Two Years Later

Xue Qinghe did not respond.

He lowered his head to look at Li Hanche's smiling face, then raised a hand and pointed to the seat opposite his desk.

"Sit."

Li Hanche obediently sat down.

Xue Qinghe picked up the teapot and poured him a cup of tea. Pushing the cup before Li Hanche, he asked, "How do you plan to settle yourself for the next step?"

At that, Li Hanche perked up.

He crossed one leg over the other, leaned back against his chair, and in an instant transformed from the well-behaved child who had bowed his head to admit fault into a picture of smug self-satisfaction.

"This is only a junior academy. I'm going to a senior academy and beating up every student in the school. I guarantee I won't disgrace Big Brother."

When he spoke the words "senior academy," his eyes shone, and his tone carried an anticipation that made the veins at Xue Qinghe's temples begin to throb.

He even raised his right hand and gestured through the air.

"As for the teachers there—Soul Ancestors, Soul Kings, Soul Emperors, Soul Sages, and the like—I'll pass. Mainly because I'm afraid they'll beat me up behind the scenes."

The sound of Xue Qinghe taking a deep breath rang out in the study.

He looked down at the book on the desk, already torn in half, and realized he had already ripped it apart. There was nothing else at hand to throw.

So he pulled open a drawer, took out a fresh book, and hurled it at Li Hanche's face.

The pages fluttered open in midair before slapping across Li Hanche's face.

"Enough. Get out. I don't want to see you for the next few days."

Li Hanche removed the book from his face, properly set it on the desk, then rose to his feet and nodded several times like a chicken pecking at grain.

"Oh, all right, Big Brother. See you."

With that, he turned and slipped away, moving so quickly it was as if he feared Xue Qinghe would change his mind and pull out an even thicker book from the drawer.

Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, Council Hall.

Bone Douluo sat beside the tea table, the wrinkles on his face squeezed together by his smile.

Ever since hearing the news from Heaven Dou City, he had been waiting to see Sword Douluo make a fool of himself.

"Swordie, your disciple wants to see whether your sword is still sharp or has gone dull! Hahahahaha!"

He laughed so hard that even his teacup trembled, and the tea nearly splashed out.

Ning Fengzhi, seated nearby, did not laugh as loudly, but he could not suppress the curve of his lips no matter what.

Sword Douluo Chen Xin sat opposite the two of them, his white beard and hair framing an expression mixed with helplessness, headache, and a hint of pride.

He raised his teacup to his lips.

"Having him test his sword against teachers who are Soul Ancestors and Soul Kings is too embarrassing. At the very least, it should be a Title Douluo."

Bone Douluo laughed even louder, making the glazed pillars hum and vibrate.

Ning Fengzhi set down his teacup, drew a letter from his sleeve, and pushed it before Sword Douluo.

"This just arrived from Heaven Dou City. That child caused quite a stir at the academy and was expelled by His Highness the Crown Prince."

Sword Douluo opened the letter and glanced through it, then folded it and set it back on the table.

"Expelled, then expelled. That academy could not have taught him anything anyway."

Bone Douluo leaned closer and lowered his voice.

"I heard His Highness the Crown Prince was so furious that he tore a book in half. It was a rare, solitary copy treasured by the Heaven Dou Imperial Family."

Two years were neither long nor short.

Li Hanche was eight years old.

He had grown much taller than he had been at six, and some of the childishness had faded from the contours of his face.

But those eyes had not changed—clear black and white, with the faint ice-blue glimmer deep within his pupils more solid than it had been two years ago.

His soul power had long remained at the threshold of level twenty, yet he had not hurried to break through.

Level twenty was the threshold for a second soul ring. What he wanted was not an ordinary thousand-year soul ring.

For his second soul ring, he intended to challenge a ten-thousand-year one.

In the rear mountains of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, Chen Xin stood opposite him, his face devoid of any superfluous expression.

