Moonfall

After the Offshoot Vine incident, life went on as usual.

Before dawn, they went to the back mountain, connected in a triangle, and circulated their Soul Power. They attended theory classes in the morning and practiced separately in the afternoon.

Wang Xingyu immersed his Life Drain in the Triangle Cycle, growing more precise at transmitting and absorbing Soul Power with each passing day.

Xiao Wu's Soul Power had long since reached level twenty. But she had never brought up adding a Soul Ring.

Wang Xingyu didn't ask. Some things didn't need asking, because he knew Xiao Wu had undergone Soul Beast Transformation. She condensed her Soul Rings using the total amount of Soul Power she possessed and didn't need to hunt Soul Beasts. If she didn't have enough, there was no use rushing.

Tang San had asked once, though. "Xiao Wu, you're level twenty. What are you planning to hunt for your Second Soul Ring?" Xiao Wu gave a vague answer, saying she hadn't decided. Tang San didn't press her.

Then, one evening, the three of them were coming down from the back mountain when Xiao Wu suddenly stopped beside a patch of bushes. "There's something over there." She headed deeper into the woods, and Wang Xingyu and Tang San followed. Past several old trees so thick that it would take several people with joined arms to encircle them, the corpse of a Soul Beast lay in a small clearing.

Its entire body was covered in dark red scales, and it was shaped like a leopard several times its normal size, with long, slender limbs and a row of protruding bone spurs down its back. Its head had been smashed by something, making its original appearance impossible to discern.

The corpse had already gone cold, and the blood around its wounds had coagulated into blackish-brown clumps. There was no Soul Ring.

Tang San frowned. "How did a Soul Beast's corpse end up on the back mountain? And a thousand-year one, at that."

Xiao Wu crouched beside the corpse and reached out to touch its dark red scales. "I don't know. But the Soul Ring might still be there." She turned to look at Tang San and Wang Xingyu. "I want to try."

Tang San looked at her. Here was the corpse of a thousand-year Soul Beast of unknown origin, with no Soul Ring rising from it, and Xiao Wu said she wanted to try.

He wanted to ask why, but Wang Xingyu simply sat down cross-legged. Tang San could only sit down with them. Three strands of Blue Silver Grass connected them pair by pair, completing the triangle, and Soul Power began to flow around the ring.

Xiao Wu closed her eyes. Soul Power surged from deep within her body, not absorbed from outside, but from within herself.

The level-twenty bottleneck broke in a single rush. Level twenty-one, and her Soul Power was still surging upward. A purple ring of light rose from beneath her feet and hovered before her. A Thousand-Year Soul Ring, slightly paler in color than Tang San's.

Wang Xingyu sensed the Soul Power inside Xiao Wu collide with the purple ring of light, the two forces pressing against each other. Without hesitation, he pushed his Soul Power toward her.

Tang San was pushing too. But Wang Xingyu pushed harder-he poured all the Soul Power on his side toward Xiao Wu, drawing the Soul Power on Tang San's side along with it.

The Triangle Cycle no longer flowed in balance. Instead, with him as its central point, it gathered the three of their Soul Power into a single stream and sent it all surging toward Xiao Wu.

Tang San opened his eyes and gave Wang Xingyu a puzzled look. Wang Xingyu didn't look at him. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he gritted his teeth and drove Life Drain to its limit.

Tang San fell silent for a moment. Without asking, he closed his eyes again and began sending his own Soul Power toward Wang Xingyu. The three streams of Soul Power converged inside Wang Xingyu, and he shoved the whole lot into Xiao Wu's meridians.

The purple ring of light flickered on Xiao Wu's body, then abruptly contracted and disappeared completely into her. Xiao Wu opened her eyes, gasping for breath. Level twenty-one, with a thousand-year Second Soul Ring.

Tang San stood up, feeling that something was strange. Those two weren't acting right, and he had a whole pile of questions he wanted to ask.

"Why did the Soul Ring rise from that corpse?" "Why did Wang Xingyu suddenly change the direction of the Soul Power?" In the end, he asked neither. Everyone had secrets, himself included. All that mattered was knowing the three of them genuinely cared for one another.

He looked at Xiao Wu and asked curiously, "What Soul Skill?"

Xiao Wu stood up and looked at the old tree beside them. Bending her knees slightly, she sprang upward and shot to the height of the treetop in the blink of an eye, pausing briefly in midair.

Then she flipped head downward and feet upward, crashing down like a meteor. Both feet slammed into the ground with a muffled boom, and the earth sank in a circle three feet in radius around them.

"Moonfall. I jump into the air, pause briefly, then accelerate down into the ground. When I hit, my physical abilities temporarily increase by about forty percent."

