The Eve of the Team Battle

Huo Yuhao happily ran out of the exam room. After finishing the test, he felt a sense of satisfaction. It was the feeling of having accomplished something incredibly difficult and realizing how capable you were. Of course, that only lasted until the results came out.

Nothing unexpected would happen with this exam, but future ones were another matter. He would eventually have to get into Shrek Academy, the best academy on the continent. As he'd said, its exams focused on fighting, but you couldn't be illiterate, either. A school's education was a whole system. Even if most of it wasn't very useful on its own, together it could shape a person.

During the learning process, people developed their ways of thinking and their ability to reason. Take a math problem with two possible approaches: you might try the first one and stop there. If you get it wrong, you might learn to consider the other approach next time. That was a skill.

You might apply that skill in all kinds of fields, or you might forget it completely. It was a matter of probability. If education could develop that skill in someone, then it had done its job. Those who were born with it were called geniuses, and they didn't need help. They would find knowledge on their own.

For Soul Masters, whose knowledge was mainly focused on fighting, education was even more essential. People died in battle. If you didn't want to die, you had to be strong, and strength came from several factors. There were three main ones: talent, character, and knowledge.

Talent determined your upper limit, character determined your lower limit, and the amount of knowledge you had determined how much of your potential you could bring out.

Talent was easy to understand. "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, but that one percent of inspiration is more important than the ninety-nine percent of perspiration."

Character needed even less explanation. Even if someone had immense wealth and power, what use were they if they were useless? If they couldn't—or, rather, didn't dare to—think through and solve a problem with an obvious answer, then they were still useless. Of course, people could change. Good people could turn bad, and bad people could come to their senses. But how likely was that? Why should anyone bother changing you, when so many people were already struggling and fighting to change their own lives?

People had to rely on themselves. Those who saved themselves would always be saved by others.

Knowledge deserved a closer look. Fighting meant doing your best to protect yourself while hitting your enemy and injuring them. In other words, you had to hit your enemy with your Soul Skill while dodging their attacks.

It sounded simple, but even attacking was complicated. How much Soul Power should you spend to unleash your Soul Skill? When should you use it? Where should you use it? How could you make sure it hit the enemy? And so on.

Having a powerful attack meant nothing if you couldn't make sure it hit the enemy and keep yourself safe. More importantly, you had to understand your enemy's abilities. During a tournament, you could try to gather information. But in a chance encounter, would you panic because you knew nothing about your opponent? You couldn't do that.

Before your opponent attacked, you had to judge their abilities from their Martial Soul and the way they acted, then respond accordingly. That was a skill every Soul Master should have. You couldn't wait until after you died to lament that you hadn't been able to show what you could do.

More advanced than that was teamwork between Soul Masters. At low levels, Power Attack and agility-focused Soul Masters naturally had the advantage. But by the middle levels, a well-trained group of mid-level Soul Masters could beat a team of same-level Power Attack Soul Masters with the same specialization. Support Soul Masters could give their whole team powerful boosts and inflict debuffs on the entire enemy team. Control Soul Masters could divide the battlefield and restrain their opponents. Agility-focused Soul Masters could pick their moment, slip into the battle, find an opening, and strike to kill. Defense Soul Masters were like tortoiseshells; at the same level, you couldn't expect to break through them. You could attack for ten years and still fail. Combined, these strengths could let a team gain a local advantage of one against two, or even one against seven, and defeat their opponents one by one.

That was when battles were most entertaining. Low-level fights were just brawls, while high-level combat was so destructive that it could easily turn into a joke. That was one small reason behind the Continental Soul Master Tournament.

Shrek Academy was the culmination of the Soul Master system. Ten thousand years of experience had given its teachers more than enough knowledge to match students' combat abilities with one another. Nowhere else had such a wealth of knowledge about Martial Souls and Soul Skills. As long as you could apply what you learned, you could understand at least ninety percent of Soul Masters. You could also get teammates best suited to you and train with them. Everyone who gathered here was an elite, with top-tier talent and abilities.

This system's knowledge wasn't easy to master. Even if someone with strong spiritual power could memorize it all, that wouldn't help if they couldn't apply it fluently. Now there was also knowledge from the Soul Guidance Department, which required a different kind of talent. The gifts of ancient, powerful Martial Souls passed down for tens of thousands of years were no use there. But this new knowledge would change the world all the same, regardless of what anyone wanted.

