After Su Mei'er broke through, nine others were still pushing toward the level-thirty threshold.
The first to break through was Jiang Lin.
After one night's training, Jiang Lin sat cross-legged to regulate his breathing. His Spirit Eyes lit up on their own, their pale golden light far more solid than before. Once his Soul Power fluctuations stabilized, a surge of Wind Attribute Soul Power spread out around him-stronger than ever before. Feng Lingtian happened to be passing and abruptly paused.
"Jiang Lin." Feng Lingtian stopped and stared at him for two seconds. "Your Wind Attribute... why has it become so obvious?"
Jiang Lin was about to speak when a voice cut in from nearby.
"Aren't Spirit Eyes a Mental Attribute Martial Soul? How could they have a Wind Attribute?" Cheng Luo stood a short distance away, his brows slightly furrowed as his gaze swept over Jiang Lin twice. "Jiang Lin, how did you get into Godwind Academy back then? I remember the entrance assessment required a Wind Attribute. A Mental Attribute couldn't pass."
Jiang Lin looked at Cheng Luo and was about to answer, but Feng Xiaotian spoke first.
"Father personally verified Jiang Lin's Wind Attribute back then." Feng Xiaotian stood at the edge of the training grounds, his tone mild, but every word landed firmly. "Jiang Lin was still young then. The teachers at the junior academy failed to recognize it and refused to admit him. Father happened to pass by and had Jiang Lin release his Martial Soul in front of him. Father's exact words were-'There is wind. Although it's very faint, it's definitely there.'"
Cheng Luo fell silent for a moment, looking at Feng Xiaotian, then at Jiang Lin.
"I didn't know the circumstances." Cheng Luo nodded to Jiang Lin, his tone steady, without any unnecessary pleasantries. "Don't take what I just said to heart."
Jiang Lin nodded too. Conversations between two Control System Soul Masters were always half as long as everyone else's, but the meaning got across.
Jiang Lin turned toward Feng Xiaotian, gratitude in his eyes. Neither said a word, yet it seemed they had said everything.
Feng Lingtian stood beside them and listened to the exchange from beginning to end. He recalled the incident his father, Feng Qingxuan, had once mentioned. So the child his father had spoken of back then was Jiang Lin. No wonder his Spirit Eyes could predict trajectories-it wasn't purely mental power; his Wind Attribute was helping him sense the movement of air.
After Jiang Lin, Lu Qing broke through too.
Lu Qing and Shi Yan were practicing offense and defense on one side of the training grounds, while Ye Qingyu supported their rhythm with her Wind Zither nearby. Lu Qing's Wind Scythe suddenly grew by half a foot-even he jumped in surprise, and Shi Yan was forced back two steps. Ye Qingyu's fingertips trembled, and her Wind Zither immediately rang out with an unprecedentedly high note.
Lu Qing looked down at the Wind Scythe in his hand, sensed it for a moment, and realized what had happened. "So I've broken through to level thirty," he said.
Ye Qingyu looked down at her fingers and remained silent for quite a while. "I've reached level thirty too." Her voice was very soft, as though she were speaking to herself.
Feng Lingtian found Lu Qing's and Ye Qingyu's names in his notebook and put a check beside each. The training grounds fell quiet for an instant.
Su Mei'er retracted her tail, glanced toward Ye Qingyu, and curved her lips into a smile. As one of the team's few female Soul Masters herself, Su Mei'er knew how many extra training sessions Ye Qingyu had put in privately to keep pace with everyone.
Not far away, beneath the moonlight, Lu Hanxiao was performing his hundred-and-first Silent Flight of the day. When Ye Qingyu's zither notes pierced through the stone wall, his movements suddenly grew faster-without him even noticing. Immediately afterward, Silent Flight broke past the hundred-repetition limit.
"Level thirty." Lu Hanxiao said only those two words, then spoke no more. He stood beneath the moonlight, the presence of his Snowy Owl Martial Soul sharper than before, yet also more restrained.
Shi Yan raised his head from the corner, still holding his unfinished bowl of medicinal broth. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. Ye Qingyu had reached level thirty, and so had Lu Hanxiao, while he was still two steps short. Gritting his teeth, Shi Yan finished a set of tortoiseshell-weighted squats and wanted to add another, but Feng Lingtian pressed a hand onto his shoulder from behind.
"Your breathing is uneven." Feng Lingtian's voice was quiet. "Your breath is unsettled. However much more you train, it'll be wasted effort."
Shi Yan paused, then lowered his head and sensed his condition for a moment-his breath was indeed somewhat unsettled. Soul Power was darting through his meridians faster than usual, but more of it was dispersing too. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, set down the weights for his extra training, and sat cross-legged again.
"I can't rush this. One step at a time," Shi Yan told himself, then closed his eyes.
Feng Lingtian released his hand, glanced at Shi Yan's newly stabilized breathing, and returned to the center of the training grounds. Shi Yan's bottleneck lay not in his meridians, but in his mindset. Feng Lingtian did not say this aloud, but the moment Shi Yan closed his eyes, he knew Shi Yan already understood.
Su Ran's breakthrough, however, was different from everyone else's.
Su Ran was the only one who did not break through on the training grounds. Every day after finishing his basic training, he ran to the wheat fields on the back mountain. At first, his teammates thought he was going there to slack off, until one day Ji Ning followed him to take a look-Su Ran sat cross-legged on a field ridge, the phantom of his Wind Grain Martial Soul swaying behind him. The grain scent in the wheat fields mingled with Wind Grain's medicinal potency, and the entire field rose and fell gently with his breathing.
The wheat ears swayed gently in the windless evening, moved not by wind, but by Su Ran's Soul Power fluctuations. The fresh grain fragrance of his Wind Grain Martial Soul mixed with the scent of the wheat fields, making it impossible to distinguish which traces were the pill's lingering medicinal potency and which were the wheat's own scent. Ji Ning stood beside the field ridge without making a sound. His Hummingbird Martial Soul gave him a far keener perception of scents than ordinary people-he caught that blended scent and quietly remarked that so this was how it worked.
Ji Ning made no sound and returned to the training grounds. When someone asked what Su Ran was doing, he said only two words: "Mimicry Environment."
From then on, no one said Su Ran was slacking off again.
One windless evening, Su Ran walked out of the wheat fields. The Wind Grain phantom unfurled behind him, its grains plump and the wind patterns along the edges of its leaves clearer than ever. He brushed the wheat husks from his sleeves and walked back to the training grounds.
"I'm level thirty." Su Ran's tone was as gentle as usual, as though he were speaking of something ordinary.
Shi Yan strode over from a corner of the training grounds, nearly spilling the medicinal broth in his bowl. "Su Ran, did you just say you reached level thirty in the wheat fields? As a Food System Soul Master?" Su Ran smiled and nodded. Shi Yan scratched the back of his head, then clapped Su Ran hard on the shoulder. The clap was so heavy that Su Ran stumbled half a step forward, but his smile grew wider.
Feng Lingtian found Su Ran's name in his notebook and put a check beside it. He had read about the enhancing effects of a Mimicry Environment in ancient pill-formula texts, but a Mimicry Environment alone was not enough-while the resonance between Wind Grain and the wheat fields had certainly accelerated absorption, what truly allowed Su Ran to surge from level twenty-six to level thirty in such a short time was the Mundane-Cleansing Origin-Fortifying Pill he had taken earlier. Its medicinal potency had been stimulated to the utmost within the Mimicry Environment. Only by stacking the two together had a Food System Soul Master managed to run at a Battle Soul Master's pace.
Feng Lingtian looked at the six checked names in his notebook, then at the three remaining blank spaces.
Only the last three remained.