Chapter 417: Power Boost and Feng Xiaotian's Embarrassment

That night, after returning, Su Ming recorded the day's events in his journal.

Now, everyone knew that both Feng Xiaotian and Huo Wu had challenged Su Ming and lost, with Huo Wu ultimately taken by Su Ming.

At midnight:

Ding! Congratulations, Host, for completing today's journal entry. You have been awarded: all three initial soul rings upgraded to 50,000-year-old rings!

In an instant, the boost in soul ring power propelled Su Ming's soul power from level 58 to the peak of level 59. With a few more days of training, he could likely break through to level 60 during the finals!

With the first three soul rings reaching 50,000 years, their skills improved significantly. Unlike the changes to the fourth soul skill, where its life-attribute amplification rose from 50% to 70%, Su Ming's first three rings saw a 100% increase, doubling their previous 50% boosts. This makes sense, as life attributes are inherently rare, amplifying all attributes but with a smaller percentage increase.

Su Ming's second soul skill, Renewal, now provided a passive and active increase of 100% in total soul power, and the cooldown interval had reduced from thirty minutes to ten minutes. If this skill reaches a 100,000-year level, the cooldown might even drop to five minutes, or even one minute!

Combined with his third soul skill, which enhances soul power recovery, Su Ming practically had limitless soul power! Just imagining this possibility filled him with excitement. With endless soul power and abundant life attributes, he felt like he was developing a simplified version of the Sage Body.

Ding! Today's most mentioned female character is Huo Wu. Reward: all soul skills now have explosive properties.

Huo Wu read through her reward thoughtfully. Explosive properties? This likely meant her soul skills' power had increased and gained an explosive effect, which would help against opponents resistant to fire.

However, she wondered whether this explosive property would work on Su Ming's wood-based techniques.

System: Girl, you're overthinking it.

The explosive attribute simply allowed Huo Wu to unleash energy explosions without extra compression, which would otherwise consume excessive soul power. While she thought it was a decent reward, it was rather ordinary. Against Su Ming, it might only succeed in knocking off a few wood chips, so to speak.

The following day, all academies gathered at the designated venue, with Emperor Xue Ye and Bishop Salas seated on stage.

For the fourteen matches of the qualifying tournament, Emperor Xue Ye was surprised that Tianshui and Blazing Academies had tied for first, with Godwind Academy in third and Thunderclap Academy in fourth—an unusual shift from previous years. This year, Tianshui and Blazing had produced several outstanding talents.

That day, Emperor Xue Ye delivered an inspiring speech.

The final match would be held in Spirit City, located on the border between the two empires. As the Emperor, he couldn't leave Heaven Dou Palace himself, so the delegation would be led by Crown Prince Xue Qinghe.

Typically, the final tournament wasn't held in Spirit City, but for some reason, the Spirit Hall had decided to move this year's finals to its main city.

Su Ming understood the reason well—it was all because of Tang San. In the original story, Bibi Dong had planned this as a backup. If her attempt to assassinate Tang San with Chrysanthemum and Ghost Douluo failed, the finals in Spirit City would prevent him from escaping.

She hadn't anticipated that her carefully laid plan would ultimately be foiled by Tang Hao.

Su Ming glanced up at Xue Qinghe on the platform, wondering if she was fully prepared.

Traveling from Heaven Dou City to Spirit City would take around twenty days. The finals wouldn't last long, as the knockout system with thirty-three teams would determine the champion in under ten days.

Seeing Su Ming looking at her, Xue Qinghe smiled and nodded, signaling that everything was in place.

Without the help of Ning Fengzhi and Dugu Bo, Tang San would be relying solely on Tang Hao.

When Emperor Xue Ye finished his speech, all the academies boarded the carriages prepared for them by the Empire, along with a dedicated guard escort.

But Su Ming knew the 500 guards would be ineffective against a Titled Douluo—far too weak.

Suddenly, he noticed Feng Xiaotian sneaking over to Huo Wu's carriage and frowned. Had Feng Xiaotian forgotten his promise from yesterday?

After all, he had agreed that the loser wouldn't approach Huo Wu, yet here he was, doing just that.

Huo Wu, intending to greet Su Ming, spotted Feng Xiaotian approaching her carriage stealthily.

Annoyed, she said, "Feng Xiaotian, what are you doing here? Did you forget our agreement from yesterday?"

Feng Xiaotian smiled awkwardly, "Huo Wu, I just wanted to help you teach Su Ming a lesson yesterday. Who knew he'd be so strong? Let's just forget about that promise, okay?"

Huo Wu was speechless.

She hadn't expected Feng Xiaotian to be so shameless!

Then again, she thought, if he had any sense of shame, he wouldn't have followed her around all these years.

At this moment, Su Ming asked Xiao Wu and the others to board the carriage first, then walked over.

"Feng Xiaotian, are you looking for another fight? Huo Wu is my girlfriend now. If you keep bothering her, it won't just end with you passing out and wetting yourself."

Su Ming didn't hold back his voice, so the nearby students from Tianshui Academy and others overheard.

Now, Feng Xiaotian's humiliation was complete.

Even the students from Godwind Academy turned their heads, too embarrassed to look.

They had rushed over immediately after finding their unconscious captain yesterday and cleaned up the scene, only for everything to come out today. Now they were about to be as infamous as Thunderclap Academy!

Feng Xiaotian's face flushed red. He hadn't expected Su Ming to humiliate him publicly.

But he hadn't thought about it logically—he was the one who broke the promise. Why would Su Ming spare his dignity?

Meanwhile, Huo Wu blushed at hearing Su Ming refer to her as his girlfriend, sneaking a glance at the Heaven Dou Royal Academy's carriage.