Soul Bone Production Line

After following Nezha for some distance, Xiao Wu glanced back to make sure no one was following them, then lowered her voice. "Nezha, if we reject that master outright, will he make things difficult for us?"

"He won't," Nezha said as he walked.

"Yesterday, when I was handling the paperwork, I chatted with the gatekeeper a bit. No one in the academy thinks much of that master. Even the cafeteria aunties dislike him. The dean only keeps him around in some idle position because he has a few connections. He simply doesn't have the ability."

"Oh." Xiao Wu breathed a sigh of relief, then curled her lips. "The way he spoke just now was so annoying. Saying that rabbit martial souls have never belonged to the powerful kind, as if I'm weak only because my martial soul is bad."

"That's even more reason not to take him as our master," Nezha said. "He hasn't even reached level thirty himself. How strong could the disciples he teaches possibly become?"

"True." Xiao Wu nodded, then suddenly remembered something. "By the way, what about Tang San? He seemed to admire that master quite a bit."

"He is him, and we are us. Everyone has their own choice."

Xiao Wu nodded thoughtfully. After the two returned to the dormitory, Nezha shut the door and leaned against it, already recalculating his plans.

The sun was high overhead.

A figure appeared outside Holy Soul Village.

It was Nezha.

Early that morning, Yu Xiaogang had taken Tang San away from the academy to hunt his first soul ring.

For something as important as Tang San obtaining a soul ring, how could Tang Hao possibly not follow him in secret?

Although Tang Hao was depressed and disheveled, he still valued Tang San, his only remaining hope for revenge.

With Tang Hao gone, the waterfall cave was empty.

How could Nezha possibly miss such a heaven-sent opportunity?

As for Xiao Wu, he had not brought her along.

Ah Yin was a hundred-thousand-year Blue Silver Emperor who had taken human form, the same kind of existence as Xiao Wu's mother, A Rou.

Taking Ah Yin's soul bone would inevitably make Xiao Wu uncomfortable.

Nezha did not want to put her in a difficult position, much less make her feel estranged from him. So he simply said nothing and left on his own.

After passing down the pothole-riddled path outside the village, Nezha plunged into the dense forest to the east.

The woods were damp and dark. The shrubs were nearly as tall as a person, vines dangled from dead trees, and a thick layer of rotting leaves covered the ground, soft beneath his feet.

Every so often, a snake would dart out of the leaf litter in alarm before quickly burrowing into the grass on the other side.

Nezha raised a hand to push aside the vines blocking his path and followed the sound of water onward.

After rounding a moss-covered cliff face, he found a steep slope leading straight into the depths of the valley. The roar of the waterfall grew closer, and mist rushed toward him.

After another hundred paces or so, the view suddenly opened up.

A waterfall poured down from a rocky cliff more than thirty meters high. The stream, white as a hanging ribbon, crashed into the deep pool below and sent mist flying everywhere.

Sunlight passed through the spray, casting a faint rainbow across the surface of the pool.

Standing before the waterfall, Nezha's eyes flashed.

Found it.

He looked the waterfall over. The torrent was too dense; it was impossible to see with the naked eye whether there was a cave behind it.

Nezha could not be bothered to waste effort. With a flick of his right hand, the Qiankun Ring was already in his grasp. The crimson-gold ring shimmered with scorching flames beneath the sunlight.

"Go."

With a snap of his wrist, the Qiankun Ring flew from his hand and expanded with the wind, transforming into a golden wheel the size of a millstone. Accompanied by a shrill howl through the air, it smashed viciously into the center of the waterfall.

Boom—!

The entire waterfall was blasted upward against its flow. The white curtain of water rolled backward several meters, revealing the wet rock wall behind it.

On the rock wall, the outline of a hidden stone door faintly emerged.

Nezha's gaze sharpened. He recalled the Qiankun Ring, tapped off a rock beside the pool with the tip of his foot, and shot through the curtain of water like an arrow loosed from a bow, landing steadily on the stone platform before the door.

The cave was dimly lit, damp, and cold. Nezha took out a tinderbox from his storage soul tool and blew hard. A flickering flame illuminated the path ahead.

The passage was not long. After several dozen steps, the space ahead suddenly opened up.

There was a stone chamber, roughly ten square meters in size.

The four walls were bare, without a single furnishing. Only a small mound of earth rose at the very center.

Upon the mound stood a slender stalk of Blue Silver Grass.

It was slightly longer than the wild grass by the roadside. Its blades were thin and pale blue throughout, with fine golden patterns running across their surfaces.

It stood at the top of the mound, swaying gently without wind, as if examining the uninvited guest before it.

Nezha walked over, crouched down, and leaned in for a closer look.

The sole Blue Silver Emperor on Douluo Continent.

He had originally thought that the legendary Blue Silver Emperor, even if it grew in poor conditions, ought to be radiant with golden light and awe-inspiring in presence.

Yet the Blue Silver Grass before him had weak, scrawny leaves. Its golden patterns were so dim they were almost invisible, and it drooped lifelessly like a malnourished bean sprout.

It made sense.

After Ah Yin sacrificed herself, only a single seed remained. Tang Hao had planted her in this pitch-dark cave, with no sunlight and no spiritual energy. The fact that she had sprouted again already showed remarkable vitality. How could anyone expect her to grow lush and flourishing?

Stroking his chin, Nezha suddenly had an idea.

The Blue Silver Emperor was unlike a hundred-thousand-year soul beast of the animal type.

She was a plant. After sacrificing herself, she could leave behind a seed. As long as she received enough energy to nourish her, she could grow again and cultivate back into a hundred-thousand-year soul beast.

Moreover, the Blue Silver Emperor possessed extraordinary talent. Her recultivation speed far surpassed that of ordinary soul beasts.

If he planted her somewhere overflowing with heaven-and-earth spiritual energy, like the Ice-Fire Yin-Yang Eyes or the Lake of Life, and let her grow back to a hundred thousand years, then have her sacrifice herself again, leave another seed, grow again, sacrifice again...

Wouldn't that be a sustainable production line for hundred-thousand-year soul rings and soul bones?

The more Nezha thought about it, the more feasible the idea seemed.

But the exact details would have to wait until later. He had not found the Ice-Fire Yin-Yang Eyes yet, and the Lake of Life was too far away to return to now.

His top priority was the soul bone.

He stood and raised the tinderbox as he surveyed the stone chamber. The four walls were all rough rock, and nothing appeared unusual.

Before long, Nezha's gaze stopped on the stone wall to the right.

One patch of rock there was slightly lighter in color than the rest. There was also an extremely subtle protrusion on its surface, something no one would notice without specifically looking for it.

Nezha strode over, stopped before that section of wall, took a deep breath, and slapped it with his palm.

Bang.

The stone wall trembled slightly. A crisp click sounded from overhead, as though some mechanism had been activated.

Immediately afterward, a black lead box slid out from a crack in the ceiling and fell straight down.

Nezha caught it.

The box was slightly heavy in his hand, cold in material, and entirely undecorated. It was cast wholly from lead, clearly a storage box specially designed to block the energy fluctuations of a soul bone.

Nezha hooked his fingers under the lid and flipped it open.

A dense, suffocating surge of pure energy burst from the box. It carried the unique fresh fragrance and vitality of vegetation, as if the life force of an entire primordial forest had been compressed into this tiny lead box.