10 First Experience with Soul Tools

Teacher Zhou Yi was incomparably domineering when she was in front of her students, but she seemed to have completely lost that tyranny when she was in front of this middle-aged man named Fan Yu. She amiably said, "I'm referring to what you brought up last time; the matter regarding spiritual-type soul masters using soul tools."

When he heard what she said, Fan Yu's eyes couldn't help but light up. His gaze subconsciously fell on Huo Yuhao, who was standing to the side. "He has a spiritual-type martial soul?"

Zhou Yi nodded her head and said, "Correct. His name is Huo Yuhao, and he's a new student. He has a spiritual-type body soul."

After seriously looking over Huo Yuhao, Fan Yu shook his head and said, "This won't do. His body and soul force are both too weak. I'm afraid that he won't even be able to control one of the weakest soul tools. Furthermore, his talent is similar to the current state of his body; it's too far away from what I need."

Zhou Yi humphed and replied, "Are you looking down on my foresight? True, Huo Yuhao is still weak right now, but his soul skill is extraordinary. It's the most practical spiritual-type skill that I've ever seen. Huo Yuhao, let him experience it for a moment."

"Oh." As a student, Huo Yuhao could only participate as a spectator right now. He immediately activated his Spiritual Detection Sharing and used it on the middle-aged man.

Following that, Huo Yuhao was so startled that he almost lost focus. When his Spiritual Detection Sharing came into contact with the middle-aged man, the latter slightly furrowed his brow. In that instant, Huo Yuhao felt as if there was a terrifying beast in front of him that had suddenly opened its maw—as if it wanted to swallow him in one gulp.

This feeling even caused the sleeping Skydream Iceworm to wake up. A refreshing feeling appeared in his spiritual sea, causing Huo Yuhao's astonishment and horror to disappear.

The terrifying aura that was emanating from Fan Yu's body disappeared after only appearing for an instant. As soon as it did, he allowed Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection Sharing to link with him.

"Eeeh!" After a short moment, Fan Yu discovered the subtleties contained within Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection Sharing. Great waves immediately rose inside of his originally peaceful eyes.

"There's actually a spiritual-type skill like this? How could a skill like this come from a ten year soul beast?" Fan Yu looked at the white soul ring floating below Huo Yuhao's body with a puzzled look. In addition to the puzzled look on his face, he also had a surprised look.

Huo Yuhao naturally wouldn't mention the Skydream Iceworm, so the Wind Baboon became his excuse once again.

"A ten year Wind Baboon?" Fan Yu and Zhou Yi were both speechless.

Zhou Yi gazed at Fan Yu and said, "Could this be a mutated soul skill?"

Fan Yu nodded his head and said, "There's a chance. This little guy's martial soul is a body soul, and a spiritual-type one at that. His existence in and of itself is a mutation. Furthermore, the soul beast that he chose for a soul ring is an existence that's completely incompatible with him. This must've triggered an extremely rare soul skill mutation. The fact that a spiritual-type martial soul didn't suffer a backlash from absorbing a wind-type soul ring is already a miracle, but I didn't think that a mutation like this would appear. I'm afraid that this is a miracle that would be completely impossible to reproduce."

"Caitou, come here." Fan Yu beckoned towards the group of people standing next to the wall. A youth immediately rushed over.

When he saw the youth, Huo Yuhao couldn't help but be startled. From his face, he didn't look to be much look older than Bei Bei. However, he was extremely tall—over two metres tall. His shoulders were even wider than Fan Yu's, while his naked upper body exposed his tanned muscles. There wasn't any hair on his head, and he was much more tanned than an ordinary person. He had a simple and honest appearance.

"Teacher." The youth bowed respectfully towards Fan Yu.

Fan Yu pointed at Huo Yuhao and said, "Go and fire a round of the stationary soul cannon. Let this kid support you, and try to hit a moving target."

