The 400-Year Prize? My First Soul Ring Is 3,000 Years Old!

Dawn had barely broken, and a thin blue-gray mist still hung over Nuoding City.

Dorm Seven was silent.

On the broad daybed, Xiao Wu looked every bit like a lazy pink rabbit.

She was curled up in the Silk-Cotton Brocade Quilt, one long, shapely calf resting unconsciously over its edge. Her fair ankle glowed softly.

The Dragon Marrow Soul-Nourishing Pill and pure yang Dragon Qi she had taken last night had mingled and washed through her body, wiping away every hidden injury from taking human form and beginning cultivation anew.

Now she slept soundly, her breathing carrying a faint, sweet scent of orchid and musk.

Su Chen quietly opened his eyes. The divine radiance in his Purple-Gold Double Pupils withdrew into their depths.

The barrier to the Soul Grandmaster realm at level twenty had already been fully cleared last night.

The Chaos Ancestral Dragon Art flowed through his meridians on its own.

With no First or Second Soul Ring to serve as a vessel yet, the vast, mighty Dragon Emperor Origin had compressed within his dantian into a mass of extraordinarily pure Golden Flame Gang Qi, awaiting a suitable high-level Soul Ring to draw it forth and transform it.

He did not disturb the sleeping girl. His fingertips brushed the hair scattered across Xiao Wu's forehead, and he pulled the warm quilt up to her shoulders before slipping out of bed.

In the dark, damp corner along the north wall, the broken wooden bed that had belonged to Tang San stood empty. Even the bedding had been cleared away.

Su Chen gave a cold laugh...

Yu Xiaogang had lost all face on the school road, and his convictions had taken a crushing blow. His only hope of turning things around was to take Tang San into Soul Hunting Forest early, kill a Mandala Snake, and use it to prove Mimicry Theory.

Given that narrow-minded, stubborn pair, hiring a carriage and fleeing overnight was exactly what Su Chen had expected.

"In such a hurry to reach the hunting grounds..." Su Chen murmured, then turned and pushed open the door.

Nuoding City's long streets were empty and quiet in the early morning.

Su Chen did not rush out of the city. He went straight to the Spirit Hall Branch in the city center.

Soul Hunting Forest was a restricted territory jointly managed by the empire and Spirit Hall. Without a special permit, no one could get through its gates.

Su Yuntao emerged from the inner hall, dark circles under his eyes and his face haggard.

The moment he looked up and saw Su Chen's handsome young figure, he jolted so hard that the quill fell from his hand.

"L-Lord Su Chen?!" Su Yuntao hurried over, fawning eagerness in his voice unable to conceal his alarm.

He had already sent an urgent secret report to the Spirit Hall of Fasinuo Province describing how the crystal ball had overloaded and shattered during the awakening ceremony in Holy Soul Village.

He knew perfectly well what terrifying God-Level Potential lay within the six-year-old boy before him.

"I'm going into Soul Hunting Forest to obtain a Soul Ring. Get me a permit." Su Chen's expression remained calm. As his gaze swept over Su Yuntao, the pressure of someone far above him surfaced naturally.

Su Yuntao straightened at once. He would not dare ask whether Su Chen had reached the level-ten bottleneck. He bowed and answered, "Please wait a moment! Director Ma Xiunuo gave explicit instructions: whatever you need, every privilege of this branch is yours without condition!"

Before long, Su Yuntao presented him with both hands a third-class Spirit Hall permit forged from dark iron, its surface stamped with the emblems of a longsword and a dragon.

Only high-ranking imperial nobles and core Spirit Hall deacons could obtain such a token. It granted free passage throughout Soul Hunting Forest and even the authority to command its garrison.

Su Chen took the token without ceremony. He did not linger, sweeping out of the branch.

His figure became an incomparably swift blur as he sped toward the northeast of Nuoding City.

At noon, the blazing sun hung high overhead.

At the edge of Nuoding Soul Hunting Forest, an enormous cast-steel fence stretched for dozens of miles, enclosing the primeval woodland like an iron-walled military fortress.

A noisy market sprawled outside the iron gates.

Hundreds of heavily armored Heaven Dou Royal Guards patrolled with spears in hand, while the calls of Soul Hunting teams rose and fell around them.

In the shade at the edge of the crowd, two figures looked particularly out of place.

Yu Xiaogang wore an old cloth robe washed almost white. His hands were clasped behind his back, his face was sickly pale, and a muffled, dry cough escaped him from time to time.

After Su Chen had exposed his academic plagiarism and false theory before everyone at Nuoding Academy last night, the shock had damaged his heart meridians. He had coughed up blood and fainted.

When he woke, he could not bear to remain at the academy another moment. Gritting his teeth, he had brought Tang San to the Soul Hunting Forest checkpoint overnight.

