Just as Xiao Xuan was mulling things over, Xiao Wuyong, who sat across from him, spoke up to reassure him:
"But Xuan'er, don't be too scared."
"That thug is after money. Lone Bamboo Village is a poor, out-of-the-way place with nothing but bamboo covering the hills. The bandit probably wouldn't even give it a second glance."
"Here's what we'll do! Tomorrow morning, I'll go back with you myself and stay a few days. The mercenary group happens to be resting up lately, so I don't have much to do anyway."
Xiao Xuan nodded. "All right, I'll leave it all to you, Dad."
Early the next morning.
Father and son set off for the countryside.
Nothing happened along the way, and the two arrived safely at Lone Bamboo Village.
After a steaming farmhouse lunch, Xiao Xuan slipped into his room in the old family home.
He locked the door from inside and slid the wooden bolt into place.
Xiao Xuan took a deep breath, brought out the tools and Whale Rubber he had brought with him, and began preparing for his second body refinement.
A short while later, he watched the Whale Rubber gradually dissolve into a pool of golden liquid.
Without the slightest hesitation, Xiao Xuan picked up the earthenware pot and gulped it down in one fierce swig!
Boom-!
The scorching golden medicinal liquid slid down his throat, as though he had swallowed a raging mass of underground magma!
A tremendous force rampaged through Xiao Xuan's six-and-a-half-year-old body!
Fortunately, Xiao Xuan had already refined a piece of pure hundred-year Whale Rubber several months ago, leaving the meridians throughout his body as tough as ox sinew. Only then was he spared pain severe enough to make him pass out.
Xiao Xuan clenched his teeth and held it in with all his might, forcing himself not to make a sound.
Two hours later.
When the last trace of medicinal power had been fully assimilated and absorbed, Xiao Xuan looked as though he had just been pulled from a bucket of water. His coarse cloth shirt had long since been soaked through with scalding sweat.
To his pleasant surprise, though, he had not expelled any of the black, foul-smelling filth he had last time.
Xiao Xuan tore off his drenched shirt and walked over to look in the bronze mirror.
"Good grief... that was one hell of a transformation!"
The boy in the mirror had well-defined shoulders and back, and firm, sharply outlined muscles rose slightly on his abdomen.
Not only had his bones grown considerably longer and thicker, but he had also gained some height. With the nutrition he had made sure to get over the past six months, how did he look anything like a six-and-a-half-year-old child?
With that frame and bearing, he looked every bit like a sturdy eleven- or twelve-year-old boy who had practiced martial arts for years!
Xiao Xuan clenched his five fingers into a fist and suddenly swung it through the air.
"Whoosh!!"
The sheer force of his bare hand ripped a muffled boom from the air!
His strength had grown considerably again.
Xiao Xuan grinned, thoroughly satisfied.
It was time to go to the mountain behind the village and upgrade his Soul Ring.
The mountain behind the village.
It was the turn from deep winter to early spring. Dead branches and fallen leaves carpeted the mountain forest, rustling in the breeze, lending it an especially bleak and silent air.
Xiao Xuan followed the mountain path he remembered, heading toward the secluded hollow where he had first found the hundred-year Lone Bamboo.
But not long after he entered the depths of the forest, Xiao Xuan abruptly slowed his steps.
Without warning, a strange chill shot from his tailbone up his spine to the crown of his head!
Danger?!
The sudden sensation immediately put Xiao Xuan on guard.
This was no wind blowing from an empty cave; it was more like a warning signal from the Lone Bamboo around him.
After all, his Martial Soul was Lone Bamboo, and Lone Bamboo grew all around him. In this mimetic environment, his perception would be greatly enhanced.
Xiao Xuan had verified this back at Nuoding Academy.
Xiao Xuan often used the Lone Bamboo grove on the mountain behind the academy for mimetic meditation. Whenever anyone passed by the grove, Xiao Xuan could always sense them immediately.
