However, just like the stationary soul cannon that hadn't caused an explosion to ring out, Huo Yuhao's Soul Light Ray-like soul tools didn't cause any rays of light to appear. On the contrary, they released an ear-piercing screech.
Six bolts of lightning shot towards Ye Canying and Ling Xue. However, they didn't have trails of light following them.
When the six white streaks of light struck their shields, an astonishing scene occurred: White ripples began to appear on their shields, until immediately afterwards something actually drilled through them. The two of them felt their arms shake before the hands they'd raised were suddenly forced away. At the same time, they heard a snap, followed by a gray mist that covered their eyes and blocked their line of sight.
Just what sort of soul tool was this? Ye Canying and Ling Xue were simultaneously flabbergasted. However, as soul masters, they didn't just possess soul tools; they also had their own soul skills.
Ling Xue hurriedly retreated while simultaneously releasing a large patch of snow from her body that both blocked Huo Yuhao's line of sight and dispersed the gray mist around her.
Her martial soul was Snow. Snow was different from ice in that ice's toughness made it so that a soul master who possessed it could become a battle soul master, while snow could only be used for assistance. As such, Ling Xue was considered an auxiliary-type soul master. Her specialty was using her Snow to change the environment and hiding herself, then using her soul tools to attack. It was only because her martial soul had been suited towards letting her become a soul engineer that she'd joined the Soul Tool Department.
Ye Canying's reaction wasn't slow either. His second soul ring lit up, which caused his body to shake and three shadow clones to appear. His martial soul was his Shadow.
Their arms had been knocked away, thus they couldn't fire their Soul Light Rays for a brief period of time. Furthermore, their Soul Shields had been broken. Because of that, they chose to defend themselves while they attempted to confuse their opponent.
In the span of their short collision, Huo Yuhao had actually managed to dominate the entire field, despite being placed in a 1v3 scenario. Who would've expected this before the test had started?
The light beneath Huo Yuhao's feet lit up again, which caused him to shoot forward. At the same time, a ball of light on his back lit up, which caused the light beneath his feet to grow more intense.
A Class 2 Thruster could instantly increase a soul master's speed in a single direction for a brief moment, and the soul tool below his feet was a Speed-varying Thruster.
He hadn't even been a soul engineer for a full year yet. In fact, he'd mainly directed his efforts towards creating soul tools that increased his speed in order to combine them with his Spiritual Detection. Because of this, the soul tool on his wrist didn't have sufficient attack power.
At that moment, Huo Yuhao took advantage of the fact that his two opponents were currently going all-out to both defend themselves and dodge his attacks to rush out at full speed. At the same time, the two soul rings around his body suddenly changed to a single one.
The Speed-varying Thruster he wore had a relatively low propulsion force. He could use it to speed up, but the extent to which he could speed up wasn't large; its advantage lay in the fact that he could use it to quickly change directions. The Class 2 Thruster, on the other hand, was the soul tool he used to largely increase his speed in a single direction. Though he could only minorly change what direction he was headed towards while using it, the short-distance explosiveness it gave him allowed him to catch up with the all-out sprint of a three-ringed agility-type soul master.
The two parties had originally had a distance of thirty meters between them, yet Huo Yuhao was able to appear right in front of them in the blink of an eye using this explosive burst of speed.
Ye Canying and Ling Xue had been put into a somewhat sorry state by Huo Yuhao's gray mist. Before they were able to vanish completely amidst Ling Xue's snow, he'd already reached them.
The two were greatly astonished when he appeared in front of them, revealing the weakness that was their unfamiliar cooperation. Ye Canying hurriedly dashed to the left, while Ling Xue quickly retreated backwards. They were instantly separated because of this.
All of the snowflakes that Ling Xue had released instantly fell to the ground without any prior warning, astonishing her. As a result, the barrier between her and Huo Yuhao completely vanished. At the same time, the full-speed Huo Yuhao appeared in front of her and reached for her with his crystalline, diamond-like hands that shone with splendor.
Ling Xue subconsciously lifted her hands. In her moment of panic, she was only able to release her Soul Light Ray.
Six rays of light shot immediately shot towards Huo Yuhao like bolts of lightning.