"Yes." The tanned youth didn't ask any questions. He smiled simple-mindedly at Huo Yuhao and said, "Little brother, follow me."

Zhou Yi said, "Huo Yuhao, just use that skill of yours to support him."

"Yes." Huo Yuhao now somewhat understood why Zhou Yi had brought him here. He hurriedly chased after the tanned youth.

"Nice to meet you, little brother. My name's He Caitou, but everyone simply calls me Caitou. Thus, you can just call me Caitou." The tanned youth gave Huo Yuhao another simple-minded smile.

Huo Yuhao replied, "Nice to meet you, big brother He. I'm Huo Yuhao."

When he said the three words 'Big brother He', He Caitou became stunned for a moment. After he'd recovered, he gave Huo Yuhao a big thumbs up and said, "Little brother, you're not bad."

Even future historians wouldn't know that the friendship between 'Eyes of the Asura' Huo Yuhao and 'Origin of Destruction' He Caitou had actually started from a simple sentence like this.

When the two had arrived at the edge of the testing field. He Caitou tapped the black belt on his waist, causing a light to flash, and an item that was extremely strange-looking—in Huo Yuhao's opinion—appeared in his hand.

It was a roughly 1.5 metre-long tube made of black metal. Its cross-sectional diameter was around 15 centimetres, while its 'tail' was slightly thicker. It had many mysterious patterns carved on it.

He Caitou held it in an extremely proficient manner. After pressing the back of the metal tube with his right hand twice, a cover immediately came off, revealing a hole that was approximately twenty centimetres long and ten centimetres wide.

He quickly tapped his waist with his left hand once again, causing a shuttle-shaped piece of metal to appear in his hand. He carefully placed it into the exposed hole in the metal tube, before carefully putting the cover back on. When he raised his right hand, the metal tube landed on his right shoulder.

He Caitou, who'd previously given off an extremely simple feeling, suddenly had a large change in temperament when he raised the metal tube to his shoulder. Huo Yuhao's martial soul was a spiritual-type one, thus his keen level of awareness caused him to feel a strong sense of danger from He Caitou all of a sudden.

"Huo Yuhao, let's start." He Caitou's voice echoed out.

A golden light flickered through Huo Yuhao's eyes, and his Spiritual Detection Sharing accurately landed on He Caitou's body. He Caitou's eyes exuded a trace of astonishment, and he excitedly shouted into the distance, "Moving target, fire."

There seemed to be someone controlling the targets from the other side. With a 'swoosh', a disk-shaped object shot out from a corner in the distance, and was headed directly towards Huo Yuhao and He Caitou.

At that moment, a strong undulation of soulforce instantly exploded from He Caitou's body. Three soul rings—two yellow and one purple—all simultaneously flashed, and the metal tube on his shoulder seemed to tremble slightly. A strong halo of black light began to revolve around the surface of the metal tube, and He Caitou's body gently moved. The metal tube was now aimed at the round disk flying towards them at high speed.

"Bang—" A violent explosion echoed out, and the metal tube instantly released a dazzling black light. The huge amount of turbulence that suddenly appeared caused Huo Yuhao to stumble and almost fall down.

However, the black light didn't hit the flying round disk. Instead, it brushed past it, and flew into the distance. After it had traversed a hundred or so metres, it collided fiercely with a metal plate in the distance, causing a violent explosion to erupt. An enormous stream of air rebounded straight towards them, causing He Caitou to quickly move to protect Huo Yuhao behind him.

The air current lasted a few seconds before it gradually calmed down. On the other hand, the round disk didn't fly out of the testing area, but rather landed near them.

He Caitou had a gloomy expression as he said, "It still isn't working."

Fan Yu and Zhou Yi had already walked over. Zhou Yi's expression was slightly ugly, while Fan Yu looked as if he'd thought of something. He quickly asked Huo Yuhao, "Huo Yuhao, how large is the range of your Spiritual Detection?"

