Xiao Wu let out a humph. "You want to compare speed? You think I'm scared of you?" She sprang to her feet and lunged straight at Tang San.
Tang San smiled faintly. This time he was fully prepared. If he let Xiao Wu toss him out again so easily, then all those years of training would have been for nothing.
A faint purple sheen flickered through his eyes as the Purple Extreme Demon Eye activated instinctively. Under its effect, Xiao Wu's movements visibly slowed in his view. He employed the Ghost Shadow Phantom Trail, executing a sliding step that carried him two meters sideways, neatly dodging her pounce. Not even her braid or her long legs could reach that far.
Xiao Wu froze in surprise. She was someone who excelled above all in agility. Tang San's speed didn't look particularly fast, yet it was precisely enough to evade her lunge. And for her, the Soft Technique she was best at required making contact with her opponent's body before she could use it. This time, Tang San had simply given her no opportunity to do so.
Xiao Wu was not one to accept that. She twisted midair in a rabbit flip, picking up even more speed, and chased after Tang San with clawing hands and bared teeth.
Tang San took a deep breath, channeling the Mysterious Heaven Skill downward into his legs. With the Ghost Shadow Phantom Trail under his feet, he began circling and maneuvering across the empty field.
The Ghost Shadow Phantom Trail was remarkably subtle. On the surface, Tang San's movements didn't look fast at all, yet every step he took carried a hidden principle. No matter how quickly Xiao Wu charged or from what direction she lunged, he always managed to move toward the optimal position at precisely the right moment, never giving her a chance to close in.
This was, in truth, the real essence of the Tang Sect's martial art. A Tang Sect fighter would never engage an opponent in straightforward combat unless absolutely necessary—Hidden Weapons were their true specialty. Combining lightfoot techniques with Hidden Weapons was every Tang Sect disciple's deadliest tactic.
The two of them chased and dodged, and in a short while had covered half the field. Xiao Wu was already starting to pant, but she simply could not catch up to Tang San.
"Hey, you're cheating!" Unable to catch him, Xiao Wu gave up the chase altogether, standing there with her cheeks puffed out in frustration and her hands planted firmly on her hips. Her big eyes glared at Tang San. "We're sparring, not playing hide-and-seek. What's the point of dodging around like this? If you've got any guts, come and attack me!"
Tang San smiled faintly. "All right, then watch out." As he spoke, he casually scooped up a few small stones from the edge of the field and gripped them in his palm. "I'm aiming for your left shoulder." A stone was already hurtling through the air.
Xiao Wu snorted, swaying her body to the right to dodge.
"Right shoulder, left calf, right calf." Three stones flew from Tang San's hand simultaneously.
The first stone was indeed aimed at Xiao Wu's left shoulder. Seeing all three stones appear to head in the same direction, she thought to herself, He's definitely trying to trick me. Instead of retreating, she surged forward, accelerating abruptly and lunging toward Tang San, crossing both arms in front of her chest. They were just pebbles—she'd just swat them away.
But what happened next left Xiao Wu stunned. Just as the stones were about to reach her and she could swat them down, the three pebbles suddenly split apart, arcing in three different directions.
At such close range, it was already too late to react.
"Ouch, ouch!" The three stones struck Xiao Wu squarely on her right shoulder, left calf, and right calf.
Although Tang San had not infused the Mysterious Heaven Skill into the stones, taking them head-on still stung something fierce.
"You—you dare throw stones at me!"
Xiao Wu had no way of knowing that this was the first time Tang San had used Hidden Weapons against a real opponent since coming to this world. What he had employed was the Laboring Swallows Scatter technique from the Hundred Hidden Weapons Manual of the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record. It looked simple, but the precise, intricate force behind it was extraordinarily refined. The techniques in the Hundred Hidden Weapons Manual were limited by the Mysterious Heaven Skill, and to date Tang San could barely manage two or three of them—the Laboring Swallows Scatter being the one he had mastered most thoroughly.
"So you're allowed to throw me around, but I'm not allowed to throw pebbles? Looks like you lost this one."
"That doesn't count, that doesn't count! Let's go again..." Xiao Wu was utterly convinced that as long as she was prepared, Tang San would never hit her again.
"Xiao Wu, you want more? Then come on..."
The sparring continued—and it went on for quite some time. As for the results, when Tang San left Nuoding Elementary Soul Master Academy early the next morning alongside the Great Master, he was still muttering to himself that hitting moving targets was so much more satisfying.
That night, nothing of any note happened between them in bed. After all, the sparring had utterly exhausted them both.
Early in the morning, while most of the students and teachers at Nuoding Academy were still sound asleep, a tall figure and a shorter one had already walked out through the academy gates.
"Teacher, where are we going to find a Soul Beast?"
The two who had left the academy were none other than the Great Master and his disciple, Tang San.
"We're heading to the Hunting Soul Forest, four hundred li northeast of Nuoding City. That's where the empire raises its Soul Beasts. We'll definitely find one suited to you there." The Great Master wore a fitted combat outfit today, lending him a somewhat sharper air, though his stiff, expressionless face still gave off an uneasy feeling.
"Raises them? Soul Beasts can be raised? Teacher, tell me more about Soul Beasts."
The Great Master nodded. "Naturally, high-level Soul Beasts cannot be domesticated, but low-level ones can. Soul Beasts are simply wild beasts that possess Soul Power. The longer they've existed, the stronger they become. For that reason, we generally classify Soul Beasts into five tiers based on their age: ten-year Soul Beasts, hundred-year Soul Beasts, thousand-year Soul Beasts, ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts, and hundred-thousand-year Soul Beasts. The meanings are self-explanatory—a Soul Beast that has cultivated for over ten years is a ten-year Soul Beast, and so on. The classification of Soul Rings follows the same system. Soul Rings of different age tiers are easy to tell apart just by their color. A ten-year Soul Beast's ring is white, a hundred-year's is yellow, a thousand-year's is purple, a ten-thousand-year's is black, and a hundred-thousand-year's is red. The Soul Beasts that are raised by the state for Soul Masters to hunt are mostly ten-year and hundred-year beasts. Thousand-year Soul Beasts are rarely seen."
(End of Chapter)