Great Harvest! Second Spirit Ring, Teleportation Skill!

Deep within the Soul Hunting Forest.

The two-thousand-year-old Void Bamboo turned into specks of starlight and merged into Lin Chuan's body.

A vast and strange spatial energy instantly swept through his entire body.

Lin Chuan sat cross-legged. This time, the process was unusually simple.

Half an hour later.

He had finished absorbing it.

"Phew—"

He exhaled a breath of stale air and felt the Soul Power surging through his body.

"I'm already level twenty-four?"

Lin Chuan rose to his feet and lightly clenched his fist. A faint explosive crack echoed through the air.

Tang San and the Grandmaster beside him had long since been struck dumb.

Tang San had only barely broken through to level twenty-two after absorbing that seven-hundred-year-old Ghost Vine.

Yet after absorbing his second Spirit Ring, Lin Chuan's Soul Power fluctuations had directly surged by a massive amount. That heavy, solid feeling was far beyond what a newly advanced Soul Grandmaster could possess.

"Level twenty-four?"

Yu Xiaogang swallowed, his voice dry.

"You rose several levels immediately after obtaining your second Spirit Ring. Such a foundation of Soul Power is simply unheard of."

Tang San had been feeling rather pleased with himself, but upon looking at Lin Chuan now, he suddenly felt powerless.

"I've fallen behind again..."

Tang San gave a bitter laugh and thought to himself:

Brother Lin Chuan is like an insurmountable mountain.

Every time I think I've climbed a little higher, I look up and see that Brother Lin Chuan is already standing among the clouds.

"Lin Chuan, try out your Spirit skill."

Suppressing the shock in his heart, the Grandmaster asked impatiently:

"The skill bestowed by the Void Bamboo cannot be ordinary."

Lin Chuan nodded, a smile curling across his lips.

"Second Spirit skill: Space Teleportation."

At a thought from him, the purple Spirit Ring beneath his feet suddenly lit up.

The next second, without any warning, Lin Chuan's figure vanished into thin air.

It was not an afterimage created by extreme speed.

He had physically disappeared for real.

Almost at the same instant, atop the crown of a towering tree fifty meters away.

Lin Chuan appeared out of nowhere, casually plucking a wild fruit as he did.

"Crunch."

Lin Chuan took a bite of the fruit, and his figure flickered again.

He instantly returned before Tang San and the Grandmaster as if he had never left.

"So fast! There wasn't even a hint of Soul Power fluctuation beforehand!"

Tang San pushed his Purple Demon Eye to its limit, yet he could only catch the faintest ripple in space.

While chewing the fruit, Lin Chuan analyzed the skill in his mind.

"It's kind of like the beginner version—or rather, the potential version—of Xiao Wu's Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone skill."

He knew very well that in the original story, Xiao Wu's teleportation allowed her to continuously shift within a hundred-meter range without delay.

His own [Space Teleportation] currently had a normal range of fifty meters around him.

Within that range, teleporting was as easy as breathing and consumed very little Soul Power.

"If Soul Power is like stamina, teleporting within fifty meters is like lifting a very light dumbbell. I can do it frequently and repeatedly."

"I can even use it several times in succession, creating a ghostly combat style."

However, that was far from this skill's limit.

Lin Chuan closed his eyes and sensed the connection between his Void Bamboo Martial Soul and space.

"If I disregard the consequences and compress all my Soul Power before releasing it at once..."

A realization welled up in his heart.

Ordinary teleportation was technique, while burst teleportation was power.

As long as he had enough Soul Power, he could cross an enormous distance in a single leap.

"Tang San, Grandmaster, take your time walking. I'll scout ahead first."

Lin Chuan suddenly grinned mischievously.

Before the two could react, the Soul Power around Lin Chuan violently erupted.

His entire body transformed into a distorted streak of silver light, instantly piercing through layer after layer of dense forest.

At that moment, Lin Chuan felt as though he were traveling through a spatial tunnel.

In only a few breaths.

While Tang San and the Grandmaster were still at the edge of the Soul Hunting Forest's core area.

Lin Chuan had already appeared at the gates of Notting Spirit Master Academy!

The speed at which he crossed such distance was simply inconceivable.

"The Void Bamboo is, after all, a pure spatial plant-type soul beast. It specializes in this."

Lin Chuan contentedly brushed the fallen leaves from his clothes.

"Even though Xiao Wu is a hundred-thousand-year soul beast, that rabbit doesn't primarily cultivate space."

"Once my Soul Power rises later on, this skill will become divine."

Thinking of this, Lin Chuan was in a great mood.

"This isn't cheating. It's called making reasonable use of resources."

"A little exploit doesn't count as cheating."

Not long after Lin Chuan and Tang San returned from obtaining their Spirit Rings, Xiao Wu also took leave to visit home.

A few days later, when that little pink rabbit hopped back to the academy.

She, too, had a bright hundred-year Spirit Ring around her.

"I got my second Spirit Ring too!"

Xiao Wu proudly showed off to Tang San:

"And I was super lucky! Not long after entering the forest, I ran into a hundred-year soul beast that had fainted. I just finished it off."

Tang San: "..."

He looked at the carefree Xiao Wu, then thought of Brother Lin Chuan, who had found a Void Bamboo just by taking a casual stroll.

A deep sense of defeat rose within him.

"Is this what they call fate?"

Tang San lowered his head and looked at his hands, covered in calluses.

They were marks left by years of blacksmithing and practicing hidden weapons.

"Brother Lin Chuan is heaven's chosen son. He can find top-grade soul beasts while walking and gain Soul Power while sleeping."

"Xiao Wu is heaven's chosen daughter. She can casually wander around and stumble upon bargains."

"So I'm the only ordinary person? I'm the only one playing on hell difficulty?"

Tang San did not become jealous because of it. Instead, it stirred the tenacity deep in his bones.

"Since I don't have that heaven-defying luck, I'll use ten times, a hundred times the effort to fill this gap!"

From that day onward, the students of Notting Academy discovered.

Tang San, who had already been diligent, had practically turned into a cultivation fanatic.

He attended classes during the day, forged iron at noon, sparred in the afternoon, and cultivated the Mysterious Heaven Skill at night.

Even while walking, he pondered the footwork of the Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track.

Lin Chuan, lying on the dormitory roof and basking in the sun, watched Tang San sweat below and could not help scratching his head.

"Strange. I've been busy slacking off lately, so I haven't had time to push him."

"How did this kid go and pump himself full of motivation?"

Lin Chuan turned over and adjusted himself into a more comfortable position.

"Forget it. It's a good thing for a kid to love studying."

"I won't interrupt his progress. I should work hard too... work hard at taking this afternoon nap properly."

Time flew by.

Six years at Notting Academy came to an end amid a mixture of calm days and shocking moments.

Tang San, twelve years old, level-thirty Soul Grandmaster. His Soul Power had overflowed, but he had yet to add his third ring.

Xiao Wu, twelve years old, level-twenty-nine Soul Grandmaster, close behind him.

Lin Chuan, meanwhile, publicly displayed level thirty.

But Tang San knew what terrifying strength was concealed beneath Brother Lin Chuan's unfathomable aura.

Regarding the third Spirit Ring, Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang had his own considerations.

"We can't go to the Soul Hunting Forest again."

The Grandmaster looked at the three Little Monsters and spoke earnestly:

"The Soul Hunting Forest is merely a low-level soul beast forest raised by the empire. For a Void Bamboo to appear there was luck Lin Chuan must have cultivated over several lifetimes."