrek Academy bore responsibility for the two of them since they had been attacked within the city walls. If the culprit wasn't found and the two of them publicized the matter, Shrek Academy's prestige would be swept away across the entire continent.

The number one academy in the world couldn't even protect two of its own students?

Who would dare come to Shrek Academy to study after that?

But the more he understood the importance of finding the culprit, the more agitated Du Weilun became.

There wasn't a single trace of Spirit Power fluctuation left at the crime scene, leaving him with no leads to follow.

If there had been even the slightest trace of Spirit Power, the experts within the Academy would naturally have had the means to reconstruct the scene, making the identity of the culprit clear at a glance.

The bizarre part was that they only found Dai Huabin lying in a pool of blood, with absolutely no traces of Spirit Power left behind.

There were only two possibilities for such a situation: either it was an inside job, and Dai Huabin had been attacked while caught off guard.

But since only Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu were there, that possibility had already been ruled out.

The second possibility was that the culprit's strength was so far beyond Dai Huabin's that he hadn't been able to put up even the slightest resistance.

The strange thing was, if the second possibility were true, Dai Huabin should have been dead beyond all doubt; how could he possibly still be alive?

Du Weilun was completely baffled. The more he analyzed it, the more bizarre the matter seemed, making the prospect of finding the culprit even more hopeless.

"Ah!" Just then, a shrill, miserable scream erupted from Dai Huabin inside the treatment room.

Du Weilun and Zhu Lu's expressions shifted, and they rushed into the room simultaneously.

"Ugh." Dai Huabin opened his eyes in a daze, realizing he was lying on a bed, and let out a weak groan.

"I'm not dead?" After a long while, Dai Huabin regained his senses and realized he was truly still alive, his heart filled with the joy of surviving a catastrophe.

But that joy vanished in the next second, for Dai Huabin discovered that his storage Spirit Guidance Device ring was gone.

He widened his eyes, frantically feeling his ten fingers over and over. Three seconds later, he confirmed the ring was truly lost and lay back on the bed, utterly devastated.

That was a ten-thousand-year Dark Demon Tiger left arm bone worth millions! Was it just gone like that?

A spirit bone passed down through the White Tiger Duke Mansion for thousands upon thousands of years, snatched away while in his possession?

Dai Huabin's heart twisted in agony. Just thinking about the consequences if his family discovered this made his scalp tingle uncontrollably.

Following that, Dai Huabin tried to sit up, slowly controlling every muscle in his body.

But he slowly discovered something wrong: one part of his body seemed to have lost all connection to him. He couldn't even feel the existence of that part anymore.

Cold sweat began to bead on Dai Huabin's forehead.

It can't be... could it be that I...?

A thought that terrified him to his very core sprouted in his mind.

"Ah!" Unable to bear it, Dai Huabin let out another shrill, miserable scream.

Du Weilun and Zhu Lu rushed in almost instantly.

Seeing Dai Huabin intact, both of them breathed a sigh of relief.

Zhu Lu rushed to the side of the bed, tears shimmering in her beautiful eyes. She sobbed, "Huabin, are you alright? Tell us, who was the culprit that hurt you?"

However, Dai Huabin, lying on the hospital bed, didn't say a word. When Zhu Lu looked up, she was shocked to find Dai Huabin staring at her with extreme hatred.

Dai Huabin looked at Zhu Lu, his eyes splitting with rage. He was so agitated that his weak body couldn't stop trembling.

In the next second, he swung his right hand and struck Zhu Lu heavily across the face.

"Slap!" A crisp sound rang out.

Dai Huabin's voice sounded like a vengeful spirit from the netherworld: "Bitch! Why did you harm me? I'll kill you!"

Driven by hatred, his body erupted with a surge of intense Spirit Power as he lunged at Zhu Lu.

Du Weilun was startled and hurriedly flashed between them, pulling them apart.

Zhu Lu was stunned, standing there blankly while clutching her face, at a total loss.

On the other side, Dai Huabin's eyes were bloodshot. His mind had been completely clouded by hatred, and he was desperate to kill Zhu Lu.

Caught in the middle, Du Weilun's brain was working at maximum capacity, nearly smoking, yet he couldn't for the life of him understand how things had devolved into this.

He looked up to the heavens and roared, "What on earth is going on here?!"

Outside Shrek City, in the hotel room where Huo Yuhao was staying.

After a night had passed, Huo Yuhao awoke from deep meditation, feeling his entire body's sinews and bones refreshed, his mind clear and invigorated.

But immediately, he sensed something was wrong, for a foul, unbearable stench was assaulting his nostrils.

Not only that, but a sensation of extreme stickiness was coming from all over his body.

"Damn, what is this? So disgusting," Huo Yuhao cursed.

He looked down and discovered that the clothes on his body had turned completely pitch black.

The foul odor was emanating directly from his own body.

He raised his arm and found that the surface of his skin was covered in a layer of black grime, as if he had fallen into a mud pit and been dragged back out.

Cleansing the marrow and cutting the sinews? Huo Yuhao realized in an instant.

This must be the special effect of the Black Water Pill, purging all the impurities from within his meridians and his body.

He sensed his condition slightly, and sure enough, his Spirit Power had risen from level 15 to level 17.

Joy welled up in Huo Yuhao's heart, but it was immediately followed by bouts of dry heaving caused by the stench on his body.

Unable to care about anything else, he stripped off his clothes and rushed into the bathroom to take a shower.

It took a full quarter of an hour of scrubbing before the indescribable odor on Huo Yuhao's body was finally eliminated.

But the bad news was that the bed, the bathroom, and Huo Yuhao's clothes in the room had all been contaminated.

Huo Yuhao had no choice but to go downstairs, speak with the hotel staff, and switch to a new room.

When the hotel staff member entered Huo Yuhao's previous room and came back out, the look of shock on his face, combined with the disgust and wariness in his eyes as he looked at Huo Yuhao, made him scratch his head in embarrassment.

In the end, Huo Yuhao took out a Gold Soul Coin as compensation, which finally made the staff member beam with joy again.

After all the commotion, the sky outside had unknowingly brightened, and the time had reached noon.

School starts in two more days; it's time to initiate my plan for the Ninja Tool Spirit Guidance Device, Huo Yuhao thought to himself.

Immediately after, he took a piece of scrap paper from his storage ring and began to carefully draw something upon it.