He raised his right hand, his five fingers slightly spread, and an invisible pressure descended from above.

It was not a soul skill, but simply the pressure released by a Title Douluo after suppressing his own aura to the level of a Soul King.

Yet the pressure of a Soul King released by a Title Douluo and that of an ordinary Soul King were two entirely different things.

The pressure of an ordinary Soul King was suffocating water—heavy, but not sharp.

Chen Xin's pressure was mercury, every inch of it slicing at the skin, crushing the bones, and grinding down the organs.

Li Hanche stood in the middle of the open ground, his martial soul already possessed.

The Dark Nether Ice Soul Spear rested in his hand, the icy blue patterns along its shaft far more intricate than they had been two years ago.

The icy blue pearl at the spear's butt spun slowly. The dragon-shaped phantom within it was more than twice as distinct as before; every single scale was rendered in exquisite detail as it swam through the pearl.

The Frost Heaven Record circulated at full force.

This cultivation art had broken through the first stage, "Frost Condensation," a year ago and entered the second stage, "Flying Snow."

Unlike the first stage, where the chill was drawn inward, the second focused more on releasing, spreading, and blanketing the icy power within one's body.

With his feet as the center, a layer of ice formed across the ground within a radius of three zhang.

Tiny snowflakes began to drift through the air. They did not fall from the sky, but were formed from his soul power condensing the moisture in the air.

The snow settled on his shoulders, on the spear tip, and on Sword Douluo Chen Xin's gray robes.

The spiritual power of the Mind-Clarity and Nature-Seeing Art condensed within his sea of consciousness into a lucid, inviolable barrier, meeting that overwhelming pressure head-on.

After two years of tempering through meditation, this spiritual cultivation art had also broken through the first level, "Mind Clarity," and entered the second, "Nature Seeing."

Frost Eyes' ability to track movement had likewise improved tremendously.

More importantly, the passive effect of "Mind Clarity" had grown stronger.

His spiritual power trembled violently beneath the pressure of a Soul King, like a candle flame in a gale, ready to be snuffed out at any moment—yet it never went out.

The Nine-Turn Tyrant Body Art had progressed steadily from the foundation of Copper Skin, which had reached major completion two years ago.

The second turn, Iron Bones, as its name implied, no longer tempered the skin, but the bones.

The method of cultivation was deeper: soul power wrapped around the bones, compressing, stretching, and hammering them again and again, gradually increasing their density and resilience through day after day of tempering.

This process was slower than cultivating Copper Skin—and even more painful.

Tempering the skin inflicted external wounds; tempering the bones brought a dull ache from the inside out. Every session felt as though someone were repeatedly scraping his periosteum with a blunt knife.

After two years of water-drop perseverance, Iron Bones had yet to reach major completion, but the strength of his skeleton had already far surpassed that of a Soul Ancestor.

At this moment, beneath the crushing pressure, he could clearly feel his spine creaking softly, as though an invisible palm were pressing it down inch by inch.

He had revealed every trump card and was holding on with all his strength.

At the edge of the clearing, Ning Fengzhi and Bone Douluo stood side by side.

Bone Douluo's cloudy eyes, their sharp light hidden within, stared without blinking at the child struggling to endure in the center of the clearing.

Ning Fengzhi stood with his hands behind his back, his moon-white sect master's robes fluttering faintly in the mountain wind.

They had lived on Douluo Continent for so many years and seen geniuses as numerous as carp crossing a river.

A first soul ring of two thousand one hundred years was already unprecedented within the bounds of their knowledge.

And now this child, eight years old and level twenty, intended to challenge a ten-thousand-year second soul ring.

At this very moment, he was using his own body to directly withstand the Soul King-level pressure released by a Title Douluo.

Though that pressure was not all of Sword Douluo Chen Xin's strength, its oppressive force was far beyond anything an ordinary Soul King could match.

The same thought churned in both their hearts: Just how far could this child go?