Rasengan's Debut Against a Bandit Soul Elder!

After traveling south for most of another day, the terrain narrowed again from open woodland flats. Mountains rose on both sides, forming a long, narrow valley passage.

Dense shrubs and tall trees grew along both sides of the valley. The canopy overhead nearly blocked out all daylight, dimming the surroundings and making the air feel stuffier and more humid.

Lan Tian slowed his pace, his five senses fully alert as his gaze swept back and forth between the shrubs and stone walls on either side. His intuition told him that this kind of terrain was the easiest place for people to hide.

Sure enough, as he passed through the middle of the valley, a rough, cold laugh came from behind a towering boulder on his right.

"Stop right there. Leave behind your money and medicinal herbs, and I'll spare your life."

A burly figure stepped out from behind the boulder.

He was a muscular man around thirty-five or thirty-six, nearly six feet three inches tall, broad-shouldered and thick-backed, with a fleshy face and a ring of short beard around his chin. He wore worn leather armor, and a massive spiked mace about five feet long hung from his waist. Its head was covered in thick iron spikes, and it looked exceptionally heavy.

He stepped into the middle of the valley, blocking the path ahead. A mocking smile hung on his face as he stamped lightly, and three soul rings rose from beneath his feet.

Yellow, yellow, purple.

A standard three-ring Soul Elder configuration. The third ring was purple, at least a thousand years old.

"I'm a level thirty-five Soul Elder." The burly man grinned, hefting the spiked mace in his hand. "Brother, if you know what's good for you, hand over your things yourself and save me the trouble. My mace doesn't know restraint. It wouldn't look pretty if one blow turned you into pulp."

Lan Tian stopped and sized him up from head to toe.

Level thirty-five, a strength-type martial soul. The weapon in his hand was heavy and cumbersome, so his fighting style should lean toward broad, crushing attacks.

Unhurried, he turned the storage ring behind his back and slipped it into his sleeve. His hands naturally hung at his sides as he spoke calmly. "This place is at least a hundred li from the nearest town. You're robbing people here alone. Aren't you afraid of running into someone you can't handle?"

The burly man laughed even more arrogantly. "Someone I can't handle? How many tough opponents could there be in the depths of Sunset Forest? I've been doing this for more than three years, and everyone I've met has been some cowardly herb gatherer. Their legs go weak the moment they see my mace. You're dressed in cloth, so you obviously aren't from some great clan. Why are you pretending to be tough with me?"

Lan Tian said nothing more.

He bent his knees slightly and lowered his center of gravity, setting his feet in a staggered stance. His right index finger lightly tapped twice against the seam of his trousers. This was his habitual preparatory movement before forming a Rasengan.

Seeing that he would not cooperate, the smile faded from the burly man's face and was replaced by impatience. "You refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit."

He suddenly gripped the spiked mace, pushed off the ground, and charged at Lan Tian while dragging the heavy iron weapon behind him.

He was far faster than his build suggested. The heavy weapon gave off a deep whistling sound through the air as it swept horizontally, carrying enough force to smash a person in half.

Lan Tian did not take it head-on. With a light shift of his feet, he dodged along the mace's trajectory. The gale of force swept past his back, snapping a small tree as thick as a bowl at the waist. It crashed down with a crack, scattering shredded leaves.

That strike was indeed powerful, but it clearly lacked much room for variation in speed. It might have been effective against ordinary people or Soul Masters unskilled in close combat, but Lan Tian could still find space to evade it.

Using the momentum of his dodge, he pulled back two steps. Soul Power had already begun silently gathering in his right palm, and a stream of golden light started to spin.

The burly man was not flustered after missing. Once he adjusted his center of gravity, he raised the mace again, and his second attack came crashing down immediately after.

This time, he changed from a horizontal sweep to a vertical chop, bringing it down from above with thunderous force.

Lan Tian sidestepped again. At the same time, his left hand sent out a strand of Blue Silver Grass vine that wrapped around the burly man's mace-wielding wrist. Borrowing the pulling force of the vine, he gave it a tug and shifted the man's balance slightly.

Though it was only by a few inches, the mace's downward trajectory was knocked off course. It smashed viciously into the ground beside Lan Tian's feet, sending shattered stones flying everywhere.

