Uncle Sausage Appears, the Truth About Food

"Something's missing?"

Oscar lowered his head to look at the freshly made sausage in his palm, and the smug expression on his face collapsed.

Ma Hongjun was still chewing on a bun as he mumbled, "Little Ao, don't scare me. How can a sausage be missing something? Is it missing meat?"

Oscar held the sausage up to his nose and sniffed it, then pinched it with his fingers. His expression grew increasingly strange.

"It's not a problem with the taste. The Soul Power feedback is wrong."

Flender immediately turned to look at him.

"Little Ao, explain yourself."

Under the headmaster's stare, Oscar shrank his neck, but he still forced himself to say, "Every time I make a sausage, my martial soul gives me a bit of feedback. I can tell whether the sausage is complete or not, but when this one came out, there was a gap in the feedback."

Ning Rongrong immediately backed away two steps.

"And you still let us eat it? Are you trying to harm people?"

Oscar panicked and shoved the sausage toward his own mouth.

"I'll eat it first, all right?"

The moment he bit into it and the restorative energy entered his stomach, Ji Yuan opened a feeding channel through the water-source spores inside Oscar's body.

This time, Ji Yuan was not solely focused on Tang San.

When Oscar ate the sausage himself, the energy first flowed back into his meridians before a small portion was reabsorbed by the martial soul's origin. That returning flow happened to expose the underlying path of food-type Soul Power.

Ji Yuan's Demon Vine body was pressed within the inner layer of Tang San's shoe sole. All its fiery red patterns had been drawn in, leaving only its feeding aperture silently opening.

This was not ordinary Soul Power.

Nor was it medicinal power.

It could command damaged flesh to repair itself, restore vitality to exhausted meridians, and even allow a Soul Master to suppress their injuries again for a short time.

Ji Yuan compressed that fluctuation into the Demon Vine's core, and the dark red fibers immediately began to heat up.

The small amount of restorative power Tang San had consumed was only scraps.

The real bulk was inside Oscar's martial soul.

"Well?" Ma Hongjun leaned over and asked.

Oscar swallowed the sausage and rubbed his stomach.

"It can heal. It's not poisonous, and it hasn't gone bad."

Ning Rongrong frowned.

"Then why were you shouting just now?"

Oscar opened his mouth, but could not explain.

Flender adjusted his glasses, his tone carrying a warning.

"Little Ao, the greatest taboo for a food-type Soul Master is doubting your own soul skills. If you don't even trust the things you make, who will trust you?"

Oscar's face reddened.

"Headmaster, it's not that I don't trust it. I truly feel that something is wrong."

Zhao Wuji snorted from the side.

"You made so many yesterday, then kept making more this morning. It's normal for your Soul Power to be drained. Stop looking for problems where there aren't any."

Ma Hongjun immediately slapped him on the shoulder.

"Did you hear that? Even Teacher Zhao says you're weak."

Oscar turned and glared at him.

"Fatty, say that one more time, and I'll make you a little cured sausage next time."

Ma Hongjun's expression changed.

"Don't. Our brotherhood is still intact."

Xiao Wu looked at the two of them with disgust.

"Can you not talk about that while we're eating?"

Tang San did not join the conversation.

He was feeling the restorative energy inside his body.

According to what Oscar had said yesterday, the Recovery Sausage should not have had such a weak effect. Yet the injury on his arm was healing slowly, and the hollow feeling in his body had not been filled.

He had suspected Oscar, and he had suspected his own body.

But every time he circulated the Mysterious Heaven Skill, some of his internal energy would inexplicably vanish at a certain point, yet he could never find the source.

Tang San raised his left hand, just about to inspect his meridians, when Ji Yuan immediately sent a thread of gentle vitality over.

A cool sensation spread through the burn.

The tension in Tang San's shoulders and back eased.

He thought the sausage's aftereffects had kicked in.

Ji Yuan seized the moment while Tang San was distracted, sweeping away all the remaining restorative power and sending it into the deepest scorch marks on the Demon Vine.

The fibers that had been burned through by the evil fire began to reconnect, thin pale-green lines surfacing beside the fiery-red patterns.

The two forces did not clash.

The flames forced the Demon Vine's outer layer to harden, while the life energy rapidly repaired its interior.

Ji Yuan greedily closed his feeding aperture.

This sausage of Oscar's was even more valuable than he had expected.

Flender clapped his hands.

"Keep going, Oscar. Make another one for everyone."

Oscar pulled a bitter face.

"Dean, more? My Soul Power is really running low."

Flender looked at Ning Rongrong.

"Support-type Soul Masters have no right to choose the battlefield. What you need to learn today isn't how to eat sausages, but how to accept every bit of support your teammates can provide."

Ning Rongrong bit her lip.

"I know."

Flender did not let her off.

"If you know, then eat."

Oscar had no choice but to raise his hand.

"Your daddy has a big sausage."

