The Return to One Society's Second-Stage Test
One year later.
Northern Nuoding City.
An abandoned blackstone mining area.
A dilapidated wooden frame leaned against the mine entrance, and the rails had long since been buried under dirt. Several rusty mine carts lay overturned by the road, grayish-yellow weeds growing thick in their crevices.
This had once been a small iron mine.
The ore vein had run dry three years ago, and all the miners had left, leaving only a crisscrossing network of underground tunnels.
Recently, however, villagers had heard Soul Beasts roaring inside the mine.
The Spirit Hall inspectors assigned to investigate had determined that several Cave Rock Rats had taken over the mining area.
None was more than a hundred years old.
The danger was low.
It was ideal as an off-campus extermination mission for Nuoding Academy's senior students.
"Once we enter the mine, don't split up."
Yan Feng, the teacher leading the group, stood at the front.
His Martial Soul was a black iron round shield, and he was a rank thirty-two Defense System Battle Soul Elder.
Three Soul Rings, one yellow and two yellow, pulsed slowly beneath his feet.
Besides Yan Feng, only Dong Jian and Li Man were taking part in the mission.
Tang San was training the toughness of his Blue Silver Grass under Yu Xiaogang.
Xiao Wu, meanwhile, had no interest in entering an underground mine.
"The mission objective is to drive off or eliminate the Cave Rock Rats,"
Yan Feng said.
"The mine's structure has fallen into disrepair over the years."
"What you really need to watch out for isn't the Soul Beasts, but cave-ins."
"If anything happens, obey orders immediately."
Dong Jian nodded.
He hadn't released his Panda Martial Soul.
Li Man held her Green Jade Bamboo in her hand.
Both of them were now nine years old.
Dong Jian was at the peak of rank seventeen.
Li Man was likewise at the peak of rank seventeen.
Both were just one step away from rank eighteen.
Over the past year, they had rarely taken part in the academy's ordinary ranking battles.
They spent most of their time on patrols, escorts, and missions to clear out low-level Soul Beasts.
Dong Jian could now reliably complete a three-step burst with his Light-Body Bear Steps.
Li Man could also move two bamboo shadows within the range of her Green Bamboo Binding Formation.
Their valid battle count in the Hundred Battles Hall had reached thirty-five.
But once the three of them entered the mine, they quickly realized something was wrong.
It was too quiet.
There was no sound of Cave Rock Rat claws scraping the stone walls.
No smell of Soul Beast droppings lingered in the air.
There were indeed plenty of claw marks on the ground.
But all the claw marks led in a single direction.
Deeper into the mine.
It was as though the Cave Rock Rats hadn't been living here.
But fleeing.
"Stop."
Yan Feng crouched down.
His fingers brushed over a dark red stain on the ground.
The blood had already dried.
Yet there was no corpse nearby.
"The intelligence was wrong."
His voice turned grave.
"There was a battle here."
Li Man touched the tip of her Green Jade Bamboo to the ground.
Faint vibrations traveled up the bamboo into her palm.
On the left side of the tunnel.
On the right.
And deep in the rock overhead.
There were abnormal Soul Power fluctuations in all three places.
"People."
"At least three."
She had barely finished speaking when a rumble came from behind them.
Bang!
A huge boulder fell from the ceiling of the mine.
It completely sealed off their way back.
Yan Feng immediately released his Martial Soul.
The black iron round shield blocked the space behind the three of them, preventing more falling rocks from striking them.
"Prepare for battle!"
A shrill laugh came from deep inside the mine.
"Black and White Number Zero."
"Green Bamboo symbiotic sample."
"Growth rate as expected."
Three figures emerged from the darkness one after another.
They all wore gray robes.
Expressionless white masks covered their faces.
Their arms were exposed.
Abnormal black veins covered the skin beneath them.
The person on the far left was short.
Slits like fish gills ran along both sides of his neck.
After he released his Martial Soul, his throat rapidly swelled.
Two yellow Soul Rings rose beneath his feet.
The hands of the person in the middle were coated in translucent gray slime.
He too was a Two-Ring Soul Grandmaster.
The last person wasn't standing on the ground.
His lower body was slowly sinking into the rock.
Only his upper body remained exposed.
"Two Soul Grandmasters."
"The last one's Soul Power fluctuations are unstable. He may also be close to rank twenty."
Yan Feng held his round shield across his body.
"I'll hold them off."
"You two look for another exit."
"Don't get caught up in the fight."
It was the safest judgment.
The enemies' strength was unknown.
The tunnel was blocked as well.
Waiting for reinforcements from the academy was usually safer than pushing deeper in.