Huo Yuhao answered, "It has a diameter of thirty metres or so."

Fan Yu suddenly understood what had happened as he said, "So that's the case…. No wonder this happened. After all, this is still only a soul skill from a ten year soul ring. For it to have such profound detection capabilities within a fixed range is already relatively amazing. We can't ask for too much either. Only, this is rather unfortunate."

Huo Yuhao suddenly said, "Teacher Fan Yu, the range of my Spiritual Detection will increase as my soul rank increases."

Fan Yu was stunned. "That's impossible. How could a soul skill evolve?"

Huo Yuhao said with a serious countenance, "It's really true. This skill's range has already increased by one metre since I obtained it. Furthermore, I don't have complete control over it right now. Perhaps in the future I'll be able to reduce its omnipresent range and instead increase its range in only a single direction."

Huo Yuhao was already acutely aware as to why Zhou Yi had brought him here, as well as what she'd said during the following conversation. This could be an opportunity for him, although he wasn't clear on what this opportunity was. However, assuming that it was an opportunity he couldn't give up on, he decided to tell the truth.

Fan Yu glanced at Zhou Yi, who nodded slightly back at him.

Fan Yu replied, "Fine. If the range of your Spiritual Detection Sharing is able to reach a hundred metres in one direction, come find me. When that happens, I'll teach you how to make soul tools."

"Yes. Thank you, teacher." Huo Yuhao hurriedly bowed in respect.

Fan Yu waved his hand and said, "Caitou, go over and explain to him what a stationary soul tool is."

"Sure." He Caitou had an extremely good impression of Huo Yuhao. He beckoned to him as he walked over to the side.

As he watched their figures gradually fade into the distance, Fan Yu quietly asked Zhou Yi, "What do you think of this kid? His mutated soul skill is honestly incredibly strong; there's no doubt about his abilities in a team. Am I asking too much from him? If we want him to be able to support a stationary soul tool, we'll need it to be able to reach at least distance of a hundred metres—and that's at the very least. However… I dare to say that, if the range of his Spiritual Detection Sharing is able to reach a thousand metres in a single direction, he'll become the most terrifying support-type soul master on the continent."

Zhou Yi said, "I've just met this kid, so I can't say much about him. However, you should've seen it. Although his cultivation isn't strong, and even though his physique is rather weak, his temperament is much more mature than that of his peers. If it were anyone else, they definitely wouldn't have said what he just said. I'll help you watch over him. However, if he can't pass the tests I give him, I'll still expel him. Rules can't be broken."

Fan Yu thought to himself for a second, then said, "Help me observe him a bit more. Even if he can't pass the Martial Soul Institute's tests, I can still specially invite him to the Soul Engineering Institution as long as his Spiritual Detection Sharing is able to continue improving. I've already devoted ten years of my life to researching stationary soul tools. After combining that with the experiences of my predecessors, I finally managed to develop the most terrifying kind of soul tool. Currently, all I lack are users for it."

Zhou Yi sighed lightly and said, "You shouldn't be too stubborn either. In addition to the lack of users for it, there's also another fatal flaw; its manufacturing cost is extremely high. You of all people should know that. It's destined not to be used in a large-scale manner."

Fan Yu unyieldingly replied, "Soul tools are powerful weapons meant for a small number of especially outstanding soul masters in the first place. When I conducted my research on stationary soul tools, I never even thought of spreading them out into the community of common soul masters. As long as an extremely small number of soul masters are able to use them, stationary soul tools will become our academy's true ace in the hole!"

—-

"Big brother He, what exactly are stationary soul tools?" Huo Yuhao had a curious look on his face as he asked He Caitou.