Ning Rongrong took it and stared at the sausage for quite a while. In the end, she closed her eyes and took a bite.

The instant the restorative energy entered her body, Ji Yuan's spores latched onto the outer edges of her meridians.

The origin of Ning Rongrong's Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda rejected outside power more strongly. Ji Yuan did not forcefully take anything; he only siphoned off the overflow, then used her support-type principles to amplify the energy conversion.

What had originally been a single portion of restorative power yielded even more vitality after passing through the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda's amplification.

Ning Rongrong opened her eyes after finishing it, her expression strange.

Xiao Wu immediately asked, "What's wrong? Did it taste so bad it made you stupid?"

Ning Rongrong snapped, "You're the stupid one. I just feel like my Soul Power is circulating a little faster."

Oscar immediately puffed out his chest.

"See? There's nothing wrong with my sausage!"

Ning Rongrong shot him a glance.

"But there's something wrong with your chant."

Ma Hongjun burst out laughing beside them.

"That can't be changed. That's just how his Martial Soul is."

Oscar was about to argue when Flender had already turned his gaze toward Zhu Zhuqing.

"You."

Zhu Zhuqing took the sausage without another word. After taking a bite, she returned directly to her original spot.

The spores Ji Yuan had hidden within the shadows of her leg meridians stirred faintly, drawing the restorative energy into shadow nodes.

The speed origin of the Hell Spirit Cat carried a chill that allowed his roots to move more stealthily. Combined with the restorative energy, the Demon Vine's severed sections reconnected even faster.

Xiao Wu was the last to take a sausage. She stared at Oscar as she ate.

"If you chant that in front of me more than twice in the future, I'll beat you up."

Oscar raised his hands in surrender.

"I'll try to chant it far away from you."

Ji Yuan did not pass up the opportunity with Xiao Wu either.

The Soft Bone Rabbit origin possessed immense vitality. Once the Recovery Sausage entered her body, the life-energy reaction it produced was stronger than anyone else's.

Ji Yuan only siphoned from the edges and did not touch the core.

As a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, Xiao Wu was far more alert than the others. If he got greedy now, he would ruin a long-term blood bag instead.

After watching everyone finish eating, Tang San suddenly asked, "Oscar, when you make sausages, do you consume Soul Power, or the power of your Martial Soul itself?"

Oscar froze for a moment.

"Of course it's Soul Power. Otherwise, I'd have been drained dry long ago."

Tang San pressed on.

"Then why can the sausages directly heal injuries? Ordinary Soul Power can't do that."

Oscar scratched his head.

"How would I know? I'm only responsible for chanting the spell, then it appears."

Ning Rongrong gave a soft huff.

"Food-type martial souls are rare to begin with, and Innate Full Soul Power is even rarer. You'd be better off asking the dean than asking him."

Flender did not answer immediately.

He glanced at Tang San, then turned to Oscar.

"The strength of a food-type soul master lies in turning soul power into forms others can directly absorb. Little Ao's talent is greater than you imagine. If anyone dares look down on his sausages again, just wait until you regret it on the battlefield."

Oscar was so moved that his eyes reddened.

"Dean, you're the one who understands me."

Flender reached out and pressed a hand on his head.

"Cut it out. Keep making them. Today, everyone eats until your soul power is completely drained."

The gratitude on Oscar's face shattered on the spot.

"Dean, you're working me like livestock!"

Zhao Wuji laughed and cursed.

"You brat usually slacks off. This is the perfect time to make up for it."

Ma Hongjun held out his hand.

"Come on, come on, livestock brother. Give me one first."

Oscar gritted his teeth.

"Fatty, just you wait."

He began making sausages again.

Ji Yuan's attention was completely fixed on that hand.

With every sausage that took shape, Oscar's martial soul core released a segment of peculiar ripples. Those ripples briefly connected soul power with the laws of life restoration.

Through the spores, Ji Yuan harvested them again and again.

The more Oscar made, the paler his face became.

Flender noticed, but did not stop him.

This was training, after all.

But he did not know that Oscar's expenditure far exceeded the norm.

"Dean, I really can't go on."

Oscar braced himself against his knees, his forehead covered in sweat.

Flender frowned.

"You've only made this many today?"

Oscar looked up, aggrieved beyond measure.

"I don't know either. My soul power is leaking away especially fast."

The moment Tang San heard the word "leaking," his heart skipped a beat.

He was far too familiar with that feeling.

Ji Yuan immediately sent restorative vitality through Tang San's meridians, suppressing his doubts.

The suspicion that had just risen in Tang San's mind was dispersed by the ease spreading through his body.

Flender said in a deep voice, "Go back and meditate. We'll investigate again this afternoon."

Oscar nodded. Just as he turned around, however, half a sausage phantom surfaced from his palm on its own.

The phantom failed to take shape, and a dark-red hairline crack appeared across its surface.

Oscar stared at that mark, and the color drained from his face even faster.

"Dean, I didn't make this."