"I just took a look. There are a total of 133 senior Soul Master Academies and senior Soul Engineer Academies participating."
Not just the Sun Moon Empire—
The Douluo Three Kingdoms also had Soul Engineer Academies, but they were all pretty weak. Most of the Soul Engineer Academies that qualified came from the Sun Moon Empire.
In previous competitions, even when an outstanding Soul Engineer team appeared, it would still ultimately lose to Shrek's team.
That was one of the reasons—and one of the things that gave Wang Yan confidence—for never supporting Shrek's aggressive development of Soul Tools:
"We've always been winning. Why abandon our strengths and pit our weaknesses against other people's strengths?
"Why bang our heads against a wall?"
Shrek Academy had a lofty status, but it was ultimately not a nation. All kinds of resources came at a cost and had to be traded for with the Three Great Empires and the Sun Moon Empire. Meanwhile, the Sun Moon Empire had the finest mineral deposits in its territory. As long as they could keep things circulating internally, it was as good as having no cost at all.
After all, the people of the Sun Moon Empire sold to the people of the Sun Moon Empire.
Shrek had nothing, and its financial resources and reserve of talented people couldn't possibly compare with the Sun Moon Empire's.
Back then, Yan Shaozhe had been afraid Lu Ran would become obsessed with Soul Tools.
He'd gone out of his way to have a heart-to-heart with him.
And all of this had been what he'd earnestly and candidly told Lu Ran.
His words had been extraordinarily sincere.
However,
Lu Ran thought there was another important reason.
It was... Yan Shaozhe's position as head of the Martial Soul Department.
After all, everyone had