Chapter 148: Spiritual Energy Infusion

“Two ignorant old fools,” the Great Black Wolf muttered mockingly. They were already so astonished by a Beast King–grade Beast Soul Pill. If they knew that the Beast King had been defeated entirely by Shen Qingyun, who knew what their faces would look like?

“What did you say?”

The Great Black Wolf was secretly jeering when two murderous gazes suddenly fell upon him like blades. His massive body tensed, and he hurriedly shook his head.

“Nothing! Lord Wolf said nothing at all!”

“Hmph. Remember your place.” Ye Zhong snorted coldly. “Do not think you are in the clear. You have offended us repeatedly. The fact that we have not killed you outright is already an immense favor. Now it is your turn!”

“Awooo…”

The Great Black Wolf whimpered and tucked his tail between his legs as he hid behind Shen Qingyun.

“Boss…”

Shen Qingyun helplessly shook his head and said to Ye Zhong, “Dean, this fellow is a new subordinate of mine. His mouth can be a little… provocative at times. Just give him a lesson and leave it at that.”

A look of astonishment crossed Ye Zhong’s face. This was the second time he had heard Shen Qingyun say such a thing—and both times, it had come from Shen Qingyun himself.

Beast demons hated humans, while humans would inevitably kill beast demons. There was fundamentally no room for reconciliation between the two sides.

Yet this was something Shen Qingyun had accomplished, and they had no choice but to believe it.

“Beast demons are all ungrateful ingrates who can never truly be tamed,” Ye Zhong said earnestly. “You had better beware of it sinking its claws into you from behind.”

“Who are you calling an ungrateful ingrate?”

The Great Black Wolf poked his head out from behind Shen Qingyun and glared at Ye Zhong.

“You, of course,” Ye Zhong replied calmly.

“You old fool! If Lord Wolf weren’t unable to beat you, just watch how I’d rub your face into the ground!”

The Great Black Wolf bared his teeth and shouted.

Ye Zhong sneered. “Come, then. I will fight you with one hand. Today, I shall teach you what it means to respect your elders!”

“No thanks. Lord Wolf isn’t insane.” The Great Black Wolf poked his head out again, then immediately withdrew it after speaking.

“Coward,” Ye Zhong spat disdainfully.

“Bullshit! Lord Wolf simply knows his own limits!”

Shen Qingyun and Cheng Feng both shook their heads helplessly. Shen Qingyun felt that the Great Black Wolf was asking for a beating, while Cheng Feng thought that Ye Zhong had the temperament of a child to be bickering with a wolf.

“Ahem. Deans, does this mean that we have given up on the trial?” Shen Qingyun asked with a light cough.

Ye Zhong exchanged a glance with Cheng Feng. Both saw hesitation and wry amusement in the other’s eyes.

The reason was that Shen Qingyun’s actions this time had exceeded their expectations. They had also gone beyond every judgment they had prepared beforehand. The number specified by the rules referred to the number of Beast Soul Pills, while the quality had merely been added on a whim.

Beast Soul Pills at the Spirit Aspect Realm were only half the size of a palm. To determine how much spiritual energy they contained, one would have to break them open—which was clearly impractical.

When they still did not respond, Shen Qingyun casually weighed the Beast Soul Pill in his hand.

“If that really won’t do, then we can use this Beast Soul Pill to exchange for permission to rejoin the trial. We’ll go look for beast demons first. Once those are gone, we’ll rob the academy students instead. After all, your ultimate plan is for us to slaughter one another.”

Shen Qingyun muttered to himself.

“You dare!”

Ye Zhong was startled. How could he possibly let them return? They had already been capable of defeating everyone who joined forces against them within the academy. Now, with everyone scattered throughout the forest, would they not become lambs waiting to be slaughtered?

Those two fellows were simply creatures capable of destroying the balance.

Ye Zhong was filled with helplessness. “What do you think this trial is—a child’s game? You can return whenever you feel like it? Since you have already reached the center, your trial is over.”

“Then what about our ranking?” Shen Qingyun asked with a grin.

“It will be retained. The rankings will be determined once the trial has completely ended.” Ye Zhong glared at him.

