Chapter 19: A Very Moving Scene

After grabbing a simple lunch, Huo Yuhao returned to the dorms. Wang Dong wasn't there, and no one seemed to know where he'd gone. Zhou Yi still wanted to drill them in the afternoon, so Huo Yuhao took advantage of their afternoon break to enter a meditative state.

When Huo Yuhao woke up from his meditation, he was stunned to discover Wang Dong looking at him with a brilliant gaze.

"You're back? Oh no, what time is it? We should head to class now." Huo Yuhao jumped off the bed and began to put his shoes on.

Wang Dong continued on staring at him for a while. "Huo Yuhao, I've always found your martial soul strange. I'll show you my martial soul if you tell me what your martial soul is, deal?"

Huo Yuhao rolled his eyes and stood up. "No deal. Now c'mon, we don't want to piss off teacher Zhou by being late."

Wang Dong pouted and huffed, "Hmph. Fine, be that way. Don't start asking questions when you finally see my glorious martial soul. Haa. Just imagining your face when you finally witness me in action...hahaha."

"Bye~" Huo Yuhao waved a hand over his head as he exited their room.

"Wha–Wait for me!"

.....

"Woah...This is so cool!" Wang Dong muttered excitedly as he felt the effects of the Spiritual Detection.

Huo Yuhao couldn't take his whining any longer and decidedly showed Wang Dong his martial soul and soul skill. Furthermore, as he continuously used his Spiritual Detection Sharing, his proficiency in it would gradually increased.

'Hmm. I wonder.' A sudden thought came to his mind and he attempted to extend his Spiritual Detection in one direction, making a tunnel vision. Both he and Wang Dong felt the three-dimensional scenes to their left and right had disappeared.

'60....70...80 meters!' Beads of cold sweat rolled down Huo Yuhao's face, his eyes scrunched up in absolute concentration as he pushed his skill further. However as the range hit 80 meters Huo Yuhao felt waves of exhaustion hit him.

His body swayed, and he only managed to stand upright by grabbing onto Wang Dong's arm.

"Woah! Huo Yuhao, what happened?" Wang Dong hurriedly supported him.

Huo Yuhao was pale and sweating profusely. He shook his head and hurriedly let go of Wang Dong. "I'm fine. It was just a huge drain of my spiritual power."

"Dude, you gotta take it easy. Plus, this isn't really the time to start experimenting with your skill."

Huo Yuhao waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. I got it. Speaking of time, what time is it now?"

Wang Dong turned to look at a nearby clock pole and twitched. "Oh no, we only have two minutes till class starts!"

Huo Yuhao clicked his tongue and straightened his back. "Then we better run like hell."

"Or~" Before Huo Yuhao could react, Wang Dong went behind him and hugged him underneath his armpits. A pair of blue butterfly wings suddenly spread out from the latter's back. "We fly!"

Huo Yuhao went wide eyed, his mouth open in disbelief of the beautiful butterfly wings on Wang Dong's back. It was just too beautiful.

"That's your martial soul?"

"Yup!" Wang Dong nodded as he flapped his wings and lifted both of them off the ground. Huo Yuhao felt the rush of wind against his face as they soared through the air, heading towards their classroom.

As they flew, Huo Yuhao couldn't help but feel a sense of freedom and exhilaration. It was a completely different experience from running or walking. The world beneath them seemed to shrink as they glided effortlessly through the sky.

They arrived at the classroom just in time, landing gracefully in front of the entrance. Huo Yuhao's classmates stared in awe as they watched the two of them descend from the sky.

After cleaning themselves a bit, Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong quickly sat down together just as Zhou Yi walked into the classroom.

The atmosphere within Class 1 turned solemn.

"Everyone, stand up and gather in the plaza."

No one dared to waste any time. A crowd of students rapidly left the classroom and followed Zhou Yi in an orderly, quiet manner to Shrek Plaza.

A pile of iron chains had been piled up on Shrek Plaza at some unknown time. Under Zhou Yi's command, the students arranged them neatly.

"Wang Dong." Zhou Yi called out.

"Teacher Zhou." Wang Dong responded.

"I've flipped through your entrance test results, and added them with the test that we performed this morning. Currently, out of all of you, Wang Dong has the highest level of cultivation. Because of this, I hereby declare that he'll be the class monitor of Class 1 from now on. The class monitor position is a volatile one, and whoever has the strength to beat him may do so and replace him as the new class monitor. Do you all understand?"