He Caitou chuckled and replied, "There are many different types of soul tools. However, I can't tell you about all of them in the short period of time we have. For starters, there are two main types of soul tools: short range soul tools and long range soul tools.Of these, short range soul tools are similar to the weapons that we normally use; they're weapons that will explode with even more power when you pour soulforce into them. When you compare them to long range soul tools, they're slightly stronger. On the other hand, long range soul tools are a type of soul tool that unleash long range attacks by pouring soulforce into them. The stronger the soul tool, the more soulforce required. This means that soul masters with stronger levels of cultivation can use higher quality soul tools.

"On the other hand, a stationary soul tool is a special type of soul tool that my teacher created based off of the accumulated wisdom of our predecessors. It can fire long range attacks, but doesn't require too much soulforce to use. You saw how I used it earlier. Simply put, it splits the soul tool into two parts, where the soul tool component is only used to fire and detonate a projectile. Earlier, I used the stationary soul cannon to fire a cannon shell. The biggest advantage of a stationary soul tool lies in the fact that it uses very little soulforce, and that it doesn't require an excessively high level of cultivation to use. Its flaw lies in the fact that it's very hard to aim it—especially when you're aiming at a moving targetm which is even harder to hit. But when it's used against a fixed target, it's very powerful. However, the manufacturing process of the cannon shells is very troublesome, and requires many precious materials. Normally, teacher never lets me fire it without reason. Teacher said that a stationary soul tool can strengthen a soul master's attack power by tenfold… in theory. However, the strength of a stationary soul tool also has its limits. After all, it's affected by the materials used to make it. The number of users for these stationary soul tools is fated to be an extremely small number of soul masters who are suited to use them."

He Caitou's explanation couldn't be said to be wonderful; it was even a bit unclear at some points. However, this was the first time that Huo Yuhao had opened the great door of soul tools. This finally allowed him to have a preliminary amount of knowledge regarding soul tools. He faintly understood that Teacher Fan Yu definitely had a great deal of accomplishments within the field of soul tools. Teacher Xiao Ya had told him that he'd have to study soul tools in the future. If he could become Teacher Fan Yu's disciple, that would clearly be the best option available to him.

"Huo Yuhao, let's go." At that moment, Zhou Yi's voice echoed out.

Huo Yuhao said to He Caitou. "Big brother He, I'll be going first. It was a pleasure to meet you."

He Caitou chuckled and replied, "You're a new student, work hard. It'll be good if you're able to become my junior brother in the future. Teacher doesn't normally let me leave this place. It's too boring."

After leaving the Soul Tool Testing Area, Zhou Yi took Huo Yuhao straight back to the dorms. "Huo Yuhao, you heard what Teacher Fan Yu said earlier. I can only tell you that he's the number one master at creating soul tools in the academy. If you're able to become his disciple, you'll have an endless future. However, you'll first need to be able to stay within the academy. Go on, go eat lunch."

After watching Zhou Yi leave, Huo Yuhao went straight to the canteen. The students from the other classes had already finished their classes, so the entrance to the canteen was filled with several people both entering and leaving the canteen.

Suddenly, a figure appeared blocked his way, scaring Huo Yuhao. When he raised his head to see who the figure was, he realised that it was actually Tang Ya.

"Teacher Xiao Ya?"

Tang Ya had a somewhat mysterious smile on her face as she pulled Huo Yuhao over to the side and whispered to him, "Little Yuhao, you don't have any money, right?"

Huo Yuhao nodded. "That's right! Eldest senior brother told me that there were some jobs that I could take for the academy if I needed some though. I was planning to see what was available after class."

His yearly tuition was ten gold coins. At the same time, there were daily expenses that he'd need to spend money on. Although he was willing to spend all of his energy cultivating, he still needed to stay alive.

Tang Ya giggled and said, "You're a disciple of my Tang Sect, so as your teacher, it's only right that I take care of you. I've thought of a way for you to make money. I know the auntie who's responsible for buying food for the canteen; I'll help you ask her to buy twenty fish everyday. Afterwards, I'll help you set up a grill outside, along with help you obtain some charcoal. I've also prepared some other ingredients. It should be fine if you just sell roasted fish by the academy's entrance after school. With your cooking skill, you'll definitely be able to sell them off. These fishes normally cost around one copper coin, but after you've finished roasting them, selling them for five copper coins won't be a problem at all! If we do it this way, won't you be able to make some money?"

