"Something's missing?"
Oscar looked down at the sausage he had just made in his palm. His smug expression collapsed.
Ma Hongjun was still chewing a bun. "Oscar, don't scare me. How can a sausage be missing something? Is it missing meat?"
Oscar raised the sausage to his nose and sniffed it, then squeezed it between his fingers. His expression grew increasingly uneasy.
"It's not the smell. The Soul Power feedback feels wrong."
Flender immediately turned to him.
"Oscar, explain."
Under the headmaster's stare, Oscar shrank his neck but forced himself to speak. "Every time I make a sausage, my Martial Soul gives me a little feedback. I can tell whether the sausage is complete. But when this one came out, there was a gap in the feedback."
Ning Rongrong immediately backed away two steps.
"And you still wanted us to eat it? Are you trying to hurt someone?"
Oscar panicked and brought the sausage to his own mouth.
"I'll eat it first, all right?"
The moment he bit down and the restorative energy entered his stomach, Ji Yuan opened a feeding channel through the water-source spores inside Oscar.
This time, Ji Yuan did not focus solely on Tang San.
When Oscar ate his own sausage, the energy first flowed back into his meridians, then a small portion was reabsorbed by his Martial Soul Origin. That return flow laid bare the underlying path of a Food-type Martial Soul's Soul Power.
Ji Yuan's Demon Vine body clung to a layer inside Tang San's shoe sole. Its fiery-red markings withdrew completely, leaving only a feeding pore opening soundlessly.
This was no ordinary Soul Power.
Nor was it medicinal power.
It could command torn flesh to mend itself, restore vitality to exhausted meridians, and even let a Soul Master suppress injuries again for a short time.
Ji Yuan pressed that fluctuation into the Demon Vine's core. Its dark-red fibers immediately began to heat up.
The bit of restorative power Tang San had swallowed was only scraps.
The real prize lay within Oscar's Martial Soul.
"How is it?" Ma Hongjun leaned closer to ask.
Oscar swallowed the sausage and rubbed his stomach.
"It restores me. It's not poisonous, and it hasn't gone bad."
Ning Rongrong frowned.
"Then what were you yelling about?"
Oscar opened his mouth but could not answer.
Flender adjusted his glasses, a warning in his voice.
"Oscar, the worst thing a Food-type Soul Master can do is doubt his own Soul Skill. If you don't trust what you make, who will?"
Oscar's face flushed.
"Headmaster, it's not that I don't trust it. I really felt something was wrong."
Zhao Wuji snorted from the side.
"You made so many yesterday, then kept making them again this morning. Of course your Soul Power's running low. Stop looking for problems."
Ma Hongjun promptly clapped Oscar on the shoulder.
"Hear that? Even Zhao Wuji says you're spent."
Oscar turned and glared at him.
"Fatty, say that again and next time I'll make you a Little Sausage."
Ma Hongjun's expression changed.
"Don't. We're still brothers."
Xiao Wu looked at the two of them in disgust.
"Can you stop talking about that while we're eating?"
Tang San said nothing.
He was feeling the restorative energy inside him.
Judging by what Oscar had said yesterday, the Recovery Sausage should have done more than this. Yet his injured arm was healing slowly, and the hollow feeling inside him had not gone away.
He had suspected Oscar, and he had suspected his own body.
But every time he circulated Mysterious Heaven Skill, some of his internal energy inexplicably vanished at a certain point. He simply could not find where it went.
Tang San raised his left hand, about to examine his meridians. Ji Yuan immediately sent him a thread of gentle vitality.
A cooling sensation spread through the burn.
Tang San's tense shoulders relaxed.
He thought the sausage's delayed effect had finally arrived.
While Tang San was distracted, Ji Yuan swept away all the remaining restorative power and sent it into the deepest scorch marks on the Demon Vine.
Fibers that the Evil Fire had burned through began to reconnect. Fine pale-green lines appeared beside the fiery-red markings.
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 pore.
Oscar's sausage was worth more than he had expected.
Flender clapped his hands.
"Keep going, Oscar. Make another one for everyone."
Oscar pulled a miserable face.
"Headmaster, more? My Soul Power really is running low."
Flender looked at Ning Rongrong.
"Support types don't get to choose their battlefield. What you're learning today isn't how to eat sausages. It's how to accept whatever support your teammates can give you."
Ning Rongrong bit her lip.
"I know."
Flender did not let her off.
"Then eat."
Oscar had no choice but to raise his hand.