But Li Man didn't act immediately.
She looked up at the ceiling of the mine.
Several fist-sized black crystals were embedded in cracks in the rock.
Faint glimmers flashed across their surfaces from time to time.
They carried no Soul Beast presence.
Nor did they look like ordinary minerals.
"They're recording."
Li Man spoke.
Yan Feng followed her gaze.
"What?"
"Those crystals."
"They're a set of image-recording array discs."
Soul Tool Technology on the continent had long since declined.
But certain ancient Soul Tools could still use Soul Power to record simple images and fluctuations.
Such things were extremely rare.
Ordinary bandits could never have possessed them.
Li Man continued.
"The enemies didn't attack us immediately."
"They're waiting for us to use our Soul Skills."
The masked men laughed.
"The Green Bamboo sample is more perceptive than expected."
"Then let's begin."
The man on the left's First Soul Ring lit up.
"First Soul Skill, Rending Cry!"
His throat suddenly swelled.
Shrill sound waves filled the mine in an instant.
The sound struck the stone walls.
It reflected again and again.
A stabbing pain immediately shot through Dong Jian's ears.
Listening to the Wind to Discern Position was nearly useless in this environment.
Echoes came from every direction.
There was no way to determine where the real attack was coming from.
Immediately afterward.
Gray slime sprayed from the middle man's palms.
It landed on the tunnel floor.
The once-hard rock quickly turned slick.
The slime continued to spread outward.
Light-Body Bear Steps required stable footing.
If Dong Jian stepped on the slime as the weight on his foot increased, not only would he be unable to change direction, he might even injure his leg.
The third enemy sank completely underground.
The next instant.
The spot where Li Man was preparing to summon a bamboo shadow suddenly exploded.
Bang!
A rock-covered hand reached out from underground.
It destroyed the array's focal point in advance.
The three enemies' abilities-
Were all aimed at countering them.
"They've seen our previous battle records."
Dong Jian activated his Panda Martial Soul.
A yellow Soul Ring rose.
But he didn't immediately use Bear Astral Energy Body Protection.
The sound waves struck again.
Yan Feng stood at the very front.
The black iron round shield grew larger.
The sound waves slammed into the shield's surface, shaking both his arms numb.
"Stop analyzing!"
"Fall back to the mine tunnel behind us."
He shouted the order.
Li Man, however, did not move.
Green Jade Bamboo slid along the ground.
She could feel it.
The blockage behind them was more than an ordinary cave-in.
Faint vibrations kept coming from inside the boulders.
The enemies were still reinforcing them.
"We can't wait."
She spoke.
"They're sealing off every exit."
Yan Feng frowned.
"Once the academy realizes the mission has run overdue, it'll send reinforcements."
"That would take at least four hours."
Li Man pointed at the crystals overhead.
"They only need fifteen minutes to record all our Soul Skills."
"Once they've finished recording, they'll very likely blow up the mine."
Yan Feng did not get angry because a student had contradicted him.
He surveyed their surroundings again.
The vibrations behind the rocks blocking their path were indeed growing stronger.
The enemies' real goal might not be to trap them.
Rather, it might be to kill them all once the test was complete.
"What do you suggest?"
"Break out ourselves."
Li Man answered.
"Destroy the image-recording formation disk first."
"Then focus our attacks on the person who can move underground."
"As long as he loses the ability to fight, the terrain in the mine won't keep changing."
Yan Feng glanced at the three enemies.
"I'll hold off the sound-wave Soul Master."
"You deal with the other two."
"I'm only giving you ten breaths."
"If you haven't succeeded after ten breaths, fall back to the round-shield defensive line immediately."
"Understood."
When circumstances changed on the scene, Yu Xiaogang was in the habit of requiring everyone to continue carrying out the original plan.
Yan Feng was different.
He proposed a cautious plan.
He was also willing to change it immediately after finding evidence.
The battle erupted again.
The sound-wave Soul Master opened his mouth.
His Second Soul Ring lit up.
"Second Soul Skill, Chaotic Sound Corridor!"
The echoes in the mine tunnel suddenly multiplied.
Sound no longer served only to attack.
It also produced a multitude of false footsteps and breaths.
Dong Jian closed his eyes.
Listening to the Wind to Discern Position was completely disrupted.
He simply stopped relying on sound.
Kung Fu Deconstruction began observing the slime Soul Master's shoulders and wrists.
Every time his opponent released slime,
his right shoulder would dip first.
"On the right!"
Dong Jian did not use Light-Body Bear Steps.
His right arm instantly grew heavier.
He smashed a fist into the mine wall.
