One Year Later (Please Vote for Monthly Tickets)

The only pity was that there wasn't any Thousand-Year Whale Rubber.

The piece Lin Yuan had taken before was only a hundred years old.

According to his mother, perhaps because it was too rare, Thousand-Year Whale Rubber almost never made its way into Notting City.

Even if it did, they couldn't afford it.

That stuff had already been driven up to the astronomical price of over a thousand Gold Soul Coins.

This made Lin Yuan even more certain that there might be other transmigrators.

At the same time, after using the Heaven-Palming Bottle continuously for eleven months to collect Green Liquid and improve his martial soul's quality,

Lin Yuan's Lone Bamboo martial soul had changed from deep green with faint dark patterns on its surface into an ink-green bamboo covered in fine, metallic-sheened bamboo patterns.

These were traits possessed only by thousand-year Lone Bamboo.

Moreover, based on its physical characteristics, Lin Yuan deduced that it was at least over three thousand years old.

This happened to correspond with the thirty-odd drops of Green Liquid Lin Yuan had collected.

That was still with rainy weather affecting the collection.

Otherwise, his martial soul's quality could have become even higher.

Even so, Lin Yuan's cultivation speed had increased greatly.

Before his martial soul evolved to thousand-year quality, it had taken him a full three and a half months to break through to Level Four.

But after it evolved to the thousand-year level, it took only around two months for him to reach Level Five.

His cultivation speed had increased by more than half, and the Lone Bamboo was as hard as iron.

One could imagine the benefits Martial Soul Evolution had brought Lin Yuan.

Over the following half year, although the rate at which his Soul Power increased was no longer as obvious as before,

Lin Yuan still maintained a pace of roughly one level every two months.

His Soul Power had now broken through to Level Eight.

By his estimate, it would take at most another three to five months to reach Level Ten, and he should begin considering obtaining his first Soul Ring.

Thus, he came up with the idea of returning to Bamboo Ridge to cultivate Lone Bamboo.

He also collected a drop of Green Liquid in advance without using it.

If he was lucky and it did not rain much during this month's holiday, he could collect three or four drops of Green Liquid.

Then, when he reached Level Ten, he could collect another drop in advance and cultivate it to over six hundred years.

A first Soul Ring of over six hundred years would not be too bad.

But before that, he still had to send Lin Tian away.

If that guy went to Bamboo Ridge too, it would be difficult for him to act.

With that in mind, Lin Yuan headed to Dorm Seven.

Before he even entered, Lin Yuan heard Tang San's voice. "Xiao Wu, vacation starts tomorrow. Are you going home?"

Walking to the doorway, Lin Yuan saw Lin Tian sitting cross-legged on his bed, holding his Lotus Martial Soul in his hand, blue aura blazing around him.

Perhaps because of his cultivation technique, blue aura filled Lin Tian's body whenever he cultivated.

Thus, in order to conceal his secret, Lin Tian released his martial soul every time he cultivated.

Besides him, several other work-study students had also released their martial souls and sat cross-legged on their beds cultivating.

They were following his example.

Tang San, meanwhile, was packing his luggage.

As for Xiao Wu, upon hearing Tang San's words, she was no longer as lively as usual. She merely leaned against her bed, looking somewhat lonely. "I'm not going home. I'll just stay at the academy."

"You aren't going home?" Tang San asked.

Xiao Wu's eyes lit up. "Xiao Tian, are you going home?"

"Me?" Lin Tian withdrew from cultivation.

Perhaps because he had his martial soul to rely on, he no longer needed to find a secluded chamber to cultivate behind closed doors as he had in his previous life, lest someone disturb him and cause him to suffer cultivation deviation.

As for why he knew Xiao Wu was a transformed soul beast, that was something from two lives ago.

Xiao Wu looked at him expectantly. "Yes. Is your home close to the academy? How about I go back with you?"

Hearing this, the corners of Lin Tian's lips could not help but rise slightly. Tang San, on the other hand, abruptly stopped packing, and his entire person seemed somewhat empty.

Over this past year, whether Lin Tian or Tang San, both had already become good friends with Xiao Wu.

Although Xiao Wu, because they were still little kids, had only experienced ordinary day-to-day matters with them,

had not yet reached the point of liking either of them.

Still, she sincerely regarded both of them as good friends.

The relationship between Tang San and Lin Tian, however, was more subtle. They were not enemies, and their relationship was not bad, but something always stood between them.

To sum up their relationship in one sentence, they were friends of friends.

Both possessed Innate Full Soul Power. As soon as Lin Tian obtained his Soul Ring, his Soul Power rose to Level Fourteen, one level higher than Tang San's, and the power of his soul skill far surpassed Tang San's Blue Silver Entanglement.

Over the following eleven months, he rose to Level Nineteen, gaining a full five Soul Power Levels.

Tang San, by contrast, had only reached Level Seventeen, gaining merely four Soul Power Levels.

The gap in their Soul Power widened once again.

If that were all, it would have been fine. After all, Yu Xiaogang had often indoctrinated Tang San, telling him that Lin Tian had only one martial soul and that a temporary gap meant nothing.

Tang San possessed two martial souls. Once he became a Titled Douluo in the future and added nine ten-thousand-year, or even Hundred Thousand Year Soul Rings to his second martial soul, he could instantly surpass Lin Tian.

He would reach heights Lin Tian could never attain in his lifetime.

But Tang San had discovered on several occasions that Yu Xiaogang had privately approached Lin Tian, intending to take him as a disciple, only to be rejected.

If that were all, it would have been fine.

What Tang San found most unbearable was that whenever he sparred with Lin Tian and Xiao Wu,

he had never defeated Lin Tian. Even when he joined forces with Xiao Wu, even when he used hidden weapon techniques to throw pebbles at Lin Tian, he had never won even once.

At the same time, because Lin Tian was handsome, eloquent, and had time to accompany Xiao Wu shopping, while Tang San looked ordinary and had to forge iron and listen to Yu Xiaogang's lectures, leaving him no time to shop with Xiao Wu,

Xiao Wu was closer to Lin Tian than she was to Tang San.

This caused Tang San to feel deeply jealous of him.

Even knowing Lin Tian was not a "bad person," even though the two had never had any conflict, Tang San was still jealous.

Now that he saw Xiao Wu wanting to go to Lin Tian's home, there was even less need to say it.

Lin Tian smiled. "My home is more than fifty li from Nording Academy. We'd have to walk mountain roads for an entire day. Are you sure you want to go?"

He was trying to make Xiao Wu back down in the face of difficulty. He had no choice—Tang Hao was watching from behind the scenes.

If he dared to whisk Xiao Wu away, wouldn't Tang Hao act against Xiao Wu ahead of time and capture her?

In the past, in order to obtain a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring, despite knowing Ah Yin was a hundred-thousand-year transformed soul beast, he had still taken Ah Yin, who had not reached maturity, wandering beneath Spirit Hall's nose. In the end, he caused Ah Yin to sacrifice herself.

Tang Hao was absolutely capable of doing such a thing.

But Xiao Wu's eyes lit up. "Your home is in the mountains?"

"More or less." Lin Tian smiled.

"Then I'll go with you."

She had lived in the Star Dou Great Forest since childhood. Going into the mountains was like returning home for her. Besides, she had nowhere else to go.

"Uh..." Hearing this, Lin Tian felt helpless, but even more than that, he was happy.

Happy that Xiao Wu was willing to return to Bamboo Ridge with him rather than go back to Holy Soul Village with Tang San.

But the problem was that Tang Hao was still standing behind Tang San.