“An enlightened dean indeed.” Shen Qingyun’s expression grew slightly solemn as he put on an exaggerated show of cupping his hands.

His gaze drifted toward the spring behind Ye Zhong and Cheng Feng. At present, it looked no different from an ordinary spring.

…

Shen Qingyun sat in a tree with his back against the trunk. Below him lay the spring, while Ye Zhong and Cheng Feng stood beside it like sturdy pines. Not far away, Feng Chuxun sat cross-legged in meditation, sword intent swirling around him.

“How boring…”

Shen Qingyun let out a long sigh. These days were certainly leisurely, but he was simply not accustomed to them. He had been stuck here for three whole days. The Great Black Wolf, at least, could wander outside.

How long could such peaceful days last?

Shen Qingyun silently pondered this question.

“Heaven-Suppressing Halberd, come down for a moment.”

The instant he spoke softly, a streak of red light flashed across the sky, and the Heaven-Suppressing Halberd appeared before him.

With a thought from Shen Qingyun, its dark-red shaft radiated ring after ring of dim crimson light, forming a barrier that enveloped him.

From the outside, it appeared that Shen Qingyun was merely leaning against the tree trunk in sleep.

“You still cannot transform, can you?” Shen Qingyun asked.

The shaft of the Heaven-Suppressing Halberd trembled lightly, emitting a low hum.

Shen Qingyun drew a deep breath. “For the time being, I am afraid I will have to let you leave me.”

The Heaven-Suppressing Halberd spun once in place, its shaft trembling incessantly like a spoiled child.

Shen Qingyun smiled. “It is not that I do not want you anymore. I need you to go to the Central Province and find out what the situation there is like now.”

Only then did the Heaven-Suppressing Halberd quiet down. It hummed again, as though asking a question.

“Do not worry about me. There is no one on the Southern Domain Continent who can truly threaten my life,” Shen Qingyun said.

Hearing this, the Heaven-Suppressing Halberd withdrew the barrier, shot into the clouds, and flew into the distance.

Watching it depart, Shen Qingyun felt a pang of emotion. When he had become an Emperor back then, the Heaven-Suppressing Halberd had been forged at almost exactly the same time.

The Emperor Tribulation and the Artifact Tribulation had descended together. To break through and become an Emperor, one had to endure a tribulation of three thousand bolts of lightning. Once a divine artifact was forged, it would not be tolerated by Heaven, which would therefore send down a lightning tribulation consisting of one hundred bolts.

Faced with the dual tribulations, even Shen Qingyun had treated the matter with utmost caution. At that time, the Heaven-Suppressing Halberd had only just been born and had not yet been given its name. Shen Qingyun had held the newly forged halberd in his hands while confronting the doubled power of the lightning.

No one had expected it—not even Shen Qingyun himself. The tribulation that even an Emperor had to face with solemnity had been effortlessly shattered by the Heaven-Suppressing Halberd.

In fact, the halberd had even developed resentment toward the lightning tribulation, breaking free from Shen Qingyun’s grasp and charging toward it of its own accord.

It had been the easiest tribulation Shen Qingyun had ever seen—or ever endured.

With the might of the Heaven-Suppressing Halberd, Shen Qingyun had risen in a single leap to become the foremost among the Nine Emperors.

Thinking of how the halberd had never left his side except when it was asleep, Shen Qingyun suddenly felt a little forlorn.

He had been the one to send it to the Central Province to investigate the current situation, so that when he eventually entered the Central Province, he would not be like a headless fly blundering about without the slightest preparation.

Yet he was reluctant to let it go.

What a contradiction.

“The Great Black Wolf is back.”

The corners of Shen Qingyun’s lips lifted, and he jumped directly down from the tree.

He had also given the Great Black Wolf a task: to find out how far the trial had progressed in the forest and report back to him.

“Boss, I’m back!”

The Great Black Wolf emerged from the grass with the headless corpse of a beast demon clamped in his jaws. Seeing Shen Qingyun waiting beneath the tree, he bared his savage fangs and grinned.

Shen Qingyun raised a brow. Over the past few days, the Great Black Wolf had returned with something in his mouth every time, claiming that he wanted to give those creatures a good final resting place.

In truth, the Great Black Wolf was simply craving meat and wanted Shen Qingyun to roast it.

