Tang Sect

The pink snake tail on the ground instantly told Jiang Yue the identity of the soul beast that had entered his temporary camp.

A Datura Snake. It was a very peculiar soul beast. Before reaching a thousand years of cultivation, it was dark green. After a thousand years, it turned into a one-meter-long pink snake, then grew another meter every hundred years. After two thousand years, it shrank back to one meter, its pink color deepening, and the cycle repeated.

As for Datura Snakes beyond ten thousand years, Jiang Yue was not too sure. Neither the library of Maple Leaf City Junior Soul Master Academy nor the principal's private collection contained records on soul beasts over ten thousand years old.

However, just as Jiang Yue looked at the snake tail still writhing on the ground and considered having snake meat for dinner, the half-bodied Datura Snake seemed to burst forth with absurd vitality under the threat of death and desire to live. It suddenly darted away in one direction at an outrageous speed.

Jiang Yue had only spent a few moments looking at the snake tail. He had never expected the naturally savage Datura Snake to flee so cleanly and decisively. By the time he reacted, it had already vanished without a trace.

At that moment, even Jiang Yue had to marvel at the Datura Snake's vitality. But marveling was one thing—this snake had dared to wreck the camp he had painstakingly built. He was definitely eating its meat today!

Channeling Soul Power, Jiang Yue lightly tapped off the ground and leaped into the trees, following the Datura Snake's trail as he bounded through the forest.

Elsewhere, a purple-haired youth watched the scene of someone kowtowing to become a disciple with a somewhat lazy expression. From the bottom of his heart, he was happy that the Tang Sect family had gained another disciple and that he himself had gained another junior brother.

Even if this junior brother's talent was rather poor—he was already eleven and had only reached Soul Master rank—his courage was not bad. He had actually dared to enter the Star Dou Forest alone.

Still, this junior brother's identity seemed rather unusual. The short blade on him was a Soul Tool, and not a low-grade one at that. It was not something an ordinary family could come into contact with.

But he was probably some down-and-out noble or something, right?

When Bei Bei saw the smile on Tang Ya's face, he felt that accepting Huo Yuhao into the Tang Sect had been the right choice. Normally, even the now-declining Tang Sect would not have accepted someone with Huo Yuhao's talent. After all, the Tang Sect's leader and senior disciple were both still students. They had no energy to spare worrying over a child with poor talent.

But who could blame Tang Ya for being moved when she heard Huo Yuhao was an orphan? Bei Bei did not mind having another junior brother anyway. He could just consider it a way to make his girlfriend happy.

"All right, Shrek Academy will be starting soon. We need to speed up this soul beast hunt. Besides helping Xiaoya obtain her third Soul Ring, we also need to help our junior brother hunt for one."

"Even with the Tang Sect's admission exemption quota, he still needs to be a Soul Master to enter the academy. Mental Attribute soul beasts are not easy to find."

After calculating the time, Bei Bei felt that they needed to continue their hunt quickly. Mental Attribute soul beasts were rare, and they would need to venture deeper into the Star Dou Forest to find one. It would also take quite a bit of time. He even doubted whether he and Tang Ya could help Huo Yuhao find a suitable Soul Ring.

If they could not, they could only try to find a relatively suitable soul beast. Otherwise, Huo Yuhao would miss this year's enrollment.

Bei Bei and Tang Ya were both upperclassmen. They had come to the Star Dou Forest this time specifically to hunt soul beasts. Even if they missed the start-of-term registration, they had a legitimate reason and would not receive any punishment at all.

Actually, if Bei Bei were willing, it would be easy for him to use the Tang Sect quota to get someone in even after the enrollment deadline had passed.

It was just that his relationship with his family was a little complicated right now. They were currently on bad terms, and he did not want to ask them for help.

And to put it bluntly, Huo Yuhao did not have much of a relationship with Bei Bei at all. Whether in talent or personal ties, Huo Yuhao currently had nothing worth making Bei Bei call upon his family's connections for.

"Right, we need to hurry and hunt soul beasts. Little Yuhao, read the manuals for the Tang Sect's secret arts first. If there is anything you do not understand, Bei Bei and I will teach you on the way back. For now, come hunting with us. Bei Bei and I will definitely help you obtain a suitable Hundred-Year Soul Ring."

