"So you want to spar with Sister Xiao Wu again? What, not convinced?" Xiao Wu asked with her hands on her hips.
"I just want to experience your soft skills. I've never seen anything like it before. It just feels… strange, but also very impressive." Chen Ming gave a perfectly reasonable explanation.
"I don't care, you're just challenging Sister Xiao Wu's vi—"
"Authority. It's authority," Chen Ming couldn't help but interject, only to be glared at by Xiao Wu.
"Right, right, right! You're challenging Sister Xiao Wu's authority. Sister Xiao Wu must give you a proper lesson!"
Even as she said that, there wasn't much real anger in her eyes. For someone as lively and restless as her, sparring was simply a good way to pass the time.
On the small hill behind the dormitory building, Chen Ming and Xiao Wu stood facing each other at a distance. They called out a countdown together—three, two, one—and simultaneously released their Martial Souls.
Xiao Wu pushed off the ground with both legs and shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow. Meanwhile, Chen Ming summoned his Martial Soul and adjusted his center of gravity, taking a steady stance—unchanged, unmoving, prepared to respond to anything.
"Above the head… or a feint to the rear?"
Observing Xiao Wu's movements, Chen Ming activated a portion of his computational "AI thinking," analyzing her trajectory. Almost instantly, he deduced her true intention.
Seeing Chen Ming subtly shift his posture as if preparing to turn and swing his tail, Xiao Wu smiled faintly. In the next moment, she suddenly dropped her body low and slipped straight into his arms.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, and her legs hooked into his lower body—she was preparing to throw him using a close-range grappling technique.
But just as she applied force—
Chen Ming, who had seemed a step too slow, suddenly grinned.
Instead of being thrown, he allowed one of his feet to be lifted while he twisted his body and locked Xiao Wu firmly in his arms, trapping her completely against his chest.
Xiao Wu tried to slip free, only to find his knee joints tightening, pinning her foot in place.
Feeling Chen Ming's breath right beside her face, she froze for a split second—then frowned in dissatisfaction.
"Wait, that's not fair! Both your feet are off the ground—how are you still standing?"
"Yeah, my feet are off the ground," Chen Ming replied casually, "but I still have a tail."
He shifted his body slightly.
Only then would an outside observer notice how strange his posture truly was—his limbs were all locked around Xiao Wu, while his thick, muscular tail was planted firmly into the ground like a supporting pillar, holding both of them upright.
In terms of strength, the most powerful part of Chen Ming's body wasn't his arms or legs, but that tail—formed from muscle and bone like a slab of living stone.
Back in Holy Spirit Village, he had tested it before. A full-force tail strike could shatter a chunk of rock and leave deep marks in trees.
"Let go of me! Let go of Sister Xiao Wu! This doesn't count—we go again!"
Flushed with embarrassment, Xiao Wu struggled in his arms, her hair brushing against his face as she twisted and protested.
Chen Ming set her down and released his grip.
The moment she was free, Xiao Wu—her face red—leapt backward like a startled rabbit.
"That was my mistake just now! I wasn't serious. I'm going to show you my real strength!"
With a huff, a yellow Spirit Ring appeared beside her.
No one knew whether transformed soul beasts could conceal their Spirit Rings or not, but it appeared there just like that beside her body.
And judging by its steady aura, it clearly wasn't something formed out of anger in the moment—but something she had already condensed and possessed for quite some time.
"First Soul Skill: Waist Bow!"
In an instant, Xiao Wu's waist strength doubled, and her flexibility increased by fifty percent.
It wasn't a direct boost to raw strength or attack power, but for someone like her—whose entire combat style revolved around agility, flexibility, and grappling—it was still a tremendous enhancement that could not be underestimated.
Chen Ming steadied himself and began analyzing her movements. Even though his mind had already processed the data and his body was preparing to react, the sheer gap in raw physical stats meant he was still forced into close range the moment Xiao Wu exploded forward.
She lifted one leg and aimed a kick at his head, only to stop it right beside his face at the very last moment.
"See that? Sister Xiao Wu has soul skills—I just don't use it often. I'm much stronger than you!"
She rested her leg across Chen Ming's neck and declared proudly.
"Ah… I see." Chen Ming replied somewhat awkwardly.
To be honest, with his computational thinking activated, even though Xiao Wu was wearing a loose school uniform, a single glance downward was enough for him to reconstruct a rough anatomical model in his mind.
Combined with the physical contact from their sparring yesterday and today, and his unconscious data collection on her body's movement patterns…
Even though she was fully clothed, to Chen Ming, it was already practically an open book.
And thanks to his multitasking cognition, he could simultaneously analyze everything coldly while still perfectly simulating an embarrassed expression on the surface.
"Still going?" Xiao Wu suddenly felt a strange chill run through her body. She quickly retracted her leg and looked around suspiciously. Finding no wind, she frowned in confusion.
"We keep going," Chen Ming said calmly. "I'm not refusing—I just want to learn more."
"Hmph… fine. I like that attitude," Xiao Wu said through gritted teeth, clearly unwilling to back down.
What followed was a continuous sparring session where, even with his analytical advantage activated, Chen Ming was repeatedly thrown and overpowered purely through Xiao Wu's numerical superiority.
Although his body was tough and well-defended, and he avoided any real injury, he still ended up covered in dirt and looking thoroughly disheveled.
Finally, after yet another exhausting throw, Xiao Wu collapsed onto the ground, drenched in sweat, and waved her hand lazily.
"I'm done. I'm done. I'm exhausted…"
"You're just like a rock—stubborn and annoying. Once I knock you down once, the second time gets way harder. My Martial Soul is a rabbit, not a bull! You still have energy, but I'm out."
"If I didn't think you didn't have any bad intentions and were really just sparring, I'd have thrown you a lot harder than that!" she said fiercely.
Her signature technique was the Instant Kill Eight Stage Drop. Once fully executed, it was either fatal or severely crippling. Against someone like Chen Ming—his weight and physique considered—it could easily result in multiple fractures, even a broken spine or neck was not impossible.
If not for the fact that she was actually enjoying the spar, and Chen Ming truly didn't seem to harbor any malice, and also because she couldn't freely kill in the human world…
She would have already gone all out on him.
...
DROP SOME POWERSTONES GUYS!!