Crossing Paths with a Food-Type Soul Master, Stealing Vitality

Flender reached out and grabbed Oscar by the wrist.

The phantom of the half sausage swayed. Fine dark-red lines immediately dispersed, turning back into ordinary Soul Power and vanishing into the air.

Oscar swallowed.

"Dean, you saw it, right? I wasn't making it up."

Flender's brow furrowed even deeper.

"Make another one."

Oscar pulled a long face.

"I'm really almost empty."

Zhao Wuji urged him from the side. "If I tell you to make one, make one. Stop dawdling."

Oscar had no choice but to raise his hand. After he finished chanting the incantation and the sausage took shape, his wrist visibly went limp.

Ji Yuan did not reveal anything further.

That dark-red line just now had appeared because he had gotten greedy while siphoning life ripples, nearly allowing the Demon Vine's aura to seep into the sausage's outer shell.

Oscar's martial soul origin was more sensitive than he had imagined.

He couldn't take it by force.

He had to steal it slowly.

Once this sausage had formed, Flender personally took it, broke off a small piece, and put it into his mouth.

He closed his eyes to feel it out, then looked at Oscar.

"The effect is normal."

Oscar grew anxious.

"But my consumption isn't normal!"

Flender released his wrist.

"You were frightened yesterday, and you made several in a row this morning. Fluctuating Soul Power isn't unusual. Go back and rest. Have an extra portion for lunch."

Ma Hongjun immediately grinned.

"Little Ao, the Dean's telling you to eat more and build yourself back up."

Oscar glared at him.

"Shut up. I'm so hungry right now I could chew through a table."

Ning Rongrong had originally wanted to mock him, but upon hearing that, she gave him another look.

"Food-type Soul Masters do get hungry easily after making food, but you really are being excessive today."

Flender looked at her.

"You know about this too?"

Ning Rongrong retied the ribbon in her hand.

"The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect has raised food-type Soul Masters before. High consumption doesn't mean Soul Power is leaking out."

Oscar immediately pointed at her.

"Dean, did you hear that? Even Rongrong is speaking up for me."

Ning Rongrong's face darkened.

"I'm not speaking up for you. I'm just stating the facts."

Xiao Wu leaned close to Tang San and whispered, "Brother, you always feel weak after cultivating too. Could it be the same as him?"

Tang San's hand, which had been straightening his sleeve, paused.

That was exactly the sentence Ji Yuan had been waiting for.

He siphoned away a portion of the inner power that had just formed in Tang San's dantian, then used the restorative energy remaining in Oscar's sausage to replenish it.

Tang San only felt an emptiness within him, followed by warmth.

The contradiction between those two sensations made him even more certain that it was a problem with his Twin Martial Souls.

"I'm not the same as Oscar."

Tang San avoided Xiao Wu's gaze.

"My situation has already been assessed by Master."

Xiao Wu frowned.

"But Master isn't here."

Dai Mubai walked over and interrupted them.

"Don't overthink it. There are plenty of strange things in the academy. Little Ao's bit of consumption is nothing."

Zhu Zhuqing, who had been standing nearby, suddenly spoke.

"Strange things were exactly why they needed investigating."

Dai Mubai looked at her.

"What did you suspect?"

Zhu Zhuqing did not answer. She merely looked toward the water bucket at the edge of the training ground.

It was water drawn from the well that morning.

Ji Yuan immediately made the water-source spores go dormant, suppressing even the energy fluctuations in the well water to their lowest level.

Zhu Zhuqing walked over and touched the rim of the bucket with her fingers, but found nothing.

Ma Hongjun shouted at the top of his lungs, "Zhuqing, what's wrong with the water bucket?"

Zhu Zhuqing withdrew her hand.

"Nothing."

Dai Mubai wanted to follow her, but she had already turned and left.

Flender did not press the matter further.

"That's enough for this morning. Oscar will rest. Everyone else will run twenty laps around the village, and no Soul Power allowed."

Ning Rongrong's expression immediately darkened.

"Running again?"

Flender looked at her.

"You don't have to run. You can withdraw instead."

Ning Rongrong gritted her teeth and turned away.

"Fine, I'll run."

After everyone dispersed, Oscar dragged his weak legs toward the cafeteria.

Ji Yuan followed his movements through the spores inside Oscar's body.

Inside the cafeteria, Oscar served himself three large bowls of porridge in one go, then grabbed seven or eight steamed buns.

Old Wang, the cook, frowned at the sight.

"Little Ao, how many days have you been starving?"

Oscar stuffed a steamed bun into his mouth.

"Training consumption."

Old Wang laughed and scolded, "You're a food-type Soul Master. How are you consuming more than Fatty?"

Ma Hongjun happened to walk in just then. Hearing that, he immediately protested.

"Uncle Wang, I don't like the sound of that. I consume plenty too."

Old Wang tapped his ladle against the side of the pot.

"You consume plenty, so you nearly burned down the village entrance yesterday?"

Ma Hongjun shrank his neck.

"Don't bring that up."

