Eight Months

The days that followed returned to their former calm.

The aftermath of the Freshman Assessment gradually faded amid the daily classes and cultivation.

But one thing refused to fade: Long Yaochen, that monster who left his peers far behind.

In the end, Dai Huabin could not tolerate his arrogance and repeatedly challenged Long Yaochen.

Yet each time, Long Yaochen beat him so badly he could not tell east from west.

After every defeat, Dai Huabin would claim that he had been careless, that the weather had turned cold, that the Soul Fighting Arena had changed its materials, that his clothes did not fit properly, and so on.

The last time, he even summoned Zhu Lu from the agility-attack class and used the Hell White Tiger against Long Yaochen.

But he was still no match for him.

After that, he never fought Long Yaochen again.

It was not because he admitted defeat, but because Long Yaochen no longer wanted to play along with him.

Of course, Long Yaochen had not challenged him so many times simply because he had nothing better to do.

He had merely discovered that beating Dai Huabin up every now and then was quite a good way to relieve stress.

Especially since, for some reason, he had originally been able to use Zhang Lexuan as an excuse to avoid Wang Dong and Ma Xiaotao's battle.

But one day, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

Why had Zhang Lexuan joined the battle too?

And unlike Wang Dong and Ma Xiaotao, who confronted each other head-on, Lexuan took a more indirect approach.

For example, there were too many Outer Court affairs to handle today, and she needed the class monitor to help organize some documents.

Tomorrow, Freshman Class One's training progress needed to be compiled, and Long Yaochen, as class monitor, naturally could not be absent.

The day after tomorrow, she seemed to be feeling unwell and happened to need someone to deliver documents to Sea God Pavilion.

Each excuse sounded more reasonable than the last.

But after making too many reasonable excuses, even Zhang Lexuan herself could no longer tell whether she truly needed help or simply wanted Long Yaochen to stay a little longer.

Whenever Long Yaochen wanted to refuse, Zhang Lexuan would look at him with those gentle, calm eyes and softly ask, "Class monitor, are you unwilling to help your teacher even with something this small?"

Zhang Lexuan did not know what had come over her. She simply did not want Long Yaochen to have so much free time to spend with Ma Xiaotao and his roommate.

With Zhang Lexuan's persistence, their relationship grew increasingly close.

Especially since Long Yaochen would counsel Zhang Lexuan whenever he had the time.

As her injuries healed, her spirits also grew better and better.

It was as though a moon that had long lain silent had finally begun to shine brilliantly beneath the sun.

As for Ma Xiaotao, she was not nearly so subtle.

She never bothered with grand excuses. Most of the time, she simply blocked his door.

"Come on, help me suppress my Evil Fire."

"I still need to cultivate today."

"Cultivate what? Help me cultivate first."

"..."

Every time, Ma Xiaotao dragged him away until he had no temper left.

And ever since returning from the Far North, a trace of Ultimate Ice had appeared within him, making his suppression of Ma Xiaotao's Evil Fire even more effective than before.

In the past, Ma Xiaotao had merely felt more comfortable.

Now, whenever she drew near Long Yaochen, the restless Evil Fire within her seemed to be pressed down by an invisible hand, becoming so quiet that even she found it unfamiliar.

As a result, the number of times Ma Xiaotao came looking for him visibly increased.

That made Wang Dong's dissatisfaction increasingly obvious.

Whenever Long Yaochen returned to the dorm late, Wang Dong would make a few sarcastic remarks.

"Oh? Our esteemed class monitor finally decided to come back?"

"Was it Senior Sister looking for you again today, or Senior Ma Xiaotao?"

"You might as well stop living in the dorm and move straight to Sea God Island."

At first, Long Yaochen would explain himself a little.

Later, he realized explanations were useless, so he simply flopped onto his bed. "Jealous? You could never envy a life as good as mine. I'm sleeping."

Then Wang Dong would furiously throw a pillow at him.

In this three-way war, the three girls practically wanted to chop him into three pieces.

How could Long Yaochen not find something to scratch that itch?

Dai Huabin was naturally the best stress ball.

He had originally wanted to go looking for Huo Yuhao too.

