The Slot

There was still a month until Nuoding Academy opened.

Wang Xingyu repeated that to himself, then climbed out of bed. It was not quite light yet. Outside the window, the world was gray, and the roosters had not even crowed. He washed his face, pushed open the door, and headed for the back hillside.

Tang San was already there, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed on the same patch of level ground as yesterday. His Blue Silver Grass was planted in the earth before him, its roots sunk into the soil and its leaves swaying gently in the morning breeze.

Without a word, Wang Xingyu walked to his spot and sat down. He summoned his own Blue Silver Grass and pressed it into the soil. The moment its roots burrowed into the earth, that sense of connection returned, faint and delicate, as though someone had drawn a thread between him and the hillside.

He could sense Tang San's Blue Silver Grass beside him. He could not see it, but he could feel it. The grass, with its faint golden sheen, was spreading its roots through the soil, denser and deeper than his own, like a net slowly being cast.

The wild Blue Silver Grass around them sensed their presence too. Its roots quivered faintly in the soil, as though turning toward them.

Wang Xingyu closed his eyes and began circulating the Mysterious Heaven Skill.

His Soul Power crawled slowly through his meridians. At rank three, it was pitifully scarce, like a stream so thin it was on the verge of drying up.

But after the Blue Silver Grass took root, he sensed something different. Before, when he circulated his Soul Power, it traveled around his body and returned to where it started, like scooping water out of a bowl and pouring it back in. The total amount never increased.

Now, with the Blue Silver Grass planted in the soil and its roots intertwined with the wild Blue Silver Grass around it, those roots absorbed something from the earth each time he circulated his Soul Power. The amount was minuscule, almost impossible to sense, but they really were absorbing it.

It was not Soul Power, but something more fundamental, something Blue Silver Grass needed to live. Sunlight, water, soil. Photosynthesis.

Wang Xingyu nearly laughed when the word popped into his head. He had memorized it while studying biology in his previous life: plants used chlorophyll to turn light into chemical energy. There were no chemistry classes on the Douluo Continent, but Blue Silver Grass was a plant, and photosynthesis was a plant's instinct.

He planted the Blue Silver Grass in the soil and let it bask in the sun, and it naturally grew. The growth of a Martial Soul meant an increase in Soul Power. It was slow, so slow he could barely feel it, but it was growing.

"Can you feel it?" Tang San's voice came from beside him.

"Mm." Wang Xingyu did not open his eyes. "It's growing on its own. I'm not cultivating it; it's cultivating me."

Tang San said nothing. Wang Xingyu heard his breathing grow steady as he, too, entered a state of cultivation.

The two Blue Silver Grass plants stood side by side in the soil, their roots slowly spreading underground. Now and then, they touched, then parted again. It was not rejection; knowing the other was there was enough. The sun rose, and the morning mist dispersed.

Every day that followed was the same. They got up before dawn and cultivated on the back hillside, the Blue Silver Grass taking root as they circulated the Mysterious Heaven Skill.

They cultivated their Soul Power in the morning. In the afternoon, Tang San went to the smithy, where Tang Hao taught him to work iron, while Wang Xingyu squatted outside the dilapidated house and continued studying his Blue Silver Grass.

He tried planting it in different places: dry soil, wet soil, sandy ground, cracks in rocks, beneath the shade of trees, and in direct sunlight. After a month of experiments, he found that the Blue Silver Grass grew fastest on the sunniest part of the slope.

It grew slowest in the cracks between rocks, but its roots went deepest there. When he pulled it out, they brought up a whole handful of soil.

He told Tang San what he had discovered. Tang San thought for a moment and said that the harsher the environment, the deeper the roots went. Wang Xingyu nodded. So Blue Silver Grass was not a Trash Martial Soul; it just needed time.

A month passed quickly.

Every day after cultivating, Wang Xingyu recorded the changes in his Soul Power. He had no precise measuring tools, but he could feel that the thin stream of his rank-three Soul Power had grown a little wider than it had been a month ago.

Not much, but it really was wider. He told Tang San what he felt. Tang San said the same was true for him. The growth in his full Soul Power was not obvious, but he could feel Wang Xingyu's growth.

"About one rank, I'd say," Tang San said.

