Chapter 21: Time passes by

Within the only park of Glorybound City, the sky dyed in a mixed of orange and black, three children could be seen in a field of blue silver grass.

A boy with a lean and slightly muscular build, red slightly spiky hair, his golden eyes shining as bright as the sun. Although he was just nine years old, his face was the definition of child handsomeness.

He stood at a height of 1.5 meters(4'11ft), impressive for a nine year old kid compared to his peers.

He was Xiu Ye, a smirk plastered on his lips, wearing a slightly dirtied pair of black tank shirt and blueish-black long pants. He held and spun around a long silver chain in his right hand, with a circle ring attached to its end that he held with his left hand. While the chain's other end that was being twirled around had a dagger attached to it, but it's most likely to call it a nail than a dagger.

Standing opposite to him, by fifteen meters apart, was a certainly familiar black haired and eyes Tang Wulin. Whose clothes were dirtied as well, but much more worse, and he was slightly covered with bruises on his body that were strangely slowly disappearing with a momentary golden flicker.

Even more strangely, held in his two hands, was a two meter long, five centimeters wide, entirely blue colored spear, that only had a sharp double pointed tip pointing at Xiu Ye to define it as a spear rather than a mere blue stick. Rather, this wasn't even supposed to be blue colored spear. It was his martial soul, blue silver grass!

Three years had passed and the two had changed a lot. They had both grown taller, handsomer, their disposition slightly changed, and most importantly, they both had clearly grown stronger. Moreso for Tang Wulin.

Tang Wulin slowly took a deep breath in, his eyes sharpened and remained focused on his opponent in front of him. The grip he had around the shaft of his spear tightened. White with a golden outline circuit pattern lines appeared around his arms, then stretch to cover his entire spear–

His eyes widened as he saw Xiu Ye disappeared from his spot. Not a moment later, he heard the air to his left vibrate, instincts, honed from numerous battles he had with his cousin, screamed loudly, and he quickly ducked down.

That was a mistake.

Xiu Ye, seeing his target ducked down, jerked the silver chain back to his hand. Holding the handle of the nail, he turned its blade down towards Tang Wulin. Simultaneously, he thrown the end of the chain that had the ring attached to it underneath the latter, using his spiritual power, he telekinetically moved it to quickly restrict his movements: wrapping both his forearms to his thighs tightly.

It was over. The tip of the nail was about to pierced through Tang Wulin's neck.

"Ding!"

A sound akin to a hammer hitting metal, the sharp nail of Xiu Ye couldn't pierced through Tang Wulin's nape! Which is shown to be covered in white colored lines.

He used reinforcement on his neck at the last second!

It seems like he has a second chance. Tang Wulin's eyes narrowed, without any hesitation, the muscles of his limbs bulged in mass, soul power empowering them.

The chains broke in a brief moment, as Xiu Ye had only projected them as simple silver steeled chains, causing Tang Wulin to escape by curling in himself and rolling away and stopping to a crouch, now twelve meters away from the former.

Xiu Ye didn't blinked an eye. Tossing the now broken weapon of his, turning into mots of cyan-blue lights, he projected another similar weapon. Only this time, its two ends were nails and the length of the chains had stretched to three meters.

Cyan-blue circuit patterns appeared on his body, then to his nails attached to long silver chains, spinning it around for a moment, he held the handles of both nails with both of his hands and he ran towards Tang Wulin.

Tang Wulin involuntarily gulped nervously but his eyes flashed in determination. Standing up, he twirled his spear with both hands, white soul power fluctuated around his body and his eyes focused on the nails Xiu Ye held on both hands.

Xiu Ye threw the nail from his right hand towards Tang Wulin eyes, which the latter deflected with his spear at the last second to the side, but in that moment, the former had used that moment of distraction to shorten the distance between them and appear right in front of him.

Turning the handle of nail upsidedown, he raised it up in the air and unhesitatingly brought it down to Tang Wulin's head.

Not good! His eyes widened, Tang Wulin wanted to escape but found himself restrained. Looking down, he saw a familiar long silver chain wrapping around his entire body, like a snake, it coiled around tight and the nail attached to it had positioned itself just a few centimeters below his jaw.

