I Choose to Stay in the Clear Sky Sect

"Forty percent."

Ning Wuqian withdrew his fist.

Veins bulged across the back of Tang Potian's hand. He channeled soul power, and dark-red lightning patterns crawled over the Clear Sky Hammer. Thunder roiled within the hammerhead, setting off a rapid series of explosions in the air.

Without using any soul skill, relying solely on his physical strength and that forty-percent boost, Tang Potian swung his hammer at the open ground.

The shockwave surged.

An ancient tree ten meters away, thick enough for two people to encircle, snapped cleanly in the middle. Wood chips flew everywhere.

Tang Potian drew back his hammer.

A genuine forty-percent increase.

This hard man of the Clear Sky Sect had smashed countless soul bones over half his life. The soul beasts that had died beneath his hammer could have formed a mountain. He had seen no fewer than eighty, if not a hundred, support-system soul masters.

Yet he had never seen a first soul ring capable of providing such an enhancement.

He stared at Ning Wuqian.

"Kid." Tang Potian drove the Clear Sky Hammer into the mud, splitting the earth with several cracks. "Your body doesn't deserve that brain of yours. What a waste."

Ning Wuqian did not respond. That did not sound like a compliment.

He lowered his head and looked at his palm. That punch had been brimming with power. His first soul ring had not merely granted him a skill; it had also comprehensively improved his physical condition. Earth-element energy had altered his bone density. He could now kill a hundred-year soul beast with one punch without much trouble. The ironclad rule that support-system soul masters were frail and delicate did not apply to him.

Beyond the heavenly curtain.

The chat group had erupted.

Outside the Offering Hall, several soul masters from support-system backgrounds gathered together, their throats dry.

[Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan: The strongest first ring among modern support-system soul masters is only a hundred years. The Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect's ancestor starts with a thousand-year ring—this is rubbing the faces of future generations into the dirt.]

[Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect Bone Douluo Gu Rong: It can stack, and it can be applied to teammates from a distance. Put this in a young team, and how many people would fight desperately to get him?]

The excitement in the group only highlighted the value of Ning Wuqian's first soul ring. What broke convention was not merely its age, but its complete overturning of how support-system soul masters fought.

Shrek Academy.

In a corner of the training ground, Ning Rongrong clenched the hem of her clothes.

Seven Treasures Glazed Tower. Earth-yellow radiance. A forty-percent boost.

Only one calculation remained in her mind. If her first soul ring were a thousand years old, who among her peers would dare raise their voice at her?

She turned her head and glanced at Yu Xiaogang, who sat slumped on the ground.

He had not even figured out the limit of a first soul ring, yet he spent every day wielding that theory of his like an imperial decree to suppress others.

Yu Xiaogang gripped his hair with both hands, his nails digging through his scalp. He repeated the same few words over and over.

"Four hundred and twenty-three years... the limit is four hundred and twenty-three years... how could it be a thousand years..."

Yu Xiaogang felt his scalp go numb. This was the life's work he had devoted himself to, yet it had been shattered so easily. He was shocked, even bewildered. At the same time, that helpless feeling of being worthless spread throughout his entire body. After all, he had relied on this very theory to package himself as a master.

Tang San stood some distance away, rubbing his temples. His cheeks burned.

This was the master? Being ground into the dirt by an outsider in the heavenly curtain.

Ma Hongjun muttered quietly beside him, "Boss Dai, I think this master's theory is less accurate than the blind fortune-teller at the village entrance."

Dai Mubai kicked him without saying a word.

Oscar leaned over. "Fatty, say less. Can't you see Third Brother's face has gone green?"

Within the heavenly curtain.

Ning Wuqian put away his soul skill and returned to camp with Tang Potian.

The tent smelled of pine. Tang Potian took out several dull gray pieces of metal and slapped them onto the wooden table.

"Appraise them."

Ning Wuqian stepped closer. For a tomb robber, eyesight was what put food on the table. Over the past few years, he had traveled far and wide, and the burial treasures he had handled outnumbered the bricks an ordinary person had ever seen.

He curled his index finger and tapped the Mystic Iron Mother Ore twice.

The sound was dull, without any echo.

"Mystic Iron Mother Ore. Three-thousand-year purity. Material for making the shells of soul tools." The words slipped from his mouth as his finger moved to the spotted stone beside it. "This piece of Starfall Sand draws lightning. It pairs perfectly with Mystic Iron. Judging by the patterns on its surface, it's an associated ore dug up beneath a lightning-struck tree. These two materials would fetch quite a sum at auction."

Tang Potian nodded, then pushed over a palm-sized piece of dark-gold ore.

Its surface was pitted and dull, without the slightest sheen.

Ning Wuqian pressed his fingertip against it.

His brain went numb, and his vision went black.

He jerked his hand back. Cold sweat glued the clothes on his back to his skin as he gasped for breath.

"I can't appraise it."

Tang Potian put the ore back into his robe.

"As expected. The item Master wants appraised is a hundred times more difficult than this. With your current abilities, you haven't even touched the threshold."

Ning Wuqian said nothing. Just then, something living had seemed to burrow up from his fingertip and into his brain. That was not ore. It was some kind of living mass of condensed resentment.

Tang Potian changed the subject.

"Kid, let me ask you something."

"Do you want to stay in the Clear Sky Sect and work under Master, or go back to digging up dead men's graves?"

Tang Potian clasped his hands behind his back. "If you want to leave, I'll send you out of the forest now. No one will force you to stay."

The tent fell silent.

Ning Wuqian lowered his head.

The Fire Domain that raised one's level by three in seven days.

That defensive line on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest.

Hundreds upon thousands of thousand-year soul beasts baring their fangs beyond the barrier.

Without that line of defense, without people like Tang Potian holding the front...

The living people outside—the farmers, blacksmiths, and ordinary folk trying to live their lives—would have long since been devoured.

Tomb robbers stole the possessions of the dead. Those burial objects had lain underground for hundreds or thousands of years, steeped in yin energy and deathly aura. The soil brought up by a Luoyang shovel was always bloody. He was accustomed to dealing with the dead, accustomed to calculating human hearts in pitch-black tomb passages.

Today, for the first time, he understood the weight of the words "living people."

Behind the defensive line were countless lit homes. There were commoners who did not possess even a trace of soul power.

He could leave. He could return underground and continue being that nimble-fingered grave robber. Once he had earned enough money, he could buy a grand residence, marry several concubines, and live out the rest of his life in peace.

But he could not erase those bloodthirsty eyes of the soul beasts beyond the barrier from his mind.

Ning Wuqian looked up.

"I'm staying."

Tang Potian's expression shifted slightly.

"Master did not misjudge you. Back then, you were the one who stopped Old Li and convinced him to stay as well."

"Your character is worth more than that little bit of talent you have."

Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect, main hall.

Ning Fengzhi rose to his feet and slammed his palm onto the table.

"Good! Well chosen!"

His voice trembled.

"Our sect's ancestor should possess such courage! Anyone else would have grabbed the benefits and run long ago!"

Bone Douluo nodded heavily.

[Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect Ning Fengzhi: Our ancestor possesses an unyielding spirit. He planned for the people before himself! A model for our generation!]

[Spirit Hall Qian Daoliu: Ning Fengzhi, your flattery is so loud that I can hear it all the way from Spirit Hall. Still, this kid has guts.]

Qian Daoliu was not praising him idly. The Star Dou Great Forest within the heavenly curtain was a true hell for soul masters. Even its outskirts contained massive numbers of thousand-year soul beasts. Who knew what monstrous beings lurked in the depths of the Star Dou Great Forest? In any case, choosing to stay was an act of immense courage.