Huo Yuhao nodded and said, “Teacher, don’t worry. I won’t lose Shrek’s face. I believe that I’ll leave a black mark in the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy’s history in the next three days.”
Fan Yu laughed as he admonished him, “Don’t be too complacent either. With the current stakes, we won’t be able to pay our debts if you lose within ten rounds. We’ll need to request a large amount directly from the academy.”
Huo Yuhao laughed. “Teacher, you’ve given so much effort to nurture me. Aren’t you confident in me?”
Fan Yu smiled and replied, “It’s not that. I’m just warning you not to be careless. A lion only beats the rabbit by using all his strength.”
“Yes.” Huo Yuhao looked at Fan Yu seriously and acknowledged his words.
The Soul Tool Experimentation Area was the largest building in the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy, and could hold more than ten thousand people. It had a similar architectural to the Shrek Academy’s Beast Dueling Arena. There was a huge arena in the building, and was surrounded by seats that extended nearly all the way to back of the building. It was normally used by the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy’s students for their tests, competitions, and experimenting on large soul tools. Between the spectators’ seats and the central arena, there was a linked defense system that was made up of many defensive soul tools. This linked defense system demonstrated how advanced the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy was in terms of their soul tools. They just needed a sufficiently strong soul master to control the entire defense system. The only prerequisite for the soul master was that his soul power had to be at a certain standard.
Although it was only morning, the entire Soul Tool Experimentation Area was full. There were close to twelve thousand teachers and students present, including some from the Illustrious Virtue Hall.
It wasn’t just the students who wanted to see the differences between how soul masters and soul engineers fought; even the teachers were curious. The academy had suspended lessons for three days for the sake of this sparring competition.
Jing Hongchen hadn’t attended, as there were too many things that he needed to see to. Lin Jiayi, on the other hand, was responsible for hosting the competition. To Jing Hongchen, it didn’t matter how long Huo Yuhao managed to last in the competition. No matter what, the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy was bound to benefit from it. The camaraderie between their students would increase, and they would also learn more about the differences between soul masters and soul engineers. It would be an exciting lesson for the students.
Due to a lack of seats, the students who arrived late had to sit among the aisles, or stand in-between the rows. Fortunately, the arena was large enough to accommodate everyone.
As the referee, Lin Jiayi also made a lot of deliberations. He finally chose to invite Xuan Ziwen, firstly because of Xuan Ziwen’s teacher-student relationship with Huo Yuhao, and secondly because of Xuan Ziwen’s abilities. Initially, Lin Jiayi thought that Xuan Ziwen would decline his offer. However, Xuan Ziwen agreed readily after listening to his proposition. His reasoning was also very simple: He wanted to see how strong his student was in terms of fighting strength as a soul master.
When Huo Yuhao first came, he’d personally taught a lesson to a few Class 5 soul engineers!
Xuan Ziwen also knew that the students were making their own private bets. The odds were three to one that he couldn’t survive ten rounds, two to one that he couldn’t survive twenty rounds, and thirty to a hundred that he couldn’t survive fifty rounds.
Those who offered such odds were clearly confident that Huo Yuhao could win fifty consecutive rounds! Why were Shrek Academy’s students so confident? It’s important to know that Huo Yuhao only had four rings. Even if he rested between rounds, he still needed to fight for a long period of time.
The Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy wasn’t a small academy either. Even if the Illustrious Virtue Hall’s students didn’t participate, Huo Yuhao was bound to collapse from three days of intense fighting. And once he lost one round, he might not have the ability to carry on further.
“Alright, please quiet down.” Lin Jiayi’s imposing voice resonated throughout the entire arena through a sound-amplifying soul tool. The excited students who were engaged in discussions immediately started to quiet down and turn their attention to him.
Lin Jiayi continued, “For the purpose of strengthening our exchange and interaction, the academy has decided to organize this sparring competition. Shrek is sending out Huo Yuhao, an exchange student who once competed in the Elite Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Dueling Tournament. I hope that all of you will do your best to observe this competition, even if you aren’t involved in it. Try your best to sense the differences between soul masters and soul engineers, as well as deepen your own understanding of them. The referee for this friendly exchange will be Teacher Xuan Ziwen, and I’ll be the host. Let’s welcome Shrek Academy’s Huo Yuhao onto the stage.”