Tang San nodded. "Moon Shadow for sideways movement, Moonfall for a vertical strike. Cool."

The three headed out of the woods. Tang San walked in front, with Xiao Wu and Wang Xingyu following behind.

After a few steps, Tang San turned his head and glanced at Wang Xingyu. Wang Xingyu stuck out his tongue. "Bleh."

Tang San gave a helpless smile.

Nothing much happened after that, and the three continued cultivating.

Over the next two years, Wang Xingyu saved up enough money again and bought Xiao Wu a small pink Storage Soul Tool, with an interior measuring three feet on each side.

Xiao Wu's eyes lit up when she received it. She immediately stuffed all her little odds and ends inside: her precious comb, half a carrot, a few pieces of candy, a small mirror, and a pretty stone she had picked up somewhere.

The next day, she came to Wang Xingyu and said it was full. Could he buy her another one? Wang Xingyu said no.

Wang Xingyu's own Soul Power also rose bit by bit through the Triangle Cycle. His Innate Soul Power had been only level three, leaving his foundation far weaker than Tang San's or Xiao Wu's.

Although the Triangle Cycle made up for his shortfall in cultivation speed, his starting point was what it was, and his progress grew slower the further he went. He had only just reached level fifteen at the end of fourth year, and level seventeen at the end of fifth year. Not until graduation approached in sixth year did the Soul Power in his dantian finally fill it—level twenty.

It was time to add his Second Soul Ring.

This time, they hunted a thousand-year dandelion. With Dean Fang overseeing things and the Iron Rock Mercenary Group providing support, they brought it down without much trouble.

A purple Soul Ring rose. Wang Xingyu sat down cross-legged, with Tang San and Xiao Wu seated on either side, and the Triangle Cycle flowed naturally. The three of them shared the thousand-year impact. Compared with the peril of Tang San absorbing the Offshoot Vine back then, this time was much more relaxed.

The purple ring of light abruptly contracted and disappeared completely into his body. Level twenty-one.

Wang Xingyu summoned his Blue Silver Grass. A silver-white line now ran along the edge of its leaves. At a thought, a small white fluff ball bloomed at the tip of the Blue Silver Grass and scattered into more than a dozen tiny seeds with silver-white fluff. They drifted toward Tang San and Xiao Wu and settled lightly against their skin.

Tang San flexed his fingers. "It can replenish Soul Power directly." Xiao Wu sensed it too. "Vitality as well. It's warm."

Wang Xingyu said his second Soul Skill was called Flying Fluff. The scattered seeds could attach themselves to teammates, continuously restoring their Soul Power and vitality.

The seeds themselves had a limited amount of energy and dispersed when it ran out, but as long as they remained, the replenishment would not stop.

Dean Fang nodded nearby and said that Life Drain extracted and converted, while Flying Fluff provided continuous replenishment. One drained, the other replenished; his support system was complete.

Tie Yan said a few more words than usual. One of the three controlled the field, one charged in and struck vertically, and one provided support and replenishment. If they made a name for themselves on the continent someday, they should remember to buy him a drink.

Wang Xingyu agreed with a smile. Working with Tie Yan had gone quite well, and this time he also paid the Soul Coins for their previous thousand-year hunt. Tie Yan tried to refuse, but against a transmigrator, he was defeated without a doubt.

As graduation drew near, Wang Xingyu visited Ma Xiunuo again and bought a Storage Soul Tool with an interior measuring six feet on each side, a size larger than Tang San's original one.

He handed the new one to Tang San and said that three feet wasn't enough for someone who stored Hidden Weapons. Six feet would be enough to hold his things for a while.

But Tang San had to give the three-foot one back to him. After buying a large one outright, he had no money left to buy another new one.

Tang San smiled, untied his old gray-blue storage pouch, and handed it to Wang Xingyu. Wang Xingyu took it and weighed it in his hand. Empty, just right.

On graduation day, the three stood at the entrance to Nuoding Academy. Dean Fang stood on the steps, his hands behind his back as he watched them. The three stood side by side, their shadows stretched long by the morning sun and overlapping.

Seven years. From Holy Soul Village to Nuoding City, from awakening Blue Silver Grass to the three of them forming a ring, from the First Soul Ring to all three of their Second Soul Rings being at the thousand-year level. They had spent three years immersed in the triangular Soul Power circulation. The three of their Soul Power had become like three rivers flowing into one, impossible to tell apart.

"Let's go." Wang Xingyu tucked his hands into his pockets and took the first step. Tang San and Xiao Wu followed. The three walked out through the academy gates, their shadows overlapping behind them. As for the next place, Wang Xingyu thought it over. Shrek, after all.