"Hehe~"
Landing in front of Mu Yang, Shui Bing'er gave an embarrassed smile.
Mu Yang shook his head: "You~… forget it, as long as you're fine."
A soul core—if it doesn't succeed once, try twice, three times, or even more.
Anyway, with the soul bone ability Ice Luan's Protection present, Shui Bing'er wouldn't be in life-threatening danger. Trying multiple times to accumulate experience, eventually she would always succeed in condensing it.
"Mm-hmm."
Shui Bing'er nodded obediently.
At that moment, a student hurried over: "Senior Mu, Senior Sister Shui, the Dean is looking for you!"
"Hm? Did the Dean say what it's about?"
Shui Bing'er frowned slightly and asked.
The student replied: "No, but the Dean looked rather anxious."
"I understand."
Nodding gently, Shui Bing'er turned to Mu Yang.
Without delay, the two hurried toward the Dean Huo Lie's office, located mid-mountain within the main campus.
Pushing open the office door, Mu Yang and Shui Bing'er saw that all the senior figures of the academy had already gathered.
"What happened?"
Seeing everyone's grave expressions, Mu Yang spoke up.
"News just arrived—two hours ago, five students who went to the Frost Arena for spirit battles disappeared. According to the findings of the teacher leading the team, the scene of disappearance bore traces left by blunt-type martial spirits."
Huo Lie spoke in a solemn tone.
Although Frost City wasn't the provincial capital of the northern territories, and its scale couldn't compare with Heaven Dou City, nor even Soto City, it wasn't a small city either.
What's more, with the Elemental Academy located just a few dozen miles outside Frost City, the soul master clans from the former Blazing Fire City, Sky Water City, and Divinewind City—all closely tied to the Elemental Academy—had moved their family bases here. This made Frost City lively and bustling, its growth no less than a provincial capital.
Thus, it was perfectly common for Elemental Academy's students to go to the Frost Arena for battles.
One reason was to help students accumulate real combat experience; another was to allow those from poorer families to earn a decent income through matches.
But unexpectedly, someone actually dared to stir up trouble targeting Elemental Academy.
"Blunt-type martial spirit?"
Mu Yang froze for a moment. Could it be revenge from remnants of the Clear Sky Sect?
Impossible, right?
Even if, on the night of extermination, a few disciples of the Clear Sky Sect happened to be away from the sect, at most only a few small fry survived. How would they dare provoke the tiger's whiskers of the Elemental Academy?
Moreover, aside from Spirit Hall, no other power knew who had destroyed the Clear Sky Sect. Even if some little remnants survived and harbored vengeful desires, they wouldn't so quickly target the Elemental Academy.
Besides, remnants of a destroyed sect—knowing of their sect's annihilation—their first priority shouldn't be revenge, but to conceal their identities and pass down their martial spirit's legacy.
Otherwise, if something went wrong, the inheritance of the Clear Sky Hammer would be completely severed.
"How about the quality of the missing students? Any academy key seedlings among them?"
After pondering briefly, Mu Yang asked.
Truth be told, in an era without surveillance, abducted missing persons were extremely difficult to recover.
But this only applied to ordinary students. For key seedlings—the geniuses with innate spirit power level seven and above—it wasn't the same.
After all, with innate spirit power level seven and above, as long as they didn't die prematurely, their future achievements were at least Spirit Douluo of eight rings. And with the soul core secret art, there was a high chance they could reach the level of Title Douluo with nine rings.
Such students were naturally nurtured heavily by the academy, serving as future pillars.
And the precaution against disappearance was simple: equip key seedlings with an item forged from blood-sacrificed metal, bound to an academy powerhouse.
This blood-sacrificed metal shared a special connection with the one who sacrificed their blood. Once worn by the students, it acted as a locator.
If among the five missing students there were geniuses, and their blood-sacrificed metal objects weren't lost, they could still be tracked.
Well… at least their corpses could be recovered.
Huo Lie said in a deep voice: "The other side must have specifically targeted our key students. Among the five missing, three were academy key seedlings."
"Then just retrieve them, no? Or did the other side figure out the blood-sacrifice trick and discard those items?"
Mu Yang asked with some surprise.
"That's not the case. The main issue is—we suspect the mastermind's identity is not simple.
Those five vanished near the arena, which is no deserted place. For them to disappear without a sound means the perpetrator's strength was far above theirs.
Yet, at the scene, the leading teacher found traces of blunt-type—more precisely, hammer-type martial spirits. That's obviously a frame-up."
Shui Yanyu said gravely.
Mu Yang caught her implication and said: "You mean Spirit Hall? That doesn't add up. The Clear Sky Sect is already gone. Who are they trying to frame with hammer-type traces?"
"No, you're forgetting one thing. Spirit Hall didn't know beforehand that the Academy would act to exterminate the Clear Sky Sect.
If this plan was devised and set into motion before the Clear Sky Sect's destruction, but due to timing, the executors hadn't yet received news of its fall, then it makes sense.
Furthermore, just days ago Spirit Hall annihilated the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, and also provoked conflict between our Academy and the reclusive Clear Sky Sect. It's not difficult to understand."
"Uh~ is that so?"
Touching his chin, Mu Yang fell into thought.
Perhaps Spirit Hall's original intent wasn't to provoke conflict between the Academy and Clear Sky Sect, but to push the Elemental Academy into their opposition instead?
If someone else were leading Spirit Hall, Mu Yang wouldn't think this way. But with Bibi Dong as the current Pope—her logic circuits were rather unusual.
After all, in the original work, Bibi Dong often carried out baffling operations—creating enemies for Spirit Hall and even letting strong foes go.
"Regardless, let's first recover the missing students."
Mu Yang shook his head and addressed everyone.
"Recovering them isn't hard. The difficulty lies in how we deal with Spirit Hall afterward. In terms of sheer strength, the Academy is decent, but far inferior to Spirit Hall."
Huo Lie's expression was grim.
After all, Spirit Hall was the overlord of the soul master world, with Qian Daoliu—the 'Invincible under Sky'—sitting in charge. If they fought head-on, the Elemental Academy would be crushed.
But if they simply ignored it, wouldn't that make the Academy into a soft persimmon for others to pinch?
"Leave this matter to me. If Spirit Hall truly is behind this, they'll surely have to give the Academy an explanation."
After some thought, Mu Yang said solemnly.
Though Bibi Dong was the Pope, she couldn't represent the entirety of Spirit Hall. And while Spirit Hall's strength was immense, the Elemental Academy was not weak. If things escalated, Qian Daoliu might not agree to outright conflict.
In Qian Daoliu's eyes, once Qian Renxue ascended to the Angel God position, all problems would be resolved. Why wage large-scale battles? With divine power, suppressing everything would suffice.
That way, Spirit Hall could avoid unnecessary casualties, reduce hatred generated during continental unification, and make it easier for the Angel faith to spread afterward.
For additional chapters
Versatile mage {40 chapters}
Douluo Dalu:This Soul Master is to Weird {30 Chapters}
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