After this incident, Lin Yan avoided contact with Tang San as much as possible, apart from necessary meetings.
However, after their last conversation, Tang San never sought Lin Yan out again.
Lin Yan knew that Tang San was incredibly busy now. Apart from cultivating every day, he went to Yu Xiaogang to learn about Soul Masters, and whenever he had time, he went to the smithy to forge iron. Lin Yan's little matter probably did not even rank among Tang San's concerns. But this was fine too. As long as Tang San did not come looking for him, Lin Yan was happy to enjoy his peace.
At Nuoding Junior Soul Master Academy, a term lasted an entire year. Students were not allowed to go home during that time, but their relatives could visit.
Over the course of that year, Village Chief Lin Daniu visited several times, bringing him more than a thousand Gold Soul Coins as his share of the profits.
Now that he had money, Lin Yan no longer cared about the few Copper Soul Coins that working students earned each day. To cultivate better, he applied to the academy to become a regular student and requested a private dormitory room.
The academy administrators initially refused, believing they could not give him special treatment. But under the might of Lin Yan's money technique, they decided that special cases could receive special treatment after all and arranged a private room for him.
On the day he moved out of the dormitory, only Wang Sheng helped Lin Yan carry his luggage.
As for the others-sorry, they barely knew one another.
Ever since enrolling, Lin Yan had almost always been the first to leave the dormitory each day and the last to return. Apart from talking a little more with Wang Sheng, he spent his time either cultivating, in the classroom, or in the library, and had little interaction with anyone else.
It was not that Lin Yan was a loner. Mainly, with a soul in his twenties, he genuinely struggled to join this group of half-grown children in discussing which Soul Beasts were the fiercest fighters, which teacher was the strictest, what snacks in the city tasted best... and other such topics.
A year passed in the blink of an eye, but for Lin Yan, that year had been more fulfilling than the twenty-odd years he had lived before transmigrating.
Lin Yan's Soul Power had reached the bottleneck at level ten two months earlier, but he was in no hurry at all to obtain a Soul Ring.
Lin Yan had plans of his own:
First, improve his physical condition without limit and obtain a Soul Ring with as high an age as possible.
The age of his first Soul Ring had to be raised as high as possible, and that depended on the limits of what his body could withstand. He planned to train his physical condition to the utmost at his current stage, then use whale rubber to push beyond that.
At present, Lin Yan could easily run more than ten kilometers without stopping while carrying two hundred jin. As for the weights he wore, he had commissioned a more skilled blacksmith to forge close-fitting weights from Thousand Refinement iron, bringing the total weight on his body to one hundred jin.
Comparing himself with Tang San's physical condition when he obtained his four-hundred-year Soul Ring, Lin Yan felt that he could now easily withstand a Soul Ring of around eight hundred years. But that was far from enough. He still had room to improve.
Second, the Soul Ring had to come from a plant Soul Beast with the ultimate life attribute.
Lin Yan's ideal first Soul Ring would come from a plant Soul Beast with exceptionally powerful vitality-to better awaken the potential of his Martial Soul Origin.
To that end, he had practically worn out every Soul Beast field guide and set of Martial Soul Theory notes in Nuoding Academy's first-floor library, yet he had never found a record that fully met his expectations.
He began considering whether he could apply for access to the second-floor reading area. It was normally open only to teachers and outstanding senior students, and perhaps it held more valuable materials.
If there was nothing on the second floor either... then perhaps he ought to consider graduating early, leaving Nuoding City, and seeking opportunities in the wider world.
He would never casually choose just any Soul Beast to add a Soul Ring-that would be destroying his own future. Since he had been given another life, he would go far enough and stand high enough.
Until those two problems were thoroughly resolved, Lin Yan had no intention of adding a Soul Ring to his Martial Soul.
As a transmigrator, Lin Yan would absolutely never allow such a thing to happen to him. Since he had been given another life, he felt he ought to make something of himself.
As for being unable to increase his Soul Power Level without adding a Soul Ring, Lin Yan was not anxious in the slightest.
Lin Yan knew that in this world, Soul Power could continue to accumulate and be tempered even without a breakthrough.
Moreover, even if he could not break through in Soul Power Level, he could still use the Soul Power gained through daily cultivation to flush his meridians and nourish his body, while also improving its quality through constant compression and purification.
This method of cultivation progressed slowly, but he could feel his foundation growing firmer by the day.
The first academic year ended, and the academy went on break. Lin Yan decided to return to Dalin Village for a visit.
To be honest, Lin Yan did not feel much attachment to that little village. If there was anything he missed, almost ninety percent of it was because of Village Chief Lin Daniu.
This elder had extended a helping hand when he was at his most lost and helpless, helped arrange his enrollment, run around on his behalf over the medicinal formula, and asked after his well-being on every visit, just like family. Lin Yan had always kept that kindness in his heart.
As for the other villagers, some had helped feed him in earlier years, but the wound medicine formula he had provided had given everyone in the village a stable source of income. He felt that was already enough to repay them.
Lin Yan had two main things to do on this trip back. First, he needed to sort out the profit-sharing arrangements for the medicinal formula. Although his share was only twenty percent, the accumulated sum was not small, and he needed to arrange a handover. Second, he needed to explain his situation to Lin Daniu-he might soon leave Nuoding Academy and set out on a journey farther afield, so this elder would no longer have to keep worrying about him and make the tiring trip to the academy to visit.
On the day he left the academy, Lin Yan hired a carriage. He loaded it with quite a few things: tea and cotton-padded clothes for the village chief, sweets for the children, and some pastries unique to Nuoding City. The wheels rolled over the stone-paved road as the carriage slowly headed out through the city gates.