Still, Shen Qingyun had no idea what species of beast demon the wolf kept selecting. The meat was genuinely excellent. At first, Ye Zhong and the others had managed to restrain themselves, but later they began joining Shen Qingyun whenever he roasted the meat.

It was simply too fragrant, enough to stir anyone’s appetite.

Whenever Shen Qingyun lit a fire and set the meat above it, Ye Zhong and Cheng Feng would come over of their own accord.

“Boss, they’ve started fighting,” the Great Black Wolf said, staring at the flames.

“Hmm?” Shen Qingyun raised a brow.

“Today I saw a group of seven or eight people. They called one of them Zhan Yan. That Zhan Yan snatched all their Beast Soul Pills. I took a quick look—there seemed to be more than twenty.”

The Great Black Wolf spoke as he watched the fire.

Shen Qingyun lifted a brow, but his gaze shifted toward Ye Zhong. “Then this trial is nearing its end.”

“Can our Beast Soul Pills help us rank a little higher?”

Feng Chuxun had also caught the aroma. He ended his meditation and approached, a trace of sword intent still lingering in his eyes, his gaze sharp.

Ye Zhong glanced at him but said nothing.

“Second Master, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.” The Great Black Wolf lazily wagged his tail. “Even without those thirty-two Beast Soul Pills, a single Beast King–grade Beast Soul Pill would be enough to guarantee that you and Boss rank near the top.”

Feng Chuxun glanced at the Great Black Wolf, then looked toward Shen Qingyun, questioning him with his eyes.

Meeting Feng Chuxun’s gaze, Shen Qingyun nodded. “That’s right. How could a Beast Soul Pill from the Marquis Realm be so simple? A single Marquis Realm cultivator can easily crush thousands of Spirit Aspect Realm cultivators. This is not merely because of the domain possessed by the Marquis Realm. The spiritual energy required to break through to the Marquis Realm is the combined total of what nearly a thousand people need to break through to the Spirit Aspect Realm.

“Whether one accumulates it slowly or absorbs spiritual energy in a single burst to shatter the barriers, the amount required is enormous.

“So there is no need to worry. At most, there are only several thousand beast demons in this forest. Once you exclude those that have already used their Beast Soul Pills, the number each person can obtain will not be very high.”

Shen Qingyun turned the roasted meat over and smiled at Feng Chuxun before continuing, “Otherwise, I would not have taken you to kill only one Beast King. I would not have spared the other one either.”

Nearby, Ye Zhong unconsciously broke into a cold sweat upon hearing this. What did Shen Qingyun take Beast Kings for—lambs waiting to be slaughtered? As if they could be killed whenever he pleased.

Still, Shen Qingyun was the only person with the confidence to say such a thing.

After hearing Shen Qingyun’s explanation, Feng Chuxun nodded in sudden understanding. He was the sort who accumulated spiritual power bit by bit, allowing his breakthrough to come naturally once the right opportunity arrived.

With such reserves, even if he could not take first place, he could certainly remain near the front.

At last, Ye Zhong spoke. “Do you know what the reward for this trial is?”

Shen Qingyun glanced at him. “Using Beast Soul Pills to activate the Spirit Spring.”

“Hmm?” Ye Zhong was startled. “How did you know?”

Shen Qingyun rolled his eyes. The Great Black Wolf gave a smug snort.

“Obviously, Lord Wolf told Boss.” Having lived in the Valley of Ten Thousand Beasts for so many years, how could he not know something like this?

Ye Zhong glanced at the Great Black Wolf. He no longer felt inclined to argue with the creature over its temperament. It was a little foul-mouthed and somewhat shameless, but otherwise it was not too bad.

Ye Zhong explained in detail, “More precisely, it is an infusion of spiritual power. The spiritual energy within the Spirit Spring is exceptionally pure. With a Beast Soul Pill as a catalyst, that pure spiritual energy can be absorbed directly. After undergoing such an infusion and absorbing it in its entirety, the improvement in cultivation will be far greater than simply absorbing a Beast Soul Pill.”

“I see.”

Feng Chuxun murmured softly. His gaze turned toward Shen Qingyun, and an unreadable light flickered within his eyes.