"We understand." The students readily complied.

Zhou Yi nodded and pointed at the iron chains in front of her. "These are suits of chainmail specialised in strengthening your physical fitness. Every single one of you will take one. After you've put them on, start running around around the plaza. You'll keep running from now until the bell signalling the end of class rings. You can use your soul power, but you can't use any soul skills. Your rank will be based on the number of laps that you've completed at the end of class, and the person in last place will be expelled from Class 1."

A cold glint flashed across her eyes as she further stated, "Get this through your minds and remember it till you either graduate or get kicked out. In my class, eliminations won't just happen during exam periods; they can happen at any time. Today, ninety-one people will become ninety people. You all got until the bell rings."

"So. Start. Running." She hissed the last part, making the students shudder in fear. With Wang Dong leading, they collectively started running with heavy chainmail on their bodies.

'....Something is wrong with these teachers, they're sick.' Huo Yuhao thought with a completely straight face as he ran alongside his classmates, already breathing heavily. What was worse was that he had little soul power left after overusing his soul skill. He gritted his teeth and pressed on.

Ah, if only he had a month, no, a week of physical training and he was sure that his body could measure up with the best of his classmates.

'No use in wondering of what ifs. I don't care about being the class monitor, but I can't get expelled. Teacher Zhou said that we'll stop till the end of the class, that's four hours long.' He began to slow down into a breezy walk, taking steady breaths. Letting others overtake him, even to the point when upon three laps Wang Dong had overtaken him alongside his other classmates, making him dead last.

Wang Dong sent him a questioning look but Huo Yuhao merely shook his head and a thumbs up.

'I gotta save up my stamina and recover my soul power. I'll just have to endure the running for now.' Huo Yuhao focused on his breathing and tried to take slow, deep breaths to conserve his energy. As he continued to walk, he tried cultivating the Mysterious Heaven Technique to recover his soul power.

But it was hard. Cultivation is usually done by mediation because it requires focus and concentration. However, it was difficult for Huo Yuhao to maintain his concentration while running at a certain pace just so Zhou Yi won't get pissy at him. Nevertheless, he persevered, determined to recover his soul power as much as possible.

And it did. Somehow, he managed to circulate his soul power accordingly to the Mysterious Heaven Technique while running and began to cultivate; his soul power was recovering then increased as his meridians slowly widened for his true soul power to flow throughout his body.

When two hours had passed, half of the students had collapsed to the ground. From the beginning to the end, Zhou Yi had stood there with an expressionless face. She hadn't said anything.

Huo Yuhao persisted with steady steps, although he was breathing heavily and soaked almost completely in sweat, his form remained steady and poised. Unexpectedly, he was in better condition than the others. Moreover since he continued to bitterly persist, he was no longer dead last.

So when Wang Dong lapped him again, he was dumbstruck. He couldn't help but say, "H-How....? How are you still okay?"

"Where there's a will, there is a way." Huo Yuhao sagely replied and suddenly sped up, overtaking Wang Dong.

Wang Dong stared, twitched. Out of everyone else in class, he had the most laps out of everyone by a large margin. In fact, he could even just take it easy for a while and just walked and he could still be the one with the most laps.

Still, seeing Huo Yuhao's back getting further away from him cause a fire to light up inside of him.

'No. Out of everyone else, I can't lose to you! Not again!' He let out a low roar, filled with determination, he started speeding up and immediately overtook Huo Yuhao and proceeded to run like his life was on the line.

Surprised by the sudden fierce rush of Wang Dong as he ran past him, Huo Yuhao could only stare at his back and yell out,

"....Don't force yourself!"

Another hour passed by, the time for the bell to ring was getting closer and only nine students remained. And Huo Yuhao was among them, looking as exhausted as before but he kept on going. His eyes revealed only his determination and perseverance.

To him, this was no longer a test. This was a sort of training for him. If he wanted to get stronger, he had to feel at least this amount of exhaustion and pain.

There was no goal that could be achieved if he can't do the gruelling workout to do so.

"Haaah....Haaah.... Ah! I can't take it anymore!"

"Mommy..."

Two more students collapsed, and when they did, they created a domino effect. A few students collapsed in succession following the duo, one of them just happened to bump into Wang Dong, who was next to him.

Wang Dong stumbled, his already aching legs unable to persist any longer. But that was fine, he'd already achieved his goal–he'd run the greatest number of laps within the class; there was no one left who could exceed the number of laps that he'd run.

