Obtaining Treasure

The members of the Speed Clan gathered in the living room were all elderly clan elders.

At that moment, their expressions varied, yet they all tacitly turned their gazes toward Chief Bai He.

The younger members of the clan were also hiding outside the door, eavesdropping on the conversation.

If the older generation of clan elders looked at Chief Bai He with a measure of doubt, questioning, and incomprehension, their gazes held even more trust and support.

Then the younger generation, especially those who had lived through the upheaval seven years ago, no longer looked at Bai He with the respect they once had as they peered in from outside.

So Chief Bai He possessed a very valuable treasure, yet he would rather watch his clansmen live in such poverty than take it out and sell it for money.

Refusing to collect Soul Master subsidies from Spirit Hall could be considered a refusal to accept handouts from an enemy. But having the means to give the clansmen better lives while being unwilling to part with a treasure was simply selfish in the eyes of the younger clansmen.

Among the younger generation, a little girl of around five froze when she noticed the changed looks in the eyes of the clansmen beside her, shaking her head blankly.

"That's not true, that's not true! My grandpa isn't like that! You're not allowed to look at my grandpa that way!"

Yet those words of protest died before they could leave her throat.

Given Bai He's cultivation, he had long since noticed the younger members hiding outside the door through his spiritual perception.

Their piercing gazes made him afraid to turn around and face them directly.

Meanwhile, the clan elders in the living room looked at him with respect and support for his choice, but their eyes also carried a hint of expectation.

Within Bai He's heart, two voices had been arguing without end.

At first, neither voice held the upper hand.

But as time passed, one of them gradually gained the advantage, until it finally wiped out the other completely.

"Here. This is what you wanted."

The struggle on Bai He's face faded into calm. Reaching into his robes, he pulled a Jade Box from a Soul Tool hidden somewhere on his person and tossed it toward Lin Rong.

The Old Butler caught the Jade Box midway with Soul Power. After carefully inspecting it, he presented it to Lin Rong with both hands.

The Jade Box was about one and a half chi long and half a chi wide. Its entire surface was lustrous and smooth, carved from the finest mutton-fat jade.

Within Lin Rong's perception appeared the life energy of a ginseng plant just over five thousand years old.

That life energy took the form of a five-clawed dragon. It was undoubtedly Crystal Blood Dragon Ginseng.

"Hah! You could give it to Tang San for free, but I had to threaten and bribe you before you reluctantly handed it over."

As Lin Rong accepted the Jade Box, he grumbled inwardly without pause.

"Why is every last one of you so devoted to the Clear Sky Sect?"

After putting away the Jade Box, Bai He had already stored the Gold Card away and begun showing his guests out.

"Duke Lin, the transaction is complete. Please forgive Bai for not seeing you off."

But Lin Rong remained seated, with no intention of getting up to leave. Instead, he took out paper and a pen and said to Bai He, "I heard that Chief Bai has a close relationship with Chief Yang Wudi of the Breaking Clan."

"I have one more presumptuous request. I hope Chief Bai can write a Letter of Recommendation for me. There are some matters in which I need Chief Yang's assistance."

Asking Old Goat for help? Was he going to ask him to refine the Crystal Blood Dragon Ginseng into pills?

The knot in Bai He's heart and his resistance surged to their limit as he prepared to refuse.

But just as the words reached his lips, he felt that doing so would be improper.

Though the transaction just now was already a done deal, what if the other party went back on his word after he refused this request?

He might be able to control that boy surnamed Lin, but that Old Butler, with the cultivation of a Soul Douluo, could also control the clansmen in the village.

If he remembered correctly, that man's martial soul seemed to be some sort of stellar type, and he was a control-type Soul Douluo.

Once both sides fell out completely, aside from the few clansmen above the rank of Soul Saint, everyone else would have little chance of surviving.

No, how could that boy's single life be more precious than the lives of his clansmen? Besides, his beloved granddaughter was still outside. He could not act on impulse.

Thus, Bai He took a deep breath, accepted the paper and pen, and wrote a Letter of Recommendation according to Lin Rong's request.

Lin Rong had not expected Bai He to agree so readily. Before he could even say the words he had prepared, Bai He had already accepted.

Very soon, the Letter of Recommendation was finished. After putting it away, Lin Rong rose to bid farewell.

"Senior truly is straightforward. It's already mealtime, so I won't stay and disturb your meal. Until we meet again."

After Lin Rong and the Old Butler had walked some distance away from the village, faint silver light flashed around their bodies. In the next instant, two small stones appeared where they had been.

At the same time, Lin Rong and the Old Butler appeared three li away. Not far off, the carriage and its driver had been waiting for a long time.

When Soul Rings and Soul Bones produced by the same soul beast were absorbed together, the skills of both the Soul Ring and Soul Bone would be strengthened.

After Lin Rong absorbed the Kongqing Bamboo head Soul Bone, his second soul skill, Green Leaf Mark, gained the effect of Spatial Swap.

Lin Rong could make two marked targets exchange positions with each other.

Just as before, he had casually found two small stones at that location and marked them as targets, then applied Green Leaf Mark to himself and the Old Butler.

Then, as long as Lin Rong triggered all four marks at once and activated Spatial Swap, he and the Old Butler would exchange positions with the two marked stones.

The maximum range of Spatial Swap was the same as the maximum teleportation range of Green Leaf Mark.

The initial maximum range was one kilometer. With each additional Soul Ring, the maximum swap distance increased by another kilometer.

Of course, while Spatial Swap was powerful, it also had its drawbacks.

If a marked target forcibly resisted at the moment Spatial Swap was activated, and the resister was stronger than Lin Rong, there was a chance the swap would fail.

The greater the gap between the resister's strength and Lin Rong's, the higher the chance of failure.

However, as Lin Rong grew stronger, this drawback would gradually diminish and might even disappear entirely.

Activating four Green Leaf Marks at once instantly consumed forty percent of Lin Rong's Soul Power.

That was because activating a Green Leaf Mark consumed a fixed one-tenth of his total Soul Power.

Therefore, even if Lin Rong eventually cultivated to the rank of Titled Douluo, allowing twelve Green Leaf Marks to exist at once, without using his Martial Soul Avatar to reduce Soul Power consumption, he could at most perform Spatial Swap on ten targets simultaneously.

This was also the drawback of most soul skills with fixed percentage-based consumption.

Such soul skills were powerful in the early stages, but the further one progressed, the more lackluster they became—aside from a few that could grow, or those that provided percentage-based boosts.

It truly was a case of fixed consumption being both its making and its undoing.

Fortunately, Lin Rong's second soul skill, Green Leaf Mark, was one of the rare fixed percentage-consumption soul skills with growth potential.