Wang Xingyu did the math. At one rank a month, it would take seven months to get from rank three to rank ten. But that was only the theoretical speed. The further one progressed, the slower it became. Otherwise, cultivating to Titled Douluo would only take a steady ten years.

Even so, one rank a month was already fast enough for a Trash Martial Soul.

According to the analysis posts he had read in his previous life, an ordinary Blue Silver Grass Soul Master would normally take two or three years to go from rank three to rank ten. By cultivating with his roots planted and using the Mysterious Heaven Skill, he had raised his speed to one rank a month, a growth rate of seven or eight ranks. That was enough. He might not measure up to those above him, but he was better off than those below.

At his awakening, he had already felt that his rank-three Soul Power was more than rank three. Now that it had risen by one rank, it had probably reached rank four.

On the evening the month came to an end, Old Jack arrived.

Wang Xingyu and Tang San had just come down from the hillside when they spotted Old Jack in the distance, standing beneath the old locust tree at the village entrance. He clutched a pipe in his hand, its tobacco unlit. When he saw them approaching, he took the pipe from his mouth, looking somewhat dejected.

"Little San, Xingyu, Grandpa has something to tell you."

Wang Xingyu had a rough idea what it was.

"I went and asked at Nuoding Academy. Our village only has one work-study slot, and I gave it to Little San." Old Jack looked at Wang Xingyu. "Xingyu, I went to a few neighboring villages to borrow a slot for you too, but they wouldn't agree. Still, it's all right. Grandpa can go borrow some more money. That should do."

"Do they have children who need to go to school?" Tang San asked.

Old Jack shook his head. "No. They just wouldn't lend one."

Wang Xingyu said nothing.

He had guessed as much long ago. Holy Soul Village was the poorest of the nearby villages. It was no surprise that the others had refused when Old Jack went to borrow a slot.

They had not refused because they needed the slots themselves, but because lending one brought them no benefit. They simply saw that the village was poor and decided to put another obstacle in its way. People like that were everywhere.

"Give it to Little San," Wang Xingyu said.

Old Jack froze. Tang San also turned to look at him.

"Little San's family has it harder than I do," Wang Xingyu said. "Uncle Tang Hao is raising him alone, and he can't make much money working iron. I've saved some myself, enough to pay the tuition."

Old Jack looked at him. "How much have you saved?"

"Definitely enough for tuition," Wang Xingyu said confidently.

Tang San frowned slightly. "When did you save it?"

"The month before last, I made a few especially fine bars of soap and added wildflower juice. I asked Grandpa Ma Xiuluo to give them to a noble family's steward. He bought the whole lot in one go and even paid extra."

Tang San was silent for a while. "You didn't tell me."

"If I'd told you, it wouldn't have been saving in secret." Wang Xingyu grinned.

Of course I couldn't tell him. If I did, how would I meet Xiao Wu?

It was enough to criticize them online. Who hadn't shipped Tang San and Xiao Wu as a kid?

Old Jack stood there, clutching his pipe, and did not speak for a long time.

"All right. You've both grown capable." He turned and walked toward the village, then stopped after a couple of steps. "We'll leave at the end of the month. Grandpa will take you there."

"All right," Wang Xingyu and Tang San said at the same time.

Old Jack left. Wang Xingyu and Tang San stood beneath the old locust tree, watching his retreating figure disappear at the end of the yellow dirt road.

The two did not linger long either. They walked back side by side, the setting sun behind them stretching their shadows long and overlapping them.

As he walked, Wang Xingyu reflected that his Soul Power had risen from rank three to rank four in a month. It was not fast, but it was enough.

He had six years at Nuoding Academy, plenty of time. Xiao Wu was in Dorm Seven, and who else? He had forgotten. Anyway, it was just a bunch of work-study students.

Tang San would meet the Grandmaster, obtain his First Soul Ring, and step by step follow the path of the original story.

He needed to intervene there. Tang San could still be redeemed, but the Grandmaster's left brain really did contradict his right brain: there were no trash Martial Souls, only trash Soul Masters. He had insulted himself twice in a single sentence.

Unless it was the Grandmaster from the manhua, who really did have the knowledge and ability.

When soldiers came, he would send a general to block them; when water came, he would pile up earth to stop it.

Tomorrow, Nuoding City.