Tang Ya patted her chest as she promised Huo Yuhao. Not to mention that Bei Bei was already a high-level Soul Elder, even she, a level-thirty Quasi-Soul Elder, could easily hunt a soul beast under four hundred years old.

The soul beast she had faced in her last Upgrade Assessment had been over four hundred years old, so Tang Ya was extremely confident and full of enthusiasm. Previously, the Tang Sect had consisted of only her and Bei Bei, and she had always been the one Bei Bei took care of. This disciple of hers who had turned the tables on his teacher gave her no sense of accomplishment as sect leader at all.

Now that she had finally taken in a new disciple, if she did not put on a good showing, Tang Ya felt she would be far too much of a failure as sect leader.

Tang Ya had just wanted to pull Huo Yuhao and Bei Bei deeper into the Star Dou Forest when Bei Bei raised an arm in front of her. Two yellow and one purple Soul Rings appeared, strands of lightning crackled across his body, and even his hair stood on end as he stared warily into the depths of the forest.

"Xiaoya, take junior brother a little farther back. Protect him carefully. Something is coming from over there!"

As soon as Bei Bei finished speaking, a pink figure shot out from between the trees. Almost instinctively, Bei Bei raised his dragonized right arm and cast down layers of lightning nets to block the soul beast's escape routes. Then he gathered his first soul skill, Thunderclap Dragon Claw, and slammed his palm toward it.

Creak—!

Amid the piercing sound of lightning and collision, Bei Bei staggered back three or four steps, his expression changing slightly. The sudden opponent had caught him off guard.

"A Thousand-Year Datura Snake!"

Once he clearly saw the soul beast's appearance, Bei Bei became incomparably wary. Normally, an ordinary Soul Elder could only turn and run upon encountering a Thousand-Year Soul Beast. Bei Bei could contend with the Datura Snake only because his own strength far exceeded that of ordinary Soul Masters.

Yet what puzzled Bei Bei was that the Datura Snake before him was missing half its body, and it did not look like it wanted to attack them. Instead, it looked as though it were fleeing for its life.

Could there be an even stronger soul beast behind it? If so, Bei Bei felt he should quickly take Tang Ya and Huo Yuhao and run.

He and Tang Ya could work together and take down this Datura Snake while protecting Huo Yuhao, though it would take some effort. But if there were other soul beasts behind it, there was no way they could handle them unless the protector his family had secretly arranged for him intervened.

"Wow! A Thousand-Year Datura Snake! This Soul Ring suits me, Bei Bei! I want this one!"

The moment she saw it was a Datura Snake, Tang Ya became incredibly excited. This was the source of the first Soul Ring absorbed by their ancestor Tang San, and one of the Tang Sect's publicly acknowledged best Soul Ring choices for Blue Silver Grass.

Tang Ya had not expected her luck to be so good. She had encountered a Thousand-Year Datura Snake not long after entering the Star Dou Forest. As long as they took down this Datura Snake, half of their soul beast hunting objective would be complete.

"Wait, Xiaoya. There may be something even more terrifying chasing this beast."

Hearing Bei Bei's words and noticing the Datura Snake's missing half, even someone as scatterbrained as Tang Ya understood the situation. She immediately released her Blue Silver Grass martial soul and her two yellow Soul Rings, vigilantly watching their surroundings.

The Datura Snake remained locked in a standoff with the people before it. Feeling the danger behind it constantly closing in, it grew increasingly restless and continuously released sweet, cloying pink mist in an attempt to escape the threat.

But its intelligence was too limited to imagine that these people possessed enough antidote pills. Its poison was useless without being injected into the human body through a bite.

Driven by its hunting instincts, the Datura Snake seized a brief opening from Bei Bei and Tang Ya and shot toward the weakest, Huo Yuhao, like lightning. Even if it died, it wanted to drag someone down with it.

Bei Bei and Tang Ya had not expected the Datura Snake to be so bold. Was it not afraid of being attacked by them? Or was there something forcing it to do this?

There was no time to think about that. By the time Tang Ya and Bei Bei reacted, the Datura Snake was only two or three meters from Huo Yuhao. Bei Bei had no time to rush back to defend him, and Tang Ya's Blue Silver Grass was too weak to stop a Thousand-Year Soul Beast.

The threat of death drained all color from Huo Yuhao's face. He instinctively closed his eyes and waited for death, but his heart was filled with unwillingness. He had not yet avenged his mother!

"You beast! You still dare harm someone in front of me? I cannot let you live!"

