Tang San Teams Up to Hunt a Soul Beast

On the evening of the third day after what happened with Xiao Wu, Tang San came looking for Nan Feng.

Nan Feng was alone in the dormitory. Xiao Wu had gone to the cafeteria to get food for Ye Lingling, and the other work-study students had yet to return. Nan Feng sat on his bed, flipping through the Soul Beast Distribution Atlas.

The door opened. Tang San stood in the doorway, holding two multigrain steamed buns he had swiped from the cafeteria. He offered one to Nan Feng.

Nan Feng took it and had a bite.

Tang San leaned against the doorframe and finished chewing before he spoke.

"There are no classes tomorrow afternoon. Let's go outside the city and hunt a Soul Beast."

"What kind of Soul Beast?"

"An Iron-Armored Rhinoceros in the woods west of the city. Five hundred years old." Tang San swallowed the last of his bun. "My Soul Power has been growing slowly lately, so I want to find something tougher to test my skills on. Are you coming?"

Nan Feng thought it over. Tang San hadn't asked Xiao Wu or Ye Lingling. He had come to pick a partner. Nan Feng had what he wanted: the ability to suppress an opponent.

"What about Xiao Wu?"

"She went into the city with Ye Lingling to buy medicinal herbs. She said they wouldn't be back until tomorrow." Tang San's tone was flat, as though he were mentioning it in passing. "Just the two of us. What do you think?"

Nan Feng understood: Tang San wasn't doing this just to hunt a Soul Beast. Yu Xiaogang had given him a theoretical framework, but Tang San lacked someone who could work with him. He was also testing Nan Feng.

"All right."

The following afternoon, the two met at the city's west gate. Tang San carried a small bundle of Hidden Weapons and rations; Nan Feng brought his short staff and iron hammer.

They headed west out of the city and walked for an hour. The woods grew denser, and the dirt road vanished. Tang San led the way.

The two didn't talk much, but their strides fell into sync.

The Iron-Armored Rhinoceros was at the bottom of a dry riverbed.

The creature was the size of a full-grown bull, its entire body covered in gray, horny plates. It was rooting through the mud for tree roots to eat.

Tang San watched it for a while, then lowered his voice.

"The plates are thickest on its back and head. Its belly and limb joints are relatively weak. I'll bind its front legs first. Use Tower Suppression from the side to slow its turning speed, and I'll circle around behind it and strike its hind leg joints."

Nan Feng nodded. Tang San's plan was more detailed, with the order of their attacks and the directions of their restraining moves mapped out in advance.

Tang San moved first. He crouched low and circled to the left side of the riverbed, forming a hand seal with both hands. Pale blue silver grass spread from his palm, creeping toward the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros's front legs.

The silver grass wound around them, and the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros kicked wildly with all four limbs. Its front legs were bound fast, and every struggle pulled the grass tighter.

While its attention was fixed on its front legs, Nan Feng charged out from the right. The cyan image of a tower spread out from beneath his feet, covering the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros's entire rear half.

The Soul Beast tried to turn and face him, but Tower Suppression slowed its turn by almost half. Its six legs slipped in place in the mud, and it got stuck after turning less than thirty degrees.

Tang San circled around its left side to its rear and fired three pebbles as Hidden Weapons. The first struck a gap in a hind knee joint, and the other two smashed into the same spot in succession.

The Iron-Armored Rhinoceros howled in pain. A crack opened in the plate over its hind leg joint, and blood seeped out, staining its shell red. It thrashed, trying to break free of the Blue Silver Grass, and the force dragged Tang San a step forward.

Tang San steadied his stance and changed his hand seal. The Blue Silver Grass shifted from binding to pulling, yanking the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros's front half sharply to the left.

At the same time, Nan Feng shifted the direction of Tower Suppression's pressure to the left. The two forces combined into one. The Iron-Armored Rhinoceros tilted left, its six legs kicking in the mud a few times without finding purchase, and toppled onto its side at the bottom of the riverbed.

Nan Feng charged up close, swung the iron hammer from behind his waist, and brought it down on the crack Tang San had made in the joint.

One blow. Two blows.

The third blow landed. The sound of bone cracking came from beneath the armor, and one of the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros's hind legs was ruined.

Tang San had already circled around to its head, gripping a Hidden Weapon in each hand. As it raised its head to howl, he stabbed them through a gap beneath its jaw.

The howl died in its throat. Its six legs twitched a few times and went still.

A purple Soul Ring rose above the corpse.

"You absorb it." Tang San wiped the blood off his Hidden Weapons in the mud and put them back in his bundle.

Nan Feng shook his head.

"It was your target. You hunted it, so you absorb it."

Tang San didn't protest. He sat down cross-legged and guided the Soul Ring toward himself. The absorption went more smoothly than Nan Feng had expected. Though the power of a five-hundred-year Yellow Soul Ring was fierce, years of cultivating the Mysterious Heaven Skill had given Tang San's meridians an exceptionally solid foundation.

Nan Feng stood a few steps away, keeping watch for him and observing the pattern of Tang San's Soul Power fluctuations.

