The Shrek cafeteria was bustling with voices, the aroma of food filling the air. Bei Bei, Tang Ya, and the others sat around a table, enjoying their meal as they chatted animatedly.
Everyone had something to say, and the atmosphere was lively and warm. From time to time, light laughter rang out. Only Su Ming remained outside the cheerful hubbub.
He kept his head down and focused on eating the whole time, his chopsticks hardly ever pausing. He was completely absorbed in his meal.
Before long, while everyone else was deep in conversation, Su Ming silently set down his bowl and chopsticks and headed straight for the cafeteria serving window.
Not long after, he returned with his arms full of food: five glistening braised chicken drumsticks tucked against his chest and ten steaming plates of meat in his hands.
The students dining nearby stared at him in shock and awe, clicking their tongues in disbelief. They had never imagined anyone could eat so much.
Su Ming paid no attention to their stares. With a calm, unruffled expression, he made his way back to the table where Bei Bei and the others were sitting.
He set down the food one dish at a time, sat back in his seat, picked up his chopsticks, and resumed wolfing down his meal. It was as if nothing around him mattered; all he saw was the food on the table.
Bei Bei watched Su Ming, who had done nothing but eat and hadn't said a word the entire time, and shook his head helplessly. During a lull in the conversation,
he nudged Su Ming lightly with his elbow and lowered his voice, teasing him. "Old Su, say something, will you? All you do is eat. Come chat with us."
Su Ming still had food in his mouth. Hearing Bei Bei urge him on, he looked up and glanced around at everyone seated together, all of them looking at him.
He realized that he was the only one there who'd spent the whole meal eating without saying a word. It really was a little impolite.
He slowly put down his chopsticks and raised a hand to cough lightly twice, trying to ease his embarrassment. Then he looked at everyone and asked,
"Well, since you put it that way, I'll chat with everyone for a bit. There's something I've been wondering about, actually. What do you all think of Soul Tools?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Tang Ya's usually gentle expression darkened. Her voice was full of irritation and disgust as she replied without a moment's thought:
"I hate Soul Tools from the bottom of my heart! Those foreign Soul Tools completely replaced the hidden weapons passed down by our Tang Sect for a thousand years."
"They've chipped away at the Tang Sect's foundations and brought us to where we are today. That's why I look down on Soul Tools, and even more so on the Soul Tool Department, which specializes in studying them!"
Bei Bei nodded in agreement, his brows drawing together. His tone carried a clear note of distaste.
"I feel the same way. I can't stand Soul Tools either. To me, they're nothing but unorthodox tricks brought over from the Sun Moon Empire."
"Cultivating Soul Tools is pure opportunism. It not only squeezes the space available for our Tang Sect Hidden Weapons to survive,"
"but is also the root cause of the Tang Sect's gradual decline. It's nowhere near as solid as orthodox Martial Soul cultivation."
Seeing how firmly Tang Ya and Bei Bei had made their positions clear, and how readily they'd answered, Su Ming didn't press them further. He simply turned his gaze toward Jiang Nannan beside them and waited to hear her opinion.
Jiang Nannan lowered her eyes slightly and considered the question for a moment before speaking in a cool, even tone:
"I don't have any particular feelings about Soul Tools. I'm neither opposed to them nor especially in favor of them. To me,"
"they're just tools to assist in battle. There's no need to take the Soul Tool Department path, and Soul Tools on the market are quite expensive. Ordinary Soul Masters can't afford them."
Seeing Jiang Nannan express her opinion first, Xu Sanshi immediately seized on it as an opening and chimed in. His face was full of disdain, and he made no effort to hide his contempt for Soul Tools.
"I think Nannan's right! Soul Tools are just a shortcut for Soul Masters—in other words, pure opportunism!"
"If you rely on external things like that, you'll sooner or later neglect your own Martial Soul cultivation. You'll even lose your most basic instincts in battle. You'll never amount to anything!"
At that, Su Ming rolled his eyes without a change in expression and grumbled inwardly. The guy clearly hadn't given it any thought at all.
He was just parroting Jiang Nannan, without a single opinion of his own. Su Ming didn't call him out on it, instead turning his gaze to Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong, the last two who hadn't spoken.
Wang Dong shared Bei Bei and Tang Ya's stance. She spoke with open resistance and unmistakable disdain:
"I think the Soul Tool Department is just an unorthodox path too. How could it compare to the nobility of orthodox Martial Soul cultivation? Soul Masters who rely on Soul Tools can't be called true powerhouses!"
When it was Huo Yuhao's turn, he didn't voice an opinion right away. He froze for a moment, then awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
With an embarrassed, bashful look, he said softly, "Um... Big Brother Su, maybe don't ask me. I've only been at Shrek for a little while, and I don't know anything about Soul Tools. I really can't offer any useful judgment."
Good grief. Of everyone there, only Huo Yuhao—young and inexperienced as he was—didn't look at Soul Tools with some degree of resistance or hostility.
And the only reason Huo Yuhao hadn't made any negative remarks was that he'd seen too little and had no real idea what Soul Tools were. It wasn't as if he genuinely approved of them.
Su Ming secretly weighed things up. He'd still wanted to persuade Huo Yuhao to devote himself to studying Soul Tools.
After all, the Core Array in an Armor Beast was extremely complex, and its design demanded exceptional talent with Soul Tools. If Huo Yuhao himself had only mediocre talent in that area,
then even if Su Ming poured a great deal of time into it, he might still fail to grasp the essence of the Core Array.
If things really came to that, the whole situation would fall apart. Su Ming's later battles—whether hunting down Evil Soul Masters or dealing with all kinds of crises—would be severely affected.
Then Su Ming remembered that Huo Yuhao's monstrous talent with Soul Tools was famous throughout the Douluo Continent.
With him doing the research, there was a good chance this could work. That was why Su Ming had planned to persuade him to study Soul Tools and help him out.
But as Su Ming looked at the undisguised hostility everyone showed toward Soul Tools, it finally dawned on him:
he'd underestimated just how deeply the old-school Soul Master powers of the original story—Shrek, the Tang Sect, and the rest—resented Soul Tools. Their deep-rooted prejudice was worse than he'd imagined.
Su Ming helplessly raised a hand to rub his throbbing forehead. Looking thoroughly exasperated, he said in a tone of frustrated reproach:
"Ah, just look at yourselves! What era are we living in? Why are you still acting like those stubborn old fossils, so prejudiced against Soul Tools and so resistant to them?!"