Whoosh—!

Three streams of light in different colors flashed out alongside the sound of air being torn apart and that voice. With a thud, they nailed the Datura Snake to the ground, leaving it unable to move. It could only open its mouth and continuously release hissing cries and cloying poisonous mist from its throat.

The turn of events had happened too quickly. It was not until the Datura Snake had been pinned to the ground and was struggling desperately that Bei Bei and the others realized what had just occurred.

The three of them simultaneously turned toward the source of the voice. Along with the sound of fallen leaves being crushed underfoot, the glow of one yellow and two purple Soul Rings entered their view first. That alone was not much—a Soul Elder was only a Soul Elder, though the second Thousand-Year Soul Ring did defy common sense.

But when Jiang Yue emerged from the bushes, Passionate Sword in hand, the three people opposite him immediately lost their composure. Their eyes widened like bells, filled with shock.

Young. He was far too young. He looked about the same age as them, perhaps even considerably younger than Bei Bei and Tang Ya, yet he was already a Soul Elder—a Soul Elder with a Thousand-Year second ring.

Under the stunned gazes of the three, Jiang Yue approached the Datura Snake he had pinned to the ground, his face full of regret.

The hide of a Thousand-Year Datura Snake was quite valuable, but it had been pierced through with several holes by the three Qing Swords. Its price had plummeted.

After silently lamenting the waste, Jiang Yue recalled his Passionate Sword, and the three Qing Swords disappeared. However, his hand remained firmly pressed against the Datura Snake's head. The severely injured Datura Snake naturally lacked the strength to break free, and Jiang Yue simply lifted it up.

Crack!

Jiang Yue reached into the Datura Snake's mouth, grabbed its two fangs, and exerted force without a word. With a crack, he forcibly tore both poisonous fangs out, and blood immediately poured from the Datura Snake's mouth.

Strangely, the unknown soul beast hide wrapped around his hand remained as lustrous white as jade, without a single trace of blood staining it.

After finishing all this, Jiang Yue looked at Bei Bei and the others. Seeing the group of two men and one woman, with Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon and Blue Silver Grass martial souls, along with a youth whose Soul Power fluctuations were incredibly weak, their identities were immediately obvious to him.

"This Datura Snake will not last much longer. If you want its Soul Ring, hurry up. I still need to take it back, prepare it, and roast it."

"Oh... oh, thank you."

Sensing the approachable aura around Jiang Yue, Bei Bei and Tang Ya were briefly stunned. Once they understood that this youth was yielding the Datura Snake's Soul Ring to them, they immediately thanked him.

Seeing that the Datura Snake was already half-dead, Tang Ya immediately drew a dagger and stabbed it into the Datura Snake's brain, ending its life. She then promptly sat cross-legged and began absorbing the purple Thousand-Year Soul Ring.

Jiang Yue had no intention of interfering with Tang Ya's Soul Ring choice. The Tang Sect people were all crazy, blindly worshipping Tang San to an incurable extent.

Perhaps because the legends wanted to better highlight Tang San's greatness, the mainstream tales about Tang San, the Sea God, only spoke of his Blue Silver Grass and Clear Sky Hammer martial souls. They never mentioned the Blue Silver Emperor.

Normally, anyone who had attended an advanced Soul Master Academy and seriously studied martial soul theory could see that the legend was riddled with holes.

Yet the former number one sect on the continent had actually taken the legend as truth. Not only had it vigorously nurtured Blue Silver Grass Soul Masters, it had even established the absurd rule that the sect leader had to be a Blue Silver Grass Soul Master. Did they really think everyone was Tang San?

Then they had stubbornly refused to adapt, rejecting Soul Tools while constantly suppressing the sect's non-Blue Silver Grass factions. In the end, the Power, Defense, Agility, and Break branches—its four foundational pillars—all withdrew from the Tang Sect.

Tang Ya had no relationship with Jiang Yue whatsoever. If he warned her, not only would he receive no thanks, he might even be angrily cursed at. Naturally, Jiang Yue would not do something so thankless. It would not be him who got abducted into the Holy Spirit Cult's cram school and brainwashed later anyway.

Bei Bei stroked his chin and was just about to say something to Jiang Yue when he saw Jiang Yue carrying the Datura Snake back along the path he had come from.

Just as Bei Bei was about to speak, Jiang Yue stopped on his own.

