Clear Sky... Hammer?

After finishing the canned beef and telling that story, Xie Xie left his chopsticks resting on the rim of his bowl and did not move for a long while.

He lowered his head, his gaze falling on the half-bowl of soup that had gone cold on the table. He thought that if he had returned earlier, perhaps none of this would have happened. But even after coming back once, he still had no confidence that he could achieve the best possible ending.

Long Bing sat across from him. Seeing that he had not touched his soup, she glanced at Xie Xie and spoke. "Xie Xie, the fact that you could tell Tang Wulin and Gu Yue about this means you already consider them friends. Your teacher's wife sympathizes with you too, but all she can do is comfort you. Your mother definitely would not want you to be unhappy over this every day. If there's ever anything I can help with, come find me."

Xie Xie sniffed. "Thank you, Teacher's Wife."

Gu Yue said, "Crybaby."

Xie Xie's ears instantly turned red. "You... what do you mean, Gu Yue?"

Long Bing stood and paid the bill. "Shall we head back?"

By the time the four of them left the restaurant, the streetlights had already come on. Xie Xie walked in front, his steps slower than on the way there. Gu Yue walked in the middle, while Tang Wulin and Long Bing walked side by side at the back. After walking for a while, Long Bing turned to look at him. "You three need to work hard. Back then, I was the one who held Changkong back. If he had stayed at Shrek all these years, who knew how far he could have gone."

By the time they returned to the dormitory, night had fully settled in. Tang Wulin sat by his bed when a voice suddenly exploded in his sea of spirit. The Golden Dragon King's voice carried something barely contained, almost like excitement.

"Kid, hurry up and circulate your soul power. Did you feel anything different today?"

Tang Wulin paused. "Teacher's Wife took us out for a meal today. On the way back, I felt more relaxed than usual."

"It's your state of mind," the Golden Dragon King said.

He closed his eyes, and his soul power began circulating through his meridians. The bottleneck at level twenty stood there like a jammed door. At that moment, the door loosened. When his soul power surged toward it, the threshold collapsed. His soul power continued climbing. That light did not stop, only slowing before the second bottleneck and gradually squeezing past it. Level thirty.

He felt that the soul power within him flowed more smoothly than before by far more than a single level. Something was moving in his left hand. He lowered his head to look at it—golden light spread from his palm, turning into specks of starlight that scattered throughout his body. Then that layer of light vanished, replaced by dark-golden lightning that burst from the lines of his left hand, crackling as it spread outward along his fingers.

"What the hell?!" Xie Xie's voice exploded from the bunk across from him.

He flipped upright and saw Tang Wulin sitting cross-legged on his bed, his entire body wrapped in dark-golden arcs of electricity. Lightning struck the walls, leaving scorched black marks behind.

Yun Xiaogang woke with a start, rolled his eyes, and fainted. Zhou Changxi jumped straight out the window. Xie Xie grabbed Yun Xiaogang and rushed outside. With no time to use the door, he followed them out through the window.

The instant he landed, the entire dormitory behind him suddenly lit up—dark-golden lightning poured from the cracks around the door and windows, surging through the corridor and peeling the wall plaster away in sheets.

They searched for prey, ready to tear into it to their hearts' content.

The next second, a gentle soul power surged in from the end of the corridor and precisely wrapped around Tang Wulin's entire body. Having lost their source of power, the lightning receded like the tide, turning into fragments of light that fell to the ground and went out.

Tang Wulin sensed Wu Changkong's presence. He opened his eyes and saw him standing at the door, faint traces of soul power still lingering in his hand after he had withdrawn it.

He looked around. Several scorched marks now marred the dormitory walls. Xie Xie and Yun Xiaogang crouched outside the window, while Zhou Changxi clung to a tree in the courtyard. "...Were we attacked?"

Wu Changkong sat down on Xie Xie's bed. "You caused it yourself."

Tang Wulin lowered his head and looked at his left hand. In his palm was a completely black hammer. Its handle was about half a foot long, and its cylindrical head resembled a smithing hammer, with a faint ring of patterns winding around its surface. It felt incredibly heavy in his hand, pressing down on his palm as if he were gripping the weight of an entire mountain.

"A hammer?" Tang Wulin froze. "Where did this come from?"

"If I'm not mistaken, this should be your..." Wu Changkong sat opposite him. "Second martial soul." Even Wu Changkong found it hard to believe. What Tang Wulin held was unmistakably a Clear Sky Hammer, yet its aura was vastly different. An authentic Clear Sky Hammer possessed an overbearing presence that made others submit.

But the one in Tang Wulin's hand emitted an aura that sent chills down one's spine, as if it wanted to tear apart heaven and earth. Yet it also felt strangely familiar to Wu Changkong.

Before he could speak, the Golden Dragon King's voice sounded softly in the depths of Tang Wulin's mind. "That thing did not inherit much of this king's power, but it has fused with this king's bloodline power. Those blood essence soul rings of yours can be used on it as well."

Tang Wulin put the hammer away. Its body transformed into a streak of dark-golden light and sank into his palm, as if it had never existed. "I don't know either."

Wu Changkong stood up and paused at the door. "Come to my office tomorrow."

He left.

Tang Wulin sat by the bed, his hands empty, the lingering warmth in his palm not yet dispersed.

Xie Xie appeared anxiously at the doorway.

"Tang Wulin, what exactly was that... thing just now?"