Huo Yuhao's eyes lit up. "Teacher Xiao Ya, that's a pretty good plan. I have my Spirit Eyes, thus I'm able to very accurately control the fire. Why don't we try this out tonight?"

Tang Ya nodded her head repeatedly. Afterwards, she revealed her true intentions. "About that… since I'll have helped you buy all of these things, you'll have to give me priority when you're selling the roasted fish. Don't worry, I'll still buy them from you. As for your future ingredients, you'll have to buy them yourself."

Ever since she'd eaten Huo Yuhao's roasted fish that day, she'd constantly thought about it. After finishing her exams yesterday, she'd finally thought of this method that would benefit them both. Naturally, she'd hid this from Bei Bei.

When he saw Tang Ya's greedy expression, Huo Yuhao finally understood her motive behind doing this. He gave her a knowing smile and said, "Fine. Teacher Xiao Ya, why don't we meet here tonight?"

"Yes, yes. I'll go back first. Right, I have to tell you a piece of good news! Bei Bei and I have both been promoted to Year 4!" Tang Ya waved to him goodbye, and excitedly ran away.

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. As he cultivated, he simultaneously recovered his physical strength.

Huo Yuhao's was surprised when he cultivated. After the extremely taxing run that morning, he discovered that the growth was slightly greater than normal. Although it was only a strand more, he was still quite satisfied. He inwardly thought to himself, it seems like tempering my body to the limit boosts the growth of my soulforce. On the other hand, the physical fitness level of his body was originally very normal, so he should've tempered his body anyway. This was killing two birds with one stone!

When Huo Yuhao woke up from his meditation, he was stunned in that the instant that he opened his eyes, he discovered Wang Dong—who was sitting on the opposite bed—looking at him with a brilliant gaze.

"You've returned? We should go to class now." Whilst speaking, Huo Yuhao jumped off the bed and began to put his shoes on. After what had happened that morning, their relationship had already warmed up.

Wang Dong spoke in a low voice, "Huo Yuhao, I've always found your martial soul strange. You've seen my martial soul now, so can you tell me what your martial soul is?"

Huo Yuhao finished putting on his shoes, then stood up and said, "My eyes are my martial soul. I call them Spirit Eyes. They're a spiritual-type martial soul. I know why you're baffled. My first soul skill is called Spiritual Detection. The reason why you were unable to hit me that day was because I used Spiritual Detection to predict your every move."

Wang Dong suddenly understood what had happened. "So that's the case… I didn't think that you actually had a body spirit. Let's go, we can't be late. Earlier, I went and asked around. I discovered that Teacher Zhou has the nickname 'Perverted Grandma'. The number of students expelled by her every year is supposedly equivalent to that of ten other teachers. We really have bad luck, having a teacher like her in charge of our class."

Huo Yuhao shook his head and smiled. "You can't think about it that way. Teacher Zhou is indeed strict, but as long as we demand the same level of strictness from ourselves, meeting her demands won't be that hard. Right, I've seen your martial soul, but I don't know its name. I also saw that you had a yellow and a purple soul rings; how did you manage to get a thousand year soul ring for your second soul ring?"

Wang Dong laughed mischievously and said, "Being able to use a thousand year soul ring as my second soul ring is a secret; I can't tell you how. On the other hand, my martial soul is the Radiant Butterfly Goddess. It's the most beautiful butterfly on the continent, but it's already on the verge of being extinct. Having it as my martial soul is even rarer than your body soul. You'll see its power in the future. Right, what did Teacher Zhou take you to do earlier?"

The two had already left their dorm and were headed towards the teaching buildings as they spoke to each other. It wasn't just them; none of the students in Class 1 dared to be late.