Soul Tools were growing more powerful by the day, and Soul Engineers of the same level could already hold their own against Power Attack Soul Masters. Their tremendous firepower was even more useful in team battles, where it protected fragile teammates. Shrek had always dominated team battles. They had lost the championship a few times due to unforeseen circumstances, but those losses were no fault of their own. The Three Great Empires had produced a few peerless geniuses who defeated the Shrek Team through sheer individual heroics. No one questioned Shrek's ability because of that. But the Sun Moon Empire had grown stronger with every tournament. The endless variety of Soul Tools used in team battles left traditional teams scrambling. It was clear they would only grow stronger.

All of that was a long way off for Huo Yuhao. Bei Bei and Tang Ya were teaching him the basics of team battles. Each of them drew on their own experience to advise him on how Support Soul Masters could protect themselves. As a support specialist, you had to protect yourself as much as possible to be useful. Plenty of people on your team could deal damage, but as a core member of the system, you had to do your job if you wanted to win.

At times like that, your own awareness was crucial. In short, you had to know where the enemy might appear and where you should stand. It sounded simple. Anyone could say, "The enemy's coming—just run!" But in reality, countless geniuses emerged every year. They were said to be incredibly powerful, with top-tier Martial Souls and Soul Skills that made them unbeatable. Yet when the tournaments came around, they faded into the crowd, unable to show what they could do. Even those famous individual victories had been won as part of a team.

Not everyone had that awareness. There were differences even among geniuses. Huo Yuhao had to build a solid foundation in the little time he had. He absolutely couldn't hold the team back or turn into a tournament pushover. Countless people had proved that such people really existed. They always fell short at the crucial moment.

So the two of them repeatedly stressed that he had to stay calm. When a team battle began, he wasn't supposed to be fighting. He shouldn't think he could turn the tables—that was an illusion. He could worry about counterattacking once he was good enough to judge whether he could take on his opponents.

For now, he just needed to use his Soul Skills and run. He didn't need to overthink it.

That afternoon, the two of them drew on their experience of cutting down Support Soul Masters to teach Huo Yuhao how to avoid every possible way of dying. He learned a great deal and fully experienced the helplessness of being a fragile support specialist. If a Power Attack Soul Master gets right in my face, what can a useless Soul Master with a Spirit Eye Martial Soul like mine even do? Huo Yuhao thought.

Most of the time passed amid laughter and chatter. No matter how nervous you got about an exam, it still came down to how you performed. Showing up in a good mood mattered more than anything else.

The next morning, Huo Yuhao woke from his cultivation. After practicing the Purple Demon Eye, he watched the sun rise. A breeze stirred the rows of trees along the road, their leaves rustling softly. The Spirit Eye and his abundant spiritual power gave him an exceptionally long range of vision and acute senses, letting him take in the vibrant life around him. His spirit felt cleansed. He took a deep breath and shouted out the window, "Aaaaaah!"

Then came a stream of angry curses. Feeling guilty, Huo Yuhao hurriedly shut the window. His months in the wilderness had definitely affected his habits; he'd forgotten that he had neighbors. Still, that shout had left him feeling refreshed. Somewhere deep inside, the gray was slowly fading. A comfortable life really could wear down a person's will. The wildness he'd gained over those months was about to be ground away.

But this change was a good thing, too. You couldn't raise a good kid by being miserable all the time, and it wasn't good for his future, either. He needed to learn to face each irritating day with a positive, cheerful attitude. Being miserable every day without a goal would lead to depression.

No one else could cure that illness; only changing the social environment could help. There were two options: move somewhere else or change the environment around you. Of course, most people never got the illness in the first place. It was the kind of thing you only got when you had more than enough to eat. When poor farmers in the countryside drank pesticide to kill themselves, did anyone say it was because they were depressed? So many people killed themselves—did anyone care? As long as you had no money and couldn't get enough to eat, you wouldn't get depressed. A few days of hunger would cure you.

The things Huo Yuhao had seen in childhood—the abuse of his mother and his own mistreatment—had made his personality somewhat extreme. As long as nobody provoked him, he would gradually get better.

