"What a powerful soul skill!"
Ming Dashan sighed in admiration, replaying Yu Chen's earlier move in his mind.
Flames and a hurricane, two forces layered together.
Their power far surpassed that of an ordinary soul skill.
Ming Dashan had once seen a similar combination in the Soul Fighting Arena.
Two fire-type soul masters had used complementary soul skills, producing an effect where one plus one was greater than two.
Yet Yu Chen had achieved a similar effect with soul skills of different attributes...
And his attack had been even fiercer!
Ming Dashan was about to offer a few words of praise when another scene suddenly came to mind.
Two years ago.
The Back Mountain of Nuoding Academy.
Half the people in Nuoding City had seen that rising mushroom cloud.
That senior must have taught Yu Chen this move.
Ming Dashan thought to himself.
The same deep crater, the same scorch marks, the same mushroom cloud...
It was hard not to draw a connection.
Surely Yu Chen couldn't have been responsible for what happened on Nuoding Academy's Back Mountain back then?
At the time, Yu Chen's soul power had only been at level thirteen.
If a little soul master barely above level ten had a soul skill capable of threatening a Soul Ancestor, what was the point of him being the principal?
He might as well go straight back to Zonghun Village and raise pigs.
"Ah..."
Ming Dashan shook his head, pushing those thoughts aside.
"Yu Chen, hurry and absorb the soul ring."
He swept his gaze around.
Yu Chen's soul skill had caused such a commotion that most of the nearby soul beasts had fled, but it could also attract more powerful ones.
In any case, this was no place to linger.
"All right."
Yu Chen jumped to the bottom of the crater and sat down cross-legged.
Then, guided by his soul power, the Rock-Earth Dragon Turtle's soul ring slowly drifted toward Xiao Bai.
Xiao Bai opened her mouth and swallowed it whole.
Soon, the soul ring's energy surged through Yu Chen's body.
A dense, solid aura spread along his meridians toward his limbs.
Ming Dashan watched with a measure of wonder in his eyes.
Although this wasn't his first time seeing Yu Chen absorb a soul ring, he still found it remarkable.
When ordinary soul masters absorbed soul rings, their own bodies bore the impact of the energy.
But when Yu Chen absorbed one, Xiao Bai Dragon swallowed the soul ring first, then transmitted its energy to him through herself.
Ming Dashan had been friends with Yu Xiaogang for years and knew quite a few theories concerning detached martial souls.
According to Yu Xiaogang's theory, a detached martial soul's soul rings acted almost exclusively on the martial soul, with very little feeding back into the soul master's body.
Yu Xiaogang had level twenty-nine soul power, yet his physical strength was about the same as a soul master in the teens.
Yu Chen's situation, however, seemed different.
Xiao Bai absorbed the soul ring, but its energy strengthened Yu Chen's body at the same time.
In fact, the enhancement he received far exceeded that of an ordinary beast martial soul.
His first soul ring was six hundred years old.
His second soul ring was nearly a thousand years old.
Every soul ring he absorbed exceeded the theoretical limit.
According to Yu Xiaogang's theory, this made no sense at all.
To Ming Dashan, Yu Chen and Xiao Bai's situation seemed more like "the detached martial soul and the soul master sharing the burden."
The soul ring's energy was divided into two portions.
Xiao Bai Dragon bore one portion, and Yu Chen bore the other, each enduring part of the soul ring's impact.
Naturally, their upper limit would be a cut above everyone else's.
That was the most reasonable explanation.
Yu Xiaogang couldn't do it because his martial soul had undergone a harmful mutation and was inherently defective.
With Luo Sanpao the way he was, forget sharing the burden-it was already good enough if he didn't drag Yu Xiaogang down.
Ah, Xiaogang will just have to suffer a little.
Ming Dashan sighed inwardly.
Both had detached martial souls, yet the gap between two people was greater than the gap between a person and a dog.