"I Have a Big Sausage."
Ning Rongrong took it and stared at it for a long while. At last, she closed her eyes and bit down.
The moment the restorative energy entered her body, Ji Yuan's spores pressed against the outer edges of her meridians.
Ning Rongrong's Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda origin repelled outside forces more fiercely. Ji Yuan did not try to seize the energy by force. He drew off only what spilled out, then used her support rules to amplify the conversion.
Through the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile's amplification, Ji Yuan squeezed more vitality from a single portion of restorative power.
Ning Rongrong opened her eyes after finishing the sausage, 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 felt my Soul Power circulating a little faster."
Oscar promptly 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.
"He can't change that. That's just how his Martial Soul is."
Oscar was about to argue when Flender turned his gaze to Zhu Zhuqing.
"You."
Zhu Zhuqing took the sausage without another word. After biting into it, she went straight back to her place.
The spores Ji Yuan had hidden in the shadows of her leg meridians stirred gently, drawing the restorative energy into a shadow node.
The Hell Spirit Cat's speed origin carried a chill that let his roots move more covertly. Combined with the restorative energy, it made the Demon Vine's severed fibers reconnect even faster.
Xiao Wu took the last sausage, watching Oscar as she ate.
"If you chant that in front of me a couple more times, I'll beat you up."
Oscar raised his hands in surrender.
"I'll try to do it farther away from you."
Ji Yuan did not pass up the opportunity Xiao Wu offered.
The Soft Bone Rabbit origin held immense vitality. Once the Recovery Sausage entered her body, its life-giving reaction was stronger than anyone else's.
Ji Yuan drew only from the edges and left the core untouched.
As a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, Xiao Wu was far more alert than the others. If he got greedy now, he might ruin a blood supply he could draw on for a long time.
After watching everyone finish eating, Tang San suddenly asked, "Oscar, when you make a sausage, do you expend Soul Power or the power of your Martial Soul itself?"
Oscar blinked.
"Soul Power, obviously. Otherwise, I'd have been drained dry ages ago."
Tang San pressed on.
"Then why can the sausage heal injuries directly? Ordinary Soul Power can't do that."
Oscar scratched his head.
"How should I know? I say the chant, and out it comes."
Ning Rongrong gave a soft snort.
"Food-type Martial Souls are rare enough, and Innate Full Soul Power is rarer still. You'd have better luck asking the headmaster."
Flender did not answer at once.
He glanced at Tang San, then turned to Oscar.
"A Food-type Soul Master's strength lies in turning Soul Power into something others can absorb directly. Oscar is more gifted than you think. The next person who turns up their nose at his sausages can regret it on the battlefield."
Oscar's eyes reddened with emotion.
"Headmaster, you're the only one who understands me."
Flender planted a hand on his head.
"Save it. Keep making them. Today, everyone eats until your Soul Power runs out."
The emotion on Oscar's face shattered on the spot.
"Headmaster, you're working me like a beast of burden!"
Zhao Wuji laughed.
"You're always slacking off, kid. Time to make up for it."
Ma Hongjun held out his hand.
"Come on, my hardworking brother. Give me one first."
Oscar gritted his teeth.
"Fatty, just you wait."
He began making sausages again.
Ji Yuan fixed all his attention on that hand.
Each time a sausage took shape, Oscar's Martial Soul core released a peculiar ripple that briefly connected Soul Power with the rules of repairing life.
Through his spores, Ji Yuan captured those ripples again and again.
The more sausages Oscar made, the paler he became.
Flender saw it but did not stop him.
This was training, after all.
But he did not know Oscar was being drained far faster than normal.
"Headmaster, I really can't go on."
Oscar braced his hands on his knees, sweat covering his forehead.
Flender frowned.
"You've only made this many today?"
Oscar looked up, thoroughly aggrieved.
"I don't know why, either. My Soul Power's leaking away so fast."
The word "leaking" made Tang San's heart skip.
He knew that feeling all too well.
Ji Yuan immediately sent restorative vitality through Tang San's meridians, suppressing his doubts.
The ease spreading through Tang San's body washed away his budding suspicion.
Flender said in a low voice, "Go back and meditate. We'll check again this afternoon."
Oscar nodded. Just as he turned, the phantom of half a sausage rose from his palm on its own.
It failed to take shape. A thin dark-red line appeared across its surface.
Oscar stared at the line, and what little color remained in his face drained away.
"Headmaster, I didn't make this."
Before you continue