Lashing Yu Xiaogang's Corpse, Ice Empress Enraged!

Wang Yan lowered his head, wishing he could give his own mouth a solid slap for asking that question just now.

Asking an ordinary student would have been one thing, but he had to go and run his mouth at this little monster; wasn't that just sticking his face out to be stepped on?

Watching the Class One head teacher look so devastated and on the verge of collapse, Xiao Yan stepped forward.

"Teacher Wang, there is no need for you to be like this." Xiao Yan's expression was calm, his tone laced with a touch of consolation.

"Your specialty is the study of Spirit Soul theory; comparing spirit power levels with us is biased. Let me find you an excellent point of comparison."

Wang Yan looked up, pushed up the black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, and revealed a hint of confusion in his eyes.

Xiao Yan clasped his hands behind his back and tossed out his argument with a straight face.

"Ten thousand years ago, you should be very familiar with that master of theory, Yu Xiaogang, who claimed to have taught a god. He was illustrious in the theoretical world, yet he successfully broke through to the age of fifty while his spirit power was still under level thirty!"

Wang Yan froze in place, his brain rapidly processing the sentence.

Under level thirty spirit power, broke through to the age of fifty.

This wasn't praising someone at all; this was clearly tearing the master's fig leaf off and throwing it on the ground to stomp on it.

As a senior teacher well-versed in the history of the Douluo Continent, Wang Yan instantly grasped the dark humor within.

The muscles in his taut cheeks twitched uncontrollably, and he let out a "pfft" of laughter.

But the moment the sound escaped his throat, Wang Yan immediately realized something was wrong.

Yu Xiaogang was one of the founders of Shrek Academy; in the academy's records, he was a revered sage.

As a teacher of the academy, mocking a sage along with a student—if this got out, he would be disciplined.

He hurriedly covered his mouth with his hand, forcibly stifling the rest of his laughter, his face turning beet red.

Xiao Xiao and Wu Feng, standing to the side, were completely bewildered.

Their knowledge of history from ten thousand years ago was limited; they only knew figures who had become gods like Tang San and Dai Mubai, and were not very sensitive to the name Yu Xiaogang.

"Brother, what is Teacher Wang laughing at? Being under level thirty at fifty years old, how is that an excellent point of comparison?" Xiao Xiao tugged on Xiao Yan's sleeve, her face full of confusion.

Xiao Yan lowered his voice and explained the wordplay and irony in a tone only they could hear.

Xiao Xiao and Wu Feng suddenly realized.

Wu Feng, who had always been unconstrained, bent over laughing on the spot, and Xiao Xiao also clutched her stomach, giggling.

As students from various classes arrived one after another, the noise in the Beast Fighting Zone gradually grew deafening.

On the high platform, Dean Du Weilun straightened his collar, picked up the sound-amplifying spirit guidance device, and prepared to announce the official start of the second-year advancement assessment.

"Achoo--!"

A sneeze, loud enough to pierce through the entire Beast Fighting Zone, abruptly interrupted Du Weilun's actions.

From the direction of the Beast Fighting Zone's gate, a figure stumbled in.

The person looked incredibly miserable; his original clothes had long since been torn into strips, fluttering messily in the wind as he ran.

His hair was disheveled, his face pale, and as he ran, he couldn't stop sneezing uncontrollably, his nose frozen bright red.

Anyone who didn't know better would have thought he was a little beggar who had fled from a famine and run into Shrek Academy by mistake.

Du Weilun frowned, squinted, and recognized the disheveled youth.

It was none other than Huo Yuhao, who had missed the registration deadline.

According to the ironclad rules of Shrek Academy, anyone who failed to report on time was automatically considered to have withdrawn, with no room for negotiation.

Du Weilun raised the sound-amplifying spirit guidance device, just about to announce the decision to expel Huo Yuhao in front of everyone.

A tall figure appeared silently beside Huo Yuhao and pressed down on his trembling shoulder; the person who arrived was Fan Yu from the Spirit Guidance Department.

Du Weilun's eyes narrowed slightly.

Fan Yu, while not insignificant, was not enough to make him, the Dean of the Spirit Soul Department, ignore school rules in public.

Rules were rules; it didn't matter who came to plead.

Just as he was about to speak, heavy footsteps came from the stairs on the side of the platform.

Qian Duoduo appeared in Du Weilun's line of sight.

