Friends Reunited
The next day at noon, Ning Buhui just entered the cafeteria when he saw three people sitting in their usual spot. Yan and Xie Yue were sitting opposite each other, and Hu Liena was next to Xie Yue. On the table were four large bowls of steaming noodle soup, and next to them was a plate of evenly sliced braised meat, glistening with oil. When she saw him come in, Hu Liena first raised her hand and greeted him with a smile.
Ning Buhui walked over and sat down, picking up his chopsticks and taking two large mouthfuls of noodles. The hot soup made him feel a little better. Yan, who had been holding back all morning, noticed Ning Buhui eating slowly and immediately slapped the edge of the table. "Alright, stop just eating and tell me quickly, where have you been all year? Not a single word from you!"
Ning Buhui then recounted what he had said to Bibi Dong the day before, picking out the parts he could. He spoke calmly about the Supreme Sect realm, the eighty-one trials, and how his Soul Power had increased from level forty-three to forty-nine. He glossed over the dangerous parts. Yan, however, listened with a series of startled exclamations, sometimes slapping his thigh and exclaiming, "Your luck is too bizarre!" and sometimes gasping in shock, "Eighty-one trials? And the number of mirror images increases as you go in? If I went in, I probably wouldn't even last twenty trials!" Xie Yue had been silently eating noodles most of the time, only glancing at Ning Buhui with a deep look when he heard "there are eight mirror images in the eightieth trial."
After he finished speaking, Hu Liena wiped her mouth with a tissue before asking, "So, what kind of Head Soul Bone did you get in the end?"
"It's called the Time-Reversing Heavenly Secret Skull, it's 100,000 years old, and after absorbing it, I gained two Soul Skill." Ning Buhui put down his chopsticks. "One is a passive skill called ' Pupil of Illusion Breaking,' which can see through all disguises and illusions; the other is an active skill called ' Eye of the Future,' which can see what will happen three seconds into the future."
A few seconds of silence fell over the table. Yan's hand, holding chopsticks, froze in mid-air as she stared blankly at him: "Three seconds? You're not kidding?" "Yes." Ning Buhui nodded.
Xie Yue picked up the iced tea beside him, took a sip, and said calmly as he put the cup down, "Three seconds is enough to decide life and death."
Ning Buhui understood this perfectly well. In a fight between equals, a three-second prediction was practically equivalent to having the upper hand. He could anticipate the next move as soon as his opponent launched an attack; he could calculate the exact landing point the moment his foot took a step. Previously, he relied on his combat instincts and reaction speed honed through real combat, but now it was like having the trump card of foresight. This ability might take others a long time to adapt to, but he had fought his way through eighty mirror images in the secret realm, and his keen sense of combat was ingrained in his very being. The Eye of the Future combined with his combat intuition was only more astonishing.
"When do you plan to publicly announce that your tower can still control the situation?" Xie Yue suddenly asked, directly, but his tone was calm.
Ning Buhui looked up at him, and Yan and Hu Liena also looked over, but neither of them said a word.
"Let's wait until the next Elite Soul Master Tournament. Then we won't need to hide anymore, and it'll be time to show our skills." Ning Buhui thought for a moment, "It's a bit early now. There are already quite a few people in the Spirit Hall watching me. Last time in the preliminaries, I showed off my support abilities, and people were already asking about it. If they find out I'm also a Control System Soul Master, there will only be more trouble. I want to focus on my cultivation and reach level 50 as soon as possible so I can get my fifth Soul Ring."
Xie Yue nodded and didn't press the matter further. Yan pursed his lips and muttered, "That's really perverted," but didn't refute it. Hu Liena smiled and smoothed things over, "Alright, then we'll pretend we don't know anything, and we'll talk about it when you're ready to go public."
While eating noodles, Ning Buhui asked, "What grade were you all in during the year I was gone?"
Hu Liena said irritably, "We don't have your insane cultivation speed. I'm only level 44 now. Yan is a bit higher than me, he just broke through to level 45 recently. My brother is the fastest, but he's only just reached the threshold of level 46. It'll take him another month or two to break through."