About half an hour passed.
Xiao Bai completely absorbed the deep yellow soul ring.
Two yellow soul rings slowly floated around Yu Chen, their radiance complementing each other.
"It worked!"
Ming Dashan couldn't help clenching his fist.
However.
No sooner had he spoken than an unexpected change occurred.
Energy was still gathering within Yu Chen's second soul ring.
Whoosh-
A streak of purple suddenly seeped out from the depths of the soul ring.
Like a drop of ink falling into clear water, it spread rapidly.
The purple grew richer, spreading from the edges toward the center.
Within a few breaths, the entire soul ring had turned a deep purple.
A thousand-year soul ring!
"What's going on?!"
Ming Dashan's eyes went round.
It had clearly been a nine-hundred-year soul beast. How had its soul ring become a thousand-year one?
Could soul rings actually upgrade afterward?
In all his years as principal, he had never seen anything like this.
"Uncle Dashan, what's wrong?"
Yu Chen opened his eyes and immediately saw Ming Dashan scratching his head.
"Yu Chen, look at your second soul ring!"
Ming Dashan pointed at the newly purple soul ring, his voice changing pitch.
Yu Chen turned to look and froze as well.
Purple?
A thousand-year soul ring!
"Uncle Dashan, what's going on? Wasn't that Rock-Earth Dragon Turtle only a little over nine hundred years old?"
Yu Chen sounded bewildered.
Ming Dashan spread his hands. "I don't know either."
The two stared at each other, wide-eyed and at a loss.
"Yiya!"
Just then, Xiao Bai suddenly cried out.
She flew over to a rock and pawed a few times at something in a crevice.
"Xiao Bai, what's wrong?"
Yu Chen walked over and followed the direction of her claw.
Some fine white powder lay scattered beneath the rock, gleaming faintly in the sunlight.
"This powder..."
Yu Chen pinched up a little. It dissolved with a rub of his fingertips, leaving a faint warmth behind.
"These are ashen mushroom spores!"
Yu Chen spoke with certainty.
Ashen mushrooms were rare treasures with both fire and earth attributes. They usually grew near volcanic rock, and the older they were, the brighter their spores shone.
Fire- and earth-type soul masters could accelerate their cultivation by consuming them.
"Xiao Bai, you mean-"
Yu Chen turned to Xiao Bai. "That Rock-Earth Dragon Turtle ate an ashen mushroom but hadn't fully digested its energy yet, so the remaining spore energy mixed into its soul ring and pushed mine up to a thousand years?"
"Yiya!"
Xiao Bai nodded twice, agreement showing in her purple eyes.
"That explanation makes sense."
Ming Dashan stroked his chin and agreed.
Rock-Earth Dragon Turtles were high-grade soul beasts that usually lived beneath volcanoes. They wouldn't normally venture into the wilderness on the outskirts.
The scent of the ashen mushroom had probably lured this one out.
It was a bit of a coincidence, but not an outrageous one.
Thinking about it carefully, Yu Chen had also obtained his first soul ring through a lucky twist of fate, encountering a high-quality Gale Griffin.
For his second soul ring, he had encountered a Rock-Earth Dragon Turtle that had eaten a treasure.
Luck really was impossible to explain.
"Yu Chen, now that your second soul ring has reached a thousand years, I'm afraid you won't be able to keep a low profile anymore."
Ming Dashan's tone was serious.
"I'm considering whether we should still go to Heaven Dou City."
He had used his connections to increase Yu Chen's recorded age precisely because he didn't want the boy to stand out so much.
But now...
A thousand-year second ring!
That sounded even more outrageous than a nine-year-old Soul Grandmaster.
For commoner soul masters, sometimes exceptional talent wasn't necessarily a good thing.
Some people couldn't bear to see a genius rise.
Ninety-nine percent of the major powers would either recruit a commoner genius or eliminate them.
There was no third path.
Before you continue