Everyone couldn't help but grow excited. What would happen if the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, renowned for recruiting and nurturing talent, took a genius boy like this under its wing?
Perhaps the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect really could rise again and reclaim the glory it had enjoyed as one of the Upper Three Sects. It wasn't impossible!
Take Huo Yuhao in the first timeline. Even while Shrek and the Tang Sect kept using him and holding him back, he was only in his twenties when he single-handedly subdued the Sun Moon Empire. He had truly dominated an entire age.
A powerhouse like that was enough to make a force a top power, a giant on the continent. If he belonged to any faction, that faction would immediately soar to greatness and change the balance of the entire continent!
"Hmph. How could the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's talent development compare with our Body Sect's? Huo Yuhao would be better off joining us!"
Du Busi shook his head, still unwilling to give up. He had already sent his subordinates rushing to the Star Dou Great Forest and the surrounding areas to search for the real Huo Yuhao!
"But, Teacher, even if the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect gets Huo Yuhao, they certainly won't hold back on nurturing him."
"Finding Oscar back then gave the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect two gods in one family and brought them over a thousand years of glory. They've dreamed of getting another chance like that ever since!"
Vina, the princess of the Heaven Dou Empire and a disciple of the Body Sect, furrowed her brows. As the princess of the Heaven Dou Empire—and with the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect once having been the former Heaven Dou Empire's guardian sect—she had naturally dealt with them plenty.
She considered herself better acquainted with the sect than almost anyone on the continent.
"Nowadays, the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect wants Soul Engineer talent more than anything. With their wealth, they invest no less in Soul Engineers than Shrek Academy does. Most of the time, though, they simply buy people over."
"I heard that a few years ago, the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect offered more than a billion Gold Soul Coins to poach a Level 9 Soul Engineer from Mingde Hall. Unfortunately, they still failed."
Vina sighed softly, sounding rather wistful.
"Hmph, so what? Vina, I think you're seeing the surface but missing what lies beneath."
Du Busi suddenly laughed, his gaze turning profound.
"Deep down, even the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect is no different from the Mysterious Underworld Sect and the other sects."
"Only our Body Sect, rejected by the world and eccentric and solitary in our ways, lives by the words 'The ancients are no law unto us, and the gods are nothing to fear.' That's why we've kept some of our vitality, free from constraint."
"Just wait and see, Vina!"
Du Busi crossed his arms, stared at the Sky Screen, and sneered.
Meanwhile, the Sky Screen had already shown the opening scene.
In this world, Huo Yuhao had likewise chosen not to join the Tang Sect or enter Shrek Academy. Instead, through his own efforts, he enrolled in an ordinary Soul Master Academy in the Heaven Dou Empire.
There, he kept a low profile, studied and trained hard, and quietly improved his strength.
What he didn't know was that the academy was actually funded by the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
Its true purpose was to cultivate promising candidates for the sect and identify talent. In the end, it would send its finest students to the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
"Hmph. This Xilan Academy spends so much money, yet every time it turns out a bunch of useless fools. Miss, I say we tell the family to shut this lousy academy down!"
A young woman in a leather outfit, with a curvaceous figure and a pretty face, spoke with utter disdain.
At her feet lay several young people dressed in pale green uniforms. Some of them were even older than her, but at that moment, they were all groaning in pain.
Beside the leather-clad girl stood a fair-skinned girl in white, her features delicate and her bearing refined. Seeing the several "commoner geniuses" lying on the ground, she couldn't help frowning, a hint of hesitation in her heart.
"Honestly, where are there any geniuses outside Shrek Academy? Can a pheasant really turn into a golden phoenix?"
The leather-clad girl crossed her arms, unconsciously making her already eye-catching chest jut out even more, and spoke coolly.
"Hmph. Who says a golden phoenix can't rise from a flock of pheasants?"
The two girls paused in surprise. Then they saw a rather slight boy in a lower-grade uniform step out of the crowd, glaring at them with a hint of anger.
The boy might not have been especially handsome, but his eyes were very bright, and the girl in white found herself momentarily distracted by them.
"What, you don't like that? Then why don't you try taking me on, little brother?"
The leather-clad girl looked the bright-eyed boy over with interest, lifted her wheat-colored chin, and taunted him.
"Yuhao, don't be rash!"
A classmate hurriedly tugged at the boy's sleeve.
"They're geniuses from Shrek Academy, and they're with the young miss, too. They've had better training since childhood, and their aptitude is beyond anything we ordinary people can match."
"Yuhao, just accept reality."
The classmate sighed softly.
"No. I won't accept it. You want to fight? Fine. Do you think I'm afraid of you?"
The boy stepped forward and glared fiercely at the leather-clad girl. She was thoroughly intrigued now, looking him up and down with the gaze of a predator eyeing its prey.
"Fine, little brother. Let me make this clear: if you can withstand three of my attacks, I'll give you ten Gold Soul Coins."
The leather-clad girl licked her lips again and loosened up. The next moment, three Soul Rings rose from beneath her feet, and a scorching aura burst from her body, making the students around them look terrified all over again.
"Ten Gold Soul Coins..."
A glimmer of longing appeared on the faces of some of the students. But when they saw the three Soul Rings around Wu Feng, fear snuffed that longing out at once.
Ten Gold Soul Coins was a fortune to these commoner students. If they had the chance, many of them really would risk taking on dangerous work for that much money.
It wasn't that they didn't value their lives and bodies. It was that commoner Soul Masters didn't have many choices!
But facing this vassal of the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, who looked at them like trash, they knew they didn't have even the slightest chance. They would only end up like the senior students before them, lying on the ground like garbage.
"Hmph. I don't want your money. I just want you to take back what you said about Xilan Academy and apologize to our academy!"
The boy's eyes suddenly shone with dazzling brightness. A white Soul Ring, followed by a yellow one, rose unsteadily from beneath his feet.