At that moment, a strange scene occurred. The six blazing beams of light from Ling Xue's Soul Light Ray unexpectedly scattered in four different directions.
As it turned out, his hands had been in just the right place to block Ling Xue's Soul Light rays; the six rays of light had instantly been reflected the moment they'd come into contact with his hands.
Afterwards, Huo Yuhao grabbed Ling Xue's hands.
A spotless shade of white instantly spread outwards from Ling Xue and Huo Yuhao loudly shouted, "Teacher, catch!" As soon as he'd finished, he sent Ling Xue soaring through the air. Astonishingly, her body was now covered in a white layer of frost. When Fan Yu caught her, he couldn't help but shiver instinctively.
Huo Yuhao instantly turned around once he'd thrown Ling Xue into the air, just in time for him to see a white light appear on Ye Canying's chest, who'd split into three shadow clones. He fired a white, palm-sized ball of light from all three of his chests towards Huo Yuhao from three different directions.
Concentrated Soul Cannon!
This was the strongest soul tool available to low-ranking soul engineers. After focusing their soul power into a formation array for a short period of time, a soul engineer could release a powerful attack. Unlike the Soul Light Ray, the Concentrated Soul Cannon had a siphoning effect. In other words, it would expedite the absorption of a soul master's soul power. Thus, though it was powerful, its soul power consumption was just as large. Normally speaking, a single shot from the Concentrated Soul Cannon would drain a soul master by a third of his soul power at the very least.
The Concentrated Soul Cannon had a single disadvantage, which lay in the fact that it had a short attack range. It could only normally only lock onto an opponent within a ten meter range. If they were any further away, both its strength and accuracy would progressively deteriorate.
Ye Canying's martial soul was his shadow, which made it an extremely strange martial soul. A martial soul like his was relatively decent at assisting him as a soul engineer, but it was unfortunate that his opponent was Huo Yuhao, who's martial soul perfectly countered his.
Huo Yuhao's Spirit Eyes' Spiritual Detection would cause all illusions to vanish. Huo Yuhao didn't even bother with the Concentrated Soul Cannon shots to his left and front. He immediately charged towards Ye Canying with his right hand raised, then grabbed the genuine Concentrated Soul Cannon shot with his right hand.
Afterwards, Ye Canying unexpectedly lost control of the left cannon shot. It didn't explode, but rather was flung by Huo Yuhao towards him. Furthermore, he'd even used the Tang Sect's Arrow Throwing Technique.
Stunned, Ye Canying was only able to activate his Class 2 Soul Shield in time to block Huo Yuhao's attack. At the same time, he released his third soul skill, causing a black shadow to emerge from his body and attempt to help him withstand the Concentrated Soul Cannon shot.
Despite this, Ye Canying's body was flung away with a violent explosion, but was caught midair by the proctor. The intense vibrations that came from the attack caused Huo Yuhao to retreat a few steps backwards before he was able to regain his footing.
Huo Yuhao was inwardly astonished. This Concentrated Soul Cannon's so powerful…it seems that I should make one for myself. Ye Canying had clearly sent out a shadow clone to block the blow in addition to his Class 2 Soul Shield, yet he'd still been sent flying. Furthermore, he'd unexpectedly fainted as soon as the proctor caught him. The might of this attack was comparable to the all-out blow of an assault-type Soul Elder.
Huo Yuhao was so astonished by the power of the attack that he hardly realized that the spectating students were all looking at him with flabbergasted expressions on their faces.
Just how had a twelve or thirteen-year-old student pulled this off? He was only a Soul Grandmaster, and he was still a Class 2 soul engineer. He wasn't even that much stronger than his opponents! However, he'd still been able to defeat all three of them by himself. Not only had he won, he'd done it in a spectacular manner. The entire battle had gone smoothly, and he'd seemingly made no errors; this had clearly been a flawless victory.
Even Fan Yu hadn't expected Huo Yuhao to deliver such a perfect performance in his test.
In reality, a Class 2 soul engineer's participation in the advancement test was a mere formality. Their regular tests—in other words the creation of their soul tools—were more important to them. This was especially true for their achievements in the field of formation array carving.
