The First Soul Ring Was Gone Again

The alarm bells at the herb garden were still ringing.

By the time Xu Zhou and the others arrived, the outer wooden gate was already gone.

More precisely, half of it remained.

The other half was suspended in midair by black vines, wood chips constantly raining down.

In the center of the herb garden, countless vines covered in iron-gray thorns burst from the soil, nearly crawling over all the nearby racks.

The two teachers guarding the herb garden had been forced onto the roof. One of them had injured his arm, blood dripping from his sleeve.

With every drop of blood that fell, the vines below grew another stretch upward.

"Stop bleeding!"

The other teacher on the roof was sweating anxiously.

"You think I want to bleed?"

The injured teacher clutched his arm.

"Ironthorn Vines fear fire!"

The arriving city guards raised their torches.

"You can't light them."

Yu Xiaogang immediately stopped them.

"There are many flammable medicinal herbs in the garden. If the fire gets out of control, this entire area will burn down."

"Then cut it with blades?"

"Its main roots are hidden underground. Cutting the outer vines will only provoke it into attacking more fiercely."

The city guards' expressions darkened.

"Fire won't work, blades won't work. Are we supposed to reason with it?"

"It's not like we can't try."

Xiao Wu looked toward the Ironthorn Vine.

The city guards fell silent.

This group's attitude toward Soul Beasts was somewhat beyond his understanding.

Xu Zhou did not join the argument. Instead, he opened the ledger he had just found.

A four-hundred-and-twelve-year Ironthorn Vine.

Starved for two days.

It entangled anything that bled.

Its temporary storage location was the herb garden, but the ledger did not record exactly which section it had been buried in.

The Black Ancient Book appeared in his hand, the words on its pages rapidly comparing themselves against the herb garden records.

[Proofreading detected an obvious contradiction.]

[Procurement ledger records: Ironthorn Vine delivered last night.]

[Herb garden duty record states: no Soul Beast was transported last night.]

[Herb garden supplies registry states: three carts of humus were received this morning.]

Xu Zhou raised his head and looked over the herb garden.

"The Ironthorn Vine wasn't delivered last night."

"What do you mean?" Tang San asked.

"It was hidden in the humus delivered this morning."

Xu Zhou pointed toward several patches of freshly turned soil on the eastern side.

"Transporting a Soul Beast would have been too conspicuous, so they mixed the Ironthorn Vine with soil and sent it into the academy under the pretense of delivering fertilizer for the herb garden."

The herb garden supervisor immediately shook his head.

"Impossible."

"I personally inspected those three carts of humus. There definitely wasn't a Soul Beast inside."

"How many carts did you inspect?"

"All three."

"Did you turn over every cart?"

"Of course."

Xu Zhou handed him the registry.

"But you wrote here that you randomly inspected the first cart."

The herb garden supervisor opened his mouth.

He lowered his head to look at the entry, then looked at Xu Zhou. The expression on his face gradually stiffened.

Clearly, he had forgotten what he himself had written yesterday.

"Maybe I remembered it wrong."

"The first cart had no problem."

Xu Zhou opened the procurement ledger.

"The Ironthorn Vine was hidden in the third cart. The first was for your inspection, the second contained ordinary soil, and the third was the one actually used to transport the Soul Beast."

The herb garden supervisor asked instinctively, "How did you know?"

"The wheel tracks."

Xu Zhou pointed at the herb garden's side gate.

After the three carts had passed through, they had left three sets of tracks.

The first two were nearly identical in depth.

The third was noticeably deeper.

Ordinary humus could not suddenly weigh that much more unless it was also hiding an iron cage containing a Soul Beast.

"He could even tell that?"

"Wasn't he said to have Innate Zero Soul Power?"

"Zero Soul Power doesn't affect his eyes."

The surrounding teachers began whispering among themselves.

Many of them had originally believed that Xu Zhou had only discovered the false records at the hearing by chance.

But now, it seemed that was not so simple.

The Black Ancient Book trembled softly.

[Many believe the host can only discover errors on paper and cannot handle real-world incidents.]

[Incorrect judgment.]

[Cognitive Bias collected.]

A surge of Soul Power flowed into his body.

Xu Zhou was already used to it.

To others, every time he spotted a problem, it seemed sudden.

But in truth, he merely put the existing clues together.

The Black Ancient Book was responsible for finding obvious contradictions.

As for what lay behind those contradictions, he still had to judge that himself.

"Save them first."

Tang San looked toward the roof.

"That teacher is losing more and more blood. The Ironthorn Vine will climb up there soon."

"Use animal blood to lure it away."

Xiao Wu had already thought of a solution.

"That Ghost Vine just now was lured away by the scent of severed roots. Since the Ironthorn Vine entangles anything that bleeds, give it another source of blood."

The herb garden supervisor hurriedly said, "There's fresh meat prepared for the medicinal beasts in the backyard."

"It's too far."

Xu Zhou shook his head.

"The Ironthorn Vine has already locked onto the teacher on the roof. Ordinary fresh meat may not make it change targets."

"Then what do we do?"

"Make the blood move."

Tang San understood.

Plant-type Soul Beasts reacted differently to still flesh and moving targets.

The Ironthorn Vine had been starved for two days, then deliberately cultivated into a state where it attacked at the sight of blood. What it needed now was not a piece of meat lying on the ground, but prey that could run away.

"I'll do it."

