Chapter 81
Chapter 81
Boom!
An enormous pitch-black hand rose from the ground, raising a howling gale as it slammed a male student in combat gear into the floor.
One strike knocked him unconscious and left him unable to continue fighting.
The black hand dissolved into shadow and flowed back beneath the feet of a tall girl with a ponytail.
Su Xiaoyue released a light breath, but she still looked relaxed.
The students who had watched the entire battle erupted into enthusiastic cheers.
“Junior Su is incredible! Her combat skills already rival those of many senior students, don’t they?”
“More than that. Her Shadow Incarnation handles both offense and defense. After special training, it’s become even more flexible. She has to be the strongest freshman in this Elite Program!”
“She only enrolled recently, and her Curse Core has already reached Tier 2. The rest of us can’t compare.”
“Do you think… we might win the Nine-Academy Tournament this time?”
“Uh, that will still be difficult, even with Su Xiaoyue…”
One student was already staring at her with burning eyes and indulging in fantasy. “Buddy, I swear I’ll find a girlfriend like her someday. Beautiful, cool, and incredibly strong…”
“If I could date Su Xiaoyue, I’d even be willing to drive a luxury car and live in a mansion!”
“Idiot, if you have a chance with Su Xiaoyue, then I have a perfectly reasonable chance with Luan Zimo.”
“Damn! You’re even more shameless than I am…”
The first student’s fantasy immediately collapsed.
Pursuing Su Xiaoyue carried a tiny, almost nonexistent possibility of success. Luan Zimo, however, was an utterly unreachable sacred peak.
She was like divine flame burning atop Mount Olympus, radiating untouchable authority.
Outside Clear Spring Academy, few people had heard Su Xiaoyue’s name.
Luan Zimo’s reputation, however, resounded throughout the entire Central Region.
She was universally regarded as the undisputed number one prodigy of the younger generation.
As for Han Chan?
Han Chan was a monster. He did not count.
The freaks from Shanhai Pavilion were generally excluded from normal academy rankings to preserve everyone else’s confidence.
When Qin Lan merely shook Han Chan’s hand, the man nearly saw through every secret he possessed.
Only Qin Lan’s exceptional mental resilience had allowed him to shrug it off.
On the training grounds of Clear Spring Academy, the elderly professor responsible for guiding Su Xiaoyue nodded with satisfaction.
“Very good.”
“This rate of improvement ranks among the best A-rank Talents I have ever seen.”
“Given time, you may truly be able to contend with the students of the Middle Five Halls and Top Three Institutes.”
Seeing her teacher arrive, Su Xiaoyue bowed politely. “Professor Xu!”
Xu Minghu was a disheveled old man whose hair and beard had already turned white.
Calling his appearance untidy would have been generous. Chaotic was more accurate.
His white hair resembled a bird’s nest, while his stunning combination of red socks, white trousers, and a green shirt made him appear strangely unfathomable.
Yet Xu Minghu had once been one of Clear Spring Academy’s indisputably finest professors–and still was.
His research into Talents was unrivaled among the Lower Nine Academies, so Clear Spring Academy had assigned him to train Su Xiaoyue personally.
“Tch. That stingy principal acts like giving me a larger Curse Crystal allocation will kill him…”
Xu Minghu blew irritably through his mustache. “We finally found a promising student. Why not pour a mountain of Curse Crystals into her? He keeps talking about ‘balanced resources.’ No vision at all…”
Even as the best member of the Elite Program, Su Xiaoyue received only a limited allotment of Curse Crystals.
These crystals could only be extracted from anomaly corpses. They contained pure curse energy and were extremely expensive.
A 1-Star anomaly yielded barely one crystal.
A 2-Star anomaly yielded only around three.
Unlike directly absorbing curse energy from an anomaly, extracting the crystals required specialized equipment and a complex refinement process.
Their energy, however, could be absorbed smoothly and without any burden, making them extremely sought after.
Even a freshman like Su Xiaoyue had to contribute to the academy to increase her Curse Crystal allotment.
She could demonstrate greater potential in the Elite Program.
She could earn excellent results in competitions.
Or she could complete missions issued by the academy.
Universities had missions of their own.
Unlike the high-risk Anomaly Hunter Bureau assignments that constantly exposed Anomaly Hunters to terrifying anomalies, academy missions were not particularly difficult.
Students might assist the United Government in patrolling Safe Zone exits, help research anomaly corpses, or extract useful materials from them.
The points earned from these missions could be exchanged for Curse Crystals and used to strengthen one’s Curse Core.
Xu Minghu had told Su Xiaoyue not to worry about Curse Crystals.
She only needed to keep training her control over her Talent. He would handle everything else.
That was the advantage of having a renowned teacher behind her.
Only two months after enrolling, Su Xiaoyue had successfully advanced her Curse Core to Tier 2. Given another six months, she might even reach Tier 3.
Even among the Lower Nine Academies, that rate of progress was astonishing.