Huo Yuhao didn't conceal the fact that Teacher Zhou had brought him to see Teacher Fan Yu; there was no need to hide something like this from him. Thus, he told Wang Dong everything that had happened.

"What? You can even share your Spiritual Detection? Quickly, let me see." After all, everyone here was only eleven or twelve years old. Due to his curiosity, Wang Dong excitedly asked for Huo Yuhao to share his Spiritual Detection with him.

Huo Yuhao felt helpless, and had no choice but to activate his Spiritual Detection Sharing and let Wang Dong experience it for a moment.

Due to everything within the surrounding thirty metres suddenly becoming clear, as well as the data-like feedback, Wang Dong immediately turned slightly blank. It was akin to the feeling a blind man would get when he was suddenly able to see the world clearly. This feeling of shock would appear in every soul master who shared Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection for the first time.

Furthermore, as Huo Yuhao continuously used his Spiritual Detection Sharing, his proficiency in it would gradually increased. As he allowed Wang Dong to experience it, he couldn't help but think of Fan Yu's words. He subconsciously attempted to extend his Spiritual Detection in one direction, then did his best to cover a slightly larger area with his Spiritual Detection.

Under the current situation where he was focusing his energy in one direction, Huo Yuhao didn't know that the faint golden colour in his eyes had clearly become stronger, and that the spiritual undulations he was releasing had gotten much stronger as well. The originally omni-directional Spiritual Detection slowly contracted, and began to extend towards the front.

Wang Dong also felt the changes in Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection. He discovered that the three-dimensional scenes to his left and right had disappeared, and that only the three-dimensional image in front of him remained. Furthermore, the range of this image was slowly increasing.

To Huo Yuhao, just a few seconds of doing this felt like it took longer than when he'd released his Spiritual Detection for a quarter of an hour in the past. He felt his soulforce being converted into spiritual energy at an astonishing pace as it flowed out of his body. It was only a moment, but waves of exhaustion had already invaded him.

His body swayed, and he only managed to stand upright by grabbing onto Wang Dong's arm. His Spiritual Detection Sharing had also accordingly ended.

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

Huo Yuhao complexion had turned pale, and an overflowing amount of cold sweat had covered his forehead. He seemed to have an extremely weak expression.

Huo Yuhao waved towards Wang Dong to indicate that he was fine. "It was just that it became quite a large drain on my spiritual energy. Wang Dong, when you were looking straight ahead earlier, how far did my Spiritual Detection reach?"

After Wang Dong took a moment to recall what had happened, he said, "I wasn't paying too much attention, but it seemed to be about fifty to sixty metres. However, I noticed that I wasn't able to see anything with Spiritual Detection in the other directions. The distance nearly doubled in the front, but that was it."

When he heard what Wang Dong had said, Huo Yuhao's spirits immediately rose, so much so that even his exhaustion decreased by a large amount. "That's great! It actually works if I do it like this. However, the drain on my spiritual energy is a bit too much."

When he tried to focus the range of his Spiritual Detection in one direction and extend it, the drain on his spiritual energy was almost ten times the normal cost. This was why his spiritual energy had become overdrawn in such a short period of time. However, Huo Yuhao believed that the reason behind the large drain of spiritual energy was because this was the first time that he'd tried doing this. He believed that he'd get better at it if he practiced more in the future.

Teacher Fan Yu had said that he could become his disciple once the range of his Spiritual Detection was able to reach a hundred metres in any single direction.

After seeing the terrifying might of soul tools, as well as hearing Caitou's introduction to them, he was filled with interest towards these mysterious existences.

First-year Class 1. All ninety-one students were already seated in-class ten minutes before the afternoon bell had rung. Furthermore, there was an unusual silence amongst the classroom. None of the students dared to cause any noise. This is probably why it was said: 'It's not a bad thing for a teacher to be strict sometimes, since making students study seriously has many advantages.'

