The sun had finally come out, and bright sunshine swept away the chill left by the snow. The matches were underway in full swing on Shrek Academy's outdoor sparring platform. The students, brimming with enthusiasm, paid no mind to the cold season. The energy of youth swept the chill away just as effectively.
Gasps of surprise rang out one after another. The strong were praised wherever they went. Every team gave its all to defeat its opponents. There were no hidden reserves of strength or varied tactics like the adults used—just the simplest, most straightforward blows, without all those flashy tricks. That was partly due to age and experience, and partly because their power systems had yet to fully develop.
Their first two Soul Skills were generally for offense and defense, while the third Soul Skill invariably became a boosting ability. That was the best arrangement the great clans had arrived at after countless practice runs. In other words, their accumulated strengths only began to show at the three-ring level, when their power underwent a qualitative leap. The real gap between them wouldn't emerge until the next semester.
That was when three-ring Soul Masters would appear. Unfortunately, none had emerged yet, so no one could blame Huo Yuhao for dominating the whole era. That was Wang Yi's commentary while Huo Yuhao was competing in the arena. His chuunibyou lines had fired Huo Yuhao up so much that he'd nearly stopped competing to go after Wang Yi instead. At least no one could see him, which was a relief.
Otherwise, Huo Yuhao didn't even want to imagine how mortifying the scene would have been. Wang Yi was deeply disappointed. This Shrek Academy really isn't up to scratch. They don't even have a commentator, and they can't get the crowd going. I'll have to suggest some reforms. Huo Yuhao had then scoffed at him, wondering what Wang Yi thought he could do to demand changes from the academy.
Huo Yuhao made it into the elimination rounds without a hitch. The tournament used a proper double-elimination format, preventing strong teams or seeded teams from being knocked out of contention after a single bad performance or an early clash. That way, fewer people would claim the rankings were rigged, and the tournament could minimize unfairness and select the most talented contenders.
Huo Yuhao glanced at the bracket but couldn't figure out how the losing teams were ranked. They'd have to wait for the matches to play out one by one before that could be determined. But he didn't need to worry about the others. All he had to know was that as long as he kept competing and winning, he'd be fine. That was the easiest path: the fewest matches, while the losing teams had to fight the most. Not many could withstand such long, intense battles.
There had been cases in history of a team in the losers' bracket taking down ten opponents in a row, or even more. But those teams had been championship contenders to begin with; accidents and infighting had weakened them and led to that outcome. Most of the time, the true champion emerged from the winners' bracket. Even if a team from the losers' bracket made it to the final, they'd still have to face an opponent who'd fought through the winners' bracket.
A miracle was hard to come by. You needed an overwhelming leap in strength to have a chance. But Huo Yuhao and Xiao Xiao had no such worries. "Kill the gods if they stand in our way; kill the Buddhas if they do" was the perfect description of their current form. Everyone else was trash. They just couldn't say it aloud yet.
Their ultra-long-range control paired with attacks that never missed brought each match to an end in just two rounds. The trick to countering their combination was simple: withstand two attacks, and they'd have no strength left to follow up. The main problem was that Huo Yuhao could only use the technique twice, and even that strained him. He needed a long rest before the next match, and the winners' bracket's pace suited them perfectly.
They surged ahead all the way, and this strange pairing of a one-ring Soul Master and a two-ring Soul Master made it into the winners' bracket final. The next step was the championship match. The title was only two victories away.
As for the opponents they'd defeated, Huo Yuhao and Xiao Xiao didn't give them a second thought. You're lucky just to see my back. Trying to catch up will only leave you in despair. Wang Yi whispered more chuunibyou lines in Huo Yuhao's ear, tempering some of the joy of their winning streak and the pride and arrogance it brought with it.
That hadn't been Wang Yi's intention. He really was just teasing Huo Yuhao. Kids were fun at these two stages: when they were first learning, before they understood the darkness of society, and six months later, when they started crawling but still hadn't reached the stage of crying all night like newborns.
Tease them a little, and you'd see how much fun they were. The rest of the time, forget it—they were a real nuisance. The people who said kids were wonderful were usually outsiders who had only spent a little time with them and experienced their fun side. They were just like Lord Ye, who loved dragons without actually knowing them. As the thought crossed Wang Yi's mind, he started wondering what Huo Yuhao would be like as a father, and what kind of person he'd become.
Then, out of nowhere, a mischievous idea came to him. Someday, he'd have to trick Huo Yuhao into having a child and make him suffer. That would teach him not to ignore Wang Yi—and besides, he was pretty clever. He'd make Huo Yuhao feel his own pain when he had to raise a child. Wang Yi suddenly burst into laughter for no apparent reason, shaking Huo Yuyao's belief that Wang Yi was a normal person.
A few times was fine, but when it happened every day, Huo Yuyao's initial impression of Wang Yi as a serious person started to crumble. Wang Yi was truly an eccentric, especially when there was nothing going on. And even when something was happening, he wasn't necessarily reliable. So Huo Yuyao learned how to get along with other boys.
As long as you were thick-skinned and weird enough, you could make friends. In short, shutting yourself away was absolutely no good. Making friends was an essential part of life, and Xiao Xiao was no ordinary friend, either. In the end, Wang Yi took it upon himself to teach by example. Huo Yuyao just had to copy the way he acted around Wang Yi and use it with other people.
While Huo Yuyao and Xiao Xiao were training and celebrating, Wang Yi had already slipped away. Huo Yuyao was used to it. Wang Yi often went to the Library to read. He'd originally wanted to record every book in the Sea of Spirit, but Huo Yuyao had refused. Wang Yi's reason was that reading in the Library felt better, making it easier to focus and less likely that his mind would wander.
He'd even used himself as an example: Huo Yuyao stopped wanting to study as soon as he left the classroom, and everyone could see it. Convinced, Huo Yuyao fled. He lost every argument, and it had started to make him tense up. But it had also made him stubbornly determined to remember every point Wang Yi made.
He waited for Wang Yi to say something that seemed to contradict what Huo Yuyao believed, then brought it up, hoping to beat him on that point. But it always ended in failure. He was still a little short on life experience.
This time, though, Wang Yi wasn't headed to the Library. He was going to find the old man who was always hanging around. Neither of them asked who the other was; they just fell into conversation naturally. Whenever Wang Yi came across something he didn't understand, he asked the old man. It was on his advice that Wang Yi had found the Family Chronicle. Shrek Academy's Library was simply enormous, with a veritable sea of books.
You needed either a suitable guide or the exact title of the book you were looking for. Being a librarian was a fine profession. Their conversation went as it usually did, touching on academic subjects and the political situation in the surrounding countries. At one point, Wang Yi suggested adding commentary to the matches, and the old man readily agreed.
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