The First Soul Ring
On the morning his Soul Power broke through to level ten, Nan Feng was meditating on the grassy slope behind the mountain.
On the fourth circulation of his Soul Power, something trembled deep within his dantian.
A crack appeared in the thin membrane between level nine and level ten. Soul Power flooded his entire meridian, and the mass of Qi in his dantian swelled, warmth spreading into his limbs.
Level ten.
Nan Feng opened his eyes. Morning light was peeking over the mouth of the mountain hollow to the east. The warm cyan band in his palm was twice as bright as usual.
He clenched his fist. His Soul Power circulated thirty percent more smoothly than before, and the walls of his meridians had grown tough and elastic.
But he had little time to celebrate.
When he entered the space inside the tower that night, Old Huai had already emerged completely from the crack and was sitting there, with a row of glowing points floating before him like a map.
He looked up, and a flash of cyan light passed through his cloudy eyes.
"Level ten."
"Mm."
"Tomorrow, go hunt for a Soul Ring." Old Huai's tone brooked no argument. "If you reach level ten and don't absorb a Soul Ring, you'll be stuck there forever, unable to gain even a bit more Soul Power. That's an iron law. Even the tower can't change it."
Nan Feng sat down opposite him. "What am I hunting?"
Old Huai pointed to the leftmost glowing point. It enlarged into the phantom image of a wolf: gray-black, with emerald-green eyes and a dark red gleam on the tips of its claws.
"Thirty li outside Nuoding City, on the outskirts of Sunset Forest. A Bloodthirsty Demon Wolf, nine hundred and twenty years old."
Twice the size of a wild wolf, extremely fast, with venom in its claws and fangs. Nan Feng committed it to memory.
"For an ordinary Soul Master's first ring, the absolute limit is four hundred and twenty-three years," Old Huai said. "Your meridians are one and a half times as wide as an ordinary Soul Master's, your bones are one point three times as dense, and your Soul Power is twice as pure. The Gravity Field has been tempering your body all along, and when you broke through to level ten, the origin of the Primordial World spirit treasure released its first wisp of Qi. Nine hundred and twenty years is the limit of what you can suppress."
"What if I can't suppress it?"
"If you can't," Old Huai said, his gaze level, "all your meridians will shatter, and your Soul Power will flow backward into your internal organs, killing you on the spot. This tower can't save you, and neither can I. You only have one chance."
Nan Feng fell silent for two breaths. "Understood."
He left through the east gate before dawn the next day. Under his pillow, he left a note: Went outside the city to hunt for a soul.
He told neither Xiao Wu nor Tang San. He had to hunt for a soul alone; the moment his Soul Ring Configuration was exposed, Yu Xiaogang would be the first to come knocking.
After an hour on the main road, he turned onto a path leading to Sunset Forest.
Following Old Huai's directions, he walked for half a day and reached a mountain hollow in the afternoon. There was a faint, bloody smell in the air. Treasure-Appraising Spirit Light picked up a dark red point moving near a cave upstream along a creek.
The Bloodthirsty Demon Wolf.
Nan Feng crouched behind a bush and watched for the time it took an incense stick to burn. The wolf was even bigger than its phantom image, its shoulders reaching almost to his chest. It moved slowly, and when it turned its head, its neck barely shifted.
The deadly thing about it was not its claws or fangs, but the way it moved almost without a sound.
When he had finished observing, he withdrew to the edge of the hollow and took a short staff from his bundle. It was a hardwood staff he had obtained from the academy's logistics office, three feet long and sharpened at one end.
He had not brought the iron hammer; it was too heavy. The short staff and Tower Suppression were all he had.
Nan Feng stood up from behind the bush.
He walked a dozen steps downstream along the creek and snapped a dead branch underfoot. The crisp crack rang out with startling sharpness.
The bloody smell from the cave grew twice as strong. Half of the giant gray-black wolf's body emerged from the entrance, its emerald eyes shining like a pair of lamps.
Nan Feng did not wait for it to charge. He ran two steps toward the cave, then stopped, left foot forward and right foot back, holding the short staff across his body.
The demon wolf's pupils contracted. Its four limbs bent slightly, and in the next instant, it pounced.
A gray-black afterimage shot from the cave entrance, crossing the dozen-odd steps in less than a breath. Its forepaw swiped at Nan Feng's shoulder, the force of the blow whipping up a gust of wind.
Nan Feng turned sideways to dodge, but he was half a beat too slow. The tips of the wolf's claws grazed his left shoulder, tearing three gashes in his clothes. Flesh curled open, and blood welled out.
He endured the pain and swung the short staff sideways, smashing its end into the demon wolf's shoulder blade.
The demon wolf howled in pain. It landed and sprang again, two rows of sharp teeth aimed straight at his throat.
Nan Feng dropped into a crouch, and the demon wolf sailed over his head. He activated Tower Suppression. A cyan tower-shaped shadow spread out beneath his feet, bearing down with crushing force.
When the demon wolf landed, its forepaws sank half an inch into the earth, and gravity pressed down on its whole body, making it falter for a beat.
One beat was enough.
Nan Feng rushed forward and brought the short staff down at the side of its neck. The end struck the bone with a crisp crack.
The demon wolf's howl turned into a low whimper. Its limbs twitched, but a vicious light still burned in its eyes. Struggling to raise its head, it opened its jaws and bit at Nan Feng's calf.
Nan Feng did not retreat. He poured Soul Power into his right arm and swept the short staff upward, driving its end into the demon wolf's lower jaw and jerking its head up.
