Book 3: Fusion of Martial Souls

Chapter 20.1: The Body Soul's Secret

Not only was the Threelives Soulcrush Cauldron quick, but its arrival was also relatively sudden. Thus, the three Agility System Soul Masters weren’t able to unleash their soul skills in time. It was apparent to everyone watching that Xiao Xiao was already extraordinary solely for being able to multitask to this degree. It was impossible for her to still have energy leftover to use a soul skill at the appropriate time while also controlling her martial soul, which had already been divided in three. After all, her opponents would arrive at different times since they were approaching her at different speeds.

As a result, Xiao Xiao showed the audience a shocking scene. Three bangs rang out from the cauldrons, unleashing three tremors in their respective places.

It all happened the moment they collided with the Agility System Soul Masters; the three Agility System Soul Masters were knocked back from the impact, and directly fainted from the shock. They didn’t have the physique of assault system battle soul masters, thus this period of dizziness was naturally even longer for them than what Huang Chutian had previously experienced. The cauldrons overtook her opponents and struck them once more.

“Bang, bang, bang.” The three cauldrons approached their respective opponents and struck them once again with precision, causing the three figures to fly out of the arena at the same time.

The three black cauldrons rose up and merged back into a single entity above Xiao Xiao’s head, then quietly disappeared into thin air following the retraction of her martial soul.

Everyone present fell absolutely silent. This match was even more shocking than the previous match, with Xiao Xiao emerging victorious as the lead figure. The entire fight had taken less than half a minute. By relying on her own strength alone, she’d forcefully stunned her opponents; she hadn’t even let them dash across half the battlefield. She’d faced a three-directional battle and obtained total victory in all three directions.

Wang Yan had seen all of the previous assessments that Huo Yuhao’s team had passed with his own eyes. In his heart, the strongest person in this three-man team was naturally Wang Dong, whereas the most mysterious one—who was also the steadiest one—was Huo Yuhao. Xiao Xiao’s tool soul seemed to be pretty good, but relatively speaking, its function leaned more towards that of a part-auxiliary, part-control system tool soul. From his point of view, her tool soul fell behind the other two’s.

However, Xiao Xiao had used her own strength to prove to Wang Yan that she also played a decisively important role in this three-man team. A young lady that was merely around eleven years old had actually been able to discern all of her opponents’ attacking routes with such calmness and precision, and then from there had been able to unleash a barrage of attacks. Even a four-ringed control system Soul Ancestor might not necessarily have been able to achieve such a natural and smooth manner of defense, control, and retreat against their opponents. How was it that such a small young lady such as her was able to accomplish such a feat?

The other groups had originally thought that they could take take advantage of the fact that Huo Yuhao and his team had exhausted their energy in their first match, but now, that thought completely vanished from their hearts. Their team had two people with the strength to fight a whole team on their own! They were really too valiant.

However, Huang Chutian’s team—whose strength had been lacking compared to Huo Yuhao’s team—wasn’t nearly as fortunate. Even though the Lan sisters had awoken from their unconscious state, they had a headache that was so bad it felt as though their heads were going to split apart. They’d also consumed an excessive amount of soul power; to the point that they couldn’t partake in the following matches and had to rely on Huang Chutian alone to continue participating in the competition.

Huang Chutian had previously consumed a large amount of his soul power, and had also been injured by Wang Dong’s Wing Guillotine. Moreover, all three of his opponents would be completely focused on him if he were to face them alone. Even though Xiao Xiao had also faced three opponents alone just now, the other party had been distracted, cowering in fear when Huo Yuhao stood behind her.

As a result of this, Huang Chutian suffered a tragedy. Although he persevered for a while during the second match of the competition, he was defeated by his opponents in the end. Thus, his team was utterly defeated during the second round.

From Huo Yuhao’s three-man team’s point of view, the rest of the competition had entered a virtuous cycle. No one was willing to to forcibly confront them head-to-head in battle, and were all doing their utmost to preserve their strength when contending against them so that they could deal with the others. One could say that Huo Yuhao’s team won the next three rounds with an abnormal level ease. This was especially the case during the fourth match, when Wang Dong had managed to completely recover his soul power. With both him and Xiao Xiao standing in front of Huo Yuhao, their opponents had only symbolically confronted them for awhile before conceding.

In the end, Huo Yuhao’s team—representing Freshman Class 1—emerged victorious from all ten matches of the round-robin tournament, obtaining the best score in their group.

Huang Chutian’s team had a strong foundation as well. After losing two matches consecutively, the Lan sisters had recovered a little. They managed to reappear on the scene once more, while Huang Chutian displayed his valiant strength again. They were able to win their last three matches consecutively by directly confronting their opponents, who’d already exhausted a lot of their energy from their previous matches. As a result of that, they won seven out of their ten matches in the end. As such, entering the top sixty-four teams shouldn’t be that great of a problem for them.

When the round-robin tournament ended, Wang Yan finally couldn’t suppress his curiosity anymore.

“Huo Yuhao, you three stay behind for a bit.” The other teams headed back to rest, but Wang Yan held Huo Yuhao’s three-man team back.

“Teacher Wang.” Huo Yuhao arrived in front of Wang Yan.

Wang Yan nodded in his direction, smiled, then said, “Congratulations to all of you for winning all of your matches in the freshman assessment’s round-robin tournament. I’m afraid that less than ten teams were able to obtain such results during this freshman assessment. You guys are truly very strong. However, I’ve always been very curious about you, Huo Yuhao. Being your team’s leader, what exactly is your martial soul? Even though I wasn’t able to see you do much during your battles, I believe that you’re the core of this team. I’m right about this, aren’t I?”

Huo Yuhao went blank for a moment, and then, feeling slightly bashful, said, “ Teacher Wang, you flatter me. We were able to obtain such good results all thanks to Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao’s powerfulness. I’m only a supporting character compared to them because, as you can see, I only have a single ten year soul ring.”

Wang Yan laughed faintly and said, “You don’t need to be modest. If you weren’t that powerful, I don’t believe that such talented individuals as Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao would be willing to let you be the team leader. Moreover, I also investigated your performance at the Academy during these past three months. Do you know what students call you?”

Huo Yuhao went blank for a moment, then shook his head.

Wang Yan continued, “All of them call you ‘Iron-willed Yuhao’ because you have a willpower akin to that of steel. Your innate talent is the weakest, but you are the most hardworking. That’s what makes you the role model of Freshman Class 1. However, I didn’t ask around about your martial soul because I wanted to personally see what your martial soul and soul skill was for myself, to prove my own abilities. However, I’ve no choice but to admit that I’ve lost; I couldn’t tell what your martial soul was from the beginning of the competition to the end, and I also wasn’t able to find out what soul skill you were using. I saw that white ten year soul ring of yours light up every single match, but I just couldn’t seem to make out what the effect of your soul skill were. Can you clear up my confusion for me?”

Huo Yuhao replied, “Teacher Wang, my martial soul is the Spirit Eyes, and it’s classified as a mental-type martial soul. As for my soul skill, please let me keep it a secret. After all, we still need to continue participating in the assessment.” His martial soul wasn’t that big of a secret within the Academy, as there were many people who knew about it. If this Teacher Wang sincerely wanted to find out, then he could definitely do so, yet why should he be so petty? As for his soul skill, he wasn’t willing to reveal it.