That kind of internal cultivation art was entirely different from the meditation method Old Huai had taught him. The Mysterious Heaven Skill took a long, fine, and subtle approach, like spring rain moistening the soil. The Primordial World Qi Refining Art took a weighty, solid approach, like pouring lead into a river channel. The two paths went in completely different directions.

Tang San stood up, his Soul Power noticeably stronger. He flexed his wrists, satisfaction showing on his face.

"Five hundred years was just right. Any more and my meridians would have had trouble handling it."

Nan Feng didn't reply. They walked back along the riverbed, and after half an incense stick's time, Tang San stopped beside a stream to rest.

He sat down on a large rock by the stream, took out some rations, broke off half, and handed it to Nan Feng. The two chewed their rations on opposite sides of the stream.

"Nan Feng," Tang San said after finishing a piece and brushing the crumbs from his hands, "there's something I've actually been meaning to ask you."

"Go ahead."

"Why won't you come to Shrek with us?"

Tang San turned his head to look at him. His tone was even, but there was a seriousness in his eyes that Nan Feng had never seen before.

"Your talent is no worse than anyone's. Your Martial Soul is unusual, and your cultivation speed is even steadier than mine. If you went to Shrek, Dean Flender and Grandmaster could give you far more resources than I have. But you refused, and there's more to the way you refused than that."

He paused.

"You're not rejecting Shrek. You're rejecting a path that's been laid out for you."

Nan Feng chewed his rations without answering at once.

Tang San continued, "I've been watching you for over half a year. You get up early and spend more time cultivating every day than I do, and your Soul Power advances faster than anyone else's at the academy. You never tell anyone how you cultivate, and you never ask anyone how you should cultivate. There's something about you. You're like someone who already knows the way and doesn't need to look at a map."

Nan Feng's heart skipped half a beat. Tang San was too close to the truth.

"You're not going to Shrek because Grandmaster is there. You don't accept his theories, so you're unwilling to be a student in his system. But it's more than just rejecting him. It seems like you're trying to prove something that's the complete opposite of what he believes."

Tang San broke the last piece of his rations in half and put one half in his mouth.

"The age of your First Soul Ring isn't right. You've never mentioned it, and you've never shown anyone the ring's true age. You're hiding something, and it's not just a cultivation secret."

The stream flowed past their feet. The rations in Nan Feng's hand had been squeezed out of shape. Tang San's tone had never changed as he spoke, as though he were stating a fact he had observed for a long time. He wasn't trying to interrogate Nan Feng, but every word landed exactly where Nan Feng least wanted to be touched.

"Tang San," Nan Feng said, "do you have secrets?"

Tang San stopped chewing for a beat.

"Even if you don't say it, I know you do." Nan Feng turned to look at him. "The cultivation art you practice isn't from this continent. Neither are your Hidden Weapon techniques. You carry more inside you than any student at the academy, myself included. But you've never mentioned it to anyone."

The air by the stream grew heavy for a moment.

Tang San turned to look at Nan Feng, and their eyes met.

In those few seconds, Nan Feng felt something very thin between him and Tang San being peeled away. They both knew the other was hiding something, and until now they had maintained that thin veil by unspoken agreement. Now Tang San had lifted one corner, and Nan Feng had lifted another.

Tang San looked away first. He lowered his head and gazed at his reflection in the stream, silent for a long time.

"You're right. I have secrets. But my secrets are mine, and yours are yours. We can each keep our own. There's no need to compete over them."

Nan Feng nodded.

Tang San finished the last of his rations, stood up, and brushed the crumbs from his hands.

"Let's go. It's getting late."

He turned and walked downstream along the bank. After a few steps, he suddenly looked back at Nan Feng.

"But Nan Feng, I'll say it again-you have to seize what's there to be seized. You can walk your own path, but there are things that, if you don't seize them, someone else will. Don't regret it when that happens."

Nan Feng rose from the rock and followed him.

Neither spoke again. Nan Feng felt that the distance between him and Tang San was a little smaller than when they had set out. Not physically closer, but closer in the way of fingertips brushing across the space between secrets.

He knew that Tang San possessed the Mysterious Heaven Skill and peerless Hidden Weapon techniques, and that he would one day become the Sea God and the Asura God. Tang San, meanwhile, knew none of this, nor did he know about the tower deep within Nan Feng's soul or the older secret in the crack inside it.

Two transmigrators walked the same mountain path in the dusk, each with his own direction. But for this stretch of the road, they walked side by side.

By the time they returned to Nuoding City, it was completely dark. Tang San parted ways with Nan Feng at the city gate and headed for the dormitory. Nan Feng stood there a little longer, looking back at the dirt road west of the city, and felt the copper coin Old Chen had slipped into his pocket.

The deep yellow light with a hint of purple beneath the Soul Ring in his palm pulsed against the copper coin, rising and falling in response to the cyan light from the crack at the base of the tower.

His Soul Power was at level sixteen, four levels short of twenty. Once he reached level twenty, the first-level tower door would open all the way and the Power of Mountain Suppression would be released outward. Only then could he do more. For now, he needed time, as well as an understanding with Tang San.

He turned toward the dormitory, his steps as steady as they had been on the way out.