Chapter 369.1. Yuhao Exits Seclusion

“Everyone, hurry up and cultivate. Any increase in strength is a powerful guarantee for us. I’ve already applied to the Academy. Tomorrow, Dean Yan will personally bring Nannan and Xiao Xiao to the Star Luo Forest to find a suitable soul beast for their sixth soul rings. Sanshi and Caitou, go along too. This will give you peace of mind.”

While the Yin-Yang Love Querying Valley did cause them many injuries, some of them benefited, too. Of the Tang Sect members, four of them had experienced an increase in soul power: Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong’er, Xiao Xiao, and Jiang Nannan. Of course, this also included Wang Qiu’er, who had disappeared.

Among them, Xiao Xiao and Jiang Nannan’s soul power had reached Rank 60. After they returned to the Tang Sect, the two girls had cultivated to solidify their foundations. They now needed to obtain their sixth soul rings to become Soul Emperors. After the two of them rose in rank, Huo Yuhao was the only one of Shrek’s Seven Monsters who had yet to rise in rank.

However, Huo Yuhao’s soul power had increased by five ranks. He was very close to Rank 60!

Everyone nodded. The increase from five rings to six was not as difficult as the increase from six rings to seven, but it was still a huge milestone for soul masters. The increase from Soul King to Soul Emperor was an exponential increase in power, which would further strengthen the Tang Sect.

“Alright, let’s do this. Everyone, hurry up and cultivate. I’ll inform you about the rescue operation as soon as I can. Dismissed.”

Everyone started to leave. However, Nan Qiuqiu sat there for a long while before standing up.

Ye Guyi, who had been sitting next to her, asked in a low voice, “Qiuqiu, are you alright?”

Nan Qiuqiu shook her head and said, “I’m fine. Sister Guyi, do you really think we can save my mother?”

Ye Guyi sighed and said, “On the continent, if there’s something Shrek Academy can’t do, then no one else can do it. Please don’t do anything dumb. All we can do is wait. Since Bei Bei has spoken, the school will naturally make its own arrangements. All we can do now is cultivate with all our might. The important thing is to strengthen ourselves. You should endeavor to become a Soul Emperor as soon as you can! All of our martial souls are special. The stronger we are, the more powerful our unique traits will become. Let’s work hard together!”

“Okay!” Nan Qiuqiu nodded vigorously. “I’ll do my best to save my mother.”

Ye Guyi gave her arm a squeeze and said, “I don’t know what happened to him. Ever since our return, he seems to be doing nothing but training. I heard that he almost escaped from the jaws of death. I don’t know what he’s doing. His lover…”

“Shh!” Nan Qiuqiu silenced her with a gesture. She shook her head and said, “Let’s not talk about Wang Dong’er. It’s taboo for all of us. Originally, I hated Huo Yuhao. However, he’s pitiable, indeed. This time, in the Yin-Yang Love Querying Valley, he lost the girl he loves the most. Now, he is turning his anger and grief into strength for cultivation. It’s really…”

Ye Guyi grunted and said, “He’s a freak, but he’s strong too. Let’s go and cultivate. One day, I’m going to beat him!”

——

The entire Tang Sect was training and cultivating intensely. While the Tang Sect had no powerful people to back them up, they were undoubtedly the most powerful group of young soul masters on the entire continent. Their growth would surely impact the world of soul masters.

——

Darkness!

Everything was dark and silent. One could not even see one’s hands.

“Smack!” A sound rang out. A shadow flew into the air, and something stopped it.

A strong hand had grabbed it. Light jade-green light started to shine, giving light to this pitch-black world.

The jade-green light shone from someone’s body. It came from Huo Yuhao!

At that moment, his hand had grabbed a small vat, which contained extremely strong alcohol.

He opened its seal, and the pungent smell of alcohol appeared in the secret, black room. He lifted the vat and drank the alcohol down in huge gulps. For a normal person, one small cup would have sufficed. The green light on his body shone even more intensely.

After his return from the Clear Sky Sect, Huo Yuhao chose to go into closed-door training. For its silence, he chose the deepest part of the Tang Sect’s Soul Tool Hall for its silence, where he dug out an area to be his own cultivation cave.

Here, he would not be affected by the outside world. He cultivated furiously in absolute silence.

This time, his closed-door training was do-or-die. If he did not reach his target, he would not leave. His objective was simple: he wanted to open the passageways in his legs once more, allowing the origin energy of Ultimate Ice, which he had absorbed in the Icefire Yin Yang Well, to fully flow throughout his body.

