(A beautiful picture of Ma Xiaotao)
Ma Xiaotao woke in a daze.
She had never felt so relaxed.
The scorching evil fire inside her had completely vanished, as though a downpour had extinguished it without leaving a single ember.
So cool.
Not only did she no longer feel hot, but a hint of coolness seemed to seep out from her bones, bringing indescribable relief.
A breeze brushed over her skin, carrying a touch of chill.
She looked down.
Her face instantly flushed red.
"Damn you, Lin Ye! You just left me here after you were done!"
Embarrassed and annoyed, Ma Xiaotao cursed under her breath, hurriedly took a clean set of clothes from the ruby storage ring on her finger, and fumbled to put them on.
She peeled off the stockings, which were a sorry sight, balled them up, and stuffed them into her ring. The blush on her face lingered.
Lin Ye was too much. I'm a dignified Soul Emperor, and he actually screwed me unconscious...
She stole a glance at Lin Ye, who was meditating beside her, and her heart beat a little faster.
At the same time, she could feel the very real improvements she had gained:
All three of her Soul Bones now had ages of over a hundred thousand years!
And the improvements to her Soul Bones had raised her soul power by another two levels!
Ma Xiaotao took a deep breath to calm her surging emotions. As she gazed at Lin Ye's profile, which looked especially handsome in the moonlight, she had already made certain decisions.
Meanwhile, Xu Sanshi slipped out of Shrek City under cover of night.
He muttered to himself as he walked, his expression both excited and sleazy.
"That tractor's exhaust pipe actually earned me one A-San Value point... Who knew that thing counted as a back door too!"
He rubbed his hands together, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
Then I'll head out and find some weak Soul Beasts!
Although the system's earlier "Thousand Years of Death" punishment had utterly humiliated him in public, it had also made him realize that the system was real!
It wasn't a hallucination or a prank. It was a system that could give him genuine benefits!
He carefully browsed the system shop's exchange list, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
A hundred A-San Value points could buy him a Soul Ascension Pill!
That was a Soul Ascension Pill!
A treasure money couldn't buy!
How could he pass that up?
Why the hell should he bother cultivating anymore?
All he had to do was use back doors every day to earn A-San Value!
He happily worked out his plans as he walked.
He hadn't expected the tractor's exhaust pipe to actually work, but the second time hadn't counted. The system clearly wouldn't let him farm the same target repeatedly.
So he came up with a solution.
There were so many kinds of Soul Beasts out there!
Soul Beasts' back doors should count too, right?
Granted, people really shouldn't do that, but growing up in the Mystic Underworld Sect, he had seen no shortage of such freaks!
Besides, on his fifteenth birthday, the Mystic Underworld Sect's rules had required him to undergo a special martial soul second awakening ceremony.
After a rigorous selection process within the Mystic Underworld Sect, Jiang Nannan had been brought in to serve as the supporting medium for his awakening ceremony.
But that day, in an attempt to protect herself, Jiang Nannan had ended up feeding him a powerful hallucinogen.
That had caused his awakening ceremony to go horribly wrong.
Only after the drug wore off did he discover that there had been no supporting medium in the ceremony room at all—only a thousand-year-old turtle!
As a result, Xu Sanshi's martial soul evolution had been incomplete, leaving him with only half a Black Tortoise Shield.
Xu Sanshi snorted. "All that suffering back then was preparation for my system today!"
With that experience under his belt, earning A-San Value was no sweat!
Xu Sanshi quickened his pace and headed toward the forest outside the city.
A short while later.
"Don't run! I'm not going to kill you for a Soul Ring—"
Xu Sanshi was racing through the forest.
His eyes gleamed with a feverish light that would make any Soul Beast's skin crawl, fixed unwaveringly on the grayish-brown figure ahead.
The creature being chased was a male Komodo Giant Lizard Beast nearly three meters long, with an age of around thirty years.
Though a predator among Soul Beasts of the same age, he now looked utterly helpless.
The Giant Lizard Beast's four feet scrambled furiously, his thick tail lashing wildly behind him like an out-of-control whip. Wherever he passed, bushes cracked under the blows and shredded leaves flew.
"Hiss—!!!"
As the Giant Lizard Beast fled, he frantically flicked his forked yellow tongue, trying to drive off the pervert behind him with the sternest warnings he could muster.
Instead of slowing down, Xu Sanshi dropped into a sliding tackle, cutting in from the side.
Panting heavily, he shouted, "What are you running for? This young master can tell you've got exceptional bones! Be good and stop!"
The Komodo Dragon clearly couldn't understand human speech, but he felt that the aura coming from the human Soul Master behind him was a hundred times more frightening than a venomous snake.
He abruptly slammed to a halt, his four clawed feet plowing four deep furrows into the ground,
then suddenly turned around and opened his enormous mouth, exposing rows of hooked, razor-sharp teeth. He let out a low growl, trying to intimidate his enemy into retreating.
Far from being frightened off, Xu Sanshi's eyes lit up.
"Stop struggling. This young master won't kill you. Come with me, and you'll live the good life!"
With that, he actually charged again, braving the Komodo Dragon's death glare.
The Komodo Dragon completely lost it.
He opened his jaws, ready to make a desperate last stand, clear venom already seeping from his fangs.
Xu Sanshi wasted no time and summoned the Mysterious Tortoise Shell Shield. The heavy black shield gave off a cold, eerie sheen in the moonlight.
"First Soul Skill, Xuanming Shock!"
A powerful black shock wave burst from the shield's surface, knocking the Komodo Dragon straight to the ground.
Xu Sanshi lunged forward in a single bound!
[A-San Value +1]
Before long, the Komodo Dragon tucked his tail between his legs and stared at Xu Sanshi as though he had seen a ghost,
then darted deep into the bushes without looking back, vanishing without a trace.
Xu Sanshi threw his head back and laughed.
"Hahahaha—got my A-San Value!"
He glanced at the lonely "2" on his system panel, then at the Soul Ascension Pill in the shop that required a hundred points to exchange. His smile gradually faded.
"Still a long way to go..." He sighed and tried to get up to look for another target.
Only to discover that he couldn't even stand.
The next day.
Lin Ye went to the academic affairs office early that morning and submitted a soul hunting application.
Under Shrek Academy's rules, students who went out to hunt Soul Beasts for Soul Rings had to pay a substantial additional fee if they requested a teacher to accompany them.
Lin Ye could afford that much.
But he had no intention of asking an academy teacher.
The teachers the academy assigned were, at most, Soul Kings with cultivation in the fifties. They could manage a stroll around the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest,
but if anything unexpected happened, whether they could protect him was another question entirely.
He had Ma Xiaotao now, after all.
Lin Ye directly spent fifty points to issue Ma Xiaotao an S-rank mission: accompany Lin Ye and ensure he successfully obtained his second Soul Ring.
An S-rank mission offered generous rewards. Ma Xiaotao had no reason to refuse.
As soon as their morning classes ended, Wang Dong'er packed her things and walked out beside Lin Ye.
She moved noticeably faster than usual, clearly having something to say.
"Why did you cultivate so late last night before coming back?"
Wang Dong'er turned to look at Lin Ye, a hint of scrutiny in her large pink-and-blue eyes. "Let me come with you on this soul hunt."
Lin Ye shook his head without stopping. "Soul hunting is too dangerous. I can go on my own."
"On your own?" Wang Dong'er's voice rose, making several classmates ahead turn to glance at her,
"Are you sure you don't need a teacher to come along? I can pay for it!"
Before you continue