Ancient Sword City

"Sir, you're a Soul Master, aren't you?" Steward Liu guessed.

Tie Li nodded. It was no secret, so he readily admitted it.

"Alright, then rest here properly."

After saying that, Steward Liu left the wooden hut with the little old man.

Tie Li could clearly sense that after learning he was a Soul Master, Steward Liu's tone had become somewhat stiffer.

It made sense. They had brought an unknown Soul Master into their home, and he was so badly injured. Who knew whether he had offended someone?

Keeping him in the residence might end up dragging them into trouble.

Once he recovered a little, he would leave. They had been willing to save his life, and that was already a rare kindness.

He took out some whale glue from his storage ring. Strands of lightning flowed over his fingertips, softening the glue and releasing a faint fragrance.

He pinched off a small piece of the whale glue with his fingers and put it into his mouth, eating it bit by bit until it was all in his stomach.

A warm current began flowing through his limbs and bones, replenishing his depleted body.

As expected of a heavenly treasure, his injured body recovered at a visible pace.

Crimson sweat seeped out of Tie Li's body, followed by layers of black filth. There was not much of it, but he could indeed feel his body grow a little lighter.

Perhaps because his body was depleted, the whale glue's side effects did not appear in Tie Li.

His Soul Power level, which had already been on the verge of breaking through, advanced successfully to level twenty-five.

Tie Li did not wake up and continued meditating to refine it.

It was not until midnight that Tie Li ended his meditation.

The black filth gave off a foul stench. Since he had not cleaned it off immediately, it had dried into patches.

There was a well outside the wooden hut, with several identical huts around it.

Tie Li continued washing the filth from his body by the well, then took out his own clothes from his storage ring and changed into them.

He left that very night.

Leaving without saying goodbye was a good thing for both sides.

The person who had saved him was clearly this noble family's young lady. With his strength as a two-ring Grand Soul Master, he could not repay her in any meaningful way. On the contrary, his unknown identity might bring her trouble.

Steward Liu had already hinted as much in his tone earlier, so there was no need for him to remain here and recover from his injuries.

But he would remember this kindness. If he had the chance in the future, he would definitely return to repay it.

This city seemed rather ancient. Tie Li found an inn and planned to recuperate here for a while.

From the innkeeper, he learned that this city was Ancient Sword City. The two cities closest to Ancient Sword City were Xilu City to the north and Soto City to the west.

That meant he had already reached the border between the Heaven Dou Empire and the Star Luo Empire.

After arriving in his room at the inn, Tie Li took out the storage ring he had found on the five-ring Soul King earlier.

A Soul King's savings should not be too shabby, right?

His spiritual power seeped into the storage ring. Aside from three hundred gold soul coins, there were also three hundred-year fire-element spiritual herbs and a thousand-year Fireflame Fruit.

Other than that, there were only some miscellaneous items, nothing valuable.

Once his injuries recovered, he would sell these spiritual herbs and fruit, or exchange them for lightning-element spiritual materials.

Three months later, Tie Li's injuries had completely healed. During those three months, he sold the fire-element spiritual herbs and fruit, then bought a thousand-year Lightning Spirit Herb and a Thunder Pulp Fruit to raise his Soul Power level.

After spending another three months completely refining them, his Soul Power level rose to level twenty-seven.

What surprised Tie Li somewhat was that after the Thunder Python inner core's previous mutation, it had undergone a subtle change.

With Tie Li's knowledge and experience, he had no way to determine whether this was good or bad.

Tie Li now planned to cross the border between the two nations and head to Gengxin City.

"Bastards! Go search for him! Dig three feet into the ground if you have to, but find him!" Jiuhe cursed at the supervisors below him.

His aura was unstable. Although he had escaped Martial Soul Hall's encirclement last time, he had suffered serious injuries.

The first thing he did after escaping was pursue Dolangbu.

Under those circumstances, he had indeed placed the soul bone inside one of the iron boxes—the very box Dolangbu had taken.

But when he went after Dolangbu, he actually lost him. There were not even any signs of battle along the way.

Even the Martial Soul Hall Soul Masters who had been pursuing him had vanished without a trace.

Jiuhe did not believe that Martial Soul Hall's Soul Masters would let Dolangbu go after obtaining the soul bone. Faced with such temptation, the best possible outcome would be to kill him and silence him, then keep the soul bone for themselves.

Unable to find Dolangbu, Jiuhe immediately gathered the supervisors of the various Great Soul Arenas, intending to use the Great Soul Arena's network of informants to search for Dolangbu.

Yet it was as if he had vanished into thin air. No matter how they searched, they could not find him.

As for the other three, Zhang Yang had returned to the Great Soul Arena severely injured. Youhe had been captured by Martial Soul Hall, and the Great Soul Arena had paid a sum of gold soul coins to ransom her back.

As for Tie Li, like Dolangbu, he had completely vanished.

However, they had found traces of battle and a dried corpse burned into charcoal.

Martial Soul Hall believed that this Soul King had obtained the soul bone, killed to silence the others, and then attempted to flee with the soul bone for himself.

For that reason, Martial Soul Hall had even issued a wanted notice, offering an astonishing reward for him.

But only Jiuhe knew that the soul bone was not on Tie Li at all.

Looking at it that way, there had been no need to kill Tie Li and even destroy the corpse.

Jiuhe did not believe a two-ring Grand Soul Master had the strength to kill a five-ring Soul King in return.

In his view, Tie Li must have possessed some treasure that had stirred this five-ring Soul King's greed, making him want to keep it for himself. But on closer thought, it did not hold up at all. He could have simply killed Tie Li and taken the treasure for himself. No one knew what treasure Tie Li had anyway, so why flee?

This matter only occupied Jiuhe's thoughts in his spare time. His main objective was to find Dolangbu.

In a dark corner, Dolangbu, cloaked in black, raised his blade and brought it down, chopping off the man's head.

He had changed tremendously. His aura had become dark and damp, like a wild beast that could pounce at any moment.

The optimal Soul Ring configuration of two yellow and one purple appeared around him.

"Another Great Soul Arena informant. They're watching me really closely!"

A vine as thick as an arm coiled around Dolangbu's body. It was covered in a layer of black mucus, resembling the tentacles of a dark octopus.

"Whoosh!"

The vine suddenly shot out and wrapped around the headless corpse. Its tentacle-like tip plunged down into the corpse from above.

In no time, the corpse was drained into a dried husk, and the fluctuations of Dolangbu's Soul Power grew stronger.

"I never realized before that raising my Soul Power level could be this easy. I wasted so much time, heh heh!" Dolangbu let out a chilling laugh, his eyes filled with obsession for power.