It had been a 1v3 match, yet he'd achieved a flawless victory. He'd started the match off by using his Imitation to fake the activation of a stationary soul tool, had suppressed Ling Xue's Snow, then blocked the Soul Light Ray using the tyrannical Ice Empress' Pincer, before finally freezing and reflecting Ye Canying's Concentrated Soul Cannon back towards him. Regardless of whether it was his achievements in combat, his decision-making skills, or his usage of his martial soul and soul tools, Huo Yuhao was truly flawless. Furthermore, the soul tools that he'd fired from his arms had caused Fan Yu to smile slightly. When Huo Yuhao had first made it, he'd given Fan Yu a big surprise due to the brand-new philosophy of soul tool creation that he had created. The soul tools on his arms that resembled Soul Light Rays were actually miniature Stationary Soul Crossbows he'd made. The reason he'd been able to shatter a Class 2 Soul Shield was actually extremely simple: He'd used an attack that was half physical and half energy. This allowed him to fire them using his soul power. Because this had only been a note-comparing session, he'd fired ball bearings instead of crossbow bolts. The ball bearings that had been released by both crossbows had struck Ye Canying and Ling Xue's arms and released a gray mist that blocked their line of sight. This sort of move had absolutely reached the pinnacle of accuracy.
Huo Yuhao's reasoning was actually very simple. Why did a Stationary Soul Tool always have to release a powerful cannon shell? Doing it that way would indeed generate a powerful attack, but its production costs would be extremely high. If he could combine the creation techniques of soul tools and the Tang Sect's hidden weapons to create a Stationary Soul Crossbow, he'd be able to incorporate both the driving force of a soul tool and the mechanics of a crossbow into his attacks. Doing this would allow him to fuse material attacks and energy-based attacks together, and would let him use different arrows based on the situation. Wouldn't that make his attacks much more flexible?
His line of reasoning was extremely beneficial to the Soul Tool Department. This was also the reason that Fan Yu liked him so much, and was also the main reason why the Soul Tool Department was as adamant as they were on having him stay with them. He was simply too talented in the field of soul tool creation.
The biggest problem with the Tang Sect's hidden weapons didn't really lay in their power. There were some that truly had extremely powerful attacks. The main reason they'd declined over the course of time was their short attack range. However, if you were able to add the attack range of a soul tool to the attack pattern of a hidden weapon, wouldn't you create a brand-new soul tool? Huo Yuhao had designed this miniature Stationary Soul Crossbow based on this idea. It didn't consume too much soul force, but it was still quite powerful. Like a Soul Light Ray, its attack range was a hundred meters. Furthermore, it could even break a Class 2 Soul Shield. But its might wasn't the main point; its biggest advantage lay in its high flexibility. At the same time, just how many different kinds of soul tools could be researched with the help of this prototype? This was a world-shaking matter for Shrek Academy's Soul Tool Department. Of course, they obviously needed many more theoretical and practical experiments to further research this subject. But with this prototype, they at least knew which direction to go in!
Fan Yu gazed at Huo Yuhao, who'd arrived in front of him, and couldn't help but sincerely say, "Kid, you're truly the hope of the Soul Tool Department! Er, rather, I meant to say that the coordination between your soul tools and your martial soul were absolutely perfect. You pass the test."
Ling Xue was still shivering in Fan Yu's embrace when he said this. Even though she'd only been in contact with the Ice Empress' Pincer for a short moment, the extreme cold had almost turned her into a block of ice. The ice crystals on her body made it impossible for her to move for the time being. She did her best to revolve her soul force. With Fan Yu's help, she managed to regain her strength. She gazed towards Huo Yuhao, and besides curiosity, fear was present in her eyes. This was the first time she'd ever felt such a terrifying cold. She felt like her snow could almost be considered warm compared to it.
The Ice Empress' Pincer was a powerful soul skill that the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion had bestowed onto Huo Yuhao. Even though he couldn't display its full might, the special characteristics of the skill were still present.
The Ice Empress' Pincer's primary effect would strengthen both of his hands and forearms, making them as hard as a ten thousand-year-old block of thick ice. In addition to this, the diamond-like ice crystals on his body had a powerful refractive ability. The Ice Empress' Pincers themselves could be regarded as a powerful weapon. One need to realize that the strongest parts of the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion's body were her pincers and her tail! The Soul Light Ray hadn't been able to harm Huo Yuhao for this exact reason; it had been reflected by the crystals.