Since they didn't have assigned seats, Wang Dong and Huo Yuhao sat together. The two who were only eleven years old were unexpectedly deep in thought. Huo Yuhao was naturally pondering both his successes and failures when he'd changed the direction of his Spiritual Detection. No one knew what Wang Dong was thinking about.

As Zhou Yi slowly walked into the classroom, the atmosphere within Class 1 turned solemn. Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong also awakened from their pondering. Although not much time had passed, Huo Yuhao had already recovered a great deal of his spiritual energy and soulforce, mostly because he didn't have that much soulforce to begin with. At the very least, he didn't feel weak anymore.

"Everyone, stand up and gather in the plaza." Unexpectedly, Zhou Yi said this immediately after entering the classroom, before instantly turning around to leave.

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.

They didn't notice that Zhou Yi unexpectedly had a smile hidden within her eyes. This teacher, who was strict to the point of being somewhat perverted, was currently thinking that there were definitely some advantages to teaching new students. At least these new students were less unruly, which made them easier to control. They weren't like those students from the third year or higher, who were more arrogant and rebellious since they already had certain accomplishments.

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.

"Present." Wang Dong took a step forward.

Zhou Yi spoke to the students, "I've flipped through your entrance test results, and I've added them to 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 gazes from a few male students who had a high amount of self-confidence in their strength immediately turned sharp, while the gazes from the female students seemed to become much warmer as they looked at Wang Dong.

Zhou Yi pointed towards 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 soulforce, 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."

"There's something I need to emphasise. 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. Start running."

After she finished speaking, she flicked her toe, and a full set of chainmail made out of thick iron chains flew towards Wang Dong. Wang Dong hurriedly caught it and put it on.

As soon as he got the chainmail on, he couldn't help but slightly change his expression. This chainmail weighed at least 15 kilograms!

When the students heard that the person in last place would be eliminated, how could they dare to waste any time? They all ran up and grabbed a set of chainmail. The male students were slightly better off, while a majority of the female students turned pale after putting the heavy chainmail on.

Zhou Yi coldly said, "I know that a lot of you want to say that this is unfair because there's an innate gap between the bodies of men and women. That the physical fitness levels of tool, beast, and battle soul masters are different. However, I want to tell you that I treat everyone equally in my class. Think about it! If you were on the battlefield, would your enemy spare you simply because you're a girl or a tool master? Start now. Run."

No matter how much they wanted to curse at Zhou Yi, none of the students dared to speak a word of protest. With Wang Dong leading, they collectively ran towards the edge of the field, and started running with heavy chainmail on their bodies.

Nobody wanted to be eliminated. Once they started running, the vigor with which they ran was completely different compared to that morning.

Wang Dong took the lead and ran in front. No matter whether it was his martial soul or his soulforce, he was figure that excelled within the group of students. Although he was wearing a suit of chainmail, his speed didn't decrease in the slightest.

The few male students who wanted to compete with him also charged forward, closely following him.

Huo Yuhao didn't speed up. He was very clear about his body's situation. Zhou Yi had said that they had to run until the bell rung, yet the afternoon class was nearly four hours long. It had just started! The most reasonable target that he'd formulated for himself was to persevere and to simply run until the the bell rang; not to compete with the others.

Thus, his speed was clearly much slower than the others when he started. Huo Yuhao looked on as everyone overtook him one by one, but he didn't become impatient. His steps were slightly slower, but they were stable and uniform as he ran forward.

After only two laps, Huo Yuhao was dead last. Even the female students had overtaken him. However, he didn't take it to heart.

When he reached his fourth lap, the person in first place—Wang Dong—had already lapped him once. When Wang Dong passed him, he even gave him a flabbergasted look.

However, Huo Yuhao didn't take it to heart, and smiled at him in reply.

Zhou Yi expressionlessly stood in the middle of the plaza as she watched the students run. No one knew what she was thinking.