He had cultivated behind closed doors for almost half a month. In this half a month, he had completely calmed his heart. Even though there was no way he could suppress his thoughts, he slowly returned to the intensity of the time when he had just joined Shrek Academy.

It was an indescribable sensation. In this cultivation, he did his best to improve himself. At the same time, he tried to fuse his spiritual power, his soul power, his Ultimate Ice, his Spirit Eyes, and even his Necromancy, which he had derived from the Divine Law of Necromancy, and which had been taught to him by the Calamity Necromancer Electrolux, into one.

In the past few years, his power had increased rapidly. His twin martial souls gave him an innate advantage. In this period of time, his paralysis was not necessarily a bad thing, as it made him realize that innate talent was not everything.

Right now, he had managed to accomplish something even Titled Douluo found difficult. He was combining of all his powers as he tried to refine them!

His strong spiritual power gave him the ability to do so. Aided by the distilled wine, he was able to absorb the origin energy of Ultimate Ice faster and faster. His soul power also increased quickly.

Cultivating an Ultimate Strength martial soul was hardest before one possessed seven rings. However, as Huo Yuhao’s soul power was increased by five ranks after the Yin Yang Love Querying Valley, coupled with his continual absorption of the origin energy of Ultimate Ice, this process became a lot simpler.

All this while, he had felt as if the increase in his soul power had reached a bottleneck. His soul power was becoming stronger, but he did not feel it increasing. The soul power he had absorbed from the origin energy of Ultimate Ice appeared to be hidden in the bones of his four limbs, and was unable to fuse with his own soul power.

When he first started, he was worried. After a while, he understood that he had reached a bottleneck, and this bottleneck was for the sixtieth rank.

He himself could not believe that he had reached Rank 60 so quickly.

In fact, when he took part in the Continental Elite Youth Soul Master Tournament in the Sun Moon Empire, he was in a state of high alert and constant fighting. Bei Bei’s injuries meant that he had to carry the banner of the Tang Sect. As he fought, he improved non-stop. With all his might and energy, he brought the Tang Sect forward, and even helped Shrek Academy out.

Regardless of whether it was actual fighting experience or just plain hardship, he was the one who bore the most of it among everyone from the Tang Sect.

His return from the jaws of death, from the Yin-Yang Love Querying Valley, had allowed him to further demonstrate his full potential. It further sharpened his body and mind, greatly increasing his soul power. Coupled with his final reward of an increase in five ranks, he was finally able to reach Rank 60.

Had it been any other soul master, he would have ecstatically started searching for a soul ring once his rank reached a multiple of ten. However, Huo Yuhao did not do so. The passageways in his legs were still blocked. Furthermore, 10,000 years ago, one of the founders of Shrek Academy, Ancestor Yu Xiaogang, who was widely known as The Grandmaster, said that when a soul master’s soul power reached a bottleneck, it would not stop increasing because one stopped adding soul rings to it. If one had a chance to further increase one’s soul power, there was no rush to look for a soul ring. As long as one added a soul ring later on, the excess soul power from the earlier cultivation would still materialize.

Hence, Huo Yuhao was in no rush. His target was to finish absorbing all of the origin energy of Ultimate Ice in his body, returning his body to normal. Like this, he would return to his optimal state. As for getting a soul ring later, it would all came down to luck for a spirit-type soul master like him. It was better for him to focus on cultivation and solving his issues now than to search for a ring, which required both time and luck.

Furthermore, he could sense that after the fusion of his abilities, the overall increase in strength would be more delightful to him than the increase in soul power. He understood that this was a chance that he had to seize.

He could still clearly remember Elder Mu saying that to become a soul master, one had to find one’s own path. At that time, Huo Yuhao had believed that finding one’s path was to find a direction for cultivation. At that time, he had chosen the Tang Sect’s Secret Techniques.

Elder Mu said nothing. Instead, he let him cultivate according to his own plans.

Right now, Huo Yuhao slowly started to understand what Elder Mu meant by path. It did not mean the direction of cultivation, but instead turning one’s own strength into a straight, flat road.

Huo Yuhao had found the entrance to this road. He was slowly walking it, and to him, this process of understanding his powers was more important than improving his Ultimate Ice or any other of his abilities. His own powers would improve through this process, and Huo Yuhao deeply believed that once he completely understood his powers, his strength would increase exponentially once again!