Besides making his body extremely sturdy, the skill also granted him great strength. The Ice Empress' Pincer also had the ability to increase Huo Yuhao's arm strength by a extremely large margin, to the point that it wasn't one whit inferior to Dai Huabin when he was under the influence of his White Tiger martial soul.
At the same time, these two skills were very similar to the Mysterious Jade Hands from the Tang Sect. As such, they could complement each other. Anybody that made the mistake of treating the Ice Empress' Pincers as a regular first-ring soul skill would end up exactly like Ling Xue and Ye Canying.
Aside from these two special characteristics, there was also the extreme cold. As an Ultimate ice martial soul, the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion had also bestowed an attribute of 'extreme cold' to every single skill Huo Yuhao possessed. This extreme cold had in-turn inherited the overbearingness of the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion. Moreover, its power would increase along with Huo Yuhao's cultivation and his body's capabilities.
Ling Xue also had an ice element martial soul. However, as it was incomparable to the Ice Empress' martial soul, it had immediately been suppressed. Huo Yuhao's Ice Empress' Pincer even had the ability to instantly freeze energy, which had allowed him to throw back the Concentrated Soul Cannon shot. It could be imagined what kind of power it held from this. If he'd wanted to, he could've broken Ling Xue's neck at that time.
After this battle, all of the students of the Martial Soul Department were extremely curious about Huo Yuhao. Was this really the power of a student with a mere ten year white soul ring? Moreover, from beginning to end, his soul tool had done nothing other than increase his speed!
Fan Yu looked towards the students and said, "All of you should've seen the fight just now. Ye Canying, Tang Suifeng and Ling Xue, even though the three of you lost, Huo Yuhao's circumstances are also a bit special. Therefore, you'll be given an opportunity to retake the test later, and your score will be reset. Now then, let me give you a brief introduction."
Fan Yu then pulled Huo Yuhao in front of him and continued, "His name is Huo Yuhao, and he's my personal disciple, just like He Caitou. Furthermore, he's exceptionally talented at creating soul tools. For this reason, he's also a core disciple of our Soul Tool Department. However, due to special circumstances, he'll still be studying at the Martial Soul Department for now. Yuhao, all of these students are the same as you, Class 2 soul engineers."
Huo Yuhao hurriedly bowed and greeted them, "Everyone, I'm pleased to meet you."
The students also greeted him one after another. Those that were jealous of him far surpassed those that admired him, mainly due to his young age. From the battle just now, they'd discovered that he was the strongest amongst all of the Class 2 soul engineers. Even a Soul Elder hadn't been his match.
This battle just now had also been a great inspiration for Huo Yuhao. Soul tools could greatly help him overcome his shortcomings. Deep in his heart, he thought that, if he had enough time to create some Class 2 soul tools, he wouldn't even need to be afraid of facing someone like Dai Huabin in a one-on-one battle.
At that moment, he'd also begun to realize the might of the four skills the Skydream Iceworm had bestowed upon him.
On first sight, the four spiritual-type skills he'd received seemed very ordinary. However as his cultivation rose, these skills had also begun to show their might. The easiest and most useful one was surely the Spiritual Detection, while next was the Spiritual Interference. A moment ago, he'd relied on his Spiritual Interference to avoid the enemy's crossfire when he'd been encircled by three of them. Two spiritual skills that could complement each other with soul tools; this was basically the best thing he could ask for! Furthermore, he could already use a Stationary Soul Tool with his current cultivated level. If he were to combine his Spiritual Detection with a Stationary Soul Tool, he was confident that he could hold his own against a soul master with four, or even five soul rings! Of course, that was only if he had enough ammunition and there was a great enough distance between them.
The more he studied and used soul tools, the more Huo Yuhao could feel how much more advanced they were than the Tang Sect's hidden weapons.
If you were to compare them, one had the power of a purely mechanical device; it was precise and accurate, just like a piece of art. On the other hand, soul tools were powered by soul force, which was a more advanced type of energy. Moreover, it could be used in conjunction with formation arrays.
