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"Are you serious?" Ma Hongjun asked, swallowing eagerly. His plump frame jiggled slightly, and even the thin mustache on his upper lip seemed to come alive, twitching up and down, adding an extra layer to his rather sleazy demeanor.
If there were beautiful women involved—one hundred of them, even—he wouldn't mind losing twenty years of his life!
Dai Mubai pushed Ma Hongjun aside with a look of disgust, patting him on the shoulder. "I'm Dai Mubai. When have I ever lied?"
Oscar, however, had no desire to get involved in the royal affairs of the Star Luo Empire. But he couldn't refuse outright, so he chose to play it by ear, saying, "Alright, Dai, let's do this. We'll work together to eliminate the other teams first."
"Of course! Who else could match our two teams?" Dai Mubai said proudly. This year's competition had stronger teams overall, but with monsters like Tang San, Feng Xiaotian, and Shui Bing'er absent, the real threats were just the teams from Tian Dou, Star Luo, and the Spirit Hall.
Now that he was a Soul King, Dai Mubai was confident they could handle it.
Reaching the top three should be no problem.
As for the newly formed Tian Dou Federation Academy team, to be honest, Dai Mubai didn't take them seriously at all. They didn't even have a single Soul King—how could they possibly compete with his team?
"What's up with the Spirit Hall, though?" Ma Hongjun asked, shifting topics to the strange competition venue. "Why are they hosting the preliminary rounds on an island? This place is barren and primitive. I bet they just want free labor to develop the area."
Oscar wasn't interested in these concerns. He used his soul skill to create a rejuvenating sausage and handed it to Ma Hongjun. "Why bother with that? Until we become real powerhouses, no one's going to care about us. All we can do is perform as best as we can."
When it came to "performance," Oscar's expression darkened.
After all, in the last tournament, his soul skills were so "outrageously powerful" that many forces on the continent became wary of him. He hadn't even been able to find a girlfriend since then.
Oscar didn't blame Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang for any of it; it was simply that the world couldn't understand him.
For a food-type soul master to wield power comparable to a battle soul master, sacrifices had to be made. Not becoming corrupt was already a triumph for him.
And besides, he didn't get to decide what his soul incantations or soul skills would be like.
Noticing Oscar's gloomy look, Dai Mubai instantly understood the reason. "Little Ao," he said, "why don't you tell us about your fourth and fifth soul skills?"
"Don't worry," he assured, "we're brothers. We won't tell anyone."
Dai Mubai pulled Oscar and Ma Hongjun a few steps away from the two teams behind them. Left alone, the remaining members of the Shrek and White Tiger Sect teams began to watch each other warily. After all, the two sides didn't know each other well enough to establish trust; in fact, if it were up to them, they'd prefer their respective captains didn't rely too much on the other team either.
Oscar glanced back at his teammates, sighed, and said, "Alright, but you'd better not laugh."
"Oh, come on, don't be so dramatic! If you won't say it, I will," Ma Hongjun interjected, eager to spill the details of Oscar's fourth soul skill. "Oscar's fourth soul skill basically lets him release in one massive shot."
Dai Mubai grinned mischievously. "Isn't that just like your third soul skill?"
Oscar's third soul skill allowed his martial soul to spit out thick, sticky strands of white threads. Was this fourth soul skill supposed to be similar? Dai Mubai had long given up any hope that Oscar's soul skills would be "serious."
"It's different," Ma Hongjun explained, chuckling as his eyes squinted shut with amusement. "The third skill releases sticky strands that can bind things. But this fourth skill? It's pure liquid—it has a range of over thirty meters! And at close range, say within ten meters, it can even pierce steel!"
Oscar, now resigned, nodded. "My fourth soul ring comes from an armored soul beast called the Water Shot Beetle. Its attack method is to compress venom within its body and spray it out."
"This ability got infused into my martial soul, allowing me to spray venom," he added. "I have to admit, my martial soul pairs disturbingly well with insect types."
Ma Hongjun chimed in, "And there's more! Dai, you don't know this, but after Oscar's soul skill 'releases in a burst,' his martial soul shrinks… isn't that just the perfect image?"
Dai Mubai froze, then burst out laughing. "It's just like a sausage, Oscar! If I didn't know your martial soul was edible from the start, I'd swear it was some mutation of a body-based martial soul!"
Oscar's face darkened. "It's not like that, alright? And after I use my fourth soul skill, my sausage actually gets tougher—its hardness rivals diamond!"
"How could it not?" Ma Hongjun smirked, motioning with his hands. "Your sausage isn't really a body soul. No water left, so of course, it'd dry up and harden."
