Tang San's Soul Ring Was Gone, Xu Zhou's File Got Thicker

"Seven hundred and sixty-eight years?"

The herb garden supervisor looked at the wooden tag, then at the Ironthorn Vine, his expression truly remarkable.

Four hundred and twelve years was suitable for Tang San's first Soul Ring.

Seven hundred and sixty-eight years was suitable for sending Tang San to the infirmary.

There was only a little over three hundred years between them.

Not a big problem.

It just meant that after absorbing it, they might need to find another Tang San.

"Could the wooden tag be fake too?"

Wang Sheng raised a very reasonable question.

There had been too many fake things these past two days.

The attack records were fake.

The procurement ages were fake.

Even merchants had infiltrated the Soul Beast Protection Faction.

At this point, even if someone told him that the Seventh Dormitory did not actually charge lodging fees, he would first check whether they were trying to sell him a bed.

"Check the roots."

Yu Xiaogang crouched beside the Ironthorn Vine and studied it carefully.

Judging the age of plant Soul Beasts was rather complicated. One could not look only at their size; one also had to examine the color of the main root, the number of branches, and the hardness of the iron thorns.

A moment later, he rose to his feet.

"The number on the wooden tag is roughly correct."

"This Ironthorn Vine is at least seven hundred years old. Tang San cannot absorb it."

Tang San was not particularly disappointed.

More precisely, he had been disappointed too many times over the past two days and was getting used to it.

The Mandrake Snake had been transferred away.

The Ghost Vine had been prepared in advance by a merchant.

The Ironthorn Vine had finally been suitable in every respect, only for its age to be half again as high as it should have been.

When others obtained their first Soul Ring, they searched for Soul Beasts.

When he obtained his first Soul Ring, he had to rule out scams first.

"Save it first."

Xiao Wu looked at the Ironthorn Vine trapped in the iron cage.

"Since it can't become a Soul Ring, stop standing around it and discussing how to kill it."

The herb garden supervisor looked somewhat troubled.

"It just destroyed half the herb garden."

"How much will repairing the herb garden cost?"

"Around thirty Gold Soul Coins."

"The person who caught it sold it for fifty."

Xiao Wu pointed at the man being led away by the city guards.

"Make him pay."

The man's face immediately turned pale when he heard that.

"I don't have any money!"

"You were selling it for fifty even though you had no money?"

"The price was written for the academy to see. The actual deal was only twelve coins. The rest had to be split among the introducer, the transporter, and the person who set the odds."

He shut his mouth after saying that.

Unfortunately, it was already too late.

The city guards silently took out paper and pens.

With that one sentence, he had exposed at least three more groups.

Xu Zhou looked at him and suddenly understood why people who did bad things should speak less.

Because once they started explaining, they were often even more useful than Proofreading Ability.

"Xu Zhou."

The headmaster walked over from outside the crowd.

He first glanced at the Ironthorn Vine before handing Xu Zhou a newly written report.

"Check it again."

"Me?"

"Can't you spot mistakes?"

The headmaster said it as though it were perfectly natural.

The surrounding teachers nodded in agreement.

From the hearing to the herb garden, Xu Zhou had already uncovered several problems in a row. Everyone clearly regarded his Black Ancient Book as an auxiliary Martial Soul specialized in checking false accounts and erroneous records.

As for the fact that he had zero Soul Power, that had become unimportant instead.

An auxiliary Martial Soul did not necessarily need to fight.

Being able to check accounts was enough.

The Black Ancient Book trembled slightly.

[Many people believe that the host's Martial Soul can only verify records and cannot be used for cultivation or battle.]

[Judgment incorrect.]

[Cognitive Bias collected.]

Soul Power silently entered his body.

Xu Zhou accepted the report without explaining.

This misunderstanding was much safer than "being able to communicate with Soul Beasts."

The former would at most make him work overtime.

The latter might get him served as an extra course.

The kind of extra course where he became Soul Beast food.

The report was not long.

It recorded the entire process of the Ironthorn Vine entering the academy, suddenly attacking, and being subdued.

Xu Zhou turned to the second page, and several lines of ink immediately appeared in the Black Ancient Book.

[Proofreading discovered an obvious contradiction.]

[Incident report states: Xu Zhou soothed the Ironthorn Vine with mental abilities.]

[Field record states: The Ironthorn Vine never stopped attacking.]

Xu Zhou's eye twitched slightly.

"Who wrote this sentence?"

The headmaster took a look.

"The herb garden supervisor."

Everyone's gazes immediately fell on the herb garden supervisor.

"I was merely making a reasonable deduction."

The herb garden supervisor hurriedly explained.

"Every time Xu Zhou spoke, the Ironthorn Vine changed its attack direction. If that wasn't mental communication, what was it?"

"It was a lure potion."

Xu Zhou placed the last empty bottle on top of the report.

"It was chasing the scent, not listening to me."

"But how did you know the potion was in the carriage?"