He was cornered. Two nail daggers, at the top and bottom of his head. Worse, his soul power is at five percent of what remained: from using reinforcement and keeping his blue silver grass in spear form for the last many minutes they've been fighting.

"It's over Wulin, you lose." Xiu Ye said, stopping his nail dagger from impaling his cousin's head.

Tang Wulin let out a sigh, the blue silver grass spear in his hands shortened back into its original size then let it disappear back into his body. He raised both of his arms up to surrender.

"I lost, again. 0 out of 400 fights."

Xiu Ye chuckled, letting his weapon disappear into mots of blue light, he reached his one arm around Tang Wulin shoulders and carried him up.

"Ah don't worry Wulin, you're powerful, I've trained you and spared with you after all, but I'm at another league. I've already reached rank 19, just one rank away from being a soul grandmaster, while you're at rank 10 but without a spirit soul and hence no soul ring."

"Now, soul power is crucial between soul masters in battles. But combat experience and skills is much more important. Tell me, who would win between a combat inexperience two-ringed soul master and a one-ringed soul master with abundant combat experience and martial skills?"

"The latter." Tang Wulin said unhesitatingly, excitement and enthusiasm in his eyes once more.

Xiu Ye nodded.

"Correct. Now, did you know why you lost this time?"

"Because I reinforced my body and weapon

too much, and wasted a lot of soul power." Tang Wulin answered swiftly. If he hadn't wasted too much soul power... well, he would just prolonged his defeat anyway.

"Right'o. You didn't have to use a lot of soul power to empower yourself that much. Now, I know your only advantage to other soul masters your age is your innate divine strength and durability. With reinforcement you could increase any part of your body by twice, thrice, and even more, theoretically speaking. Making you a force to be reckoned with! But, it takes a almost perfect control of your soul power to do so." Xiu Ye turned stern and serious.

"Reinforcement is an ability that defies common sense in this world, but do you think the world would be so kind to let this go? No. Everything needs a balance. The price in learning it is very precise control of reinforcing through soul power. Just a single mistake could mean death."

Tang Wulin had already knew about this, ever since he first taught him, and chill tingling sensation would go down his spine.

"...Then, why did you interrupted me during my reinforcement?"

"I have a very good understanding of the ability. You had successfully reinforced your arms but not your martial soul, causing soul power leakage and instability of its spear form."

Tang Wulin hummed in slight understanding.

"Err, Ye, remind me again why I'm using a spear? I mean, don't get me wrong, it's good and I love using it. Especially when I reinforced it to be sharp to cut through steel. But, why not a hammer, like yours? I'm a blacksmith after all, it would have been perfect!"

Xiu Ye snorted.

"Yeah no."

"Why not?!"

"Because until you have a hammer or two to show me, you'll have to deal with the blue silver grass spear for now." Which wasn't the real reason but it kinda does right now.

For the last three years, Xiu Ye has taught Tang Wulin on how to fight. From unarmed martial arts for two years, to spear arts in about a year. He taught the latter structural analysis in the first year, because it was much more easier to learn than reinforcement that he taught him just half a year ago.

Within three years, he only taught him how to fight.

He didn't help provide him guidance in blacksmithing.

He didn't give him money to buy the spirit soul he'll need.

Xiu Ye wanted Tang Wulin not to be overly reliant on him over everything. He wanted the latter to grow up as an independent and responsible person in the future, like him.

In a far away unknown location. A certain former nun felt like smacking the head of a certain someone.

Tang Wulin had understood his intentions, they've been friends for a long time now after all. Even though he wanted to be spoiled and pampered like other children his age, he wanted to be someone strong.

Being those two things aren't the road to being strong.

"Alright then, let's end it here for today shall we? Didn't you want to go to my dad's workshop to earn the remaining money you needed to buy a spirit soul? You need one if you want to graduate, though I say that, we have half a month until graduation so we have a lot of time."

Remarkably, Tang Wulin was able to breakthrough to rank 10 and only needed a spirit soul to officially become a soul master much earlier than canon. Either this was because he had made him cultivate in the park, which had a lot of blue silver grass, or because of pressuring him intensely with battles. Probably both.