Bang!
A dent appeared in the rock.
He used the counterforce to move sideways.
Gray slime swept past his feet.
The enemy was visibly startled.
"Why aren't you using that footwork?"
Dong Jian did not answer.
Light-Body Bear Steps was only one of his abilities.
Losing it did not mean he could no longer fight.
He braced his palm against the rock wall again.
His legs remained at their normal weight.
But his shoulder grew heavier the instant he approached the enemy.
Mountain-Leaning Collision!
The slime Soul Master crossed his hands.
A mass of slime gathered into a soft barrier in front of him.
Dong Jian drove his shoulder into it.
His force sank into it like a stone in a muddy bog.
It could not burst forth.
"What about Bear Astral Energy Body Protection?"
The enemy asked through the slime:
"Aren't you going to build up impact?"
He was deliberately trying to coax Dong Jian into using his First Soul Skill.
The image-recording crystal overhead flashed faintly.
Dong Jian did not fully activate Bear Astral Energy Body Protection.
Only at the instant the enemy's counterattack was about to land on his chest-
A Yellow Soul Ring flashed.
Black-and-white Astral Qi appeared for less than half a breath.
Bang!
The attack was blocked.
The Astral Qi vanished immediately.
The recording crystal captured only a brief fluctuation of Soul Power.
It could not fully determine the Soul Skill's duration or the upper limit of its accumulation.
Dong Jian retreated with the force of the attack.
He did not accumulate any impact.
He planted his foot on the rock wall.
His whole body leaped upward.
His target was not the slime Soul Master.
It was the black crystal overhead.
"Stop him!"
Slime sprayed up from below.
Dong Jian's right arm grew heavier.
He smashed his fist into the first crystal.
Crack!
The crystal shattered.
At the same time,
Li Man likewise did not deploy a complete Green Bamboo Binding Formation in her fight.
She raised the Green Jade Bamboo.
A Yellow Soul Ring flashed.
Only one bamboo shadow rose in front of her.
The underground enemy immediately attacked the formation's focal point.
A stone hand had just seized the bamboo root,
when the bamboo shadow dispersed of its own accord.
"A fake?"
The next moment,
a second bamboo shadow appeared behind him.
It lasted only two breaths.
The bamboo stalk bent.
Li Man stepped onto a bamboo node.
Green Bamboo Rebound!
Her body swept over the enemy's head.
The tip of the Green Jade Bamboo struck the second image-recording crystal.
Smack!
The crystal fell from the rock wall.
The enemy sank underground again.
A hand attacked the formation's focal point once more.
But Li Man had not maintained a fixed bamboo shadow at all.
The first one appeared.
Then vanished immediately.
The second one bent.
It was released after completing the rebound.
The third was used only to change the direction of the Green Jade Bamboo's attack.
This was not a complete Soul Skill.
It was more like a brief formation focal point that had been taken apart.
It had no stable range.
It could not provide control over a large area.
But it kept the underground enemy from predicting the next location in advance.
"She's changed the Soul Skill's structure!"
The slime Soul Master shouted.
"Record it!"
The remaining crystals glowed brighter.
Li Man looked toward the upper left of the mine.
That was where the core of the image-recording formation disk was.
An ordinary attack would not reach it.
A complete Green Bamboo Binding Formation, meanwhile, would be destroyed by the underground enemy.
She suddenly charged toward the area covered in slime.
"Li Man!"
Dong Jian saw the mire beneath her feet.
He wanted to approach.
But Li Man said:
"Don't come over!"
She stepped into the gray slime of her own accord.
Her feet were stuck at once.
The slime Soul Master laughed.
"A Control System Soul Master walking straight into my Soul Skill?"
He raised a hand and increased his Soul Power.
The slime spread upward along Li Man's lower legs.
Li Man did not struggle.
A Green Jade Bamboo stabbed into the mine wall beside the slime.
The bamboo shaft bent.
The enemy thought she intended to escape using Green Bamboo Rebound.
The underground tester immediately reached out from inside the rock wall.
He tried to seize the bamboo tip.
But Li Man's real goal had never been escape.
She let the bamboo shaft continue to bend.
All its rebound force was aimed at the mine ceiling.
"Go!"
The Green Jade Bamboo flew from her hand.
It was no ordinary throw.
Rather, the bamboo shaft had been released in an instant after bending to its limit.
Whoosh!
The long green bamboo shot out like an arrow.
It struck the core of the recording formation disk.
Crack!
The last three black crystals went dark at the same time.
The entire recording formation ceased to function.
"The main recording has been destroyed!"
