Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well.
By now, darkness had completely fallen.
Tribbie packed the Immortal Herbs she had picked in cloth and set them by her feet, but her eyes stayed fixed on the water.
Two hours had passed.
She had tried using Soul Power to probe the bottom of the spring,
but the two extreme forces churned together, shredding even her perception.
Just then, bubbles suddenly rose to the surface.
At first, there were only a few scattered bubbles. Then,
the entire spring boiled and roiled like a pot of water over a fire.
Tribbie tensed at once, staring at that spot.
Then, with a sudden splash,
a figure shot up from the water, sending spray high into the air, where it broke apart into a cloud of mist.
Tribbie quickly recognized the figure as Ye Qiong.
Her expression immediately brightened with delight, and she called out:
"Principal!"
Ye Qiong looked down from midair and saw Tribbie. The corner of his mouth lifted.
Then he plunged straight down, flipped once in the air, and landed steadily on the ground with both feet.
Tribbie hurried over and grabbed Ye Qiong, looking him up and down.
"Principal, you're finally out. Are you all right? Let me have a look."
Ye Qiong smiled faintly, his eyes narrowing.
"I'm fine, Tribbie. Sorry for worrying you."
Seeing that Ye Qiong was truly unharmed, Tribbie breathed a sigh of relief. Then she looked at him in confusion.
"Principal, why were you down there for so long? Did something happen?"
Ye Qiong smiled and activated the two bones in his palms.
"Nothing much. I just had a bit of a fortuitous encounter and got two ancient Dragon King bones."
Tribbie looked at Ye Qiong, a flicker of surprise in her eyes.
Ye Qiong's level had actually gone up by two more.
"Dragon King bones... What are those?"
Ye Qiong briefly explained the story of the Dragon God and the Nine Great Dragon Kings to Tribbie, but said nothing about receiving the inheritance just now and agreeing to take it on.
It simply wasn't the right time yet.
After hearing him out, Tribbie finally understood. She looked at Ye Qiong and smiled happily.
"I see. Then it sounds like they're even more powerful than Soul Bones. I can't believe you got such an incredible opportunity, Principal. That's wonderful news."
Ye Qiong smiled without comment.
It was an opportunity, but also a responsibility he had to bear.
The moment he accepted the inheritance, he was bound to shoulder the duty of protecting it.
After all, he was a Trailblazer—though only in a game.
"All right, it's getting late. Let's hurry back to the academy. We can give the Immortal Herbs to Wang Sheng and the others tomorrow."
"Okay."
Tribbie nodded and summoned a teleportation gate.
A wooden cabin on the outskirts of Sunset Forest.
Dugu Bo flung open the wooden door and nearly tumbled inside.
Dugu Yan rushed out from the inner room. Seeing him, she froze for a moment.
"Grandpa!"
She hurried over to help him, but Dugu Bo waved her off. A trace of blood still hung from the corner of his mouth.
"I'm all right, Yan Yan."
Dugu Yan stared at him, her eyes rimmed with red.
"Who did this?"
Dugu Bo sat down in a chair, pulled a pill from his clothes, and popped it into his mouth. Only after recovering for a while did he speak.
"A brat calling himself Ye Qiong, the principal of Amphoreus Academy in Suotuo City."
Dugu Yan clenched her fists.
Her grandfather was a Titled Douluo, a man who could walk all over this continent without fear. And yet some young punk had beaten him into this state.
Dugu Bo braced himself against the chair and stood.
"Come on. We need to leave first. That brat had a woman with him, too. Her strength is unfathomable."
Dugu Yan asked no more. She stepped forward to support her grandfather, and the two left the cabin, making their way down the mountain along a narrow forest path.
After they had gone a long way, Dugu Yan looked toward Suotuo City.
"Ye Qiong, Amphoreus Academy..."
She would remember those names.
She would grow stronger, then grind that man's face into the dirt.
The next morning.
Amphoreus Academy's plaza.
Jiang Zhu had dragged Wang Sheng and the others out of bed first thing in the morning.
They hadn't even had time for breakfast. Now they stood on the stone paving, yawning nonstop.
Phainon stood beside them, his expression calm.
Cerydra stood at the very front, her back perfectly straight and her chin slightly raised,
her gaze sweeping over the area, her expression as if she were inspecting her subjects.
"Teacher went out with Teacher Tribbie all day yesterday. When they came back, she said they'd brought something incredible."
At Jiang Zhu's words, Wang Sheng perked right up.
"What is it? A magical elixir?"
Phainon glanced around at everyone, then spoke.
"The principal should be out soon."
Sure enough, the moment he finished speaking, the classroom building's door swung open from within.
Ye Qiong led the way, with Tribbie following behind him.
The two stopped at the top of the steps,
and Ye Qiong's gaze swept over the seven people lined up below.
On the system panel, their information lit up before his eyes one by one.
[Name: Phainon. Martial Soul: Khaslana. Power Attack System. Level: 32.] [Name: Cerydra (Caesar). Martial Soul: Scales of Justice. Support System. Level: 33.] [Name: Wang Sheng. Martial Soul: Battle Tiger. Power Attack System. Level: 21.] [Name: Jiang Zhu. Martial Soul: Healing Scepter. Support System. Level: 23.] [Name: Jing Ling. Martial Soul: Skeleton. Agility Attack System. Level: 23.] [Name: Huang Yuan. Martial Soul: Lone Wolf. Power Attack System. Level: 23.] [Name: Bai Chenxiang. Martial Soul: Sharp-Tailed Swift. Agility Attack System. Level: 25.]
Ye Qiong looked away and pulled a cloth bag from inside his clothes.
The bag wasn't large, but it bulged with its contents. A thin cord was tied around its opening.
Wang Sheng craned his neck to peek at it and asked curiously:
"Teacher, what's in there?"
Ye Qiong untied the cord and poured several differently colored pills out of the bag.
"These pills were refined from several Immortal Herbs that Teacher Tribbie and I brought back from a secret realm yesterday."
Wang Sheng's eyes went wide.
"Immortal Herbs? Can you become a god just by eating them?"
Ye Qiong couldn't help rolling his eyes at him.
"You've got quite the imagination."
As he spoke, Ye Qiong picked up a pill and tossed it toward Phainon.
Phainon raised a hand and caught it. He lowered his head to look at the pill in his palm and frowned.
The pill's color was a little strange,
yellow and purple, of all things.
Damn, had the teacher found out he liked yellow and purple?
Watching his reaction, Ye Qiong's lips curved slightly.
He had accidentally made the pills that color on purpose.
He couldn't help it. Whenever he thought of Phainon while refining pills, he pictured a plump little penguin in yellow and purple, hopping around as it sang:
"Yellow and purple little fish!"
Stop!
Ye Qiong was afraid he'd break into "Falling in Love with the Thunder God" if he kept thinking about it.
So he quickly suppressed the strange thought that had just popped into his head and looked at Phainon, beginning his explanation.
"I made this one with Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum. Eating it will send vital energy through your limbs and blood through all eight extraordinary meridians, making the body of a Power Attack System cultivator like you a lot tougher."
Phainon held the pill in his hand, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.
Even so, he promptly popped it into his mouth.