Ning Buhui scratched his nose sheepishly. He did level up quickly, but it was by risking his life. If he had cultivated peacefully in the Spirit Hall, he would probably be about the same level as Yan now.
After lunch, Yan dragged Xie Yue back to the training ground for extra practice, while Hu Liena said she wanted to go to the mission hall to see if there were any suitable hunting missions. The three of them parted ways at the entrance of the cafeteria.
Ning Buhui walked alone to the quiet room, silently planning his arrangements. An ordinary Soul Master needs the sum of Soul Power from level 41 to 49 to advance from level 49 to 50. He was even more terrifying, because his body had been strengthened by the tower, requiring more than twice the Soul Power of an ordinary Soul Master. Relying solely on the training environment within the Nine Hell Soul-Suppressing Pagoda, it would take at least half a year. However, due to the year-long silence and the current unsuitability for outdoor training, he could only endure it slowly.
However, he wasn't in a hurry. Because of the recent rapid upgrades, he could take this time to reflect and consolidate.
Bibi Dong had specifically instructed him to rest for half a month. Ning Buhui planned to take advantage of this time to practice the practical application of the Pupil of Illusion Breaking and the Eye of the Future. He had just acquired these two abilities and hadn't tried them in real combat yet. Having predictions was useless if his body couldn't keep up with the reaction.
In the days that followed, Ning Buhui resumed his usual training rhythm. Every morning, without fail, he would run laps, practice physical skills, and practice Split Attention Control; at noon, he would go to the library to read; and in the afternoon, he would spend his time in the training ground, sparring with Yan and Xie Yue. Throughout, he only revealed his support abilities. With others present, he couldn't expose his control and mental attack trump cards, but he kept using his Eye of the Future hidden within his ordinary dodging and blocking, making it completely inconspicuous.
The first time he used it was in a sparring match with Yan. Yan threw a punch that was accompanied by wind, powerful and heavy. Ning Buhui activated his Eye of the Future with a slight thought, and a three-second afterimage instantly appeared in front of him. He turned to the side two seconds in advance, and the fist grazed his ear, the wind making his earlobe tingle. Yan withdrew his fist and was stunned, wondering, "When did your reaction become so fast?" Ning Buhui just smiled and didn't reply.
The second attack was a counterattack against Xie Yue's high-speed thrust. Xie Yue's Moon Blade, gleaming with cold light, slashed diagonally from the left, so fast that it was just a blur. However, the Eye of the Future had already anticipated his true landing point—the right side. Ning Buhui retreated to the left three seconds in advance, the Moon Blade grazing his clothes as it slashed through the air with a soft whistling sound. Xie Yue sheathed his blade and stood still, staring at him for several seconds without saying a word, only a hint of surprise in his eyes.
Half a month passed in the blink of an eye. Ning Buhui had already mastered the timing of using the Eye of the Future in battle. The Pupil of Illusion Breaking was a passive ability, requiring no deliberate control and taking effect naturally on a daily basis; if one actively focused their mind, it could even pierce through disguises at a specific point. He had tried looking at a Shitou imbued with concealed Soul Power, and the disguised Soul Power on the stone surface instantly dissipated in his vision, revealing the original bluish-gray underneath; he had even discovered the hidden ability of the Pupil of Illusion Breaking during his battle with Hu Liena, which was immune to mental control such as Charm, and the tower phantom in his mental sea was broken before it could even exert its power. It seemed that the Eye of Insight could not only see through disguises and illusions, but also had a remarkable effect on mental control. What other effects it had could only be developed by himself in the future; this passive Soul Skill was definitely not as simple as it appeared on the surface.
He had also thoroughly figured out the consumption pattern of the Eye of the Future: each activation consumes a fixed one percent of his mental energy. With his current mental reserves at level 49, he could use it dozens of times in a row before feeling fatigued, which was more than enough for actual combat.