Huo Lolita's First Foray into Soul Tools

After Jiang Nannan and the others left, Huo Yuqing stayed behind at Emerald Elixir Hall alone to mind the shop.

The girl sat behind the counter with a thick copy of "Basic Principles of Medicinal Material Compatibility" spread out before her. Countless people had read through this book, and its page margins were densely filled with notes—the insights left behind by senior readers, each one immensely precious.

Yet she found it difficult to settle down and read. The tiny words on the pages seemed like flies crawling about, unable to enter her mind at all.

When she had first arrived at Emerald Elixir Hall, she had not felt much. But now, after two weeks of study, Huo Yuqing clearly understood the value of that entire cabinet of pills behind her—it could probably buy a third of Star Luo City.

Though she knew Jade City was very safe, she could not help trembling inwardly.

"What are you worrying about? If your teacher dared leave you alone in the shop, that means nothing will happen." Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, who had not spoken for two weeks, said lazily. "Do you know how many Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts are around Emerald Elixir Hall? There are quite a few hundred-thousand-year ones too... Who would be tired of living enough to come make trouble?"

"Brother Sky Dream, you're awake?" Huo Yuqing was rather happy to have someone to talk to. "You slept for quite a while."

"Brother... Brother was just taking a nap, a nap. Heh, just a little snooze. Anyway, you couldn't possibly be safer than you are here."

"Teacher gave me a Heavenly Water Pill. Once I take it, I should be able to reach Rank Sixteen." She seemed to be speaking to Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, yet also talking to herself as she summed up her recent experiences. "Then Teacher promised that once I break past Rank Fifteen, she'll help me get a letter of recommendation for Shrek Academy... I only recently learned that Wang Rui is going to Shrek Academy too."

"Not bad." Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's voice was full of drowsiness. "That way, you can properly go beat up that kid named Dai Huabin... If you can't beat him, have Wang Rui beat him for you. Oh, right, you still haven't told him about the Martial Soul Fusion Skill?"

"Mm." Huo Yuqing answered, "I'm not quite sure how to bring it up with him."

"Just say it. What's so difficult about that?" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm asked, somewhat puzzled.

"But I've never learned anything about Martial Souls since I was little, so I shouldn't know about Martial Soul Fusion Skills either, right?" Huo Yuqing wrinkled her little face, looking faintly troubled. "If I bring it up directly and Wang Rui asks how I know about Martial Soul Fusion Skills, I won't be able to explain. Didn't you say I can't tell anyone the secret that you're a Wisdom Soul Ring? And I don't want to lie to Wang Rui..."

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm: "Uh..."

Lifting a rock only to smash his own foot.jpg

But Wang Rui himself already knew! Why was this child so honest?

"I think if I can feel the attraction, Wang Rui should be able to feel it too. No matter what, he knows much more than I do." Huo Yuqing said hesitantly. "If he still hasn't brought it up, he probably has his own reasons."

"Ahahaha..." Sky Dream Ice Silkworm gave an awkward laugh. "Then Brother will go back to sleep."

Huo Yuqing shook her head. Tian Meng must have gotten that name because he dreamed every day.

Still, after chatting with Tian Meng for a few moments, the tension in her heart eased considerably.

The girl opened her book and began studying.

Whenever one focused on something, time always passed quickly. Before she knew it, nearly half the day had quietly slipped away.

The door was suddenly pushed open.

Huo Yuqing looked up nervously, wondering whether the visitors had come to buy pills or sell herbs...

If they wanted to sell something and she did not recognize what they were selling, she would have to wait for her teacher to return. Wouldn't that be embarrassing?

But voices reached her before the people did. "...The problem isn't that you can't even carve a Level Five energy-gathering formation properly. You haven't officially become a Level Five Soul Engineer yet, so making a mistake while carving one is perfectly normal. The problem is that you actually wanted to shove the flawed formation into a Soul Tool. Are you trying to blow yourself to death when you use it?"

"Yes, yes, yes, Ancestor, I know I was wrong. Please stop scolding me. You've been scolding me the whole way here." A simple, honest voice replied weakly.

"If I don't say a few more words, will you remember this?" The first speaker snorted.

Two rather unusually dressed people entered.

Walking in front was a young man around one meter seventy tall.

He was somewhat lean, with deep brown skin. He wore a sleeveless black high-collared fitted shirt on his upper body and extremely loose white harem pants below. All sorts of dazzling, luxurious gold ornaments hung from his body... or perhaps Soul Tools made to resemble gold jewelry.

The young man had long black hair tied high into a ponytail, but it was very unusual. Wherever light reflected from it, it displayed a bluish-green sheen... like the shell of some kind of beetle. His features were sharp, with upturned eyes, yet his expression carried an indescribable air of melancholy.

The person behind him was a burly man at least two meters tall, with dark skin and a gleaming bald head without a single hair.

In any other setting, this man would definitely have been the kind of person nobody dared provoke. But at the moment, he had his neck tucked in and shoulders slumped as he followed behind the young man, looking exactly like a beleaguered victim.

"Hello, what do you need..." Huo Yuqing hurriedly stood up.

"Whoa! It's that two-thousand-year-old widower!" Tian Meng, who had supposedly gone to sleep, suddenly perked up and said in an extremely gossipy tone. "I didn't expect to see him here!"