In these three years, they had nearly finished their studies at the elementary academy. Once they entered an intermediate academy, they would be divided into their specializations and would attend an academy for their specialization. Glorybound City was a small city. Thus, it didn't have an intermediate Soul Master academy. In order to enroll in an intermediate academy in a medium sized city, one was required to have a spirit soul.

Any students who reached rank 10 soul power before graduation were eligible to receive a recommendation letter from the academy, making it significantly easier to enter an intermediate academy. This was due to the fact that it acted as proof that the student had the necessary skill. If they didn't cultivate to rank 10 before they were 10 years old, they would have to take several tests before being allowed to enroll in an intermediate academy.

Xiu Ye had already gotten his spirit soul and soul rings years ago, but as federation protocol, he had to attend the academy almost everyday for the educational knowledge they'll impart on him till graduation and he'll be handed a recommendation letter.

Though he already understood it all by the first year, which surprised the teachers, and it was decided by the school and federation that he doesn't have to attend the academy and just wait till graduation to get his recommendation letter.

Tang Wulin nodded then he turned towards a certain girl walking towards them. "Na'er, I'm heading to uncle Mang Tian's workshop! I'll meet you back at home later on."

"Eh? But I wanted to play in the arcade with my two big brothers! Big brother Wulin, you don't want to play with me?" Na'er's pair of purple beautiful eyes watered, her lips turning into a pout, she unleashed the dreaded puppy eyes.

Na'er had a head of short silver hair, and even after three years, she hadn't changed too much. She was just a bit taller than before while remaining just as adorably pretty. It was just that, no matter how you looked at it, Xiu Ye, Tang Wulin and Na'er didn't look like they only had a one year age difference between the three of them. She was just a loli who hadn't grown too much.

That wasn't all. In the second year that Na'er stayed with the Tang family, she had attended the Awakening Ceremony and brought about a marvel. This marvel wasn't that her martial soul was exceedingly powerful. Instead, she didn't possess any martial soul at all. This was something that was rarely seen throughout the history of the continent.

Naturally she could only enter the ordinary section of the academy to study without a martial soul.

"Ack!" Tang Wulin felt like an invisible arrow had struck his heart at the level of cuteness his little sister displayed to him.

Puppy eyes and cute pout is very effective.

Though, as much as he would like to play with his best friends and family, truly as he wanted to take a break once in a while, he just couldn't wait to have his spirit soul and officially become a soul master.

Tang Wulin immediately glanced at his cousin. The one person to count in situations you can't escape.

Xiu Ye deadpanned, so much for independence, and let out a sigh. Whispering: "You owe me."

He had almost everyday encounter with the two, as they were cousins, and mostly because they best friends.

Xiu Ye could say that between the two, he had spend the most time with Tang Wulin but he was much more close to Na'er and vice versa.

It was mostly because he had saved her before, when those human trafficking scums tried to kidnapped her, and, along with Tang Wulin, helped fend off other creeps in the academy and nearby thugs that wanted to touch her.

They might outnumbered them and are older than the two, but Xiu Ye and Tang Wulin are both more combat experienced and skilled than some creeps and thugs.

They all stopped coming after them when Xiu Ye had made their leader, a middle aged obese man wearing glasses, kneel down to the floor with a bloody crotch.

With the tried attacks on her stopped for good, Na'er became much more close to Xiu Ye.

Though the most important reason why Na'er was much more close to Xiu Ye was because of the food he makes are heavenly, the same reason as Tang Wulin.

Letting go of Tang Wulin, he walked towards Na'er and patted her head.

"Come on you little troublemaker, Wulin has something important to do right now so you can't bother him. How about us two go together, I'll treat you to ice cream."

Na'er deflated for a moment before raising both of her arms up high in excitement and joy, unknowingly letting out a loud squeal.

"You're the best big brother!" Unhesitatingly, she grabbed and hugged the arm of Xiu Ye.

"Eh? N-Na'er?!" Tang Wulin was shocked at the proclamation of his little sister.

"I'm sorry big brother Wulin, but, it's ice cream." She shrugged.

"...Fair enough." Tang Wulin deflated at the logic, as he himself knew that he would do the same if it involves food.

'Gluttons. Both of you.' Xiu Ye sweat dropped.