Time flowed like water; two days passed quietly.
Ye Xishui's appearance did not have a significant impact on Wang Lin's life because, apart from that one encounter two days ago, Wang Lin had not seen Ye Xishui again.
He hadn't even seen the old Black Dragon again. Two days ago, after asking what Wang Lin had been doing at the academy, Long Xiaoyao simply tossed out the phrase, "Going out for a trip."
And he has not reappeared since, as if he vanished into thin air.
At this moment, dawn was just breaking. Inside the suite's room, Wang Lin, who had just finished a night of meditation and cultivation, was sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Phew!
Gently exhaling a breath of white air, the storage soul tool on Wang Lin's wrist glowed. He took out the fresh beef marrow bone he had bought the previous day.
This beef marrow bone, contributed by a water buffalo that died just yesterday, was pure white throughout, with all the flesh cleanly removed.
Wang Lin's pair of gray eyes deepened slightly. Telekinesis landed on the beef marrow bone, causing it to float in front of him. He extended his right hand.
Swish!
A streak of azure-green flame ignited out of thin air. The Bone Refining Fire scorched the beef marrow bone. A faint smell of rotten apples immediately permeated the air.
Wang Lin flared his nostrils, already used to it; it was the smell of residual fat on the bone's surface burning.
The flame completely enveloped the beef marrow bone. Visibly, the surface of the beef marrow bone began to show signs of melting, just like pure white ice cream melting under high temperatures.
Wisps of pure white mist slowly evaporated as the beef marrow bone melted. The arm-sized beef marrow bone continuously shrunk.
As the entire beef marrow bone thoroughly melted, the pure white essence condensed together, forming a white bone fluid sphere the size of a tennis ball.
Pure white mist was still continuously evaporating, and the tennis ball-sized bone fluid sphere continued to shrink.
It was difficult for the naked eye to notice that while the white mist evaporated and dispersed into the air, a very small, concentrated portion of the white mist quietly integrated into the Bone Refining Fire.
The azure-green color of the flame seemed to deepen slightly with the integration of the white mist essence.
Soon, the tennis ball-sized bone fluid sphere was reduced to the size of a glass marble under the refinement of the Bone Refining Fire.
Snap!
Suddenly, the Bone Refining Fire violently trembled. The azure-green flame pattern in Wang Lin's gray eyes flashed and disappeared.
In his Spiritual Sea, a few strokes were added out of thin air to the originally crude Bone Refining Fire mark, making it slightly more complex.
"Rank 2!"
Wang Lin gently exhaled a breath. While sensing the change in the Bone Refining Fire, he pulled down the bone artifact he had refined earlier, which was hanging around his neck.
He flicked his finger. The bone artifact, which was slightly larger than the bone fluid sphere, instantly merged into the azure-green flame, melting in the blink of an eye and quietly integrating into the bone fluid sphere.
Wang Lin was not surprised by this change. Although the Rank 2 Bone Refining Fire still hadn't undergone a qualitative change, the speed of bone refining was twice as fast as before.
It used to take him two breaths to completely refine a cooked chicken bone, but now it only took one breath. It still could only refine ordinary bones.
Bones containing special power still couldn't be refined for now. Thinking this, Wang Lin extinguished the Bone Refining Fire. Without the heat of the Bone Refining Fire, the sphere instantly solidified.
It landed directly on Wang Lin's palm. Despite being burned by the Bone Refining Fire for such a long time, it was still icy cold.
Controlling the smooth, jade-like bone artifact to transform into a slender, pure white bracelet, he casually etched a layer of cloud patterns onto the surface of the smooth bone bracelet.
Wang Lin put on the bone bracelet, took out the Ice Jade Scorpion Left Arm Bone from his storage soul tool, and the Bone Refining Fire ignited again.
The azure-green flame jumped on the surface of the emerald green soul bone. A faint coldness permeated outwards from the soul bone.
Wang Lin immediately extinguished the Bone Refining Fire in his hand. As the soul bone touched his palm, a chilling sensation instantly drilled into Wang Lin's left hand.
"As expected!"
Putting the soul bone back into the storage soul tool, Wang Lin shook his left hand, which was already frozen numb. He was not surprised by this result.
The Bone Refining Fire, without a qualitative change, would suffer a backlash from the power within a ranked bone when attempting to refine it. Wang Lin could forcefully refine low-grade bone by enduring the backlash.
But he couldn't do it with high-grade bone. This Ice Jade Scorpion Left Arm Bone was a ten-thousand-year soul bone. The effect of the backlash would be enough to freeze Wang Lin into a dried corpse.
Controlling his soul power to expel the coldness from his left hand, Wang Lin mentally called out to Attribute Panel.
The crude blue square box jumped out.
Name: Wang Lin
Martial Soul: Brain (Mutated)
Cultivation: Level 38 [59%]
Spiritual Power: Level 42 [35%]
Techniques: Secret of the Body Sect—Brain Rank 2 [24%], Eight-Part Vajra Skill (Proficient) [49%], Bone Refining Fire Rank 2 [1%], Bone Control Rank 1 [37%]
Soul Rings: Yellow (642 years), Purple (1000 years), Purple (2489 years)
Soul Bone: Ice Silkworm Exoskeleton Shedding—Spiritual Mimicry
Artifact: Staff of Life Rank 1 [78%]
Scanning the data on Attribute Panel, Wang Lin sighed with emotion: fresh bone was indeed the most effective.
If he had continued to use chicken bones from the canteen as before, the two percent needed for this advancement would have taken at least several more days.
It was also not beneficial for cultivating the bone artifact. The bone essence refined from a single beef marrow bone during the full advancement was equivalent to his accumulation over the past half year. This showed how poor the quality of cooked chicken bones was.
Calling out to Attribute Panel once more in his mind, Wang Lin put away Attribute Panel, climbed up from the floor, stretched his muscles and bones, and walked directly into the bathroom to wash up.
After washing up simply, Wang Lin practiced tsshe Eight-Part Vajra Skill as usual, transformed into the appearance of Yanzu, and left the hotel directly.
He strolled toward the registration point for the All-Continent Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Competition to see if the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy team had arrived.
The competition registration had started two days ago. Many academy teams had already arrived and completed registration, but the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy team hadn't arrived yet.
To be honest, Wang Lin could understand why Shrek Academy hadn't arrived yet. After all, Xuan Zi, the Supreme Elder of the Holy Spirit Cult, was probably leading the Shrek Academy team to their doom.
He just didn't know if, due to the influence of Wang Lin, the little butterfly, more people from Shrek Academy would die than in the original work.
Since he had to wait for the auction to begin, and he had nothing better to do, Wang Lin planned to give the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy some necessary guidance.
Wang Lin still had a relatively deep impression of the first competition in the original work.
Huo Yuhao cheated. In the competition, the Shrek Academy team directly killed four members of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy team, and the final martial soul fusion skill clash.
The first two were fine; Shrek Academy's honor was always that despicable. The key was the final clash of the martial soul fusion skill between the Hongchen siblings and Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong.
The martial soul fusion skill of the Hongchen siblings, one Soul King and one Soul Ancestor, actually lost to Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong, one Soul Grandmaster and one Soul Elder—which was extremely fake.
Wang Lin wanted to see exactly what happened. Even if Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen were injured, the gap was too difficult to bridge.
In the original work, Xiao Hongchen went crazy precisely because of that final martial soul fusion skill clash with Huo Yuhao. A good kid was driven mad because of it.