Before long.
It was still in the grove behind the academy.
Lin Yan was heating the Millennium Whale Glue in his hand.
Wen Ruan had thrown a dark coat over her pale blue pajamas. Maybe it was because the night was too cold, or maybe not, but she looked more like the girl next door now.
Lin Yan couldn't help stealing a few glances. Though his junior schoolmate had a mature, alluring face and a slender waist, she seemed a little plump in other places.
For instance, her butt...
At just 1.2 meters tall, Lin Yan stood before the nearly 1.8-meter-tall Wen Ruan, his eye level landing right at her waist.
He hadn't noticed when she'd been wearing a long skirt, but the pajamas now revealed the general outline of her figure.
There was a healthy, voluptuous beauty to her that many slender women lacked.
That kind of beauty was also more likely to stir up desire...
"What is that stuff you're eating? Is it for helping you cultivate?"
Wen Ruan's mildly curious voice abruptly interrupted Lin Yan's thoughts. He came back to his senses, hurriedly shifted his gaze from her waist, and replied,
"Yeah! More or less. It's my secret recipe."
The girl pressed on.
"I feel like you've gotten a lot taller lately. Is it because of that stuff?"
Lin Yan didn't answer this time. He didn't want to tell anyone he didn't trust about the secret of Whale Glue; the stakes were simply too high.
But Wen Ruan clearly wasn't going to let it go. After spending several months together, the two had grown quite familiar.
She'd seen Lin Yan come to her twice, both times asking for her help to take that stuff. And over the past two months, his aura had grown noticeably stronger. So she instinctively figured that the translucent blob of glue had to be something good.
With that thought in mind, the girl gazed at Lin Yan, her eyes bright.
"Um... could you let me try some of what you've got there?"
Lin Yan glanced up, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
But he quickly relaxed. She was probably just curious.
"You probably wouldn't like the taste. Forget it."
As he spoke, Lin Yan swallowed the Whale Glue that had finally melted in his hand in one gulp, leaving not a trace.
Wen Ruan pouted at the sight. The anticipation in her eyes turned to disappointment, and she turned her head away as if in a huff.
"Humph!"
"You're so stingy."
But despite calling Lin Yan stingy, when she saw his body beginning to heat up, she still activated her First Soul Skill.
Lin Yan silently raised his opinion of his junior schoolmate.
She was the sort who had a sharp tongue but a soft heart!
She was kind at heart, an innocent and carefree girl. If he got the chance, he could try to save her. After all, she was a living, breathing person.
Lin Yan knew that six years from now, there would be no one named Wen Ruan at Shrek Academy. Not even in the original story had Ma Hongjun or the others mentioned this junior schoolmate. They'd only said that many students had died on the path to becoming powerful Soul Masters.
If he didn't intervene, then Wen Ruan's death would come tomorrow, during the Spirit Hunting Operation.
Sigh...
How could a Soul Skill that only cooled people down, and at most slowed things, possibly let her hunt a Hundred-Year Soul Beast on her own?
Shrek Academy! Flender, Zhao Wuji... you're truly leading people to their deaths.
Time flew by.
By midnight, Lin Yan had refined all the Millennium Whale Glue in his possession. Only the final piece, the one with ten-thousand-year properties, remained.
In Lin Yan's memory, after Huo Yuhao took the Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Glue, his Soul Power had risen by nearly an entire level. It had even raised the limit his body could withstand for a Soul Ring by a full thousand years.
In other words, setting aside the Whale Glue he'd taken before, this single piece of Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Glue would be enough to let him successfully absorb a thousand-year First Soul Ring.
At that thought, excitement filled Lin Yan's eyes.
Without another word, he immediately circulated his Evil Fire at full power and began roasting the Whale Glue in his hand.
Melting the Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Glue didn't go smoothly. Lin Yan's Evil Fire was extremely hot, but his total Soul Power was limited. He had to stop several times to recover before he finally melted the entire piece.
"It really is no ordinary thing. Even melting it has taken this much effort."
"I hope it'll be just as extraordinary in what it can do."
Lin Yan looked up at the sky and saw that it was already well into the second half of the night. The sun would probably rise in an hour or two.
"Phew, there's still time!"
He watched the golden, glue-like substance in his hand radiate a powerful aura and swallowed.
It was obvious that the energy in one piece of Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Glue was far more than just the combined energy of ten pieces of Millennium Whale Glue.
Out of respect for the unknown, Lin Yan decided to eat only half of it first.
Gulp—
His Soul Power wrapped around the scalding substance as it slid down his throat into his stomach.
In the next instant, an incomparably pure, searing heat swept through his entire body. Lin Yan felt as if every corner of his meridians had been set ablaze.
The inexplicable heat crazily tormented his nerves. Even though he'd found his rhythm for refining the Whale Glue over the past few days, his blood and energy still churned violently.
He was truly grateful he hadn't swallowed all the Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Glue at once. It was hard to imagine what might have happened otherwise.
Lin Yan didn't dare let up. He immediately began circulating his meditation method, focusing intently on guiding the medicinal energy.
In the clearing.
Seeing how focused he looked, Wen Ruan's curiosity, which she'd just managed to suppress, flared up all the more.
The girl could now be certain that whatever Lin Yan had in his hand was something good. Otherwise, he wouldn't have put himself through all that pain and spent so much money asking her to help him.
She just didn't know how good it could be.
Thinking back on how he'd changed over the past two months, Wen Ruan edged closer to Lin Yan without a sound.
Since the impurities in Lin Yan's body had already been purged, he wasn't in as sorry a state as last time. He was only drenched in sweat.
"What is that stuff, anyway? So secretive."
To keep Lin Yan from noticing her, Wen Ruan actually knelt in front of him and leaned down, twitching her little nose as she edged toward his hand.
The extremely improper posture did let her get a good look at the golden blob of glue, but its fishy stench also shot straight into her head.
"Ugh, it reeks!"
"How did he swallow that?"
The girl furrowed her brow. The pungent fishy smell was so strong that it even made her a little dizzy.
But even so, she wasn't ready to give up.
Lin Yan was afraid the Whale Glue would cool and solidify again, so he was holding it up in his palm and constantly heating it with his Evil Fire.
And that was just the opportunity Wen Ruan needed.
The girl carefully pinched off a tiny piece of the golden blob, then quickly stood up.
"Just one bite should be fine, right? At worst, I'll charge him less next time."
Wen Ruan's guilty eyes darted between the Whale Glue and Lin Yan. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but curiosity and a yearning for the unknown were the most common traits of a girl her age.
So she did it anyway.
Following Lin Yan's example, Wen Ruan wrapped the Whale Glue in Soul Power and swallowed it...