"Fatty, if you keep this up, don't expect any more recovery sausages from me," Oscar threatened.
"Oh, come on, brother! My mistake, I'm sorry," Ma Hongjun quickly apologized, not wanting Oscar to abandon him. Especially now, since with each poisonous soul ring Oscar added to his martial soul, even his first recovery sausage had developed a slight toxin. Oddly enough, it now had a minor effect in suppressing Ma Hongjun's evil fire.
Perhaps it was a case of fighting poison with poison.
For other team members, consuming Oscar's first soul skill sausage to replenish soul power didn't rely solely on the sausage's inherent energy anymore. The minor toxin within it stimulated their cells, squeezing out their own potential to speed up soul power recovery.
Even Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang hadn't detected this subtle effect, mistakenly thinking that the poison had enhanced Oscar's first soul skill—and feeling quite proud of his research as a result.
Dai Mubai then asked about Oscar's fifth soul skill.
"Can't I have a bit of privacy?" Oscar moaned, feeling utterly defeated; his fifth soul skill was even more embarrassing.
"Fatty?" Dai Mubai's curiosity only grew as Oscar became more reluctant to reveal it, so he turned to Ma Hongjun.
Ma Hongjun glanced nervously at Oscar, who mimicked slicing his own neck. He gulped and laughed awkwardly. "Dai, I really can't say."
"Little Ao…"
"Oh, fine! I give up," Oscar sighed in defeat and went on to describe his fifth soul skill.
It turned out that Oscar's fifth soul ring came from a type of fungal soul beast known as the Umbrella Mushroom.
This type of mushroom had a thin, transparent membrane covering it, capable of shielding it from wind and rain. To the human eye, it looked like the mushroom was simply encased in a protective layer.
When Oscar absorbed this soul ring from the mushroom soul beast, it granted him a soul skill that enveloped his martial soul in a similar transparent membrane. At first glance, it didn't seem very useful, but in reality, this membrane could be launched from his sausage martial soul, forming a protective barrier around his body that could block a single fatal elemental energy attack.
Upon learning this, Dai Mubai's eyes widened. He extended his hand, grinning, "Could you give me one of those… covers?"
"Get lost!" Oscar rolled his eyes, explaining the limitations of the skill. "This thing can't be used casually; I can only produce seven of them per day."
"That's what I mean!" Ma Hongjun laughed, his thin mustache twitching with glee. "Seven times, like the 'seven-times hero' himself!"
Little did they know, their entire conversation was being broadcast in real-time on the giant screen at Spirit City's tournament arena.
Oscar and Dai Mubai had assumed that the aerial soul-guided recording devices above the island could only capture video without audio. While it was true that these devices couldn't record overly noisy sounds, the scenes being transmitted to Spirit City were run through the Blue Silver Network's [Heaven's Path]—a program capable of flawlessly reconstructing audio data for the referees and commentators to follow each team's tactics for clearer commentary.
But as for the comments and skills of the Shrek and White Tiger Sect teams… the announcers were at a loss for words—Oscar's soul skills were so bizarre, they were hardly fit to describe in such a public setting!
Some audience members began to file complaints, calling for Shrek's disqualification, claiming it was downright nauseating!
Even Bibi Dong looked troubled. Yu Xiaogang… Yu Xiaogang, she thought. How low you have fallen, to have trained someone like this… A perfectly fine food-type martial soul, entirely wasted by developing it in such an offensive direction. And even if you had to, why did the skills have to be so crass?
The so-called "Master of Martial Soul Theory"? It was an absolute farce!
At that moment, a strange sense of calm washed over Bibi Dong as she completely set aside her last lingering grudges. Instead of feeling hurt, she felt unexpectedly relieved.
So this whole time, I was only ever tormenting myself, she realized.
As clarity washed over her, she gained a newfound sense of peace, causing her soul power to surge, nearly pushing her to the hundredth level.
But at the final moment, she restrained it.
Becoming a deity at level one hundred.
Now was not the time.
Long past were her ambitions to destroy the Spirit Hall and lay waste to the continent. She wasn't eager to reach level one hundred and become bound by the Divine Realm's rules, forfeiting her freedom. Even without advancing, her mastery of the physical universe and her primordial spirit allowed her to exist eternally in the world.
Meanwhile, Tang San's thoughts were on Oscar's martial soul.
Despite its vulgar appearance, Oscar's sausage martial soul's evolution toward something resembling a human reproductive organ validated one of Tang San's theories:
Martial souls can respond to the mind, evolving accordingly; soul rings merely expedite this process.
The power of the mind.
Indeed, it was exceptionally potent.
(End of chapter)