Xiao Xuan's gaze gradually turned cold.
He wanted to see just who this person was and why they were spying on him.
Xiao Xuan suddenly stopped in a relatively open clearing, then slowly closed his eyes.
He held his Lone Bamboo Martial Soul in his palm.
Then Xiao Xuan circulated his Soul Power and spread it out in all directions. It followed the soil and the roots of the plants beneath his feet, silently merging into the Lone Bamboo covering the surrounding hills.
Plants have spirits; Lone Bamboo, be my eyes!
Every tremor as the mountain breeze brushed the bamboo tips, every faint sound as a leaf fell to the ground.
Enhanced by the perception of his plant Martial Soul of the same origin, they came together in Xiao Xuan's mind as a microscopic, three-dimensional holographic image with a full 360-degree view and no blind spots!
But its range was only about twenty meters.
Meanwhile.
Behind a rock.
A black-robed man with a gaunt face and a vicious knife scar running across his right cheek crouched in the shadows, holding his breath as he watched Xiao Xuan in the distance.
This man was the wanted criminal, Ma Xiu.
Ma Xiu was somewhat puzzled.
When he first saw someone enter the deep mountain forest alone, he thought the Spirit Hall's ever-haunting deacons had come looking for him. On edge the whole way, he had stealthily followed.
But after trailing him for quite a while, he discovered that the person ahead was just a half-grown brat.
And now the kid had stopped here with his eyes closed, standing there in a daze. He was clearly an ignorant mountain villager who knew nothing of life or death and had run into the mountains to hunt birds and gather herbs!
"Hmph... you little bastard, tough luck."
Ma Xiu's lips twisted into a cruel, savage grin, and a cold light flickered in his eyes.
A few days ago, he had nearly been caught by two Spirit Elders from the Spirit Hall, leaving him with a bellyful of pent-up frustration and nowhere to vent it.
If he killed this kid today and hung him from the gate tower of Nuoding City, it would give those bastards a bloody warning!
"Kid! I'll borrow your head!"
Ma Xiu's killing intent erupted. He kicked off the ground and burst from behind the rock like a vulture swooping on its prey!
While Ma Xiu was still in midair, two Soul Rings, one white and one yellow, suddenly lit up beneath his feet!
Second Soul Skill-Rending Beast Claw!
Ma Xiu's entire right arm and hand transformed into a scaled beast claw, which slashed violently down at the back of Xiao Xuan's neck and his back!
But then!
Just as Ma Xiu's claw came within a meter of the back of Xiao Xuan's neck.
Xiao Xuan's tightly shut eyes snapped open. At the same time, he turned, and the red-patterned bamboo spear in his hand swept upward, tracing an arc of dark gold!
Swish-!
Puchi-!
Without the slightest resistance.
Ma Xiu's beast claw, which he believed could break through anything and tear Xiao Xuan to pieces, was as brittle as a shriveled dead branch before Xiao Xuan's bamboo spear!
A jet of blood sprayed out as Ma Xiu's right arm was severed in an instant!
"Awooaaagh-!!"
A shrill, pig-slaughtering scream rang out!
Ma Xiu was struck as if by lightning. Blood poured from the stump of his right arm as he crashed to the ground in a sorry heap!
Quick-eyed and quick-handed, Xiao Xuan pushed off with both feet, just about to follow up with another thrust.
But Ma Xiu did not give up resisting after he fell. A light suddenly shone from the joint of his right leg, and his entire body rapidly shrank beneath the ground.
In the blink of an eye, he had vanished without a trace!
Xiao Xuan's killing thrust missed, smashing a hole in the ground.
Xiao Xuan glanced down at the pitch-black hole. Every hair on his body stood on end, and alarm bells instantly rang in his heart!
He definitely had not seen wrong just now. What that man had used at the end was a Soul Bone!
And a Soul Bone that could burrow through the earth, at that?!