Just as he was about to collapse, he then thought about someone.

'Huo Yuhao....What happened to him? D-Did he already fall? I was so out of it that I didn't notice my surroundings.' With what strength he has left, he slowly raised his head up to find Huo Yuhao. Only when he did, his eyes went wide in disbelief.

"What the...?"

(Play "Let's Get It Started" by The Black Eyed Peas)

Huo Yuhao stood still, his back straight and his arms down.

Wang Dong instantly assumed that Huo Yuhao had passed out while standing but in the next moment, he was proven wrong.

Huo Yuhao started craning his neck around, stretching out his limbs and making bone popping sounds and a sigh of relief.

Everyone stared at him in a daze, wondering what the hell he was about to do. They weren't prepared to see him go into a pose and started running. Only it wasn't any ordinary.

He was ninja running.

Clouds of dirt and pebbles kicked up behind him as he sprinted across the plaza, his arms outstretched at his sides and his body crouched low. The sight was so unexpected and bizarre that the remaining students couldn't help but burst into laughter.

'That move....How? How could he still have the energy to move around like that!'

Wang Dong, who had collapsed to the ground, watched in disbelief as Huo Yuhao ran past him with ridiculous speed. He couldn't comprehend how Huo Yuhao still had the energy and strength to continue running, let alone perform such a comical maneuver.

As Huo Yuhao completed another lap in his ninja run, his classmates realized that he wasn't just goofing around. He was actually maintaining a faster pace than before, his determination shining through even in his unusual running style.

Zhou Yi, who had been observing the students silently, raised an eyebrow at Huo Yuhao's display. She had expected him to collapse like the rest of his classmates, but he had surprised her yet again.

"I gotta admit kid, if there's anything that I admire you the most, it's your will."

Amidst the laughter and disbelief, Huo Yuhao's ninja run became a spectacle but also a sense of inspiration for the students. The power that a role model provided was mighty. They started to pull themselves back up, one by one, before blankly staring at Huo Yuhao's figure as he ran like hell.

After being stunned and laughing out for a while, Wang Dong was the first to continue running after Huo Yuhao. However, he didn't overtake him this time around. He started to copy his movement.

With Wang Dong leading, a second, and then a third person gradually began to start following him. Gradually, all of the students from Class 1 clenched their teeth and raised their legs—which were already stiff to the point that they felt dead—to continue running.

Thus, the strange scene occurred in the plaza. Ninety-one students were ninja running around, though tired and stressed, their faces revealed nothing but determination and awe as they followed behind one student.

"Oh my Sea God...." Zhou Yi was moved. Of all her years of working as a teacher, it was extremely rare for her to feel moved by her students.

But seeing this, albeit strange and comical, scene right before her eyes. She couldn't help but get a bit tearful.

The results of this class were far, far greater than what she"d imagined.

"Ding Ding Ding—!"

The bell finally rang.

And as if some spell had come undone, all the students immediately collapsed face down onto the ground. The sounds of collision caused by their chainmail and the ground caused a series of sounds to echo out, and knocked a cloud of dust into the air.

Huo Yuhao slowed down and inevitably, he too had succumbed to the blissful call of the bell and collapse. Wang Dong, who had followed close behind him, caught him by his chainmail. As soon as he did, the two of them rolled to the ground together. The two simultaneously gasped for air together.

"Haaa....Haaaa...."

As he looked towards the sky, breath heavy, Huo Yuhao only had one thought in mind.

'I'm making food for myself first. Screw money, I'm hungry and tired.'

"How?"

"Hm?" Huo Yuhao turned to his side, looking straight at Wang Dong's face. The latter looked flustered and turned towards the sky, but he kept on talking.

"You're just a Soul Master with only a ten year soul ring, but you were able to persevere longer than a Soul Grandmaster like myself. How? And...why run like that anyway?"

Huo Yuhao chuckled, he was low in energy but he could still make a reply. "Didn't I tell you? Where there's a will, there is a way. And.... the Sea God had guided me that way."

Wang Dong chortled and said, "What the heck is that? I didn't know you were religious."

Huo Yuhao smirked. "I'm not. I was thinking of a different joke to say but.... I was too tired to process it and had let my mouth do its thing."

"....It was a terrible joke."

"Hey, you laughed didn't you?"

The two were silent for a moment but they eventually burst out laughing.

.....

❄️Shout out to the great and one Cultivator of my patreon, may you reach the peak of the heavens!

 •Vora

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