Flender reached out and seized Oscar's wrist.
The phantom half-sausage wavered. Its dark-red filaments immediately scattered, turned back into ordinary Soul Power, and vanished into the air.
Oscar swallowed.
"Dean, you saw that, right? I wasn't making it up."
Flender's frown deepened.
"Make another one."
Oscar pulled a miserable face.
"I'm almost drained."
Zhao Wuji urged him from the side. "He told you to make one, so make one. Stop dawdling."
Oscar had no choice but to raise his hand. By the time he finished chanting and the sausage took shape, his wrist was visibly weak.
Ji Yuan left no trace this time.
That dark-red filament had appeared because he had gotten greedy while extracting the Life Ripple. He had nearly let the Demon Vine's aura reach the sausage's surface.
Oscar's Martial Soul Origin was more sensitive than he had imagined.
He couldn't seize it by force.
He had to steal it slowly.
Once the sausage formed, Flender took it himself, broke off a small piece, and put it in his mouth.
He closed his eyes to gauge its effect, then looked at Oscar.
"The effect is normal."
Oscar grew anxious.
"But my energy expenditure isn't!"
Flender released his wrist.
"You had a fright yesterday and made several sausages in a row this morning. It's no surprise your Soul Power is fluctuating. Go rest. You'll get extra lunch."
Ma Hongjun immediately grinned.
"Oscar, the dean's telling you to eat more and build yourself back up."
Oscar glared at him.
"Shut up. I'm so hungry I could gnaw on a table."
Ning Rongrong had been about to mock him, but at that, she gave him another look.
"Food-type Soul Masters get hungry easily after making food, but you're particularly bad today."
Flender looked at her.
"You know about this too?"
Ning Rongrong tightened the ribbon in her hair.
"The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect has supported food-type Soul Masters. Heavy energy expenditure isn't the same as Soul Power leaking away."
Oscar immediately pointed at her.
"Dean, did you hear that? Even Ning Rongrong's speaking up for me."
Ning Rongrong's face darkened.
"I'm not speaking up for you. I'm just stating a fact."
Xiao Wu leaned toward Tang San and whispered, "Brother, you're always wiped out after cultivating too. Could it be the same thing?"
Tang San stopped adjusting his cuff.
That was exactly what Ji Yuan had been waiting for.
He drew away a portion of the inner energy that had just formed in Tang San's dantian, then replaced it with recovery energy left over from Oscar's sausage.
Tang San felt a sudden emptiness inside, followed by a rush of warmth.
The conflicting sensations only made him more certain that his Twin Martial Souls were the cause.
"Oscar and I aren't the same."
Tang San avoided Xiao Wu's gaze.
"Grandmaster has already assessed my condition."
Xiao Wu frowned.
"But Grandmaster isn't here."
Dai Mubai walked over and cut them off.
"Don't overthink it. Plenty of strange things happen at the academy. Oscar using a bit more energy is nothing."
Zhu Zhuqing, standing off to one side, suddenly spoke.
"The more strange things happen, the more we should investigate."
Dai Mubai looked at her.
"What do you suspect?"
Zhu Zhuqing didn't answer. She only looked toward a water bucket at the edge of the training ground.
It held water drawn from the well that morning.
Ji Yuan immediately made the spores in the water fall dormant, suppressing even the faintest energy fluctuation in the well water.
Zhu Zhuqing walked over and touched the rim of the bucket. She found nothing.
Ma Hongjun shouted, "Zhu Qing, what's wrong with the bucket?"
Zhu Zhuqing withdrew her hand.
"Nothing."
Dai Mubai wanted to follow her, but she had already turned and left.
Flender did not pursue the matter.
"That's it for this morning. Oscar rests. Everyone else runs twenty laps around the village. No Soul Power."
Ning Rongrong's expression immediately soured.
"Running again?"
Flender looked at her.
"You can skip it. Just leave the academy."
Ning Rongrong gritted her teeth and turned away.
"Fine. I'll run."
After the others dispersed, Oscar dragged his weak legs toward the dining hall.
Ji Yuan followed his movements through the spores inside him.
In the dining hall, Oscar took three large bowls of porridge in one go, along with seven or eight steamed buns.
Old Wang, the cook, frowned at the sight.
"Oscar, how many days has it been since you ate?"
Oscar stuffed a bun into his mouth.
"Training took it out of me."
Old Wang laughed and scolded him. "You're food-type, yet training takes more out of you than it does the fatty?"
Ma Hongjun happened to come through the door and immediately objected.
"Uncle Wang, I don't like the sound of that. I burn through plenty of energy too."
Old Wang rapped his ladle against the edge of the pot.
"Is that why you nearly burned down the village entrance yesterday?"
Ma Hongjun ducked his head.
"Don't bring that up."
Tang San and Xiao Wu entered the dining hall as well.
As soon as Oscar saw Tang San, he carried his bowl over.
"Tang San, tell me honestly. When you ate my sausage, did its effect seem weaker than usual?"
