Twelve Left, Three Returned

Holding the black-haired girl in his arms, Xu Tianming took out the First Mirror, opened a spatial passage, and stepped through it. Karna followed close behind.

There was no need to stay any longer. His goal had been the Rift Realm from the start. Now that it had been destroyed and he had obtained the Wish Power, he could simply leave.

As for Wang Dong'er, while the girl was indeed beautiful, and after spending some time with her he had found her personality rather pleasant, her identity was a massive problem. Xu Tianming did not want to get too involved with her for now.

"Young Mistress, we've searched the area. There's no sign of him nearby. He must have already left."

Not long afterward, Wang Dong'er listened to the report from the Clear Sky Sect disciple, and her expression immediately darkened. Clenching her little fists, she waved them angrily and snapped, "Fine, Aether! I was so worried about you, and you left without even saying goodbye? You really didn't take me seriously at all!"

"Very well. The next time we meet, I'll definitely beat you up."

"Achoo."

Back in Mingdu, Xu Tianming sneezed, rubbed his nose, and muttered gloomily, "Who's thinking about me?"

"You went out for a while and came back with a beautiful girl. Your luck with women isn't bad."

Herta glanced at the black-haired girl in Xu Tianming's arms and spoke blandly.

"Yeah, I think so too, but you should take a look at her first. She looks like she's about to die."

Xu Tianming placed the black-haired girl on a nearby sofa and looked toward Herta.

"Don't randomly bring people home next time. I don't want to clean up your mess every day."

Though Herta sounded disdainful, she moved quickly. A detection device flew up out of thin air and landed on the black-haired girl, while a beam of light swept across her body.

With her arms folded, Herta looked at the stream of data appearing on the virtual screen and revealed a surprised expression. "Heh. Her body is severely overdrawn, she's been heavily corroded by Rift Realm energy, and her Spirit Sea has been contaminated. Yet she's still alive. She's pretty lucky."

"It's that serious? Can she still be saved?"

Xu Tianming frowned. It would be terribly unlucky if all his effort had gone into saving a corpse.

"Are you underestimating me?"

Herta shot Xu Tianming a glance.

"Of course not. Lady Herta is supremely intelligent, peerless beneath the heavens, and breathtakingly beautiful. Such a trivial matter naturally couldn't stump a genius like you."

Xu Tianming immediately raised both hands and praised her with a solemn, serious expression.

"Come pick her up in three days. Also, reimburse the recent research expenses while you're at it."

Herta waved her staff, and the black-haired girl's body floated into the air. She followed Herta deeper into the laboratory, leaving Xu Tianming standing there in stunned disbelief.

Xu Tianming reached out as if to stop her, then after a long while managed to squeeze out, "Didn't I just give you funding? You've already spent it all?"

Xu Tianming's teeth ached. The pressure on him was enormous. He had a whole household to support, and he was only a nine-year-old prince! He was neither the crown prince nor the emperor. Hearth House needed money, the Cloud Knights needed money, Herta's research needed money—nothing could be done without money.

His allowance, along with the money he had shamelessly begged from his mother, had all been poured into Herta's bottomless pit. Did he really have to cast aside his dignity and borrow money from Xu Tianzhen or Meng Hongchen?

"Lord Aether, Lady Herta's storage contains Soul Tools she crafted in her spare time. According to my calculations, selling them would be sufficient to keep the laboratory running."

At that moment, the First Mirror offered a reminder.

"Right, I can sell Herta's Soul Tools."

Xu Tianming slapped his forehead. He had nearly forgotten that Herta was not all expenditure and no income. Every Soul Tool she made was a masterpiece. Selling a few would let him recover some funds.

However, he could not sell those Soul Tools under his own name. They had to be openly sold under the Fools' name. It would be even better if he could hold an auction.

In Xu Tianming's plans, the Fools were meant to be an organization that stepped into the spotlight, not something that hid in the shadows like the Holy Spirit Cult. Their creed was to eliminate Rift Realms, protect civilians, and strengthen the Douluo Continent.

With such a righteous and glorious creed, what was there to hide? Revealing that the Fools possessed a Ninth-Rank Soul Engineer, or even a Level-Ten Soul Engineer, would bring them nothing but benefits.

As for those harboring ill intent, they could ask their Swordhead whether his blade was sharp enough.

Just as Xu Tianming happily slipped into Herta's treasury to stock up, Taotie Douluo Xuan Zi was raging helplessly deep within the Star Dou Great Forest.

"Aaargh!"

The brawny old man, his muscles bulging, his body covered in earthen-yellow patterns, and yellow bull horns growing from his head, roared at the sky. Before him, a Medium Rift Realm was dissipating.

"Elder Xuan, Eldest Sister, she..."

At that moment, three figures supporting one another looked up at Xuan Zi as he vented his rage. Their faces were pale as they spoke.

"It was this old man's fault. I failed to watch over Lexuan. I failed to protect all of you."

Xuan Zi's muscular body seemed to deflate in an instant. His muscles shrank, and he immediately returned to his sloppy old-man appearance. He dropped to his knees, pounding the ground in regret as tears and snot streamed down his face.

The three pale-faced inner courtyard disciples, all under twenty, looked at Xuan Zi with dissatisfaction and anger in their eyes, though even more than that, they were filled with grief.

Including Zhang Lexuan, twelve elite inner courtyard disciples had followed Xuan Zi into the Star Dou Great Forest to hunt Soul Beasts. But when his craving for food struck, he had secretly gone off to hunt wild game. When the twelve inner courtyard disciples were attacked by a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, he failed to arrive in time to save them, and eight of them died on the spot.

Xuan Zi only arrived belatedly. In his fury, he killed the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast. In order not to waste its Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Ring, Zhang Lexuan absorbed it beyond her level. She suffered backlash from the Soul Ring, overtaxing her body and leaving her severely injured.

But misfortunes never came alone. Before they could leave the Star Dou Great Forest, they ran headlong into a newly formed Medium Rift Realm. Logically, with Xuan Zi, a Ninety-Eighth-Level Super Douluo, present, they should have been able to retreat unscathed even from a Medium Rift Realm.

Yet who could have expected Xuan Zi to fail them again? During his battle with the Rift Realm Lord, the shockwaves tore open the Rift Realm. Zhang Lexuan was caught in the aftermath and fell into a spatial fissure.

Xuan Zi's repeated failures had pushed the three surviving inner courtyard disciples' dissatisfaction to its limit. In particular, losing Zhang Lexuan filled them with boundless anger and sorrow.

When the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast attacked, Zhang Lexuan had stood at the front. Otherwise, all three of them would have died as well. When they fell into the Rift Realm, she had also forced herself to keep fighting in order to protect them. It was not that Xuan Zi had been useless, but he was like an unresponsive machine, always letting them down at the crucial moment.

A dignified Ninety-Eighth-Level Titled Douluo had taken a group of disciples out to hunt Soul Beasts, only for twelve to leave and three to return.

Most importantly, he had lost Zhang Lexuan. She was the eldest sister of the inner courtyard, Shrek Academy's greatest genius of this generation, an Eight-Ring Soul Douluo at only twenty-two years old.