Return Journey, Abnormalities in Notting City

No matter what she thought inside, Xu Qianqian did not show the slightest hint of it on her face.

Xiao Yuanshan and Xiao Chenyu both looked toward the Two-Tailed Gecko's corpse.

Xiao Yuanshan froze, while Xiao Chenyu curiously stepped forward to inspect it.

Ignoring the purple soul ring hovering over the corpse, he reached out and picked up the bone that was obviously far from ordinary.

Xiao Chenyu did not know about soul bones. He only thought it was gleaming and beautiful.

"Sis, do you know what this is?" Xiao Chenyu looked at his sister. "This bone doesn't seem like an ordinary soul beast remnant."

"Huff—" Xu Qianqian took a deep breath before speaking. "This is probably a soul bone. Foster Father is widely knowledgeable, so he should understand its value better than I do."

"That's right, it's a soul bone." Xiao Yuanshan came back to his senses, his body trembling slightly.

Ten-thousand-year soul bones were hailed as treasures of the Blood River and had once sparked a war between two kingdoms.

Although this soul bone was only seventeen hundred years old, it was still an item with a price but no market."

"So what does a soul bone do?" Xiao Chenyu blinked and pressed on.

One could not expect a student from a junior academy to know everything about soul masters.

Even Tang San from the original story had spent six years at Notting Academy without understanding soul bones.

"Simply put, you fuse it into your body and gain a skill..." Xu Qianqian briefly explained soul bones to Xiao Chenyu.

"Hiss—" After hearing the explanation, Xiao Chenyu sucked in a sharp breath. "Sis, are you saying this tiny bone starts at five hundred thousand gold soul coins?"

How many years of Notting City's tax revenue would that be?!

Xiao Chenyu snapped out of his shock, thought for a moment, and said, "Since Sis killed that soul beast, the soul bone it dropped should rightfully belong to her."

"Uh..." Xu Qianqian was taken aback. "I already told you how valuable soul bones are."

"We're family, aren't we? You were the one who said that back then." Xiao Chenyu tossed out that line.

Silence. Xu Qianqian fell silent.

"Foster Father, what do you think?" Xu Qianqian looked at Xiao Yuanshan.

"Dad, don't forget how much Sis has done for the City Lord's Manor and Notting Academy over the years."

"Even when those guards absorbed soul rings, Sis was the one who identified the soul beasts for them. If you—"

"Enough." Xiao Yuanshan cut off his son. "Am I really as vile and disgusting as you make me sound?"

"Qianqian, absorb this soul bone! Yu'er and I will stand guard for you."

Looking at the Two-Tailed Gecko's head soul bone Xiao Chenyu placed in her hand, Xu Qianqian's lashes trembled. Then she suddenly smiled.

"Thank you, Foster Father. And you too, Chenyu."

Xu Qianqian did not absorb the soul bone. Instead, she placed it back in Xiao Chenyu's hands.

She could tell that both of them were sincere. Thinking of her earlier malicious suspicions, she felt that she could be truly petty sometimes.

"I don't need a soul bone right now. I already have some plans for the road ahead."

"I don't know what type of growth my martial soul has, so even if I had a soul bone, I wouldn't absorb it."

"Sis..." Xiao Chenyu wanted to say more, but Xu Qianqian waved her hand.

"Xiao Chenyu, absorb the soul bone! This is a wind-attribute soul bone, and it is fairly compatible with your martial soul's attribute."

With Xu Qianqian firmly refusing it, Xiao Chenyu absorbed the soul bone and obtained the Two-Tailed Gecko's skill—Concealment.

It was neither particularly bad nor particularly good, but it would be quite useful for sneak attacks.

As for the soul ring Xiao Chenyu absorbed, it increased the attack power of his claws, making it a strong attack-type soul skill.

A wolf-type martial soul should have been classified as an agility-attack type due to its short-term explosive speed, but that was not particularly important.

After wrapping everything up perfectly, the three left the Soul Beast Forest and took a carriage back to Notting City.

Xiao Chenyu was excited the whole way. After all, he was still a child.

Xu Qianqian was in a very good mood as well. Killing a thousand-year soul beast gave her a recorded icon.

This icon was not useless.

The carriage slowly traveled toward Notting City. Outside the carriage—

Rows of leaves linked end to end flew parallel to the carriage, as though someone were controlling them.

Xu Qianqian was the one doing it.

"As expected, as long as a soul beast is recorded in the Chronicle of Time, my power increases somewhat."

"Recording a soul beast's illustrated entry in the Chronicle of Time can expand my sensory range."

"Killing soul beasts older than a thousand years lets me control the wind within my sensory range more effectively."

This time, Xu Qianqian finally confirmed the condition of killing them.

In the past, she had killed soul beasts that were several decades old, even hundred-year soul beasts, to verify it, but the words "Recorded" had never appeared in the Chronicle of Time.

"My martial soul is probably the ability to control wind." Xu Qianqian pondered. "As long as it is within my sensory range, I can control it."

If she used her domain, this control became even stronger.

"Ah... it's only useful against soul practitioners who haven't become Soul Masters yet."

It basically dealt no damage, at most restricting the other party's movement speed.

When all was said and done, Xu Qianqian was still an ordinary person.

As for earlier, when she had frightened the Two-Tailed Gecko into collapsing, that had been another ability of the domain.

More precisely, it was a form of spiritual pressure similar to that of the Heavenly Dream Iceworm.

Its upper limit was roughly equivalent to the cultivation of that Gale Wolf King—twenty-three thousand years.

It could only serve as intimidation. If the opponent could break through that intimidation, she would be nothing more than a weakling with a combat power of five.

"Sis, I'm level fourteen now. Do you think my little brothers will be shocked?"

He was still a teenager at heart. After holding it in for a year, how could he not be happy after making such a huge leap?

He had originally been level eleven. Absorbing the soul ring had raised him to level thirteen, and the soul bone had raised him another level. It could be said that he had taken many fewer detours.

"Mm, very good. Keep working hard."

Xu Qianqian did not stint on praise, though only she knew what she was really thinking.

At level fourteen at the age of twelve, honestly, he was still far inferior to the prodigies of Douluo Continent—even compared to some random passerby applying to Shrek Academy.

In Xu Qianqian's view, if Xiao Chenyu had absorbed a hundred-year soul ring a year ago and had not been too demanding about its age limit—

Given a Soul Master's cultivation speed, even with only innate level-four soul power, he should have reached level sixteen or even seventeen by now.

"Don't reveal the soul bone on you unless it's a life-threatening crisis," Xu Qianqian reminded him.

"Your sister is right." Xiao Yuanshan, who had been listening to the siblings chat, also chimed in.

"If you don't want your father to die early, and Notting City to be dragged into it as well, it's best not to tell anyone about the soul bone. Don't use it lightly either, unless your life is in danger."

"Is... is it really that serious?"

"It's far more serious than that. Notting City can't protect a single thousand-year soul bone."

Xiao Yuanshan spoke sternly.

If Xu Qianqian had been the one to absorb the soul bone, Xiao Yuanshan would not have been so worried.

That little girl was full of schemes!

If she had not been so young at the time, Xiao Yuanshan would have suspected that Xu Qianqian recognizing him as her godfather had been planned all along, rather than something she had said on impulse.

"I understand. I'll keep my mouth shut." Seeing both his sister and father say so, Xiao Chenyu solemnly nodded.

The carriage slowly moved on, and they soon returned to Notting City.

The moment he stepped down from the carriage, Xiao Yuanshan noticed something unusual atop the city walls.

"Notting City is under lockdown."

"Could something have happened in the city?"