Chapter 54: Dugu Bo's Boar-like Charge!

Leaving the Qibao Tower, Chen Ming wasted no time and hurried back toward the academy. Because he had beaten Yu Tianheng in full view of the public just yesterday, Chen Ming was slightly worried that the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan might take advantage of his absence from the academy to come looking for him.

As it turned out, Chen Ming was worrying too much. He had completely underestimated the speed of information dissemination in a feudal era.

The events of yesterday evening were only transmitted to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's residence within Heaven Dou City by one of Yu Tianheng's underlings late last night. The person in charge of this outpost was merely a Soul Saint-ranked spirit master of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.

Faced with such a matter, he dared not make arbitrary decisions on his own, so he forwarded the information up to the higher echelons within the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon sect.

To put it bluntly, by this time, the news of Yu Tianheng getting beaten had not even reached the interior of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan yet. Even if it did reach the clan, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon family could not openly send people to target Chen Ming directly.

Level thirty-two beating level twenty-four, using all spirit abilities and even entering the Dragonization state, only to get counterkilled by someone's single spirit ability?

If word got out, where would the dignity of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan go? Where would the face of the number one beast spirit in the world go?

Internal targeting would certainly exist, and assassination was not impossible, but those were matters for the future.

Given the tangled factional conflicts within a major clan, it would be considered lightning-fast if they could unify their opinions within half a month after receiving the news. If they could reach the stage of applying pressure within a month, it would mean the Sect Master's face carried enough weight.

After all, the factions within a major family were much like different political parties in a certain beautiful country; not holding each other back was already considered pleasant cooperation. Each faction still harbored its own distinct agenda.

Even a Title Douro did not possess the sheer resolve and capability to suppress all internal dissent within their own family.

Upon returning to the academy, Chen Ming locked himself in his room and began refining his external dragon core inside the quiet chamber.

He scoured it with spirit power and spiritual energy, occasionally drawing blood to deepen the connection. Although there was no overly obvious breakthrough, he was slowly making some progress.

After all, even though this object had been stripped of all affixes and attributes by the lightning tribulation, reducing it to a blank slate, it was still a dragon core at its core, and its tier remained formidable.

Under normal circumstances, the sheer daily ambient consumption of this item could have drained Chen Ming to death. The meager amounts of spirit power and spiritual energy Chen Ming injected into it were merely a drop in the bucket for the dragon core, not even enough to fill a single corner of it, let alone fully refine it into an external core through sheer willpower and imagination.

During these days, Chen Ming kept a low profile and rarely exposed himself to the outside world. He devoted himself entirely to honing his spirit power and pondering the effects of the dragon core within the quiet chamber, awaiting the arrival of Dugu Bo.

Five days had passed since Chen Ming's meeting with Qian Renxue, who was disguised as Xue Qinghe. That night, just as Chen Ming was converting his spirit power through the dragon core into vitality to strengthen his body, a surge of furious spirit power suddenly erupted in the distance.

In Chen Ming's perception, the source of that spirit power rushed toward his direction with unbridled fury, moving like a dump truck speeding at one hundred and twenty miles per hour, without the slightest attempt to conceal its charge.

That tyrannical level of spirit power was of a caliber Chen Ming had never witnessed before, feeling quite literally like a natural disaster.

Although Chen Ming had indeed accidentally spotted the Snake Spear Douro hiding nearby during his meeting with Qian Renxue, he had only been able to perceive the other party as unfathomable, without being able to gauge exactly how much spirit power the Snake Spear Douro possessed.

In Chen Ming's perception, the intensity of this spirit power was a notch higher than what the three academy deans had displayed, easily equivalent to the combined spirit power of two deans.

Without a doubt, the newcomer was a genuine, flesh-and-blood Title Douro.

Just as Chen Ming gathered the dragon core and before he could even tidy up his somewhat disheveled appearance caused by cultivation, a tremendous collision echoed through the courtyard.

A massive shockwave blossomed within the courtyard. The tightly shut doors and windows of the quiet chamber where Chen Ming resided were rattled by the formidable impact and vibration. Under the external force, the doors and windows burst open with a loud bang, and some of the more fragile parts snapped under the impact, causing the intact sections to slam fiercely into every corner of the room.

