Vent Ma Xiaotao's Fire

"Teacher Zhou Yi, where are we going?" Huo Yuhao followed Zhou Yi to a grey building. Once inside, he was surprised to find that every door here was made of metal. A faint tremor came from under his feet, accompanied by the sound of rumbling.

Huo Yuhao immediately understood where this was—the location of Shrek Academy's Soul Tool System.

"You'll know once we're inside." Zhou Yi gave a faint smile. With a flick of her wrist, she inserted a hexagonal silver token into the slot on Gate Number Twelve before her.

With a fluctuation of soul power, a click sounded, and the gate slid open horizontally.

"Fan Yu!" Zhou Yi's sudden shout caused a brief vacuum of silence in the two-thousand-square-meter indoor space. Everyone's movements came to a halt.

Before long, a burly man about 1.8 meters tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow back, appeared before Zhou Yi. He wore cloth clothes, and his face was slightly dirty—clearly, he had rushed over in a hurry without time to clean up.

"Zhou Yi? What wind blows you here?" The burly man, Fan Yu, looked at Zhou Yi with confusion.

"This is Huo Yuhao." Zhou Yi pushed Huo Yuhao in front of Fan Yu. In an instant, Huo Yuhao felt as if this burly man might devour him.

"Huo Yuhao, come with me!" Fan Yu eagerly grabbed Huo Yuhao and led him to a soul tool testing ground, pointing at the targets set up not far away.

No way, I've already switched to the time element. Every soul skill is a control type—not a single detection or all-directional sharing one.

Huo Yuhao's powerful time control was based on his extraordinary mental power, so the strength of his mental power was crucial.

"Caitou!" Fan Yu called out. Before long, a dark-skinned, burly young man with a sturdy build, standing a full two meters tall, came before Huo Yuhao. His face was honest and simple, and he was bald.

"Teacher, you called for me." The youth looked at Fan Yu respectfully, bowed, and asked.

Fan Yu then turned his gaze to Huo Yuhao and said, "Yuhao, I am Fan Yu, a teacher of the Soul Tool System and also a Rank 8 Soul Tool Master. I hope you can cooperate with me in completing an experiment."

"Go ahead." Huo Yuhao stood together with He Caitou at Fan Yu's gesture.

"Caitou, next we're going to shoot moving targets. Yuhao, I know your martial soul can freeze time within a certain range. Can you narrow it down to just freeze a range of about ten meters?" Fan Yu asked with eager anticipation.

"I can." Huo Yuhao nodded, understanding Fan Yu's intention.

"Good!" Fan Yu turned and went to make arrangements. At that moment, He Caitou looked over and gave a simple smile: "My name is He Caitou. Little brother, you can call me that from now on."

Huo Yuhao nodded: "Hello, He Caitou. I'm Huo Yuhao."

Huo Yuhao and He Caitou walked to the metal railing. The latter slapped his belt, and a flash of light appeared—a metal tube 1.5 meters long, with a cross-sectional diameter of about fifteen centimeters, engraved with various patterns.

He Caitou moved with practiced ease. He pressed twice on the back of the metal tube with his right hand, then quickly slapped his waist with his left, and a prism-shaped piece of metal fell into his hand.

Combining the three, He Caitou let out a low shout and hoisted the cannon barrel onto his shoulder. The previously honest-faced He Caitou now wore an extremely grave expression. Standing beside him, Huo Yuhao sensed the faint killing intent radiating from the other and couldn't help but nod—truly, you can't judge a book by its cover.

"Teacher, I'm ready. Huo Yuhao, let's begin!" As He Caitou spoke, two yellow and one purple soul rings appeared beneath his feet, and a dense black light flickered within the metal cannon barrel.

The appearance of one white, one purple, and one black soul ring beneath Huo Yuhao's feet startled He Caitou slightly, but he quickly adjusted.

"Moving targets! Fire!"

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh—"

The sound of breaking air came as three flying discs appeared almost simultaneously before them. Huo Yuhao's first white soul ring lit up—Time Freeze. The dual pupils in his eyes reappeared, with grey occupying the center of his irises. As the discs flew, countless grey dials abruptly appeared around them.

Following that, a miraculous scene unfolded.

The flying discs were completely frozen in midair. Within a ten-meter range, time had pressed the pause button.

He Caitou's heart leaped with joy. With a loud "boom," a mass of black light shot out from the cannon barrel at incredible speed. As expected, all three flying discs were blasted to pieces.

He Caitou was overjoyed. After so many experiments, they had finally made a breakthrough. He couldn't contain himself and, ignoring Huo Yuhao's reaction, directly hugged him and spun him around on the spot.

"Clap clap clap—"

Applause rang out from all around the room. Fan Yu and Zhou Yi walked over. Even Zhou Yi, known for her strictness, now wore a smile that was uglier than crying.

Fan Yu said, "Yuhao, your Time Pause is simply miraculous. I dare say that even on the entire continent, there has never been a soul master as unique as you."

"You flatter me." Huo Yuhao shook his head slightly. "Actually, the impressive part is the soul tools. The future development of soul masters will inevitably be combined with soul tools."

"Oh!" Fan Yu's eyes lit up. As soon as these words were spoken, he found Huo Yuhao increasingly agreeable and couldn't help asking, "What are your thoughts on soul tools?"

"Soul masters on our Douluo Continent generally place great importance on their own soul power levels. External things like soul tools are fundamentally looked down upon—take our academy's Soul Tool System and Martial Soul System, for example." Huo Yuhao gave a simple analogy.

As soon as these words were spoken, even Fan Yu and Zhou Yi had to admire Huo Yuhao's boldness. The conflict between the Martial Soul System and the Soul Tool System had a long history. One side emphasized personal strength, while the other was composed mostly of support and food system soul masters forming the Soul Tool System. From a fundamental perspective, the Martial Soul System currently held the advantage.

"Yuhao, continue." Fan Yu's expression turned serious, cutting off Zhou Yi, who wanted to stop him.

"Hasn't the war four thousand years ago taught us a lesson? The neighboring Sun Moon Empire, after four thousand years of development, is no longer what it used to be. If they launch a war at this moment, I can assert that not a single one of the current three kingdoms on Douluo Continent would be their match!"

Huo Yuhao's words were sharp. At this point, Zhou Yi couldn't hold back any longer and directly pulled Huo Yuhao back.

Fan Yu watched the two leave. Not long after Huo Yuhao and Zhou Yi departed, the Soul Tool System Vice Dean, Qian Duoduo, walked over with a grave expression.

"Fan Yu, what are your thoughts on what Huo Yuhao said?" Qian Duoduo asked in a deep voice.

"Vice Dean Qian, I believe Yuhao makes a valid point. Future wars won't be the soul masters' stage. The four-thousand-year gap between then and now—we have no idea how far our opponents' soul tools have advanced. Meanwhile, we... if we remain so complacent, I'm afraid..."

Qian Duoduo waved his hand to cut off Fan Yu's words. As the Soul Tool System Vice Dean and a Rank 8 Soul Tool Master, even as a Titled Douluo, Qian Duoduo had never broken through to Rank 9 Soul Tool Master.

In contrast, the Sun Moon Empire had more than one Rank 9 Soul Tool Master.

"I will fight to bring Huo Yuhao into the Soul Tool System. I see hope in this child." Qian Duoduo's eyes flashed with a cold light, as if his old rival Yan Shaozhe were standing right before him.