"Old Bone, that wasn't what you said just now."
Sword Douluo cast Bone Douluo a casual glance.
"Uh..."
Bone Douluo's old face flushed despite himself. "I suddenly understood the sect master's painstaking intentions. Is that not allowed?"
With that, he stopped looking at Sword Douluo and turned to Ning Fengzhi. "Sect Master, hurry up and show me your treasures."
Ning Fengzhi shook his head with a chuckle. "Uncle Jian, Uncle Bone, let's go into the main hall first."
Inside the sect's main hall.
As Ning Fengzhi set one exquisite box after another on the table, Bone Douluo's eyes went wide.
"Sect Master, don't tell me all these boxes contain soul bones?"
Bone Douluo swept his gaze over them and counted six boxes...
"Congratulations. You got it right."
Sword Douluo smiled faintly.
Seeing his old companion of many years so shocked that he lost his composure delighted him beyond words.
"Hiss! You two didn't slaughter every soul beast in the Star Dou Great Forest, did you?"
Bone Douluo sucked in a sharp breath and couldn't help asking.
"Hahaha, nothing that extreme, Uncle Bone. Just open the boxes and take a look at the soul bones."
Bone Douluo's words made Ning Fengzhi laugh.
Never mind him and Sword Douluo-even the entire Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect couldn't slaughter all the soul beasts in the Star Dou Great Forest.
Of course, he also knew Bone Douluo was joking.
"Phew..."
Letting out a long breath, Bone Douluo reached out and opened the first box.
Immediately, he sucked in another sharp breath of cold air.
"Is this a skull bone? Such powerful soul power fluctuations... This must be a skull bone at least thirty thousand years old!"
"A top-grade treasure!"
Even with Bone Douluo's extensive knowledge and experience, he was astonished.
After all, this was a rarity among soul bones, extraordinarily difficult to obtain.
"Old Bone, keep looking."
Sword Douluo chuckled away.
"Hmph! If you hadn't gone with the sect master, would you have any right to laugh at me?"
Bone Douluo snorted coldly.
Hearing this, Ning Fengzhi shook his head helplessly. Sword Douluo and Bone Douluo were old sparring partners.
They loved bickering, and neither would ever give an inch.
"Heavens, am I seeing this right? Th-this is a torso bone?"
By now, Bone Douluo had opened another box, and even his voice trembled. "This is also a torso bone over thirty thousand years old. The finest of the finest!"
He held the soul bone, unwilling to put it down.
Because this soul bone was precisely the part he lacked.
"Hahaha, Old Bone, look at how pathetic you are!"
Sword Douluo couldn't help clutching his stomach with laughter. The more shocked Bone Douluo became, the happier he was. "Keep looking. There are more surprises."
"More surprises?" Bone Douluo instinctively glanced at the remaining boxes and couldn't help saying, "Don't tell me the soul bones in all these remaining boxes are for different parts of the body..."
Though he said that aloud, he knew in his heart that it was almost certainly true.
Sword Douluo smiled without answering, simply watching him.
Meanwhile, Bone Douluo opened the boxes one by one.
A left arm bone, a right arm bone, a left leg bone, a right leg bone...
More importantly, even the youngest of these soul bones was over thirty thousand years old, and two appeared to be around fifty thousand years old...
"It really is!"
Bone Douluo repeated what he had just said. "It really is!"
The shock had left him somewhat numb.
"Uncle Bone, choose the soul bones you need and refine them. They're all very old. Uncle Jian and I believe you may well break through your current rank by refining them. As for how to proceed beyond rank ninety-six, that's harder to say."
At that moment, Ning Fengzhi's words reached Bone Douluo's ears.
Bone Douluo, however, gripped the soul bone in his hands tightly and asked, "Sect Master, a set of soul bones of this caliber... Even the sect masters of the Clear Sky Sect and the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect, or His Holiness the Pope of Spirit Hall, could only have something on this level."
"Wait!"
A possibility occurred to Bone Douluo, and he couldn't help asking, "You didn't kill those big shots and get these from their bodies, did you?"
Ning Fengzhi: (#`n´).
Sword Douluo: (-,-).
"Of course not."
Ning Fengzhi shook his head. "We haven't gone that far off the deep end."
Beside him, Sword Douluo nodded in agreement. "I can swear that the sect master and I have never done anything so deranged..."
"If you say so, then I can rest easy..."
But before Bone Douluo could wipe away his sweat, Ning Fengzhi spoke in a quiet, lingering tone.
"However, we did witness someone kill Tang Xiao, the sect master of the Clear Sky Sect, and obtain this set of soul bones from him. Afterward, I paid a hefty price to buy them..."
"Oh, so that's how it was..."
Bone Douluo replied instinctively, but halfway through, he suddenly realized something was wrong.
"Wait, what did you say?"
"This set of soul bones came from Tang Xiao?"
His eyes immediately widened in utter shock.
He didn't even notice the torso bone slipping from his hands and falling to the floor.
Who was Tang Xiao?
The master of the world's foremost sect had actually been killed?
"What else did you expect?"
Sword Douluo spread his hands helplessly. "You said it yourself. Soul bones this precious could only belong to the masters of the Upper Three Sects or the Pope of Spirit Hall at the very least. If they didn't come from Tang Xiao, where would we find soul bones of such quality for you?"
Bone Douluo was dumbfounded. "Who on earth was so deranged?"
At that, Sword Douluo's expression grew immensely complicated. "It was a young man named Qin Xiao..."
"'Young Man Named Qin Xiao'? Is that person's name five words long?" Bone Douluo asked with a frown.
Sword Douluo was speechless. "What I meant was that the killer, Qin Xiao, is only eighteen..."
"Coward, are you joking with me? How could someone capable of killing Tang Xiao be a young man?"
"That's impossible!"
As he spoke, Bone Douluo turned to Ning Fengzhi, hoping to confirm that Sword Douluo was lying.
However.
He was disappointed.
Ning Fengzhi nodded as well. "Uncle Bone, Uncle Jian wasn't lying to you. The killer was indeed a young man named Qin Xiao."
Then he slowly recounted what had happened after they met Qin Xiao...
"He beat the coward in single combat?"
"He single-handedly mobbed the brothers Tang Xiao and Tang Hao, leaving one dead and the other gravely injured?"
After hearing Ning Fengzhi's account, Bone Douluo froze for a long while. Finally, he couldn't help blurting out, "Young man, my fucking ass..."
"Pah."
"A godlike young man."
Meanwhile.
At Heaven Dou Royal Academy.
Bai Baoshan had exerted every ounce of strength he had, and his soul power pressure had now risen to rank eighty-five.
This was his peak.
Yet Qin Xiao still looked as though he was just a hair away from collapsing...
This left Bai Baoshan and Meng Shenji on the verge of collapse themselves. I'm begging you. Have mercy and collapse already...
"Zhi Lin, why are you still standing there? Waiting for the funeral feast?"
Bai Baoshan couldn't help sending Zhi Lin a voice transmission. At a time like this, he had no choice but to seek help.
"If we can't subdue this brat, we won't be able to show our faces again. Stop hesitating."
Meng Shenji sent a voice transmission as well.
In truth, he was mortified beyond words.
Originally, he had just wanted to pick a student to test the waters.
He had never expected to encounter such a freak.
Despite being so young, neither he nor Bai Baoshan could suppress him.
Why did I have to test him when I had nothing better to do? Now look-I've thrown myself into the pit too!
What a fucking sin!
Meng Shenji regretted it so bitterly that his guts turned green.
As things stood, subduing Qin Xiao would be embarrassing, but failing to subdue him would be even more embarrassing.
Before you continue