Three Years

Because of a drunken entanglement long ago, the bond between him, Ye Xishui, and Mu En had been destroyed.

He had always believed that he bore an inescapable responsibility for Ye Xishui entering the Holy Spirit Cult and becoming an evil soul master. Thus, silently guarding her side had become his way of making amends.

On ordinary days, the only thing he could do was sit motionless in a side hall year after year, like a statue.

Just as he had grown accustomed to this bleak atonement, someone he had never imagined suddenly entered his life.

Long Xiaoyao stood at the entrance to the main hall early on, gazing into the distance as though waiting for someone.

A faint trace of anticipation lay hidden in his eyes, so subtle that even he himself failed to notice the shift in his emotions.

From afar, Ye Xishui sat in the Blood Soul Hall and silently watched Long Xiaoyao. It had been too long. Long Xiaoyao had guarded her for too long, practically becoming her shadow. Other than matters concerning her, he rarely showed emotional fluctuations over anything else.

"He seems to have changed." Ye Xishui's gaze rested on Long Xiaoyao, no longer carrying its usual coldness and distance. She murmured softly, "He's become more like he used to be."

Three figures appeared in the distance. The one in the middle seemed to have had all the bones pulled from his body, limply slumped against the two beside him.

They were Mu Feng and the others returning from outside. Little White and Xiao Hei supported the unconscious Mu Feng between them.

Upon seeing Long Xiaoyao, Little White respectfully greeted him. "Elder Long."

Mu Feng leaned against the two of them like a lump of mud. His robe was tattered, and even his delicate, handsome face was covered in dust.

Long Xiaoyao frowned. "How did he end up like this again?"

Little White hurriedly began explaining, but he spoke too quickly. His leaking, hoarse voice came out muddled and indistinct, making Long Xiaoyao's eyelids twitch.

The secret technique Ye Xishui had taught Mu Feng was to suppress his soul power, then repeatedly exhaust the soul power within his body. Through recovery after recovery, he would widen his meridians and condense his soul power.

It was similar in principle to the method Tang Hao had used to seal Tang San's soul power for cultivation, allowing his soul power to explosively increase after the seal was lifted.

However, after Ye Xishui's improvements and with the supporting pills she refined, a cultivator could directly raise the limit of only being able to store three or four ranks of soul power before obtaining a soul ring to ten ranks.

Yet because soul masters at different stages required different amounts of soul power to advance, her secret technique was only suitable for soul masters below Rank 40.

Long Xiaoyao took Mu Feng's right hand and sensed the changes in his meridians. Compared to when he had first awakened his martial soul three years ago, he had made tremendous progress.

Following the principle that there was no harm in taking more, with an Ultimate Douluo like Long Xiaoyao right before him, Mu Feng often eagerly sought his advice on cultivation matters.

Moreover, compared to Ye Xishui's cold indifference, Long Xiaoyao's outwardly cold yet inwardly warm nature made him much easier to approach.

Though he was trapped by his past and unable to move on, making him appear somewhat gloomy, that did not mean he was difficult to get close to.

Long Xiaoyao had also carefully observed this little fellow, Mu Feng. Not only could he exceed Ye Xishui's demanding training regimen, he often added extra training as well, leaving him exhausted to the point that he usually had to be carried back.

Just when Long Xiaoyao thought Mu Feng had been blinded by hatred and become as obsessive as an evil soul master, the little fellow would recover a bit of strength, then bring some fruit and snacks to chat with him.

As they went back and forth, their relationship gradually became less unfamiliar than it had been at first. Especially when they encountered certain issues and held differing views, Mu Feng would not simply obey him without question.

At their most heated, Long Xiaoyao would release a soul power barrier to cut off the vibrations in the air. Then, within the barrier, the old man and the child would argue until their faces turned red, neither willing to yield.

Gradually, this nine-year-old little fellow carved out a small place in his heart. Over time, their relationship began developing into something that was part master and disciple, part friends, and part grandfather and grandson.

However, aside from Mu Feng's own grueling efforts, the Holy Spirit Cult's cultivation resources also helped him greatly.

Mu Feng had also tasted two Profound Water Pills—the ones Bei Bei had swindled from Xu Sanshi for Huo Yuhao in the original story. Even the Soul Ascension Pill, which Tang San's precious daughter had needed to risk her life for, was no exception.

If the Profound Water Pill's boost for Huo Yuhao had been multiplication, then for Mu Feng, it was merely ordinary addition.

After swallowing the Profound Water Pill with great expectations, Mu Feng had also hoped to soar to new heights. Yet the benefits it brought were far inferior even to the one Ye Xishui had refined for him back then.

A soul master's cultivation speed did not simply rise from one to ten. The difficulty grew exponentially the further one progressed. This was also why the Profound Water Pill's effects on Mu Feng had not been as astonishing as they had been for Huo Yuhao.

After bidding Long Xiaoyao farewell, Little White had Xiao Hei carry Mu Feng back to his room alone, while he went to report Mu Feng's cultivation progress for the day to Ye Xishui.

"He's almost reached his bottleneck?" For three full years, Mu Feng had not obtained his first soul ring, focusing instead on improving his physique and compressing the quality of his soul power.

Now that Mu Feng was about to break through to Rank 30, the secret technique Ye Xishui had given him would no longer be effective. It was time for him to obtain a soul ring.

Ye Xishui nodded. Although Mu Feng had only grown an average of three ranks per year, and had barely matched the cultivation speed of ordinary soul masters even with abundant cultivation resources supplied to him—

Ye Xishui was already very satisfied with that result, because the further her secret technique was cultivated, the more severely the soul power limit caused by not obtaining a soul ring restrained one's cultivation progress.

It was like running with a stone strapped to one's back. The more exhausted one became in body and mind, the heavier that stone seemed to grow.

Every step at that point was a test of one's willpower, and Rank 30 was the finish line of this marathon.

Giving up halfway would naturally still produce some cultivation benefits, but crossing that finish line would bring a transformation from within to without, from heart to body.

This journey of cultivation, which challenged one's limits, was a double torment and trial for both body and mind.

Even though Mu Feng had lived two lives and understood the overused principle of "without weathering the storm, how could one see the rainbow," he had still wanted to give up midway on several occasions.

But the world he now lived in had long differed from the rules of survival in his previous life. There was no comfort of beer and barbecue—only trials of life and death.

Before joining the Holy Spirit Cult, he could be said to have been extremely unfamiliar with actual combat. Compared to other soul masters, his inexperience in battle was his greatest weakness.

When he had first hunted a small soul beast, even with two Soul Sages standing guard beside him, he had still panicked and flailed around chaotically. Had Xiao Hei not stepped in to restrain the crazed soul beast in time, his first real battle would have ended in failure and severe injury.

Even so, after personally disemboweling it, Mu Feng still suffered nightmares for two days before recovering.

Unlike when he had accidentally killed two evil soul masters after losing mental control during his martial soul awakening, experiencing the feeling of killing while fully conscious for the first time had not felt good.

In this regard, Mu Feng greatly admired Shrek Academy's teaching system. It did not use soul power rank as its standard, but looked only at a soul master's actual combat performance.

Otherwise, no matter how high one's rank was, what use would it be if one had poor mental fortitude on the battlefield, saw blood flowing like rivers, and became so terrified that one's legs went weak and fighting spirit vanished?

After recognizing his own weakness, Mu Feng added combat training to the regimen Ye Xishui had designed for him.

And his bedraggled state today had been caused by a battle against an Ironclad Rhino that was more than four hundred years old.