Li Man's legs were still held fast by the slime.
The underground enemy rose behind her.
A stone hand reached for her neck.
Dong Jian was about to charge over.
Li Man's fourth fleeting bamboo shadow had already appeared behind her.
The bamboo shadow bent.
The bamboo vine did not wrap around the enemy.
Instead, it wrapped around her own waist.
An instant rebound!
The slime still held her feet fast.
But Li Man used the rebound force to pull herself backward by sheer force.
Her shoes were left where they stood.
She herself escaped the stone hand.
She landed barefoot.
Summoned by her Martial Soul, the Green Jade Bamboo returned to her hand.
The bamboo's butt swept across.
Bang!
It struck the underground enemy squarely in the mask.
The mask shattered.
It revealed a face covered in gray-black scales.
"Green Bamboo sample."
"So you really are-"
Before the enemy could finish, Yan Feng's black iron round shield came flying in from the side.
Bang!
The underground tester was struck head-on.
His body was forced completely out of the rock.
"Ten breaths are up,"
Yan Feng said.
"From here on, follow my orders."
He did not hand all responsibility for the fight over to the two children just because Li Man's earlier judgment had been correct.
The Third Soul Ring lit up.
"Third Soul Skill, Iron Wall Suppression!"
A gigantic black shield shadow descended from the mine ceiling.
It pinned the underground tester to the ground.
The enemy kept trying to merge his body into the rock.
But the shield shadow's Soul Power sealed off the ground around him.
"Now!"
Dong Jian had already leaped down from the rock wall.
No Light-Body Bear Steps.
Nor had he fully charged Bear Astral Energy.
As his body fell, his legs were normal.
The instant he drew close to the enemy, his right shoulder suddenly grew heavier.
Mountain-Leaning Collision!
Bang!
The enemy had just broken free from beneath the shield shadow.
Then his chest was struck head-on.
His entire body slammed into the rock wall.
Li Man thrust her Green Jade Bamboo forward immediately afterward.
The bamboo tip struck the back of his knee.
The enemy fell to his knees again.
Yan Feng swept his round shield across.
He knocked him out cold.
The first tester was incapacitated.
On the other side.
The slime Soul Master discovered that the recording formation disk had been destroyed.
He stopped the test.
He slapped both hands against the ground.
A great mass of gray slime spread in all directions.
"Retreat!"
The sonic Soul Master also abandoned the head-on fight.
Rending Cry blasted toward the mine ceiling.
Broken rocks rained down.
They were preparing to cause a cave-in and escape.
Yan Feng enlarged his round shield.
He protected Dong Jian and Li Man.
"We can't let them both get away!"
Li Man quickly assessed the situation.
"The sonic Soul Master is responsible for creating an exit."
"The slime Soul Master will stay behind to hold us off."
Sure enough.
The sonic Soul Master retreated deeper into the mine.
The slime Soul Master, however, remained where he was.
He gathered a large amount of gray liquid in his hands.
He intended to seal off the pursuit route.
Dong Jian smashed his right fist into the rock wall.
Using the force, he circled around the slime.
The slime Soul Master immediately turned around.
The Second Soul Ring lit up.
"Rotten Mud Cage!"
Gray slime closed in from every direction.
Dong Jian activated Bear Astral Energy Body Protection only at the instant the slime touched him.
Black-and-white astral Qi forced open a brief gap.
Li Man seized the opportunity.
An instantaneous bamboo shadow rose from inside the slime cage.
The bamboo shaft bent.
It did not pull Dong Jian out.
Instead, it launched him toward the slime Soul Master.
The structure of Green Bamboo Borrowing Momentum was compressed into just two breaths.
The enemy did not see the complete formation.
Naturally, he had no time to react.
Dong Jian's shoulder struck his chest.
The impact Bear Astral Energy Body Protection had just absorbed from the crushing slime was released at the moment of collision.
Bang!
The slime Soul Master flew backward.
His back slammed into a mine cart.
He lost consciousness completely.
The sonic Soul Master had already fled deep into the mine.
Yan Feng wanted to give chase.
But a violent rumble of collapsing rock came from up ahead.
The path was completely sealed off.
"Don't chase him,"
Li Man said:
"He deliberately left traces."
"If we keep pursuing him, there may be another ambush."
Yan Feng looked at the sealed mine passage.
In the end, he nodded.
"Let's take the captives out first."
The three began looking for another exit.
Before the underground tester fell unconscious, Li Man bound his hands and feet with bamboo vines.
The slime Soul Master, meanwhile, was suppressed by the Soul Power of Yan Feng's round shield.