That was why Wu Rendi had valued Su Xiaoyue so highly in the first place.
With his discerning eye, he had seen her potential and known that there was far more to her than an ordinary A-rank Talent.
Even among A-rank Talents, the differences could be vast.
An individual’s aptitude, the nature of their Talent…
An A-rank Talent was merely an admission ticket to compete on the same stage as countless other geniuses.
Talented people were everywhere. Someone might be the center of attention in Zone 088, only to reach the Central Region and discover that they had spent their life as a frog at the bottom of a well, gazing up at the moon.
Of course, none of that had anything to do with the allegedly F-rank Qin Lan.
In the same span of two months, he had already grown strong enough to thrash certain so-called geniuses who possessed A-rank Talents and Tier 3 Curse Cores.
Back on Qin Lan’s side, he took Tang Qingqing into the Fallen Zone. By following the threads of death traces, he easily located a 1-Star instance.
He then had Tang Qingqing bind What Sorrow in Death? to the unfortunate 1-Star anomaly inside.
[Blood Corpse (1-Star Physical Anomaly)]
[Strength: 3.5]
[Constitution: 3]
[Speed: 3.5]
[Spirit: 0.7]
[Abilities: Bite, Bloodsucking (Passive)]
In terms of close-quarters combat, this anomaly was far stronger than the Slit-Mouthed Woman had been.
Under normal circumstances, clearing the instance would require hunters to follow its local folklore, locate several ritual implements capable of restraining the Blood Corpse, and fight it during daylight hours.
But with Qin Lan present, they merely had to find it. One stomp from him pinned it to the ground, and that was that.
“Well? Can you bind it?”
Qin Lan looked at Tang Qingqing with concern. As an afterthought, he slapped the Blood Corpse across the head, leaving it seeing stars and howling in pain.
Tang Qingqing’s face was pale, and sweat had soaked the back of her clothes. Still, she forced herself to nod.
“Barely…”
“If it were any stronger, I couldn’t do it.”
Qin Lan nodded. That was within his expectations.
Tang Qingqing’s Talent had only just awakened, and she possessed very little curse energy. Naturally, she could not bind anything above the 1-Star level.
Although this Blood Corpse was powerful in close combat, its Spirit was low. It had no real intelligence and acted on only the basest instincts. Its overall strength was not particularly formidable.
It was almost exactly at the limit of what Tang Qingqing’s Talent could withstand.
Once Tang Qingqing completed the binding, Qin Lan wasted no time. He crushed the Blood Corpse’s head beneath his foot.
From his perspective, countless things flowed out of its body, traveled along the death traces, and entered Tang Qingqing.
The Blood Corpse’s remains rapidly dissolved as well. Even though no one absorbed its curse power, the corpse still turned to ash out of nowhere.
“Hah…” Tang Qingqing’s legs gave way, and she collapsed to the ground as if the process had taken every ounce of her strength.
Qin Lan knew this was a sign that her curse energy was almost depleted, but he made no move to help her up.
If she wanted to survive in the Fallen Zone and become strong, these were things Tang Qingqing had to learn to endure and overcome on her own.
“Senior Qin, I did it.”
A smile appeared on Tang Qingqing’s pale face.
She beckoned, and a Blood Corpse identical to the one from moments ago materialized out of thin air.
Strictly speaking, there were a few differences.
The Blood Corpse Tang Qingqing summoned was more grayish white, lacking the original’s filthy, savage appearance.
Its curse intensity and oppressive aura, however, were exactly the same.
The Blood Corpse let out a low growl, but it showed no desire to attack Qin Lan. It remained remarkably docile.
“So it is completely controlled by her will…”
Qin Lan nodded to himself, then asked, “What about your body? Can you feel any increase in your attributes?”
Tang Qingqing closed her eyes and sensed the changes. Delight soon spread across her face.
“Yes!”
“And I think I can see my own attribute panel…”
She had an attribute panel too?
Qin Lan raised an eyebrow, but he was not especially surprised.
Many Talents related to attributes provided their owners with a numerical panel, apparently to display changes in their power more clearly.
That feature was hardly exclusive to him.
“My Strength, Constitution, and Speed all increased by about 1.1… This is incredible!”
Tang Qingqing marveled from the bottom of her heart.
Before this, she had never imagined that her Talent could affect anomalies, much less turn one into her guardian spirit.
A satisfied smile tugged at Qin Lan’s lips.
Just as he had guessed.
The targets of Tang Qingqing’s Talent could be either living creatures or anomalies.
In other words, she effectively came with three built-in cursed artifacts, and they could even strengthen her own body.
And this was only the beginning.
If her Talent evolved again when she advanced…
Qin Lan drew a deep breath. Astonishment surged through him, and he made up his mind.
He had to train Tang Qingqing properly.
If she reached the Tier 4 Curse Core, then even without any further growth from her Talent, she would be able to control three 4-Star anomalies.
Together with her own enhanced body…
Once a battle began, it would be the equivalent of four 4-Star anomalies attacking at once.