Tang San brought back a bloody chunk of beast meat from the backyard, wrapped it in Blue Silver Grass, and dragged it swiftly along the ground.

The moment the meat passed the edge of the herb garden, several Ironthorn Vines abruptly turned toward it.

But most of the vines remained beneath the roof.

"The scent of blood isn't strong enough."

Yu Xiaogang frowned.

"Give me the ledger."

Xu Zhou suddenly thought of something.

He flipped to the Ironthorn Vine's page and carefully examined the tiny writing at the bottom.

It recorded the lure medicine used to transport the Ironthorn Vine.

The Black Ancient Book quickly marked another contradiction.

[Ledger records: three bottles of lure medicine, all used.]

[Herb garden storage record: no lure medicine received.]

[Residual scent in carriage compartment: identical to the scent of severed roots.]

"The medicine is still in the carriage."

Xu Zhou immediately looked at Wang Sheng.

"When you came back with the city guards just now, did you bring the carriage into the academy too?"

"It's parked at the side gate."

The moment Wang Sheng answered, he understood and ran out carrying the ledger.

Not long after, he returned to the herb garden carrying a wooden box.

Three empty bottles lay inside the box.

Two of them were indeed empty.

But the stopper on the last bottle had never been opened.

The ledger said that all of them had been used.

When these people falsified the records, they clearly had not expected anyone to inspect even the empty bottles.

"Pour the medicine onto the beast meat."

Yu Xiaogang took the bottle.

The instant the liquid poured out, a pungent, fishy-sweet scent spread through the air.

The Ironthorn Vine instantly grew restless.

Every vine turned toward the beast meat in Tang San's hand. Even the few that had already climbed to the eaves withdrew.

"Run!"

Tang San controlled the Blue Silver Grass, dragging the meat toward the other side of the herb garden.

The Ironthorn Vine chased after him.

The area below the roof was immediately cleared.

Luo Sanpao spread his wings and flew up, biting onto the injured teacher's collar while the other teacher grabbed his waist.

"Luo luo!"

Luo Sanpao beat his wings desperately.

The two adults were too heavy. He could not fly, only barely slow their fall.

Xiao Wu rushed beneath them ahead of time, grabbed the hanging rope, and used the herb racks to swing them into a safe area.

"Catch them!"

Two city guards reached out at the same time.

Bang!

The three of them rolled into a heap.

The people had been saved.

But the Ironthorn Vine had already caught up behind Tang San.

No matter how fast Blue Silver Grass was, it could not keep dragging the meat while evading a Four-Hundred-Year Soul Beast forever. Just as one vine was about to pierce Tang San, Xiao Wu moved to rush forward.

"Left!"

Xu Zhou suddenly shouted.

Tang San did not look back. He immediately rolled to the left.

The thorn grazed his clothes and stabbed into the ground.

"Throw the beast meat into the humus from the third cart!"

Tang San flicked his hand.

Blue Silver Grass wrapped around the meat and hurled it into the empty cart.

All the Ironthorn Vines chased after it, their sharp thorns instantly piercing through the cart's boards.

Xu Zhou immediately looked at the city guards.

"Close the iron cage!"

Several city guards shoveled aside the humus and indeed found a hidden iron cage beneath the carriage.

The Ironthorn Vine's main root was still underground in the medicinal garden, but many of its vines had already entered the cage. Everyone quickly closed the mechanism, temporarily limiting its attack range.

The medicinal garden finally fell silent.

"That solved it?"

Wang Sheng looked somewhat dazed.

"It's only been contained."

After examining the Ironthorn Vine's condition, Yu Xiaogang's expression did not relax.

"It has been starved for two days, and its main root has multiple cutting wounds. If it isn't treated in time, it won't live much longer even if we return it to the Soul Hunting Forest."

Xiao Wu crouched in the distance, watching the Ironthorn Vine intently.

"Can it be saved?"

"We can try."

Yu Xiaogang pointed at the main root.

"First, replenish its nutrients, then remove the rotten parts. But it has already attacked humans. Keeping it at the academy any longer is too risky."

Tang San fell silent for a moment.

This Ironthorn Vine possessed toughness, binding power, and the ability to attack on its own. Its age was also close to the limit for a first Soul Ring.

No matter how he looked at it, it was an excellent match for Blue Silver Grass.

If the Ironthorn Vine's injuries worsened, then rather than letting it die for nothing, having Tang San absorb its Soul Ring seemed like the most reasonable choice.

But when he thought of someone deliberately starving and injuring it before sending it to him, Tang San felt uneasy.

This was not him choosing a Soul Ring.

Someone else had forcibly stuffed the answer into his hands.

"Save it first."

Tang San finally made his decision.

"If it can't be saved, then we'll talk about the Soul Ring."

Xiao Wu glanced at him without speaking, but her expression visibly softened.

Just then, the Black Ancient Book in Xu Zhou's hand suddenly turned its own pages.

The Ironthorn Vine's purchase records overlapped with the accounts for the inducing agent, and a new line of tiny writing appeared.

[Four hundred and twelve years was requested by the buyer, not the actual appraisal result.]

Xu Zhou's heart stirred.

"Its age may be wrong."

Yu Xiaogang immediately looked toward the Ironthorn Vine's main root.

A moment later, he pulled a wooden tag hidden beneath the soil from a gap in the roots.

Another number was written on it.

Seven hundred and sixty-eight years.

Tang San looked at the wooden tag, and the corner of his eye twitched slightly.

Great.

His first Soul Ring was gone again.