Taking Whale Rubber (Please Vote)

By the time Father Lin finished dinner, it was already dark.

After informing his parents, Lin Yuan left home and headed toward the academy.

Before leaving, Lin Yuan claimed that some classmates knew his family sold medicinal herbs and had asked him to help sell herbs their parents had dug up in the deep mountains.

Using that as an excuse, he gave Mother Lin the herbs Yan Beifei had ripened.

Mother Lin had always been shrewd, especially in business, where she was practically an upgraded version of Flender.

Flender only knew how to use his strength as a Soul Sage to jack up prices.

Mother Lin would cheat you while making you feel as though you had gotten a bargain.

Yet this time, Mother Lin was unusually generous and bought the herbs directly at market price.

As Mother Lin put it, although she was not a Soul Master, she knew that Soul Masters formed teams and needed to help one another.

Perhaps they would become lifelong companions in the future.

They could not let others suffer a loss.

Lin Yuan could not help admiring his mother's way of dealing with people.

What transmigrators, what Yu Xiaogang, what Shrek Seven Monsters, what Spirit Hall's three beauties, what Silver Dragon King.

Not one of them was as wise as a farmwoman from the countryside.

After sighing inwardly, Lin Yuan could only helplessly accept the several hundred Gold Soul Coins his mother gave him and return to the academy.

This was nearly all the working capital of their Old Lin Apothecary.

That night, he acted as though nothing had happened.

He sat cross-legged to meditate and cultivate, quietly gathering Creation Heaven-Reaching Dew.

The next morning, he did his usual one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and ten-kilometer run.

He attended class as usual in the morning, fooling around with several close friends during breaks as usual.

But once noon arrived, after confirming that Tang San, Xiao Wu, and Lin Tian had gone to the cafeteria, he skipped lunch and headed straight outside the academy to buy a charcoal brazier, a fine iron grill, and some charcoal.

Then he swiftly found an inn far from both his home and the academy and rented a room.

Only then did he take out the pale yellow Whale Rubber his mother had given him.

This Whale Rubber had originally been prepared by his mother for Yan Beifei. There had only been one piece on the market at the time, and she had planned to fleece that boy for another sum.

Who would have thought that he would fail to return for so long, leaving it stuck in her hands?

Of course, Mother Lin had not suffered a loss either. She had only spent nine Gold Soul Coins to acquire this piece of Whale Rubber.

The earlier Hundred-Year Wild Ginseng had been enough to earn back two or three times the cost of the Whale Rubber.

After filling a bathtub with water, Lin Yuan asked a server for some ice and tossed it in.

Once everything was ready, Lin Yuan lit the charcoal and threw the Whale Rubber onto the grill.

Charcoal grilling was obviously far slower than heating it with a Soul Master's flames.

A full two and a half hours passed, and Lin Yuan was nearly asleep before it finally melted into a jelly-like fluid, giving off a faint fishy-sweet fragrance.

Carefully, he scooped up a spoonful and put it into his mouth. The warm fluid slid down his throat.

It tasted slightly fishy at first, but left a faint sweetness afterward.

Only moments later, a surge of heat erupted in his lower abdomen and swept through his entire body.

Lin Yuan felt the skin over his whole body grow scorching hot.

Not daring to delay, he promptly wolfed down the egg-sized "jelly."

Then he jumped into the bathtub, sat cross-legged, and used his Soul Power to guide the hot current through his meridians.

As his Soul Power circulated, a fine tearing sensation rose from deep within his muscles, while something seemed to squeeze between his bones.

His entire body ached unbearably.

It was only after nearly half an hour that the pain finally receded.

Lin Yuan's body gradually calmed down.

When the horizon was blanketed in orange-red sunset clouds, Lin Yuan finally awoke from meditation. Despite meditating for just as long as usual, he felt no fatigue at all this time.

"It really hurt, but the results are maxed out too..."

Lin Yuan clearly sensed that places where his Soul Power had once struggled to circulate had become unobstructed.

His body had also grown much stronger. Although his build had not changed much, his muscle definition had become increasingly apparent.

Yet the outlines of his shoulder bones and finger bones had grown more distinct, his skeletal frame becoming pronounced and exuding a solid sense of strength.

When he clenched his fist, the joints on the back of his hand stood out sharply.

This must have been the effect of Whale Rubber strengthening his meridians, bones, and muscles.

It was almost comparable to the results of more than three months of training.

As for expelling some of the impurities from his body, Lin Yuan merely looked at the bathwater that had turned black from sweat and grime without saying anything.

He immediately took a cold shower, hurried home, and told his mother that Whale Rubber was useful.

Mother Lin was naturally overjoyed upon hearing this. She immediately closed the shop and ran to the medicinal herb market to hunt for Whale Rubber.

Before leaving, she boldly declared that she would buy up all the Whale Rubber in Notting City and feed it all to her son.

As for Lin Tian or whoever else, how could they be more important than her own son?

This warmed Lin Yuan's heart.

But this could very likely arouse Lin Tian's suspicions.

It might also draw the attention of other unknown transmigrators.

After all, in Soul Land I, this stuff was merely an aphrodisiac. If Mother Lin bought it in such large quantities,

and Whale Rubber kept flowing into Notting City,

it would be difficult to guarantee that no one would grow suspicious.

It seems I can't withhold all the Whale Rubber from Lin Tian. I'll just give him some scraps.

That way, he could dispel Lin Tian's suspicions while redirecting the attention of any unknown transmigrators who might appear toward Lin Tian.

Secondly, he could use this opportunity to circulate the Gold Soul Coins in his hands back to his mother.

After all, although Whale Rubber was not expensive now, before drug resistance developed, the Gold Soul Coins required were no small expense for a family with only modest assets.

Time passed in circles, and one school year went by.

Nording Academy had only eleven months in each school year. The remaining month was the students' vacation.

During those eleven months, Lin Yuan lived an extremely regular life.

Every morning, he did a fixed routine of one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run.

He attended class normally in the morning, played around with his close friends during breaks, and acted like an ordinary child.

At noon, he went to the library to read for half an hour.

After finishing all the books related to Soul Masters and soul beasts, he devoted that spare time, along with the entire afternoon, to meditation and increasing his Soul Power.

At night, he continued meditating and cultivating. At the same time, he buried the Plastic Palm-Heaven Bottle in an abandoned flowerpot, covered it with fragments of a magic treasure, and collected Green Liquid.

He discovered that the Plastic Palm-Heaven Bottle had the same effects as Han Li's Heavenly Vial in the mortal realm of Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality.

For every seven days of moonlight it absorbed, it could condense one drop of Green Liquid.

After condensing the Green Liquid, he used it for medicinal baths to improve the quality of his Lone Bamboo Martial Soul.

Occasionally, he returned home to see whether his mother had managed to acquire any Whale Rubber.

If she had, Lin Yuan did not need to go through the trouble of renting an inn, buying charcoal, and grilling it himself.

His mother would have everything prepared for him.

As for Lin Tian, Mother Lin had already considered him without Lin Yuan needing to bring it up.

After all, Lin Tian's talent was there for all to see, and offending him rashly would not be a good thing.

Thus, whenever they acquired four or five pieces of Whale Rubber, she had Lin Yuan bring the lowest-quality piece to Lin Tian.

As a result, over those eleven months, Lin Yuan consumed more than a dozen pieces of Whale Rubber one after another, while Lin Tian had consumed only two.