After that baffling match ended, the students of Freshman Class 9 were brought back to the classroom by Mu Jin.
As the students returned to their seats, Mu Jin coughed lightly, trying to bring the atmosphere back on track:
"Alright, victory and defeat are commonplace. Sparring is also an indispensable part of a Soul Master's growth.
"I hope that, as classmates, you won't dwell too much on the outcome. Instead, you should identify your own shortcomings and improve upon them. Only then can you continue progressing and become stronger."
Mu Jin's gaze swept over Wu Feng, who was still limply leaning against Ning Tian's shoulder.
Ordinarily, she should have commented on the match and pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of both sides.
But that match had ended far too strangely. Even she, the referee and teacher, had not fully understood what had happened. All she could do now was offer a few vague words of reassurance and let the matter pass.
"Good! Next comes the first lesson you will study after entering Shrek Academy."
Mu Jin turned around, erased the words "class monitor" from the blackboard, and wrote the words "offense and defense."
"Huo Yuhao, as the vice class monitor, let me test you. What is your understanding of the offensive and defensive systems of Soul Masters?"
Just as the classroom fell silent and everyone waited for Huo Yuhao's answer, two people silently appeared by the half-closed back door of Class Nine's classroom.
One of them was exceptionally burly, with bronze skin and broad shoulders. There was not a single wrinkle on his face, yet he had a head of white hair as stiff as steel needles, lending him an air of weathered maturity.
"Lin'er, don't be so impatient." Qian Duoduo, the Vice Dean of the Soul Guidance Department, wore a bitter expression as he softly advised the heroic-looking woman beside him, his tone full of helplessness.
"Those students will only be provisionally assigned after the Freshman Assessment. Even if you spot some promising talents now, Yan Shaozhe won't easily let them come to our Soul Guidance Department."
The woman Qian Duoduo called "Lin'er" was tall, around 1.7 meters in height, with fair skin and neat short blue hair tucked beneath a simple military cap.
The fitted blue-black military dress she wore made her seem even more valiant and extraordinary.
Xian Lin'er cast a sidelong glance at Qian Duoduo, her eyes carrying undisguised disappointment at his failure to meet expectations. Her tone turned colder as well.
"Qian Duoduo, it's because you always act so timidly that you can't accomplish anything! Huo Yuhao is an exceptionally rare spiritual-attribute Soul Master. What the hell does Yan Shaozhe know?"
As if recalling something, Xian Lin'er's tone became even more dissatisfied.
"Even getting these little ones to encounter Soul Tools in their very first lesson, so they would form a good impression of Soul Tools, took a tremendous effort on my part before it passed at a Sea God Pavilion meeting. And you? You couldn't help at all."
Hearing Xian Lin'er's blunt scolding, Qian Duoduo looked even more awkward and did not dare say another word.
Inside the classroom, Huo Yuhao stood up.
Compared with his past life, he truly had an entirely different view of this question.
In his past life, the most crucial step in his plan to ultimately bring down Tang San had been taking advantage of the chaos in the God Realm to forcibly seize control of the God Realm Hub.
It was precisely because of that brief contact that he had the chance to learn about the development of Douluo Continent more than seven thousand years later, as well as Tang San's so-called ten-thousand-year grand plan.
Unfortunately, he had only caught a few hurried glimpses back then. He merely learned in broad terms about the Soul Tool system that would later flourish across the continent, known as Battle Armor.
Compared with the Ice Extreme War God Armor that he and Xuan Ziwen had developed, it was vastly different. It had even reached the point where an ordinary Title Douluo could wield a Four-Word Battle Armor and possess terrifying combat strength comparable to a Limit Douluo.
With his thoughts turning, Huo Yuhao spoke in a deep voice.
"Teacher Mu, I believe that in this era of ever-developing Soul Tools, the traditional boundary between offense and defense among Soul Masters has already become greatly blurred.
"Even a food-type auxiliary tool martial soul master, if he holds an offensive Soul Tool powerful enough, can under certain circumstances unleash attack power no weaker than that of a strong attack-type battle Soul Master.
"Likewise, a speed-oriented agility attack-type battle Soul Master, if equipped with a Soul Tool possessing sufficiently outstanding defense, can take on part of a defense-type Soul Master's role when necessary and protect himself or his teammates.
"One could say that as long as one possesses sufficient Soul Power, a Soul Master can use Soul Tools of various functions to greatly compensate for the deficiencies of their martial soul type, making their combat methods more flexible and varied."
Hearing Huo Yuhao's clear and logical analysis, Ning Tian's beautiful eyes flickered. But remembering that he was the disciple of Grandmaster Spirit Ice, she was not surprised that he understood such knowledge about Soul Tools.
As an auxiliary Soul Master of the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda, she also understood how important Soul Tools were to her.
Although she had never attempted to create Soul Tools herself, she had indeed come into contact with and used quite a few different Soul Tools in daily life.
Even within the Storage Soul Tool she carried with her were several high-quality third-grade offensive and defensive Soul Tools.
Huo Yuhao paused, then shifted the direction of his words and continued.
"However, while Soul Tools can blur the line between offense and defense among Soul Masters to a certain extent, and can also narrow part of the quality gap between ordinary martial souls and high-grade martial souls, they currently cannot fundamentally change this issue."
"For example, a strong attack-type beast martial soul master with sufficiently powerful physical qualities can rely on his formidable body to withstand the massive recoil when firing a Soul Cannon. He can even forcefully use high-grade Soul Cannons beyond the limits of his cultivation level.
"But if an auxiliary-type Soul Master with comparatively frail physical qualities tried the same thing, the result would often be no different from suicide."
The Soul Tool technology of this era was still far from capable of completely bridging the enormous gap between different types of martial souls.
The mainstream combat methods on the continent still revolved around the characteristics of martial souls themselves and the soul skills mastered by Soul Masters.
A Life-Bound Soul Tool like Kong Deming's was far too exceptional a case. There was not even any trace of such Soul Tools in later eras.
And on the Douluo Continent seven thousand years later, it was only because of Battle Armor and the extinction of most Soul Beasts that the direction of Soul Master cultivation became more focused on the pure enhancement of Soul Power and spiritual power.
Thinking of the extinction of Soul Beasts, Huo Yuhao had never imagined that the Soul Spirit Contract invented by Teacher Electrolux and personally promoted by him would instead, to a certain extent, accelerate the extinction of Soul Beasts.
And all of that was because he had foolishly gone to the God Realm back then without caring about anything else.
"Then according to the vice class monitor, doesn't that mean Soul Tools are not particularly useful to truly powerful Soul Masters?" a male student in the back row asked.
At the male student's question, the expressions of Xian Lin'er and Qian Duoduo, who were listening outside the door, both became somewhat unpleasant.
Because that was precisely the true belief held by most teachers and students of Shrek Academy's Martial Soul Department.
Existing Soul Tools truly found it difficult to threaten the lives of Super Douluo and even Limit Douluo who stood at the peak of the continent.
Before you continue