Running Laps Training

Ning Rongrong glanced at the thing in his hand, then recalled that soul incantation from earlier. A thin layer of frost surfaced on her face.

"No need." Her voice was gentle, but her refusal was crisp and decisive. "This young lady isn't hurt. I only used up some soul power."

She let out a soft breath and began activating the passive absorption function of the Qi Body Origin Stream within the Wind Empress Qimen. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth in the air surged into her body at an invisible speed, and the pallor in her face visibly gave way to a healthy flush.

A dozen or so breaths later.

Ning Rongrong stood there with a calm expression, her hair perfectly neat and not even a speck of dust on her white dress.

Compared to the bruised and battered Tang San beside her, and the unconscious Xiao Wu and Zhu Zhuqing, she looked far too intact for someone who had just fought a Soul Sage.

Zhao Wuji stopped wiping at his nosebleed.

He turned and looked Ning Rongrong over from head to toe.

The girl had clearly been so drained that she could barely stand just moments ago. How had she recovered so completely in so little time?

"You." Zhao Wuji's gaze turned scrutinizing. "Girl from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. Aren't you only a Soul Grandmaster? What exactly are all those strange abilities of yours? Spatial movement, water bullets, earth spikes, wind walls, and that icy ground you made for Tang San... Isn't your martial soul the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda? Since when did the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda have effects like these?"

Dai Mubai looked over as well, his eyes filled with confusion.

Oscar was utterly dumbfounded.

Tang San propped himself up into a sitting position, his gaze falling on Ning Rongrong too. During the battle, he had already vaguely sensed that Ning Rongrong's abilities did not match the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda at all. They clearly belonged to an entirely different power system.

Everyone's eyes converged on Ning Rongrong.

Ning Rongrong tilted her head.

She had originally planned to keep some trump cards in reserve. But the battle just now had already exposed more than half of her abilities, and there was no hiding them anymore.

Besides, these people would be her classmates in the future.

More importantly, the desire buried in her bones—to be seen, to prove that she was more than just a support—could no longer be suppressed.

"That isn't an ability of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda." Ning Rongrong smiled, her tone relaxed. "It's another soul skill I learned. It's called Wind Empress Qimen."

She raised her left hand, palm facing upward.

A small orange-red flame flickered twice in her palm before going out. In its place appeared an egg-sized droplet of water, floating above her hand, smooth and clear.

The droplet shattered, turning into a sharply faceted crystal of ice.

The ice crystal melted, and a yellowish-brown clump of earth condensed out of thin air.

The earth dispersed, and a cluster of tiny blue-white arcs crackled at her fingertips.

The five elements appeared one after another, all in less than five seconds.

Everyone on the field stopped breathing.

Zhao Wuji's hand, which had been wiping away his nosebleed, froze in midair.

Dai Mubai's evil eyes widened to their limit.

The sausage in Oscar's hand fell to the ground, and he did not even notice.

Tang San sat on the ground, his brow deeply furrowed.

Zhu Zhuqing stood at the back. Her cold eyes were fixed firmly on the scene, while the fingers behind her back had quietly clenched at some point. No one knew what she was thinking.

Ning Rongrong lowered her hand, then gently stamped her right foot. Her body vanished from where she stood and appeared three meters away. With another step, she returned to her original spot.

Spatial movement.

She had displayed it so casually, so effortlessly.

"Simply put," Ning Rongrong said, clasping her hands behind her back as though introducing a newly bought dessert, "this soul skill lets me control material changes within a certain range around me. The five elemental forces, spatial movement, and transformations of matter—I can do all of it."

A deathly silence fell.

Zhao Wuji was the first to speak. His voice was a little dry.

"You're saying that's one soul skill?"

Ning Rongrong nodded. "One."

"One soul skill can control fire, water, lightning, and earth, move through space, and create wind walls?"

"Mm."

Zhao Wuji stared at her for a long while, then looked at Dai Mubai beside him. Dai Mubai stiffly shook his head, indicating that he had no idea either.

"Impossible." Zhao Wuji's brows twisted together. "I've lived for so many years, yet I've never heard of a soul skill with so many different effects. Even soul skills granted by ten-thousand-year soul rings can't cover so many attributes at once. Unless it's a self-created soul skill—but even then, there's no way someone at your level could reach this degree."

Ning Rongrong tilted her head, her smile exceedingly sweet.

"Teacher Zhao, didn't you say that this place only accepts monsters?"

That night, Flender assigned the dormitories: two rooms for the girls and two for the boys. Ning Rongrong and Xiao Wu shared a room, while Zhu Zhuqing had one to herself. Ning Rongrong had no objection. Xiao Wu had a lively personality, and getting along with her was not tiring.

The next morning.

Ning Rongrong met Shrek Academy's other two senior students.

One was Ma Hongjun, a chubby boy covered in fat with a red Mohawk, whose martial soul was a Phoenix. After mutating, it carried a certain flaw that made one reluctant to think too deeply about it. The other was Oscar, a bearded man who always had a sausage clutched in his hand. He was a food-system soul master with innately full soul power.

The way Ma Hongjun looked at Ning Rongrong and Xiao Wu made Ning Rongrong deeply uncomfortable.

But she maintained her smile.

Her refined-lady persona was officially on duty.

After breakfast, Flender's bell summoned everyone to the training ground.

The headmaster with a face like the sole of a shoe stood in the center. His gaze swept across the seven of them from behind square black-rimmed glasses before finally stopping on Ning Rongrong and Oscar.

"You two support-system types, today's lesson is physical training." Flender's voice carried a magnetic rasp. "Starting now, run twenty laps around the entire village. If you haven't finished before lunch, you don't get lunch."

Oscar's expression collapsed.

Ning Rongrong tilted her head.

Twenty laps?

She quickly calculated the distance in her head. One lap was at least three kilometers, so twenty laps meant sixty kilometers. For a support-system soul master in their twenties, that was indeed a torturous number.

But for her—

The corner of Ning Rongrong's lips curled upward.

The information flow of the Wind Empress Qimen operated steadily in the depths of her mind. It reduced the air resistance around her body, altered the coefficient of friction between her feet and the ground, and made every step feel as though she were gliding across ice.

She had already tested all of this on the road to Soto City yesterday.

"Get going." Flender waved a hand.

Oscar sighed and glanced at Ning Rongrong. "Follow me. I'll lead the way."

Ning Rongrong smiled at him. Her smile was gentle and proper, carrying a hint of shared misery.

The two of them left the academy grounds.

Oscar began to run. His pace was neither fast nor slow, the most reasonable rhythm for a support-system soul master running a long distance.

Ning Rongrong followed behind him.

Three steps.

She only followed for three steps.

Then her body suddenly accelerated.