Despite not even being thirteen yet, Huo Yuhao had still appeared tall and mighty when he’d been onstage earlier. He’d been filled with hot-blooded vigor, along with a seemingly astonishing amount of arrogance; some of that arrogance was of course faked however. Furthermore, there had also been his six blood-red soul rings. All of these things had been deeply branded into Wang Dong’s mind; he couldn’t forget any of them.

  “Why did I have six soul rings when I was next to you?” Wang Dong asked.

  Huo Yuhao replied, “My Imitation soul skill allows me to control everything within a three metre radius around me—that’s why I waited for you to get close to me before I released it. The reason that you had six soul rings is that six hundred thousand soul rings is the limit of what our opponent’s minds could withstand. Using my Imitation to make it seem as though we were both Soul Emperors was definitely already enough to frighten them. However… I didn’t think that they’d be that weak. Along with the shock received by our soul rings, they were also sent into a daze for a moment when I used my Spiritual Interference on them. In addition to that, using your Golden Light to ignite our Haodong Power was quite effective; even though it didn’t increase the strength of our Golden Road, its attack range was clearly increased by quite a bit. It seems that your left arm bone synergises quite well with our fusion skill.”


  Wang Dong shrugged his shoulders. “However, using an all-out attack like that instantly exhausted all of our Haodong Power. Just heading back was hard on us. Even though this fight was satisfying, we revealed our most powerful attack. Haven’t we lost more than we gained?”


  Huo Yuhao replied, “You can’t look at it that way. This match was very significant to us, and just because it was our first match. Furthermore, it was also the first round of the knockout round. Right now we represent the glory of Shrek Academy, and everyone watching was able to see how old we were. If this had been a normal fight, we would’ve had to reveal everyone’s true strengths. However, we did it differently today. The two of us don’t even look fifteen, yet we displayed Soul Emperor-ranked cultivations. Wouldn’t that astonish everyone? Now that we’ve astonished everyone, they’ll overestimate our capabilities. As such, they’ll feel nervous when they fight us in the future, and we’ll be able to take advantage of their nervousness to win. Because of this, our chances of getting through the round-robin round before our seniors recover have become much higher. At the same time, revealing our strength allowed us to conceal the strength of the others! The most important thing we need to focus on is efficiency. Even though our Golden Road needs three days to recharge before we can use it again, we used it on day one in order to control our enemies. As such, we’ll be able to use it at any time throughout the round-robin rounds. As you can see, we’ve achieved quite a few things in one move.”


  “From this match, I’ve truly come to understand how important Shrek Academy’s reputation as the number one academy in the continent is. If it weren’t for the fact that our academy’s fame terrified them, our match definitely wouldn’t have been so easy!”


  Wang Dong muttered in response, “However, we still would’ve revealed it sooner or later. Our matches later on will definitely not be that easy either. Furthermore, your six hundred thousand year soul rings were too fake. I feel that if you’d only made your last soul ring a hundred thousand year one, it would’ve been much more believable. You used their knowledge of soul rings to fool them, but once they actually think it over, they’ll realise that you must’ve used some sort of special method to fool them. A Soul Emperor who isn’t even fifteen is already astonishing enough, but one with six hundred thousand year soul rings is another story. That’s something that vastly exceeds common sense.”


  “Uh… you’re right.” Huo Yuhao shook his head. “My blood rushed to my head then; I was just trying to make Shrek Academy look even more powerful. Because of that, I made all of them hundred thousand year soul rings. Now that I think about it, I was definitely a bit foolish. But what’s done is done; I can’t do anything about it now. Let’s just let them think whatever they want to think.”


  Wang Dong placed his hands behind his head and lay back down on the bed. He stared up at the ceiling and said, “Honestly, we don’t need to think about it too much. Let’s just do our best to win. In any case, it’s definitely impossible for us to become champions by ourselves. Every single match counts.”


  Huo Yuhao lay beside him and placed his hands behind his head as well. “That’s true. Do you think we’ll have a chance at become champions once sister Xiaotao and the rest have returned?”


  Wang Dong nudged him with his elbow. “Move a bit further away from me. And how am I supposed to know the answer to that? We might have a chance. Either way, Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng are both Soul Emperors. Hmph, calling her sister Xiaotao is quite an affectionate term! I didn’t think that you’d have an Oedipus complex.”


  “You’re the one who has an Oedipus complex,” Huo Yuhao unhappily replied, “I just don’t understand why you’re so hostile towards her.”


  Wang Dong turned towards Huo Yuhao and hit him on the forehead. “Don’t forget, we almost died because of her last time! A fellow like you truly forgets all of his loyalties when he’s lustful.”


  Huo Yuhao clutched his painful forehead and grumbled, “Hey, I’m only twelve! What do you mean by ‘lustful’! Just what sort of thoughts is your brain filled with? They must all be unhealthy thoughts. At our age, we should just study hard and aim for the sky. Don’t think too much about things, understand?”


  Wang Dong snorted. “It’d be good if that really were the case. I’m heading back to my room.” With that, he sat up to get off the bed.

  However, Huo Yuhao grabbed his hand. “Don’t go back.”


  Wang Dong hurriedly retracted his hand, then hugged his quilt and stared back at him vigilantly. “What do you intend to do?”


  Huo Yuhao rolled his eyes. “You’re full of shit. Cultivate of course!”


  Because they’d completed their knockout round on the first day of the round-robin round itself, the students from Shrek Academy were able to get a very good rest during the following two days. However, there were no traces of the backup team they were looking forward to during these two days.

  The busiest person of them all during these two days was definitely Wang Yan, who entered and exited the hotel daily. He seemed to appear at one moment, then would disappear the next.

  On the third night of the tournament, he gathered all of them together in a conference room and held a meeting.

  “Xiaotao, how are your injuries looking?” Wang Yan’s gaze fell on Ma Xiaotao, Dai Yueheng, and Ling Luochen.

  Ma Xiaotao replied, “Since we were able to peacefully recuperate during the past few days, our recoveries have gone quite well. I should be able to make a complete recovery in about half a month. If I have to forcefully enter the tournament, ten days should be sufficient. However, I’m afraid that that would worsen my injuries.”


  An internal injury was the most serious injury a soul master could sustain. An attack to one’s internal organs could cause a translocation, which brought about a series of injuries in succession. Fortunately, the three of them hadn’t been poisoned when they’d been injured. If they had, this wouldn’t have been a problem that could be resolved within a mere half a month. For example, the others—who’d been sent back to the academy to recover—wouldn’t make a full recovery for at least three months. Even now, Ma Xiaotao’s trio still felt somewhat indignant towards the events that had occurred within the Ming Dou Mountain Range. That evil soul master’s ability had simply been too evil! They’d never seen a skill such as his, that would grow more powerful the larger the number of corpses present. They wouldn’t have suffered such a large loss otherwise.