Netherworld Spirit Cat

On the arena stage.

Standing opposite Tang San was a girl with a cold expression. Though she looked about the same age as Tang San, her voluptuous figure hardly seemed like that of someone only in her early teens.

Her limbs were long and well-proportioned, her hands hanging naturally at her sides. She made no large movements, yet simply standing there gave off a deathly chill.

After hearing the host announce Tang San's martial soul, Zhu Zhuqing raised her head, which had been lowered all along.

A trace of curiosity appeared in her dark eyes as she asked, "Your martial soul is Blue Silver Grass. Are you the one who defeated Dai Mubai this morning?"

Hearing the chill in Zhu Zhuqing's voice, Tang San frowned.

Still, he nodded. "That's right. You know Dai Mubai?"

Zhu Zhuqing's gaze drifted slightly. "More or less."

At that, Tang San's expression darkened. "If you want to avenge him, now would be a good opportunity."

Once he learned that this girl knew Dai Mubai, Tang San instinctively assumed she had come to avenge him.

Zhu Zhuqing did not answer. She merely released her martial soul in silence.

Tang San had already heard the host mention her martial soul earlier. It was the Netherworld Spirit Cat.

After her martial soul possessed her, Zhu Zhuqing's pitch-black eyes turned into catlike vertical pupils.

The soft black hair atop her head puffed up slightly, and eventually, two furry protrusions like cat ears emerged. Behind her, a slender black tail swayed constantly.

After beast martial soul battle spirit masters underwent martial soul possession, they generally gained certain characteristics of their martial souls' original forms.

Seeing that her opponent had already undergone martial soul possession, Tang San did not hesitate and directly released his own martial soul.

A Blue Silver Grass sprouted from his palm. Its blades slowly lengthened into vines that coiled around his forearm.

At his feet, one yellow and one purple soul ring rose into view.

The purple glow was not dazzling, yet in everyone's eyes, it felt like being pricked by a needle.

The audience erupted into an uproar, while the host, who had not yet stepped off the stage, gaped in shock.

A thousand-year soul ring! And his second soul ring was already a thousand-year one!

How was that possible? Wasn't the second soul ring limited to a hundred years at most?

What was happening before them had undoubtedly exceeded the audience and host's ability to comprehend.

In their minds, the white ten-year soul ring was the most common. Having a yellow hundred-year soul ring as one's first ring was enough to qualify as a genius.

But a purple thousand-year soul ring—and having one as the second ring—was something they had never seen in their lives.

For a moment, everyone in the arena was seized by immense confusion and commotion. The audience section held only a hundred people, yet the noise they made sounded like that of thousands.

This ticket was probably the best value ticket they had ever bought at the Great Spirit Arena.

Tang San had anticipated this reaction long ago. At the same time, he quietly rejoiced that he had put on a mask in advance, so he would not attract so much attention in the future.

Whenever he saw others react with such shock to his soul rings, Tang San could not help thinking of his teacher.

It was his teacher who had taken him to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well five years ago. After having him consume two immortal-grade medicinal herbs, he had also put him through Ice-Fire Golden Body Tempering, allowing him to possess his current robust physique.

The stronger one's physical constitution, the longer the soul rings one could endure. Tang San's ability to possess a thousand-year soul ring as his second ring was absolutely inseparable from the Ice-Fire Golden Body Tempering five years ago.

The pupils in Zhu Zhuqing's catlike eyes contracted slightly.

Though she had long heard about it from others, seeing Tang San's purple thousand-year soul ring with her own eyes still greatly surprised her.

"How old are you this year?" Unexpectedly, after Tang San released his martial soul, Zhu Zhuqing did not attack at once. Instead, she asked him a question.

Tang San was somewhat puzzled, but he still answered, "Twelve years old, soul power rank thirty. Why?"

Zhu Zhuqing fell silent.

The boy before her was only slightly older than she was, yet both his soul power rank and the age of his second soul ring far surpassed hers.

Her own talent was already considered quite good, while Dai Mubai's talent surpassed even hers.

She had thought that after studying at Shrek Academy, which was said to cultivate monsters, Dai Mubai would be able to shoulder the heavy responsibility tied to both their lives as a man.

Yet after arriving at Shrek Academy, she discovered that her previous thoughts had been completely wrong.

There was not only Tang San, whose talent surpassed hers, but also Dai Mubai, who acted like an overbearing young tyrant and lingered among women, as well as Shrek Academy, which had been defeated single-handedly by a soul master of the same rank.

All of this undoubtedly placed even greater pressure upon her heart, which was already bearing immense strain.

Her and Dai Mubai's circumstances were precarious, their lives hanging by a thread. Yet both the academy she had joined and Dai Mubai, whom she had regarded as her hope, acted this way.

Zhu Zhuqing's thoughts were a tangled mess, and even her cold voice wavered slightly. "You're very outstanding."

It had merely been a polite compliment, but when Tang San heard her words, his eyes suddenly lit up.

"Haha, thank you for the compliment. But I must point out that the outstanding one isn't me. It's my teacher."

"Your... teacher?" Zhu Zhuqing was stunned by those words.

Tang San smiled. "You really do have good judgment. That's right, the person who forged the outstanding Tang San of today was my teacher, Fang Yuan. Five years ago, I was just an ordinary boy from a small mountain village who had come to a junior academy, but before the academy gates..."

Immediately afterward, Zhu Zhuqing stared dumbfoundedly at Tang San across from her as he began recounting his life story.

No, calling it a life story did not seem quite right. It was more like a documentary about his teacher, Fang Yuan.

The audience on the stands was utterly dumbfounded as well.

This spirit battle had initially brought them an enormous shock.

A soul master whose martial soul was Blue Silver Grass, an attractive catgirl beauty soul master, and a genius whose second soul ring was already at the thousand-year level—all of it had filled the battle with a tense and thrilling atmosphere.

Yet no one had expected that the two people onstage would not fight at all. After a brief exchange, the man seemed to have opened a floodgate and suddenly began chattering nonstop.

Just fight already! Did the audience pay to hear a solo comedy routine?

The problem was, even a solo comedy routine would have been fine! There was no amplification equipment on the spirit battle stage, and from so far away, the audience could not hear a thing!

This year's best-value spirit battle was on the verge of becoming this year's most outrageous fake match.

The host onstage wiped away a cold sweat and hurriedly shouted, "Please begin the spirit battle at once, both Great Soul Masters! Discussions unrelated to the spirit battle are forbidden on the spirit battle stage!"

Tang San shot him a dissatisfied glance and helplessly ended his sermon on his teacher's kindness.

Across from him, Zhu Zhuqing's gaze was somewhat unfocused.

After a long while, she suddenly asked, "Then can your teacher make me strong too?"