"Hehe, this guy's a Fierce Beast. His true form is especially interesting—it's a giant dung beetle!" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's voice sounded both smug and punchable.

Huo Yuqing: ...

Hold it in. Don't let your expression change in front of a Fierce Beast! You can do this!

"He wasn't originally a Soul Beast from the Star Dou Great Forest. His home is the Jingyang Soul Beast Habitat over in the Sun Moon Empire. Back then, he married a very beautiful human wife in the Sun Moon Empire, then kept showing off their affection in front of other beasts..." Sky Dream Ice Silkworm sounded just like someone sharing juicy gossip with his friends. Then he sighed. "Then his wife died. He was depressed for a long time and turned himself into this widower-looking mess."

"Someone called me here to repair the Soul Tool medicine cabinet." The young man glanced at Huo Yuqing. Noticing but disregarding her somewhat strange expression, he said calmly, "I'm Wen Qiang, a Level Nine Soul Engineer from New City. This is my..."

He frowned as he looked at the burly young man beside him. "He barely counts as an apprentice. His given name is He. His surname isn't convenient to reveal, so just call him He Caitou."

Wasn't this He Caitou from the original story?

Wen Qiang's lover and partner back then had been a genius Soul Engineer of the Sun Moon Empire, as well as a princess of the Sun Moon Royal Family... By that reckoning, he was probably some sort of great-uncle ancestor to He Caitou.

Huo Yuqing glanced sympathetically at the tall young man. He gave her a helpless, bitter smile, clearly having no way to deal with this ancestor of his.

"You're Huo Yuhao?"

Huo Yuqing stared at Wen Qiang in surprise. "How did you know?"

The young man shrugged. "I heard Lu Mingyou took on a new disciple. Someone asked me to... He Caitou, go inspect the Soul Tool."

"Ancestor, can I repair this thing?" He Caitou hesitated. "Isn't Emerald Elixir Hall's medicine cabinet a Level Seven Soul Tool?"

"It hasn't reached Level Seven. Its core formation is only Level Six. It's merely that every drawer has a different environment, with many low-level formations linked together. Its structure is extremely complicated, so it was barely classified as Level Seven." Wen Qiang waved a hand. "Go inspect it. See what's broken. Repair it if you can; if not, I'll handle it."

"Brother He, over here." Huo Yuqing quickly came out from behind the counter, making room for He Caitou.

She was extremely curious about Soul Tools and stood outside on tiptoe as she watched He Caitou dismantle the medicine cabinet's outer casing.

"Huo Yuhao, do you want to learn about Soul Tools too?"

"That wouldn't be good, would it...?" Huo Yuqing said hesitantly. "I'm still learning alchemy... Isn't there a saying about biting off more than you can chew?"

"Tch, alchemy." Wen Qiang gave a disdainful laugh. "Isn't that just memorizing prescriptions and medicinal ingredients, then copying the process? You even use Soul Tools for the refining process. It's simple."

He looked exactly like the sort of science teacher who mocked the humanities for being nothing but rote memorization.

The doors of Emerald Elixir Hall were pushed open once again. Lu Mingyou and Wang Rui had returned. Jiang Nannan was not with them; she had stayed home to look after Rouge, who had just finished molting.

"What did you say only requires copying and rote memorization? Say that again for me." The healing-type Soul Master wore a smile, yet seemed to radiate a dark aura straight from the underworld.

"I said alchemy." Wen Qiang replied lazily. "Don't look at me like that. Teaching this one idiot already wears me out enough."

He Caitou very consciously shrank his neck.

"If no one had asked me to, I wouldn't want to teach anyone else."

"...That person?" Lu Mingyou asked in surprise.

Someone capable of asking a Fierce Beast who had already been rated as a Level Nine Soul Engineer to come out and take a student... It had to be the Auspicious Beast! She resisted the urge to turn around and look at Wang Rui behind her.

Did the Auspicious Beast really value her little disciple so highly?

"That's right..." Wen Qiang turned to Huo Yuqing. "Stop staring at Lu Mingyou. You can learn Soul Tools if you want to. You don't need to care what anyone else thinks."

"Mm, learning some wouldn't be bad." Wang Rui spoke up. "Yuhao, think about it. If you want to refine medicine in the future, you definitely won't be able to do without all kinds of Soul Tools. If you learn, you can make them yourself. Besides, your Martial Soul lacks offensive means in its early stages. Some long-range Soul Tools can make up for that weakness."

As for biting off more than one could chew... that was something only mediocre people needed to consider. True geniuses were always versatile.

Take Electrolux, for instance. This old man, several thousand years younger than Wang Rui, had already begun studying the information about Soul Tools in Wang Rui's mind.

Wang Rui felt that before long, he might see a Bone Dragon flying through the sky with a soul cannon or magic cannon mounted on its back.

Today's three thousand words are eeeel-long...

Wen Qiang: an Egyptian-style Soul Engineer Fierce Beast(?)

His wife's soul is in the Auspicious Beast's hands awaiting resurrection, so he can only obediently do as he's told. Hehehe...

A sharp comment from a friend: What color is your dung beetle? Is it white? Can it climb stairs?

Me: ...No!!!!!