Beside him, six-year-old Tang San looked sullen. Wooden splints and linen bound his right arm tightly against his chest.

Each step sent a stab of pain through his severed finger, drawing cold sweat across his forehead.

The poisonous fire of hatred in his eyes burned brighter.

"Xiao San, can your arm hold up?" Yu Xiaogang stopped and turned to his disciple, his voice dry and hoarse.

Tang San gritted his teeth. "Don't worry, Teacher. I used the Tang Sect... a unique Internal Breathing Method to suppress the pain. Once I give my Blue Silver Grass its First Soul Ring and push the Mysterious Heaven Skill past its first bottleneck, the flow of Internal Power will heal the broken bones quickly!"

At those words, Yu Xiaogang's gaze twisted with obsession. He gripped Tang San's shoulder hard. "Good! I've suffered every humiliation. Whether I can turn things around in the Soul Master World rests entirely on you! Yesterday, that ignorant little beast dared to reject the fruit of my decades of work outright! Today, I'll take you to kill a top-tier venomous beast nearly four hundred years old... a Mandala Snake!"

"The Mandala Snake's venom is ferocious beyond compare, and its body is tough as steel. Once we force its Soul Ring into your Blue Silver Grass, your Martial Soul will gain an unstoppable paralyzing poison and terrifying strength for binding enemies! Then you'll be the finest Control System Soul Master of your level! I'll use your victories to slap that little beast and every doubter on the continent across the face!"

The more Yu Xiaogang spoke, the more excited he became. A flush rose across his pale face.

Tang San lowered his eyes, his left hand gripping the iron throwing needles hidden in his sleeve. "Don't worry, Teacher. Once I absorb the Soul Ring and master the Tang Sect Lethal Hidden Weapon, I'll make Su Chen beg for death and never receive it!"

Yu Xiaogang nodded in satisfaction, pulled a token bearing six emblems from his robe, and strode toward the iron checkpoint with his head held high.

The guards checked the token and let them through in alarm. Master and disciple quickly vanished into the deep forest.

About fifteen minutes later.

A slender figure in snow-white robes strolled through the market at an unhurried pace.

Su Chen calmly handed the black-iron dragon token to the guard captain.

The captain's face changed dramatically at the sight of it. He dropped to one knee in fearful respect, opened the iron gate himself, and saw Su Chen into the forest.

The moment Su Chen stepped inside, the rich, damp scent of decaying vegetation rushed toward him.

Ancient trees towered into the clouds, their canopies blocking the sun and cutting the bright daylight into scattered patches.

Shrubs grew thick on every side. Ten-year and hundred-year Netherworld Wolves and Spotted Cats could be glimpsed moving between the trees.

But as soon as they sensed the pure yang Dragon Emperor's domineering aura stirring within Su Chen, they whimpered in terror and fled with their tails between their legs.

Deep within Su Chen's eyes, the purple-gold Ancestral Dragon Divine Eyes quietly activated.

Under the wide-ranging perception of his divine double pupils, every current of energy and contour of the earth throughout Soul Hunting Forest appeared in minute detail within his mind.

Two miles to the northeast, a trail of hurried, uneven footprints stretched onward, accompanied by a faint, pungent scent of medicinal herbs...

It marked Yu Xiaogang and Tang San's route.

Farther ahead, at the edge of a marsh, a dark-red vortex of cold, damp energy laden with potent paralytic neurotoxin lurked among the roots of ancient trees.

It was a hundred-year Mandala Snake, nearly three meters long, its mottled scales a deep purple!

And beyond the Mandala Snake's hiding place, deep in Cliffside Canyon at the forest's heart, a vast pillar of purple-gold energy surged into the sky, radiating the pure bloodline of a primordial dragon.

Its power exceeded that of an ordinary thousand-year Soul Beast several times over, carrying a violent pressure that seemed to breathe thunder and storms!

"That's... a Violet Sky Thunderflame Flood Dragon with three thousand years of cultivation?"

Su Chen smiled.

In the original story, Yu Xiaogang had been convinced that the upper limit for a First Soul Ring was 423 years. For Tang San's Blue Silver Grass, he had dared plan for nothing beyond a Mandala Snake around four hundred years old.

To Su Chen, protected by the Chaos Ancestral Dragon Origin and the Ancestral Dragon Reverse Scale, a mere four-hundred-year Soul Ring was not even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth!

The three-thousand-year Violet Sky Thunderflame Flood Dragon lurking in the canyon at the forest's heart was the true God-Level First Soul Ring he had chosen for his Chaos Ancestral Dragon!

"I might as well watch that master and disciple's performance of despair on the way. It'll make a decent appetizer."

Su Chen stepped forward, his figure like a True Dragon Falcon tearing through the void.

He swept silently through the shadows of the treetops, faster than a thunderclap, heading straight for the marsh ahead.