No matter what materials were used, the power of a mechanical device would always be limited. However, soul force was different, as soul force would increase alongside the cultivation of the soul master. As such, the power of soul tools would also keep increasing. Furthermore, with the increase of one's soul force, the process involved in the design and creation of soul tools would also change accordingly, which would cause the power of the soul tool to become greater and greater. This was also one of the reasons that first-class soul engineers were such terrifying existences.
However, even if a Class 9 soul engineer could dominate a Rank 9 Titled Douluo in a long distance battle, the same couldn't be said of a short-range battle. At the same time, there had never been a Class 9 soul engineer who'd surmounted Rank 95. Because of this, soul masters were still recognized as the strongest existences on the continent. This was also one of the reasons that Shrek Academy had such a high status.
After introducing him, Fan Yu let Huo Yuhao go. He also gave him a day of rest. They would meet the day after tomorrow in the evening, where they would continue studying together in the Testing Area.
After bidding Fan Yu and He Caitou farewell, Huo Yuhao returned to his dorm room. As soon as he opened the door, he saw Wang Dong looking at something with a very excited look on his face.
"What's up? How come you're so happy?" Huo Yuhao moved closer.
Wang Dong raised his head and shot Yuhao a look. "Did you pass the Soul Tool Department's advancement test?"
Huo Yuhao giggled as he said, "Of course I did, you forget just because I did not get soul ring I am Class 2 soul engineer or four months before I already become Class 2 soul engineer. In fact, I discovered that fighting with a soul tool is much easier than without one. The consumption of soul force is also smaller compared to purely using soul skills. What're you looking at?"
He moved closer when he was done speaking, then snatched a bronze-like red paper from Wang Dong's hand.
"Treasure Appreciating Auction? What's that?" Huo Yuhao glanced over the red paper. On it, Huo Yuhao saw that Shrek Academy's core students were invited to the Treasure Appreciating Auction to take a look at the goods that would be on display.
Wang Dong smiled, then turned and sat down. He excitedly explained, "I did some research. This Treasure Appreciating Auction is something that was created for our Shrek Academy. However, it's been divided into different categories. For example, this section is specifically aimed towards us core disciples."
Huo Yuhao ill-humoredly replied, "Explain yourself clearly. I didn't understand anything you just said."
Wang Dong stared at him blankly and said, "That's because you're stupid. This Treasure Appreciating Auction is a run by a big merchant organization in Shrek City. Isn't our Shrek City a huge business center? It's not uncommon for merchants of different nations to come here to carry out transactions. When the merchants living in Shrek City get ahold of something good, they'll auction it at our Shrek Academy's Treasure Appreciating Auction. To put it bluntly, we get to choose first, and the leftovers will be auctioned off later on."
Huo Yuhao was surprised as he asked, "For real? Do those merchants even gain anything from this? It's not like everyone in our academy is rich."
Wang Dong snorted and replied, "Of course they gain something. They gain the academy's goodwill! Not everyone in the academy is rich, yet how do you think Shrek City came to exist? It was all thanks to our Shrek Academy. Our academy isn't only the number one academy on the continent—it also has a terrifying military force. As long as Shrek Academy is here, Shrek City will never fall. Even if all the nations on the continent were to wage war against each other, none of them would dare to wage war here. Because of this, building a good relationship with our Shrek Academy is in the best interest of those merchants."
Huo Yuhao's interest was aroused when he heard this. "So what kind of good things are auctioned at this Treasure Appreciating Auction?"
Wang Dong said, "The Treasure Appreciating Auction is mainly divided into three categories. The first one is directly reserved for the academy. For example, if your Soul Tool Department needs some rare metals, they can buy them directly from there. The same goes for the teaching articles of the Martial Soul Department. The academy can also order things such as precious ingredients. However, these are just a few examples. Aside from the things sold to the academy and the teachers, there won't be many other high quality goods."
"Afterwards, there are the other two categories. These categories are reserved for us, the students, and you can find several good things here. One of these categories is aimed at inner courtyard students, and the goods there are pretty high quality. According to the rumors, soul bones are sold there all the time. However, only inner courtyard students are qualified to enter that auction. There's not really anything we can do about it. After that, there's the place written on this invitation letter. Only the core disciples of the outer courtyard are allowed to enter."