Although the mine had collapsed in many places,
Yan Feng drew on his years of mission experience and soon found an abandoned ventilation passage.
Half an hour later.
The three returned to the surface with two captives.
As the sunlight fell on them, Dong Jian and Li Man felt a change in the Soul Power inside their bodies at almost the same time.
The fight just now had not followed any training plan.
Light-Body Bear Steps had been blocked.
Listening to the Wind to Discern Position had been disrupted.
The enemy had targeted the Green Bamboo formation nodes in advance.
All their public tactics had lost their original effectiveness.
They could only adapt on the spot.
Dong Jian no longer relied on a three-step burst.
He had learned to use the mine wall, the weight of his arm, and a brief burst of Bear Astral Energy to close the distance.
Li Man was no longer fixated on a complete formation, either.
She had broken Green Bamboo Binding Formation into several instantaneous formation nodes that existed for only a few breaths.
The bottleneck at the peak of level seventeen loosened for both of them at that moment.
Their Soul Power circulated naturally.
Boom!
The Panda Martial Soul and Green Jade Bamboo appeared together.
Dong Jian was level eighteen.
Li Man was level eighteen.
When Yan Feng saw that the two had broken through, he did not congratulate them immediately.
Instead, he checked their surroundings first.
Only after confirming there were no other enemies did he speak:
"Stabilize your Soul Power when we return to the academy."
"The intelligence for this mission was clearly altered."
"Both the prisoners and what was left in the mine must be handed over to Spirit Hall."
Li Man looked at the unconscious underground tester.
"They called Dong Jian Number Zero."
"They called me a Green Bamboo symbiotic sample."
"Dong Jian isn't the only target the Return to One Society is observing."
Dong Jian had also heard the enemy's unfinished words.
You really are one too-
What came after that?
A key?
A test subject?
Or another kind of being connected to Dragon Spine Valley?
He did not press for answers immediately.
The Return to One Society tester's Soul Power was in chaos.
Interrogating him rashly could very well trigger a backlash from the drugs.
"Let's head back first,"
Dong Jian said.
"As long as he's alive, we'll have a chance to ask."
Yan Feng glanced at him.
"You two are much more levelheaded than you were a year ago."
"But you still took too great a risk this time."
Li Man did not defend her judgment.
"If the image-recording array plate hadn't been destroyed,"
"the enemy would have obtained the complete data."
"And if your judgment had been wrong?"
Yan Feng asked.
"Then I would bear the consequences."
"No."
Yan Feng shook his head.
"On a team mission, the whole team bears the consequences."
"Next time you propose changing the plan, it isn't enough to prove there's a problem with the original one."
"You also need to explain how to retreat if the new plan fails."
Li Man was silent for a moment.
Then she nodded earnestly.
"I'll remember that."
Yan Feng did not demand absolute obedience just because she was a student.
Nor did he say all her judgments had been correct just because she had succeeded this time.
That was what a true team leader should do.
Meanwhile,
deeper in the mine,
the sound-wave Soul Master who had escaped passed through a narrow fissure.
His shoulders and arms were bleeding.
He entered a stone chamber carved out by human hands.
A long table stood in the center of the chamber.
Behind it sat a man wearing a silver mask.
Mo Lin.
The sound-wave Soul Master knelt on one knee.
"The main image-recording array plate was destroyed."
"Only some of the Soul Power fluctuations were preserved."
Mo Lin took a cracked crystal.
He injected Soul Power through his fingertip.
Blurry images flashed above the crystal.
Dong Jian had not used Light-Body Bear Steps in succession.
Bear Astral Energy Body Protection had also appeared only briefly.
Li Man had even broken the complete Green Bamboo array into several unpredictable, momentary array cores.
"They've learned to hide their abilities,"
Mo Lin said.
"Conventional tests are no longer meaningful."
A black-robed figure beside him asked:
"Should we retrieve Number Zero ahead of schedule?"
"No."
Mo Lin set down the crystal.
"If we retrieve him now, all we'll get is a container that hasn't matured yet."
His gaze settled on the image of Li Man smashing the array plate.
The Green Jade Bamboo bent.
A bamboo silhouette appeared briefly.
The Soul Power patterns on the ground were extremely similar to the golden route on the map of Dragon Spine Valley.
"Let Number Zero continue to grow."
"As for the Green Bamboo sample..."
Mo Lin tapped his fingers lightly on the table.
"First, confirm whether she really is the key."
Deep in the stone chamber,
from behind an iron door covered with black cloth,
a heavy pounding suddenly rang out.
Thud.
Thud.
It was as though some enormous creature were slowly awakening in the darkness.