The Vice Dean of the Spirit Guidance Department walked onto the platform with a smile; he looked amiable, but in reality, he was exerting considerable pressure.

With two heavyweights from the Spirit Guidance Department coming forward at the same time to protect an outer court freshman, Du Weilun had to weigh his options.

Although the Spirit Soul Department and the Spirit Guidance Department competed in secret, it wouldn't benefit anyone if they truly tore their faces off.

On the high platform, several high-level officials gathered and, after a brief and intense negotiation, finally agreed on a compromise.

Du Weilun picked up the sound-amplifying spirit guidance device again, his voice stern.

"Huo Yuhao failed to report on time and should have been expelled. However, considering there were reasons for this, the academy has decided to give him a chance to prove himself. In the first round of the advancement assessment, Huo Yuhao will be the first to take the stage. He must fight a thousand-year-level spirit beast and win in order to retain his student status!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the stands were in an uproar.

Xiao Yan stood in the front row of the Class One formation, watching Huo Yuhao, who had changed into the white school uniform handed to him by Fan Yu, walking toward the battle arena.

Even after changing into clean clothes, Huo Yuhao couldn't stop shivering, and the sound of "achoo" echoed incessantly.

He had stayed in the ice house in the Extreme North for too long, and the cold had long since seeped into his marrow.

Even with the foundation of the Ultimate Ice martial soul, the frostbite on his physical body was a sequela that would be difficult to cure in a short time.

The heavy metal gate rose slowly, and a pungent, fishy wind wafted from the dark passage.

A Gale Demon Wolf over three meters long lunged out of the cage.

Its entire body was covered in hard, blue-gray fur, its ghostly green eyes locked onto Huo Yuhao ahead, and saliva dripped from between its sharp fangs.

Cyan wind blades swirled around its four limbs; this was a fierce soul beast known for its speed and wind-type lethality.

Facing the pressure of a thousand-year soul beast, Huo Yuhao rubbed his reddened nose, suppressed the urge to sneeze, and his eyes suddenly lit up.

Instead of retreating, he advanced, and a bone-chilling temperature spread wildly from him toward the surrounding arena.

The scene Xiao Yan had anticipated appeared.

Huo Yuhao directly revealed his second martial soul.

Ice crystals rapidly condensed on his arms, forming hard, diamond-shaped armor.

Immediately after, a phantom appeared behind Huo Yuhao.

It was a crystal-clear scorpion that looked as if it had been carved from ice jade.

Even though it was only a martial soul phantom, it exuded a ten-thousand-year pressure sufficient to make a thousand-year soul beast tremble.

The teachers and students in the stands widened their eyes one after another, guessing whether this was the Ice Jade Scorpion martial soul that possessed Ultimate Ice.

Yet, in Xiao Yan's Star River Sea of Consciousness, it was a scene of chaos.

Ice Empress, who had been resting with her eyes closed on the edge of the Bagua Formation Map alongside Ice Bear King Xiao Bai and Snow Empress, shuddered violently the moment the Ice Jade Scorpion phantom appeared.

The aura of the same origin within her bloodline reached her perception with precision, even through the layers of obstacles of the outside world.

Ice Empress's pair of orange-gold, cold eyes snapped open.

She took a step forward, projected her mental vision out of Xiao Yan's Sea of Consciousness, and cast it directly toward the arena outside.

When she saw the ten-thousand-year-level Ice Jade Scorpion martial soul phantom behind Huo Yuhao, this petite, dainty girl instantly fell into a rage.

"How preposterous!"

Ice Empress shouted in anger.

Her snow-white, translucent cheeks flushed red with extreme fury, and the green scorpion patterns on both sides of her face glowed brilliantly.

The small ice crystal crown atop her head even condensed sharp ice spikes due to the surge of energy.

She clenched her hands into fists, and the green scorpion tail behind her lashed out wildly, striking the void of the Sea of Consciousness and emitting crisp, explosive sounds.

As the matriarch of the Ice Jade Scorpion clan and a ruler of the Extreme North, she would never allow any human to hunt her kin to serve as a martial soul.

"I have only been away from the Extreme North for a few days, and already someone dares to hunt my kin!" Ice Empress was so angry she stomped her feet on the formation map, her orange-gold eyes overflowing with killing intent as she stared fixedly at the youth releasing the aura of Ultimate Ice.

"To steal the origin of my Ice Jade Scorpion clan to create a martial soul—I want him dead!"