A tunnel at the side of the arena opened slowly, and students wearing the dark-green uniform of Shrek emerged alongside Teacher Fan Yu.
There was a huge commotion, because Shrek Academy’s ten exchange students had all appeared at this point. Most of the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy students had never seen Huo Yuhao before, thus they had to guess who among them was the one who dared to challenge the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy students all by himself.
Rumors often spread the fastest. For example, news of Huo Yuhao’s conflict with the academy’s Class 5 soul engineers and his four-ringed cultivation had already spread like wildfire. Based on these rumours, he sounded capable of representing Shrek Academy in the sparring competition.
Lin Jiayi was also stunned. There weren’t too many rules, since this was just a friendly exchange, and was why he hadn’t communicated too much with Fan Yu beforehand. After all, it was only Huo Yuhao who was competing. Why had the Shrek Academy exchange students changed into Shrek Academy’s uniform? It was clear that they were drawing a line between the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy! Were they deliberately causing trouble?
Lin Jiayi had never thought of this before the competition began. After all, this was the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy’s territory. There were only eleven Shrek Academy personnel here; what trouble could they possibly cause? Would they really dare to cause trouble? However, it was a little late for him to realize that something was amiss.
Shrek Academy hadn’t been provided a sound-amplifying soul tool. All the emceeing was to be done by Lin Jiayi, which was also an arrangement that he’d made. If he sensed that something was amiss, he was prepared to ask the irrelevant personnel to leave the arena and immediately begin the competition.
However, what he was worried about happened before he even had the chance to open his mouth.
Fan Yu walked straight over to the resting area, but the other nine students didn’t follow suit. The nine of them divided into three groups and then quickly got into team formations.
There were four to Huo Yuhao’s left and four to his right, while He Caitou stood behind him.
Afterwards, three scrolls drifted into view for all of the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering students to see.
The scroll displayed by the students on Huo Yuhao’s left held a string of words that said, “Shrek. Number One! In! The! World! Invincible!”
The scroll displayed by the students on his right said, “Tang Sect! Complete! Dominance! Throughout! All! Eternity!”
He Caitou stood behind Huo Yuhao and lifted a horizontal scroll that said, “Come fight us if you’re unconvinced!”
A huge uproar ensued after the three scrolls were presented. The nine students in the formation quickly revolved around Huo Yuhao and allowed the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy to clearly see who Huo Yuhao was.
A huge uproar erupted, with some students even wanting to fire their soul tools towards the arena. Expletives rang out across the entire place.
“Silence, silence!” Lin Jiayi roared furiously, “Teachers, please restrain your students. The competition is about to begin. Irrelevant personnel, please remove yourselves from the arena.”
He felt extremely depressed! He hadn’t expect the Shrek Academy students to pull such a stunt. Weren’t they simply creating a ruckus on purpose? There were only eleven of them, and only Huo Yuhao was competing. Why were they trying to cause such a ruckus? Weren’t they creating trouble out of nothing?
However, things had already happened; the entire atmosphere of the competition was already starting to change. The entire Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy was bursting with emotion now, and the students who’d been seated had all stood up. Things seemed to be going out of control.
However, Huo Yuhao appeared unbothered. He even lifted his right hand and slowly turned his thumb to point towards the ground.
Even though he didn’t mutter a word, his provocation was clear: He was signaling for the other students to challenge him if they were unconvinced!
Arrogant; he was too arrogant!
Fortunately, the teachers managed to control their students well. The students were quickly restrained by the teachers. Furthermore, the entrance of the first Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy’s student helped stabilize the situation.
“Kill him! Send this Shrek country bumpkin back home!”
“Long live the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy, long live the Sun Moon Empire! Humiliation like this can only be washed away with blood!”
“I’ll be the girlfriend of whoever beats him!”
All the spectators were causing a racket. But there were also those who remained silent, like Ke Ke and Zi Mu.
Xuan Ziwen had originally had five students. Ke Ke and Zi Mu had entered the Illustrious Virtue Hall when Huo Yuhao did, while Ju Zi had stopped her studies to join the military, and Wang Shaojie had been expelled.
Thus, there were only three students left out of the original five.
Since Huo Yuhao was the main character in this competition, Ke Ke and Zi Mu also had to come.
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