The wolf bit empty air, its teeth snapping shut inches in front of his calf.
Nan Feng gave it no second chance. He dropped the short staff, wrapped both arms around the demon wolf's neck, and activated Tower Suppression. The cyan tower-shaped shadow above his head condensed into a tangible spectral tower, its base facing down, and smashed into the demon wolf's skull.
The demon wolf's limbs went rigid, then it stopped moving.
Nan Feng knelt on the ground, panting for more than ten breaths. The wound on his left shoulder was still seeping blood.
Above the demon wolf's corpse, a Soul Ring was taking shape.
Its color was deep, neither the pale yellow of a Hundred-Year Soul Ring nor the purple of a thousand-year ring. It was a deep yellow, dark and somber, with a faint purple light showing through.
Nine hundred and twenty years. Deep yellow tinged with purple.
Old Huai had said that hundred-year rings were yellow, thousand-year rings purple, ten-thousand-year rings black, hundred-thousand-year rings red, and million-year rings gold. At nine hundred and twenty years, this one lay between a hundred and a thousand, with an undertone of purple in its yellow.
An ordinary Soul Master's first ring was no more than four hundred-odd years old and pure yellow. His ring was more than one grade deeper in color. If he released it, any discerning Soul Master would see that something was wrong.
But he could not concern himself with that now.
Nan Feng sat cross-legged beside the demon wolf's corpse, sank his consciousness into his dantian, and began guiding the Soul Ring.
The instant the Soul Ring touched his body, its energy exploded. The energy of a nine-hundred-and-twenty-year Soul Ring far exceeded the limits a ten-year Soul Master could bear.
His meridian walls stretched to their maximum diameter, his skin pulled taut and shiny. Blue veins bulged from his forehead down to the tops of his feet, and his bones crackled in rapid succession.
Soul Power surged through the wound on his left shoulder, making the blood flow even faster. He clenched his teeth, and a metallic sweetness seeped between them.
"Bring forth the tower to suppress your soul! Use the power of Mountain Suppression to hold your meridians down!"
Old Huai's voice cleaved through the depths of his soul.
Nan Feng fixed his consciousness deep within his dantian and activated the tower's power of Mountain Suppression. The loosened, half-open door on the first level shuddered violently, and the cyan light in the gap flared.
The door had yet to be pushed fully open; that required level-twenty Soul Power. But the suppressive force pouring through the gap was already enough to form a barrier.
Cyan light covered his meridians, seized the raging Soul Power, and pressed it back.
Nan Feng's consciousness rose and sank amid the agony. In the cyan light, his meridian walls split inch by inch, then healed inch by inch. They split and healed, healed and split, and each time they healed, they grew thicker and tougher than before.
He did not know how much time passed. Half an hour, or an entire afternoon.
His consciousness was scattered by pain and pulled together again, but the one thing he never relinquished was his guidance of the Soul Ring. The tower's suppressive force helped him contain the rampaging energy wave after wave, but the one who finally tamed the Soul Ring was Nan Feng himself.
He lay sprawled in a pile of fallen leaves, soaked in blood and sweat, black mud packed beneath his fingernails. A dark red scab had formed over the wound on his left shoulder.
By the time the Soul Ring stabilized, the sky had darkened, and night birds were calling in the distance.
Soul Power settled in his dantian, forty percent denser than before. Level fourteen. He had jumped from level ten to level fourteen.
A deep yellow ring of light tinged with purple rose from beneath his feet and revolved around his body.
Beneath the purple was a faint cyan glow, the trace left after the tower's suppressive force had seeped into the Soul Ring.
He activated his first Soul Skill. The halo of Tower Suppression spread out beneath his feet, covering nearly five paces. The ground was pressed into a shallow depression, fallen leaves sank into the earth, and gravel crumbled to powder.
"Tower Suppression: Mountain Suppression." Nan Feng spoke the name in a hoarse voice, the corners of his mouth curving slightly.
Old Huai had said that the first-level door could only be pushed fully open at level twenty. By then, the tower would complete its first evolution, thirty percent of the bronze corrosion would fall away, and the power of Mountain Suppression would truly be released outward.
The Gravity Field was about as strong as before; absorbing the Soul Ring had not strengthened it. But the battering had made his meridians wider and tougher, and his Soul Power was nearly half again as dense as the normal standard for level fourteen.
He pushed himself up and tucked the short staff back into his waistband. The wound on his left shoulder had stopped bleeding, though moving it still pulled painfully.
He dragged the demon wolf's corpse deep into the cave and covered the entrance with loose stones and dead branches. He had not sensed a Soul Bone. Perhaps there was none, or perhaps it was hidden too deep.
It was fully dark on the way back to Nuoding City. He reached the main road as the moon rose, walking more slowly than he had on the way there.
The red hair ribbon on his left wrist was one he had picked up at the academy gates. Xiao Wu had dropped it, and he had casually tied it on and never taken it off. Now blood had soaked it dark red.
He paused when he reached the city gate. The lantern on the gatehouse was still lit, its dim yellow light falling across the bluestone paving.
He looked down at his right palm. Deep in its lines lay the deep yellow Soul Ring glow tinged with purple, echoing the cyan light in the crack at the tower's base.
He turned his hand over and looked at the mud and scabbed blood between his fingers, not yet completely dry. He clenched his fist, and his knuckles gave several faint cracks.
He had obtained his First Soul Ring, and his Soul Power had jumped four levels. The tower's first-level door had not been fully opened, but the power of Mountain Suppression it released had grown a little stronger.
He still had a long road ahead. This step, he had taken steadily.