Chen Ming unleashed his spirit, shattering the doors and windows that were about to crash onto him.

Through the aperture that once belonged to the doorway and windows, Chen Ming saw that the main gate of his courtyard had been blown away by a massive force, slamming heavily into the very center of the courtyard. The collision kicked up a large amount of shattered stones and bricks, and all the nearby rooms suffered varying degrees of damage.

"Brat, get the hell out here!"

An aged voice brimming with fury came from the courtyard entrance, followed by the acute perception of Chen Ming's spirit power fluctuations, which instantly pinpointed Chen Ming's location. A dark green figure rushed toward Chen Ming's room like a phantom.

Dugu Bo's heart was burning with agitation.

A while ago, feeling that his recent condition was quite good and that his granddaughter was about to break through to level thirty, he had been in high spirits.

Because every time he absorbed a spirit ring, the family's potent poison would intensify by another fraction, he had decided to try and seize this opportunity to break through to the ninety-second rank, thereby better taking care of his granddaughter.

Initially, Dugu Bo's breakthrough was proceeding smoothly. However, right when he was on the verge of breaking through that barrier which had trapped him for over a dozen years—transitioning from a ninety-first rank Title Douro to a ninety-second rank Title Douro—the toxins within his body revolted due to the loss of spirit power suppression, forcefully interrupting his breakthrough.

This sudden turn of events nearly cost him half his life. The loss of control over his spirit power caused severe damage to his meridians and internal organs, leaving him with less than ten percent of his strength.

One had to know that Dugu Bo was never considered exceptionally powerful to begin with; even the deans of the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy could reach a stalemate with him in a one-on-one fight for a while. With less than ten percent of his strength remaining, he was now inferior even to a newly breakthrough Spirit Douluo.

Even in the face of such an important event as his granddaughter Dugu Yan enrolling in the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy, Dugu Bo did not dare to show his face directly, fearing that others would perceive his condition.

After giving his granddaughter a few words of instruction, Dugu Bo hurried away to the treasured land in the Sunset Forest, using the dual energies of ice and fire to suppress the toxins within his body while searching for herbs he could use to heal his injuries.

A short while ago, having recovered about seventy percent of his strength, Dugu Bo left seclusion to check the letter sent by his housekeeper to a designated location. Finding nothing amiss, he went back into seclusion to stabilize his condition further before going to check on his granddaughter.

In Dugu Bo's mind, his granddaughter should have been at the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy at this time. Thus, with his condition recovered to about eighty percent, Dugu Bo had quietly sneaked into the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy, intending to give his granddaughter a surprise.

He figured that after showing his face to his granddaughter, he would go back and properly recuperate. Once he was fully recovered, his granddaughter would be around level thirty, and he could then take her to acquire her third spirit ring.

And the result?

The moment Dugu Bo quietly sneaked in, he overheard people gossiping about his granddaughter, claiming that his granddaughter Dugu Yan had found some wild man.

At first, Dugu Bo did not pay much attention to it. He merely released a bit of poison casually, causing those gossiping fellows to suffer from uncontrollable diarrhea for ten days to half a month.

However, the further he went, the more explosive gossip he heard, to the point that Dugu Bo—who initially hadn't believed it and had poisoned a whole bunch of people along the way—began to harbor doubts.

Consequently, he sought out the three deans, intending to hold them accountable and demand to know who gave them the gall to allow rumors about his granddaughter to spread within the academy.

Yet the moment they met, he was informed by the three deans that his granddaughter Dugu Yan had indeed gotten involved with some wild punk named Chen Ming, and that his granddaughter had even been angered enough to return home (from Dugu Bo's perspective)?!

Although Dugu Bo was only at eighty percent of his capacity, under his overwhelming fury, he instantly erupted with a hundred and twenty percent of his state, rushing toward the location of Chen Ming given by the three deans at a speed rivaling that of an agility-type Title Douro.

The momentum and velocity of that burst were so fierce that even the three deans, who had prepared to intercept him, failed to stop him, and could only watch helplessly as Dugu Bo vanished before their eyes.

Given the momentum and speed Dugu Bo had unleashed, the three of them unanimously concluded that the reason for Dugu Bo's disappearance during this period was likely that he had gone off to quietly make a breakthrough.