Tang San sat down.
"It did help me recover, but not as much as you claimed it would."
Oscar slapped the table.
"I knew it!"
Xiao Wu moved her bowl aside in disgust.
"What are you slapping the table for? You spilled the porridge."
Holding back his urgency, Oscar leaned closer to Tang San.
"Could you take a look at me? You understand meridians, don't you?"
Tang San hesitated.
Ji Yuan immediately grew wary.
If Tang San used the Mysterious Heaven Skill to probe Oscar's body, he might encounter the Spore Nodes.
Ji Yuan could not let the two of them make direct contact.
Ma Hongjun suddenly sat down beside them, clutching his stomach.
"Help me first. I think the fire's acting up again."
Tang San turned toward him.
"Right now?"
Ma Hongjun nodded, a pleading look still on his face.
"It's not as bad as yesterday. I just feel hot."
Through the flame node inside Ma Hongjun, Ji Yuan gently stirred the Evil Fire, sending its heat along the edges of his meridians.
Sure enough, the fatty couldn't sit still.
Tang San had no choice but to take Ma Hongjun's wrist and circulate the Mysterious Heaven Skill to help settle his energy.
While Tang San's inner energy flowed outward, Ji Yuan drew away some of it along his meridians. Then, through the spores, he absorbed the Evil Fire Origin spilling from Ma Hongjun.
Ma Hongjun let out a long, relieved breath.
"Yes. That's it."
Oscar watched from the side, eager for his turn.
"Tang San, check me too."
Xiao Wu nudged his stool with her foot.
"Could you stop acting like you're in line to see a doctor?"
Tang San withdrew his hand, his face pale.
"I'm not feeling well today. We'll talk later."
Oscar was disappointed, but he didn't push.
Having successfully avoided the examination, Ji Yuan turned his attention back to Oscar's Martial Soul.
For the next three days, Flender had Oscar make sausages every day.
Each time Oscar's Soul Power reached its peak activity, Ji Yuan extended fine tendrils from the spores in the water. They slipped along the outer edges of Oscar's meridians and approached his Martial Soul Origin.
He did not draw away Soul Power.
That would be too obvious.
He stole only that rapidly renewing portion of the Rule of Regeneration.
Oscar's behavior grew more extreme by the day.
On the first day, he ate three large bowls of porridge.
On the second, he finished an entire pot of rice and still said he was hungry.
At dawn on the third day, he clung to a wooden tub in the dining hall and refused to let go. Even Ma Hongjun stared in disbelief.
"Brother, are you trying to steal my claim to the food?"
With a steamed bun stuffed in his mouth, Oscar mumbled, "Get lost. I'm hungry."
Ning Rongrong sat nearby, her brows tightly knit.
"Something's wrong with you."
Oscar looked up.
"My lady, are you finally worried about me?"
Ning Rongrong said coldly, "I'm worried you'll collapse during training and drag the team down."
Oscar didn't mind in the slightest.
"That still counts as caring."
Ning Rongrong set down her bowl in frustration.
Zhu Zhuqing looked at Oscar, then at Tang San.
"You're both worn out."
Tang San was drinking porridge and nearly choked when he heard her.
Xiao Wu immediately sprang to his defense.
"My brother's tired because he helped the fatty suppress his Evil Fire yesterday."
Ma Hongjun quickly raised a hand.
"My fault. I admit it."
Dai Mubai looked at Tang San.
"You really should take better care of yourself. Don't push through everything."
Tang San nodded, but offered no explanation.
Because he couldn't explain it to himself either.
Inside the hidden compartment in his shoe sole, Ji Yuan pressed the stolen Rule of Regeneration together with the Demon Vine's instincts.
The first time he tried to fuse them, great swaths of the Demon Vine's inner fibers snapped.
The second time, the broken sections began to knit themselves together.
The third time, the fibers could actively devour life energy, and the repair rate doubled.
That night, Tang San sat cross-legged in cultivation.
Ji Yuan drew the old, clotted blood from Tang San's meridians and used it to cushion the fusion of the rules.
When Tang San woke, his shoulders and back felt much lighter.
He looked down at his palm.
"Could Oscar's sausages really still be healing me?"
Xiao Wu sat up, rubbing her eyes.
"Brother, what did you say?"
Tang San shook his head.
"Nothing. Go back to sleep."
Ji Yuan withdrew his roots coldly.
The more Tang San praised Oscar, the harder Oscar would work.
And the harder Oscar worked, the more complete the Rule of Regeneration would become.
Late on the third night, faint green lines of light finally surfaced across the Demon Vine's core.
The charred scars vanished completely, and fiery red lines intertwined with the green.
Ji Yuan guided one vine out through a gap in the sole of the shoe, then aimed another, thorn-covered vine at its base.
The experiment had to begin.
But just before the thorn-covered vine struck, the Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridge beside Tang San's pillow suddenly flashed. A faint scraping sound came from a seam in the jade.
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