The burly man froze for a moment, clearly not expecting Lan Tian's Blue Silver Grass vine to possess such pulling strength.

He forcefully shook his wrist free of the Blue Silver Grass, but most of the contempt in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a trace of seriousness.

"Not bad." He muttered in a muffled voice, flicking his right hand as his first soul ring lit up.

A dark red glow suddenly covered the surface of the spiked mace. The iron spikes on its body trembled as if they had come alive, and the fluctuations of Soul Power rose by nearly thirty percent.

"First Soul Skill—Rock Shatter."

The burly man swung his mace again. This time, it was far faster than before. The dark red glow trailing from the weapon formed an afterimage as it smashed toward Lan Tian's chest with even greater force.

This time, Lan Tian did not fully evade. Instead, he took half a step forward, lowered his center of gravity to the limit, and slipped through the space beneath the mace, closing in on the burly man's side.

The Rasengan in his right palm was already half formed, roughly the size of a fist, but it still needed a few more breaths to take shape.

So he simply wrapped his left fist in Sun and Moon Power and threw a punch at the burly man's waist.

The blow was not weak. The burly man let out a muffled groan and staggered half a step sideways, but his thick skin and tough flesh kept him from suffering any substantial injury.

"Is that all the strength you've got?" The burly man steadied himself and roared angrily. His second soul ring lit up in turn.

The dark red glow on the mace abruptly flared. The entire spiked weapon swelled by a full size, and the iron spikes on its body shot outward, blanketing Lan Tian like a rainstorm.

Every spike was wrapped in Soul Power, and the sounds of them cutting through the air were sharp and piercing.

Lan Tian's pupils narrowed slightly. As he retreated rapidly, he thrust both hands forward. Blue Silver Grass vines surged wildly from his palms, weaving together into a thick wall of vines before him.

The iron spikes punched into the vine wall with a dense series of thuds. Their piercing power was extremely strong. Several even penetrated the wall without losing their momentum, brushing past his clothes and embedding themselves in the tree trunks behind him.

The vine wall had been riddled with holes, but it had at least blocked the densest wave of attacks.

After unleashing his second soul skill, the burly man's breathing had noticeably quickened. Using two soul skills in succession had consumed nearly a third of his Soul Power, and he was unable to immediately launch a third attack.

This was exactly the moment Lan Tian had been waiting for. The golden sphere of light in his right palm had just finished forming, palm-sized with clear spiral patterns and a deep, powerful hum.

The burly man's pupils suddenly contracted.

Though he had never seen this kind of attack before, he instinctively sensed how dangerous the energy contained within that golden sphere was. He immediately began retreating, trying to raise the spiked mace horizontally before himself to block.

But Lan Tian was faster.

Empowered by Sun and Moon Power, his burst speed was nearly thirty percent faster than usual. He became a blur that shot low across the ground, closing to within three feet of the burly man in the blink of an eye.

His right palm, wrapped around the Rasengan, struck precisely at the center of the burly man's chest.

The instant the Rasengan touched the leather armor, the golden current spun wildly inward. The armor offered almost no resistance before it was shredded apart, and the rotating energy pierced directly into the burly man's chest cavity.

The burly man's expression froze between horror and agony. Before he could even open his mouth, the immense rotational force sent him flying backward. His feet left the ground, and he crashed heavily onto the rocky ground several steps away, kicking up a cloud of dust.

He struggled to prop himself up, but the penetrating wound in his chest had already completely robbed him of his ability to fight. Blood poured from the spirally torn wound. He could not even make a sound of pain as he stared at Lan Tian with wide eyes, his face full of disbelief.

Lan Tian stood several steps away, breathing steadily as the golden stream of light in his right palm slowly dissipated.

He looked at the bandit lying on the ground, completely unable to move. After a few moments of silence, he said, "Next time you rob someone, find out first whether they're someone you can afford to provoke."

He did not finish him off. He merely turned and walked around the corpse and the scattered rubble, continuing south along the valley passage.

The Rasengan's first real battle had produced even better results than he had expected.

A direct hit had pierced through the full defense of a level thirty-five strength-type Soul Elder in a single strike.

The power of this Self-Created Soul Skill had now been thoroughly proven in his heart.