A painfully long week passed. Fu Huan stood at the threshold of the house, casting one last look at the worn-out walls, silent witnesses to her childhood, overshadowed by sorrow. Her grandfather, whose face remained as indifferent as ever, didn't even come out to see her off.
"You don't need to come back," he said, without tearing his gaze away from the dull flame of the hearth. His words, devoid of any warmth, only confirmed her own decision. This place, soaked in memories of her parents and their tragic death, would forever remain a source of pain. She didn't turn around, knowing that behind her lay nothing but emptiness.
The sun was already sinking towards the horizon when Fu Huan, clutching her precious certificate – a kind of recommendation from the Spirit Hall – stopped at the wrought-iron gates of the Junior Academy of Soul Masters in Notting City. After handing the document to the gatekeeper, she waited patiently. Her official enrollment as a working student – the mark of her poverty, yet a chance for the future – came only after several long hours.
Thus began her new, solitary life.
Her appearance, marked by the seal of early maturity – delicate features, the straight gaze of her rose-gold eyes, restrained beauty reminiscent of the cold glow of the autumn moon – inevitably attracted attention. But the barely perceptible aura of detachment, almost total silence, and the piercing cold gaze quickly extinguished any fleeting interest. A few overconfident boys tried to strike up a conversation, hoping to win the favor of the young genius, but were met only with icy indifference, as if they had run into an invisible wall.
Half a year passed in a blur of lectures, training, and lonely evenings spent studying ancient texts in the library. Finally, the long-awaited day arrived: her inner energy reached the coveted 10th level. Two teachers – esteemed soul masters with ranks of 32 and 33, their faces bearing the marks of many battles – volunteered to help her in the search for a suitable spirit beast for her first ring, eager to earn the favor of such a promising talent. They spent several days scouring the surrounding forests, but every rustle and shadow only brought disappointment.
On that moonlit night, when the weary teachers had long fallen into a restless sleep, Fu Huan, tossing on the hard camp cot, felt once again the strange, barely perceptible presence. The soft rustling of fallen leaves, uneven breathing, a deep, guttural growl, all made her alert.
From behind a thick veil of trees, as if woven from darkness itself, appeared the Phantom Shadowhound Wolf. A rare and incredibly dangerous beast, its nature shrouded in legends, specializing in the insidious distortion of space and time perception. It towered above the ground, almost twice the height of an ordinary wolf, its fur as black as frozen tar, and its narrow, piercing green eyes seemed to absorb the moonlight, reflecting only its own ominous energy. The beast was around five hundred and twenty years old. Even the slightest mistake in a battle with such an opponent would result in death.
For any other student who had just reached the 10th level, encountering such a beast would be sheer madness. According to an unwritten rule, the first spirit ring should not be absorbed if the beast's age exceeded around four hundred and twenty-six years – the fragile body of a young soul master simply could not withstand the immense pressure of the energy. But Fu Huan's spirit was different. Though the risk was great, her body had already begun adapting to the strange fluctuations of energy from her spatial-temporal combat spirit, and her mind, tempered by past experiences, retained remarkable clarity and composure.
She didn't hesitate for a second. Gathering all her will, Fu Huan silently moved, trying to divert the beast's attention from the sleeping camp. The battle unfolded in the moonlight, full of furious lunges and desperate counterattacks. She barely kept her footing, her body covered in bleeding scratches, sweat blurring her vision. But even before the confrontation, she had managed to conceal a simple yet effective trap in the thick grass, using sharpened stones and taut vines. When the enraged wolf made its final, deadly lunge, its paw landed in the set trap, and it sprung. Gathering her remaining strength, Fu Huan delivered a precise, ruthless strike with a shard of stone directly into the glowing green eye of the beast, crushing its skull. Her entire body trembled from the physical and emotional strain.
Above the lifeless body of the Phantom Shadowhound Wolf, a faint spirit ring slowly emerged, emitting a brilliant yellow glow. Fu Huan, breathing heavily, fell to her knees and began the complex, exhausting process of absorption. It lasted a long eight hours, until the first rays of dawn painted the sky.
In the morning, the teachers discovered the empty camp. Their hearts sank with horror. In a panic, they rushed to search, shouting Fu Huan's name. Soon they came upon fresh traces of a fierce battle and, following them, reached a clearing where the enormous wolf lay motionless, and nearby, staggering from exhaustion, stood Fu Huan, enveloped in the last waves of the absorbed energy. They had misjudged the age of the beast, assuming it was no more than four hundred years old, and attributed her incredible success to pure luck. Their faces expressed shame for their own carelessness and relief that the girl had survived.
Having absorbed the spirit ring, Fu Huan felt a powerful surge of new strength, a wave that rippled through her entire body. Her spiritual power increased by two levels, reaching the twelfth. This was unusual – typically, the first spirit ring of a soul master would add only one, at most one and a half levels. But her strange, unfathomable spirit seemed to have absorbed the beast's energy with remarkable efficiency.
When the concerned teachers began asking one after another what skill she had gained, Fu Huan only briefly replied, trying to hide her excitement:
"A supportive-type skill. Nothing special."
In truth, it was a skill that projected distorted time perception, allowing her to subtly interfere with the feelings and reactions of others. She could selectively speed up or slow down their perception of time – making an opponent feel movements in slow motion, while making an ally react with maximum speed. The skill had a radius of about twelve meters, but the spiritual energy consumption beyond affecting one target was catastrophically high. Mass use of the skill was only possible for a brief moment, no more than a couple of seconds, otherwise, her newly acquired spiritual energy would be instantly exhausted.