After his lessons and a good grounding in the basics, Huo Yuhao happily ran back to his dormitory to work hard at cultivating. His Soul Power had recently stopped increasing as quickly; the gains from cultivating the Mysterious Heaven Skill had been canceled out. Forcing his cultivation higher did come at a cost, so he should do it less in the future. If he did use it, it should be when breaking through a bottleneck, such as at levels nineteen or twenty-nine. In an emergency, it could boost his strength and give him an extra measure of protection. He couldn't keep relying on Tian Meng and Electrolux to bail him out. His own strength was what really mattered. They couldn't help Huo Yuhao become a god. That was something he had to do himself.

The team battles would last several days, so safety was no small matter. A large number of powerful experts had to guard the event. At this stage, the students couldn't control their strength and didn't understand the consequences of hurting someone. You could get away with anything outside, but not here. If you killed someone, their friends and family would seek revenge. Almost everyone was related to someone, one way or another, and you never knew who was close to whom. Leaving that kind of conflict unresolved was like planting a land mine for yourself. Accidental deaths were all too common as Soul Masters grew stronger. The smallest mistake could kill someone, and deliberate wrongdoing was even harder to get away with. Killing someone in revenge was a small matter; what mattered was how they chose to take revenge. If you deliberately caused trouble during a team battle, the consequences might be limited. But if you tampered with things while hunting for a Soul Ring in the Star Dou Great Forest and attracted a powerful, dominant Spirit Beast, then things would get interesting.

Dominant Spirit Beasts weren't limited to Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts. The term referred to Spirit Beast species with immense power and influence. If it were a Hundred-Thousand-Year Ice Silkworm, you'd have to ask whether you should be afraid or happy. If these kinds of Spirit Beasts got angry, your actions could get a lot of people killed. Shrek Academy had paid an extremely painful price for that lesson. A Titled Douluo could indeed hold back a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, and one from Shrek might even kill it. But who knew how long that would take? And setting off other Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts aside, how would the students deal with all those Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts?

A series of painful lessons had led to the current method: powerful experts led small groups of students into the forest in shifts, even though it consumed a huge amount of resources. The time of a Titled Douluo was precious.

So now, killing was strictly forbidden. Of course, they might be more lenient when dealing with commoners. After all, commoners couldn't turn the world upside down.

This team battle was divided by specialization, with teams assigned by drawing lots. Huo Yuhao was lucky enough not to compete in the first round. He could watch what the others did and learn from it. Watching was better than reading about it, and trying it yourself was better than watching. Any improvement was worthwhile.

But it all had to be tested in the team battle two days later. Watching matches every day wouldn't improve your own performance. Other people's skills were still their own; they might not suit you.

After watching two days of matches, Huo Yuhao came away with one impression: chaos. Utter chaos.

There was nothing entertaining about them. Everyone on both sides just fought on their own. The only exciting part was seeing Power Attack, agility-focused, and even Defense Soul Masters beat up on the Support and Control Soul Masters. Support Soul Masters took the brunt of it, since Control Soul Masters at least had abilities that could delay their opponents. Most Support Soul Masters were there to assist others. How could they run? They were beaten senseless and eliminated first. Their seniors had certainly taught them well. Just wait until they had to put a team together in the future—then they'd be begging these people for help.

Once the fragile ones were dead, all that remained was a showdown between "real men." It wasn't that there were no girls; Martial Souls suited to girls, like the Light Goddess Butterfly, were simply too rare. Everyone else had Martial Souls that attacked with fists and brute force.

The first to be eliminated in this huge brawl were the agility-focused Soul Masters. At low levels, they had little offensive power and couldn't break through defenses. They were easily hit by some stray attack and knocked out,

In the end, only the Power Attack and Defense Soul Masters were left. They fought with such ferocity that the sky grew dark and the sun and moon lost their light. Nobody could hurt anybody else, and in the end, teammates couldn't even tell who was who and started fighting each other. Either their heads weren't working, or their muscles had taken over their brains and they'd lost the ability to tell friend from foe.

There were Support Soul Masters who stood out, too. Someone from the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect, the leading Support Soul Master sect, put on a spectacular display. She unleashed the Nine Treasures Turn Into Glazed Glass amplification, and her side's morale soared. They firmly suppressed their opponents and looked poised to win—until she got unlucky. With a display like that, of course they'd target her. The Power Attack Soul Masters led the way while the agility-focused ones charged straight in and cruelly beat her off the platform. Her teammates had all charged forward, leaving no one to protect her.

The various scenes made Huo Yuhao's heart sink. Even with Berserk, there was no way he could fight those beasts for that long. He realized miserably that he didn't seem to have any way to protect himself. So he resolved to train hard in Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track.