But that guy had become much more subdued and kept an increasingly low profile in everyone's eyes.

He had heard that Huo Yuhao spent nearly all his time in the Soul Tool Department. Aside from classes and necessary cultivation, he remained in the Soul Tool Testing Area most of the time.

Even when Wang Yan occasionally mentioned him, there was an added hint of complexity in his tone.

After all, given Huo Yuhao's talent in spiritual attributes, if not for what had happened back then, the Martial Soul Department might not truly have given up on him.

But there were no ifs in this world.

Beyond that, Long Yaochen did not pay much attention to him.

He only waited for the end of the semester, when Huo Yuhao would head to the Far North.

Long Yaochen had left him a surprise there.

Speaking of the Ice Empress gave Long Yaochen an even greater headache.

Although the Ice Empress had yet to truly fuse with him after being sealed deep within his Sea of Spirit, its Ultimate Ice was already gradually affecting his condition.

The closer he came to Rank 40, the more scorching Long Yaochen felt his Sea of Spirit becoming.

Even though his martial soul's fire attribute had become increasingly refined through his continued balancing with Ma Xiaotao's Evil Fire during this time, that sense of danger had also grown stronger.

Just as Electrolux had said, relying on Ma Xiaotao alone to complete his martial soul was indeed not enough.

Fortunately, with the Ice Empress, that massive block of ice, inside his Sea of Spirit, the chill it unconsciously radiated became another means for Long Yaochen to ease his discomfort.

It felt like chugging a bottle of ice-cold cola in the height of summer.

Of course, that was also where the headache lay.

Because of the Ice Empress's special nature, it counted as an external entity sealed within Long Yaochen's Sea of Spirit.

It could not directly observe the outside world like Electrolux could.

Thus, the Ice Empress was extremely dissatisfied. "You said we would ascend to godhood. Not only did you seal this Empress in here and ignore me, you even turned this Empress into a tool for cooling yourself down? This Empress is one of the Three Heavenly Kings of the Far North!"

Long Yaochen said with a serious expression, "Don't worry. Once I ascend to godhood, you'll be one of the founding elders who created a god."

The Ice Empress sneered. "Then I really should thank you... Stop talking nonsense. Whenever you have time, tell me about human society nowadays."

For the sake of his second martial soul and his life, Long Yaochen could only agree through gritted teeth.

With another portion of his time taken away, he realized for the first time that having too many women around him did not seem like such a good thing...

Amid all this chaos, eight months passed.

The first academic year was also about to end.

Long Yaochen was only one step away from Rank 40. He estimated that he would break through within the next few days.

Although he had not worked especially hard, taking an entire year to rise by just one rank still made it difficult for him to accept.

While dual Ultimate attributes did not directly double the difficulty of cultivation, they were indeed somewhat slower than a single Ultimate attribute.

Even Wang Dong had reached Rank 30.

Naturally, she had flaunted it quite a bit.

But Long Yaochen shut her down every time with one sentence: "Could you have ranked up that quickly without my help?"

Over these eight months, Long Yaochen had become the person Zhang Lexuan, the Inner Court's Senior Sister, could talk to about anything.

Ma Xiaotao's Evil Fire was also gradually stabilizing. Even the quality of her martial soul had improved because of it, though it had not yet undergone a qualitative transformation.

Everything seemed to be developing in a better direction.

At least, that was how Long Yaochen saw it.

Until this day, when Long Yaochen finally broke through to Rank 40.

Evening.

Zhang Lexuan called Long Yaochen to her office and briefly explained several end-of-semester class matters.

By the time Long Yaochen left the office, the sky had already darkened.

As usual, he returned to Dormitory 108, but the instant he pushed open the door, Long Yaochen suddenly stopped.

The dorm was quiet.

There was not even a trace of Wang Dong's sour sarcasm.

Wang Dong was not there?

Her bed had been unusually neatly made, and the little items she usually left lying around had all disappeared.

Long Yaochen frowned, his gaze falling upon the desk, where a note was pinned down.

He walked over and picked up the note. His eyes instantly narrowed when he saw the few hastily scribbled words on it:

'Something came up. Going home. Don't worry.'