Tang San and Xiao Wu entered the cafeteria as well.

The moment Oscar saw Tang San, he immediately carried his bowl over.

"Tang San, tell me honestly. When you ate my sausages, was the effect weakened at all?"

Tang San sat down.

"They had a recovery effect, but it wasn't as obvious as you said."

Oscar slapped the table.

"I knew it!"

Xiao Wu disdainfully moved her bowl away.

"What are you slamming the table for? You spilled the porridge."

Suppressing his urgency, Oscar leaned closer to Tang San.

"Help me take a look, will you? Don't you understand meridians?"

Tang San hesitated.

Ji Yuan immediately became alert.

If Tang San used the Mysterious Heaven Skill to probe into Oscar's body, he might come into contact with the spore nodes.

He could not let the two make direct contact.

Ma Hongjun suddenly clutched his stomach and sat down beside them.

"Help me first. I feel like the fire's acting up again."

Tang San turned his head.

"Now?"

Ma Hongjun nodded, his face still carrying a pleading look.

"It's not as bad as yesterday. Just hot."

Through the flame nodes inside Ma Hongjun's body, Ji Yuan gently stirred the Evil Fire, guiding the heat toward the edges of his meridians.

The fatty truly could not sit still.

Tang San had no choice but to first hold Ma Hongjun's wrist and circulate the Mysterious Heaven Skill to help regulate his breathing.

Taking advantage of Tang San's internal energy being released outward, Ji Yuan siphoned off a portion along Tang San's meridians, then used spores to absorb the overflowing Evil Fire essence from Ma Hongjun.

Ma Hongjun let out a long, comfortable breath.

"Yes, that's exactly the feeling."

Oscar watched from the side with envy.

"Tang San, give me a massage too."

Xiao Wu raised her foot and kicked his stool.

"Can you stop acting like you're lining up to see a doctor?"

Tang San withdrew his hand, his face pale.

"I'm not in good condition today. Later."

Though disappointed, Oscar did not press him further.

Having successfully avoided an examination, Ji Yuan turned his attention back to Oscar's martial soul.

For the next three days, Flender had Oscar make sausages every day.

Whenever Oscar's Soul Power became most active, Ji Yuan extended fine tendrils from the water-source spores, slipping along the outer edges of his meridians and approaching the source of his martial soul.

He did not drain Soul Power.

Soul Power was too conspicuous.

He only stole that rapidly regenerating law of life.

Oscar's behavior became increasingly exaggerated.

On the first day, he ate three huge bowls of porridge.

On the second day, he finished an entire pot of rice and still cried that he was hungry.

On the third morning, he clung to the cafeteria's wooden barrel and refused to let go, leaving even Ma Hongjun dumbfounded.

"Brother, are you trying to steal my livelihood?"

With a steamed bun stuffed in his mouth, Oscar mumbled, "Get lost, I'm hungry."

Ning Rongrong sat beside him, her brows tightly furrowed.

"Something's wrong with you."

Oscar looked up.

"Miss, you're finally worried about me?"

Ning Rongrong said coldly, "I'm afraid you'll collapse during training and hold the team back."

Oscar did not mind in the slightest.

"That still counts as concern."

Ning Rongrong was so angry that she put down her bowl.

Zhu Zhuqing looked at Oscar, then turned to Tang San.

"You're both weak."

Tang San was drinking porridge. Hearing that, he nearly choked.

Xiao Wu immediately came to her brother's defense.

"My brother got exhausted helping Fatty suppress his Evil Fire yesterday."

Ma Hongjun hurriedly raised his hand.

"My fault. I admit it."

Dai Mubai looked at Tang San.

"You really should take care of yourself. Stop forcing yourself through everything."

Tang San nodded but did not explain.

Because he could not explain it himself.

Inside the hidden layer of his shoe sole, Ji Yuan forced the stolen regeneration law together with the instincts of the Demon Vine.

During the first fusion, large sections of fiber inside the Demon Vine snapped.

The second time, the broken parts began reconnecting on their own.

By the third time, those fibers could actively devour life energy, and the repair speed surged.

That night, Tang San sat cross-legged and cultivated.

Ji Yuan drew out the old injuries and congealed blood that had accumulated in Tang San's meridians, using them as buffering material for the fusion law.

When Tang San woke, his shoulders and back felt much lighter.

He lowered his head and looked at his palm.

"Could it really be Oscar's sausages continuously repairing 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 coldly withdrew his roots.

The more Tang San praised Oscar, the harder Oscar would work.

And the harder Oscar worked, the more complete the regeneration rule would become.

Late on the third night, pale green patterns of light finally surfaced over the Demon Vine's core.

The charred scars vanished completely, while fiery red patterns intertwined with green ones.

Ji Yuan controlled one vine to extend from the hidden layer in the sole of his shoe, then aimed another barbed vine at its roots.

The experiment had to begin.

But just before the barbed vine fell, the Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridge beside Tang San's pillow suddenly flashed. An extremely faint scraping sound came from the seams of its jade.