Conceptual Erasure from Perception

On the western side of the outer region of the Star Dou Great Forest, within a valley blooming with flowers, Huo Yuhao hid quietly in a nearby bush. In the Sea of Consciousness, Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was softly briefing him on soul beasts.

"That's a Spirit Pattern Butterfly, a solitary butterfly-type soul beast. This one has roughly eight hundred years of cultivation. With your spiritual power, absorbing it won't be a problem. But it relies on its wings to detect air currents and judge whether its surroundings are dangerous. Without a long-range attack, it'll be difficult to hit."

Huo Yuhao nodded and fixed his gaze on the Spirit Pattern Butterfly before him. It was a large butterfly with a wingspan of less than half a meter, its wings covered in flowing silver-purple spirit patterns, its body slender and elegant.

In stark contrast to that elegance, the instant the Spirit Pattern Butterfly took flight, the pink flower it had been resting on immediately drooped its bud, and the entire flower rapidly withered.

According to Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, Spirit Pattern Butterflies fed on the spiritual power within flowers and grasses. Before plant-type soul beasts gained intelligence, they were essentially their killers, often destroying a plant's potential to become a plant-type soul beast.

Huo Yuhao curled his lips into a smile, then placed a finger against his brow. The Void Eye split open beneath his right eye.

The next moment, a glimmer flashed within the Void Eye. Its ability activated, conceptually erasing Huo Yuhao's existence from the Spirit Pattern Butterfly's senses.

Even the wind Huo Yuhao stirred as he walked and drew his blade could no longer be detected by the Spirit Pattern Butterfly.

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was stunned upon seeing this. He had no means of obtaining information from the White Eye Demon Lord System, so he naturally had no way of knowing the origin or abilities of Huo Yuhao's unique eye.

Huo Yuhao explained to Sky Dream Ice Silkworm in the Sea of Consciousness, "This is my martial soul ability. It can conceptually remove me from the perception of a target within this eye's field of vision."

Once Sky Dream Ice Silkworm understood the ability of Huo Yuhao's eye, disbelief immediately filled his eyes. By then, Huo Yuhao had already crept before the Spirit Pattern Butterfly and, with a sharp hiss, drew the White Tiger Dagger.

The razor-sharp White Tiger Dagger shot forward and pierced straight through the Spirit Pattern Butterfly's body.

Only then did the Spirit Pattern Butterfly feel the intense pain and danger. It immediately began struggling violently, and as its wings beat frantically, scattered fragments of spiritual power fluttered down from them.

After several minutes of struggling, the Spirit Pattern Butterfly gradually went limp. At the same time, a yellow soul ring rose from its body.

The deep yellow soul ring illuminated the ground before Huo Yuhao several shades brighter. After all, this was a Spirit Pattern Butterfly nearly eight hundred years old. Within its yellow soul ring, faint traces of purple had already begun to flicker.

Huo Yuhao sat down cross-legged and reached out, guiding the yellow soul ring toward himself.

The soul ring shimmered with a faint golden halo. Under Huo Yuhao's guidance, it swiftly moved above his head and began to pulse rhythmically.

After an hour of pulsing, the soul ring gradually contracted and slowly descended beneath Huo Yuhao's feet.

With the successful absorption of this soul ring, Huo Yuhao's Soul Power reached level fifteen, barely meeting Shrek Academy's admission standard.

This also helped Huo Yuhao understand why, by the era of Soul Land II, Shrek Academy had produced almost no outstanding students beyond the protagonist group.

On one hand, rotten leadership bred rotten subordinates. The abilities of the lower-ranking teachers were already uneven, while those above remained immersed in past glory and refused to wake up.

On the other hand, the quality of the students had become difficult to describe. Compared with Soul Land I, the admission requirements for students had gradually loosened.

The threshold was no longer as outrageous as it had been for the first generation. Huo Yuhao had asked around in the town before. In his previous life, readers had considered recommendation letters the hardest thing to obtain, but actually getting one was nothing special.

It was somewhat like the tuition fees of those elite universities in his previous life. As long as your score was high enough, tuition would not become an obstacle to attending school.

In Douluo, that meant as long as you met the required standard, plenty of city lords would be willing to give you a recommendation letter.

Compared to recommendation letters, the truly difficult part was martial soul awakening for commoners. That was expensive, averaging roughly five to ten Gold Soul Coins.

Even so, after absorbing the soul ring and returning to the original town, Huo Yuhao spent several days carefully considering the matter before ultimately deciding to go to Shrek Academy.

After all, the soul skill he had newly obtained was not Spiritual Detection, but Illusionary Thought Confusion. It released a wide-range mental mist that scattered the minds of enemy targets within the area, reducing their reaction speed and concentration by thirty percent while disrupting the charging rhythm of their soul skills. Against targets with weaker spiritual power than his own, it could produce brief hallucinations.

This was clearly a control-oriented yet offensive soul skill. At the Sun Moon Empire, it would not be valued too highly, since it was of little use to the Soul Engineering Department. If he went to the Body Sect, he would likely need to demonstrate his value before receiving better treatment.

Moreover, Huo Yuhao was even more concerned that once he went to the Body Sect, his future value among those factions would be locked in place. At least in this era, there had yet to be an example of anyone successfully defecting from the Body Sect.

Huo Yuhao had no intention of becoming that example himself.

It would be better to follow the original plan: first make a name for himself at Shrek Academy during the first tournament, then consider where to settle down.

If he built sufficiently strong connections at Shrek Academy, perhaps he could even establish his own faction.

Simply put, Shrek Academy was currently the path with the most possible changes. Defecting from Shrek to the Sun Moon Empire would be easy, and if he defected after making a name for himself, perhaps people would even line the streets to welcome him.

But switching from the Sun Moon Empire to other nations would not be nearly so simple.

That was the value of Shrek Academy's neutral position: heavily criticized in his previous life, yet still quite useful to Huo Yuhao in this life.

Huo Yuhao was not someone who agonized over decisions. Once he had made up his mind, he immediately began looking into whether any merchant caravans bound for Shrek Academy had room for him to hitch a ride.

His luck was fairly good. He happened to encounter a merchant caravan passing through and resting there. One of their control-type soul masters had just died, and after Huo Yuhao displayed the eyesight of his Spirit Eye martial soul, he secured a ride through his sharp eyes and keen mind.

Not only would he save on travel expenses, but he could also earn money once they reached Shrek City. The caravan leader would pay him six silver coins.

According to the information Huo Yuhao had gathered, several cities where this caravan stopped along the way sold Shrek Academy recommendation letters every year. In any of those cities, he could easily solve the problem of obtaining a recommendation letter...