"The ledger said all three bottles had been used, but there was only the scent of two bottles at the scene."

"Then how did you know there was an iron cage beneath the third carriage?"

"The wheel tracks were deeper."

The herb garden supervisor froze.

"So your Martial Soul cannot communicate with plant Soul Beasts?"

"No."

"It can only find contradictions in records?"

"For now, that's how it is."

The Black Ancient Book's ability had only just appeared. Whether it would change later, even Xu Zhou did not know.

If he made an absolute claim now, it would be easy to trap himself later.

The headmaster nodded thoughtfully, crossed out mental communication with his pen, and added a sentence beside it.

"Special book-type Martial Soul. Possesses a certain ability to cross-check information. Does not possess combat ability."

Xu Zhou glanced at it.

Very good.

The first half was correct.

There was currently no evidence to refute the latter half either.

Proofreading Ability could only find obvious contradictions between written statements; it could not determine whether a statement itself was true or false.

If all records gave the same wrong answer, the Black Ancient Book would not react either.

Thinking of that, Xu Zhou suddenly took out his Martial Soul Awakening certificate.

Black Ancient Book, Innate Zero Soul Power.

He then asked the academy for yesterday's four retest records.

Zero Soul Power.

Zero Soul Power.

After level ninety-nine, the instrument malfunctioned. Result void.

Xu Zhou placed the records together.

The Black Ancient Book remained perfectly still.

There was no prompt at all.

This meant that, according to the written records, he truly was an ordinary person incapable of cultivation.

All the evidence matched one another.

All the conclusions were completely consistent.

Yet every last one of them was wrong.

Xu Zhou was not disappointed. Instead, he thoroughly understood the limits of Proofreading Ability.

It could discover when people's claims contradicted themselves.

But it could not decide the truth for him.

If he wanted to know what reality was like, he ultimately had to verify it himself.

"Your file needs to be rewritten too."

The headmaster noticed the certificate in his hand.

"From today onward, you are not only a special Martial Soul research subject, but also the academy's temporary file verifier."

"Does it pay?"

"You're only six."

"Six-year-olds can't be paid?"

"We can grant you access to the archives."

"Deal."

Xu Zhou agreed very quickly.

He could earn money later.

But the academy archives held vast records on Soul Beasts, Martial Soul theories, and cultivation materials, all of which were more important to him right now.

Especially cultivation.

The Public Script of becoming a Soul Master within thirty days had yet to be completed.

Over the past few days, he had indeed collected quite a lot of Cognitive Bias, and his Soul Power had been steadily increasing, but he was still far from level ten.

What was more troublesome was that he could not suddenly reveal Soul Power.

Once the academy discovered that he could cultivate, the Public Script of "Xu Zhou can never become a Soul Master" would begin to crumble early.

If that happened, he would lose a great deal of Cognitive Bias and find it even harder to break through within the time limit.

He had to keep hiding it.

He also had to make even more people genuinely believe that he could not cultivate.

The headmaster clearly had no idea what Xu Zhou was thinking.

He only felt that although this child had no Soul Power, he was exceptionally suited to organizing files.

After all, ordinary teachers got headaches after reading dozens of pages of records, while Xu Zhou could proactively read through them all and was even willing to keep reading.

If a child like this did not enter the archives, who would?

"There's one more thing."

The headmaster took out a class schedule from behind his back.

"The academy plans to hold an open cultivation class for new students tomorrow. We need a student with Innate Zero Soul Power as a comparison."

Xu Zhou raised his head.

"What are we comparing?"

"To prove that meditation can only guide existing Innate Soul Power and cannot make someone with zero Soul Power become a Soul Master out of thin air."

"Who proposed it?"

"Spirit Hall."

The dean pointed to the bottom of the course schedule.

Ma Xiunuo would attend in person.

Besides that, there would also be personnel from the City Lord's Residence, academy teachers, and all this year's new students.

To make the conclusion more intuitive, Xu Zhou needed to meditate alongside Tang San.

One had Innate Full Soul Power.

The other had Innate Zero Soul Power.

The results should have been obvious.

Tang San would absorb Soul Power.

Xu Zhou would show no reaction at all.

At least, that was what everyone thought.

The Black Ancient Book suddenly began flipping its pages on its own.

A long-absent line of text appeared before Xu Zhou's eyes.

[The Public Script's area of influence is about to expand.]

[Current script: Xu Zhou has no talent for cultivation and can never become a Soul Master in his lifetime.]

[Completion condition: Become a Soul Master within the time limit.]

[Time remaining: twenty-three days.]

Xu Zhou stared at the course schedule for a moment.

"I'll attend this public class."

The dean nodded in satisfaction.

"Don't worry. You'll only be there as a negative example. You won't need to do anything."

Xu Zhou nodded as well.

"I understand."

He really did not need to do anything.

Tomorrow, he only needed to sit there and let everyone continue believing that he could not cultivate.