"Your spiritual power fluctuations are quite strong. You're a Mental Attribute Soul Master without a first Soul Ring yet, right? Two days ago, about twenty kilometers southwest of here, there was a two- or three-hundred-year Mental Attribute soul beast. If you cannot find anything else suitable, you can try your luck over there."

"Th... thank you."

Huo Yuhao had originally been extremely tense. The sight of Jiang Yue instantly killing the Datura Snake was still fresh in his mind, so he truly had not expected Jiang Yue to tell him where to find a soul beast suitable for him.

Perhaps the other party did not need such a low-level Soul Ring?

Thinking of the one yellow and two purple Soul Rings Jiang Yue had displayed, Huo Yuhao knew that a genius like him would never need a Hundred-Year Soul Ring for his future rings. But that did not stop Huo Yuhao from thinking Jiang Yue was a good person.

Huo Yuhao felt rather lucky. Back when he was in White Tiger Duke's Manor, he had thought people outside would be bad and that he would need to stay on guard. Yet the peers he had met after leaving were all good people.

Bei Bei watched Jiang Yue's departing figure and silently sighed.

"Junior brother, it seems your class is not very fortunate. A genuine monster has arrived."

Bei Bei did not know Jiang Yue, so he could be certain that Jiang Yue was not a Shrek Academy student. A young genius appearing in the Star Dou Forest at this time was most likely a freshman about to enroll this year.

That was terrifying. This freshman's rank was already close to his own. Just how monstrous was that talent?

Bei Bei estimated that Jiang Yue's talent might only be slightly inferior to that of his great-grandfather. So long as he grew smoothly, his name would surely be among the continent's strongest in the future.

Bei Bei silently felt sorry for this year's freshmen. There had not even been a single Soul Elder in his own class.

But Bei Bei was still curious about Jiang Yue's origins. As a core member of Shrek Academy, he naturally knew that both the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect and White Tiger Duke's Manor, powers with countless ties to Shrek Academy, had Soul Elder-level special-admission students enrolling this year. There was even a Soul Elder descendant from a hidden family. Yet he had never heard of any special-admission student whose martial soul was a sword.

The forces friendly with Shrek Academy all had special-admission quotas. The Tang Sect's quota was the same. It was simply that these forces rarely used them, since sending someone without sufficient talent to Shrek Academy was a waste, while those with enough talent did not need a special-admission quota.

Before this year, the last person to enter Shrek Academy through a special-admission quota had been Tang Ya. This year, it was Huo Yuhao.

Perhaps this special-admission student had only recently been confirmed, which was why he did not know? But if he was not a special-admission student or a disciple of one of those major powers, then his talent was likely even stronger than what he had displayed.

Bei Bei shook his head and turned his gaze to Tang Ya, who was absorbing her Soul Ring. In any case, he was not the one who would have to face several Soul Elders. The ones in trouble would be this year's freshmen; it had nothing to do with him.

As for Huo Yuhao? Without the Tang Sect quota, he would not even meet Shrek Academy's enrollment requirements. He would never be competing on the same stage as those Soul Elders. At present, Bei Bei thought Huo Yuhao passing the Freshman Assessment and remaining at Shrek Academy would already count as a victory.

"Junior brother, this is your first time absorbing a Soul Ring. Later, I'll help check your body and see roughly how many years of cultivation you can handle. My rank is not high, so I can only make an estimate based on my own experience."

"Now that we know where a suitable soul beast can be found, once Xiaoya finishes absorbing her Soul Ring, you should first learn the Mysterious Heaven Skill. Its ever-renewing effect will ease your pain during the Soul Ring absorption process and help you."

"Mm, I understand. Thank you, Senior Brother. I'll work hard. I definitely won't let you and Teacher Xiaoya down!"

Half an hour later, Tang Ya finally finished absorbing the Soul Ring and awoke. Seeing the elegant purple Thousand-Year Soul Ring circling her body, Tang Ya's face overflowed with a smile as though she had survived a disaster.

"Great! I'm finally a Soul Elder! Now I can definitely pass the Upgrade Assessment and continue studying at Shrek Academy! Thank you, Bei Bei! Thank you for coming with me to hunt for a Soul Ring! Wait, where is the person who killed the Datura Snake?"

"You mean that person from before? He already left."

"Huh? He left just like that? I haven't even thanked him yet. I was originally wondering whether I could recruit him into the Tang Sect too. What a pity."