Promotion Match Slots

This was the safest and most reliable option, requiring the least risk to his life. Leaving aside the grudge between his old man and the Spirit Pagoda, his toxic power alone would inevitably attract the attention of Evil Soul Masters.

Going to the Spirit Pagoda would be like delivering meat buns to a dog. Lin Yu could sense that as his soul power cultivation increased, while it would not harm his body, his blood would contain a certain amount of poison.

In other words, Evil Soul Masters would not even need to tempt him into corruption. They only needed to capture him and treat him like a blood bag, drawing his blood whenever they wanted, and he would be highly valuable.

The Spirit Pagoda was definitely out of the question. The Federation was too much of a maggot-infested mess, while the Tang Sect was an arms dealer that would be deeply involved in its struggle against the Spirit Pagoda.

Only Shrek Academy remained. Its graduates stuck together for mutual support and had a certain clique culture. In most situations, even at the most difficult times, they only needed to voice their support and put a little pressure on the Federation, that organization that was the worst of the maggots.

If he could graduate from the Outer Court and then enter the War God Temple, that would be the best path Lin Yu had envisioned. However, that route depended on his future efforts and was not yet secure.

Still, all things considered, the chances were high. After carefully investigating Shrek Academy over the past few days, Lin Yu had found that, even within the limited information available, it was clear that the academy did allow early graduation, and there were several ways to achieve it.

The simplest yet hardest method was to earn full marks in the entrance examination. Both in the original work of his previous life and in this world, it had been clearly stated that doing so granted one the right to make a request.

Tang Wulin had used that request to secure Gu Yue's admission. Lin Yu could use it instead to bring forward the earliest date at which he could apply for his graduation examination.

That way, under the most extreme conditions—at least theoretically—Lin Yu could obtain his graduation certificate and leave before the Shrek Explosion occurred.

He would gain the prestige he needed while also gaining access to Shrek Academy's relatively fair and clean resources for secondary professions.

Lin Yu looked much further ahead regarding secondary profession resources than he had in his previous life. Things he had failed to notice back then now had clear, bloody examples proving that they had to be taken seriously.

First and foremost, although Battle Armor was described in mysterious terms, it was essentially a small, close-fitting mech operated by its wearer.

This mechanical creation could develop spirituality in the later stages and become attuned to its owner's thoughts. Yet if someone obtained its blueprints, it could still pose an enormous threat.

And if the mech designer who made it had harbored malicious intentions from the beginning, then the consequences for the soul master wearing the Battle Armor would be even more disastrous.

Such matters naturally did not need to be considered in the online discussion simulations of his previous life. But now Lin Yu would be risking his own life, so he had no choice but to take them to heart.

Because of the peculiar honor-based indoctrination of Shrek Academy, it was the place most capable of creating the sort of discussion environment found in those online simulations, one that cast aside human nature.

That was also an important reason why its people in every profession could form such tight-knit groups.

With a shared goal, all wanting to contribute to Shrek Academy's honor, they were the least likely people to sabotage fellow Shrek Academy students.

This was especially true when they were in different grades.

Having figured out the path, Lin Yu now had to face the question of how to walk it. Thinking of this, he took another deep breath. The plan sounded fine in theory, but the road would truly not be easy.

For example, his first hurdle now was getting Ye Yingluo to select him for the team facing Class Five of the new students.

Wu Changkong had pulled a dirty trick. Even now, he had not reported the participants for the promotion match, claiming that they had not yet been decided and that he still needed several days to consider the lineup.

But Lin Yu knew very well that Wu Changkong had already begun giving his three-man promotion match team extra training in the middle of the night.

Ye Yingluo, with her love-struck brain, claimed she was respecting the objective gap in strength between the students of Class One and Class Five. In reality, she wanted to narrow the gap between the two classes so she could defeat Wu Changkong more "fairly and squarely," thereby achieving her goal of conquering him.

It could only be said that Wu Changkong had been quite unlucky to encounter such a clingy, resentful female colleague only a few years after his girlfriend's death.

Likewise, Lin Yu and the other students of Class One were also unlucky to end up with such a homeroom teacher during their most critical years.

A month had passed, yet she still did not know Lin Yu's true strength, nor did she know that Wang Jinxi and Zhang Yangzi possessed a martial soul fusion skill.

She had not even finalized the roster for the promotion match. Classes Two, Three, and Four had long since confirmed their six slots. They did not need to know how many people Class Five had picked. There were only twenty of them in total, and no matter how capable Wu Changkong was, he could select no more than six people.

Several days after the first month of school had passed, Wu Changkong submitted the number of participants. Only then did Ye Yingluo begin selecting contestants with great ceremony.

Her selection method was rather wild as well. She simply used the most basic one-on-one combat format.

The sole scientific aspect was that assault-system soul masters fought assault-system soul masters, agility assault-system soul masters fought agility assault-system soul masters, and control-system soul masters fought control-system soul masters. Then she would gather the strongest of each system and develop a top-tier lineup suited to dealing with Class Five's numbers.

There was nothing inherently wrong with this method, but Ye Yingluo's execution was terribly inefficient. The instructor could only hold matches in haste, and during selection, she could only judge the upper limit of the soul power displayed in the end.

Thus, the three-person team directly excluded all control-system and support-system soul masters, selecting only Lin Yu, Wang Jinxi, and Zhang Yangzi as contestants.

Fortunately, Lin Yu's strength was so far ahead that no one could challenge his place. Wang Jinxi and Zhang Yangzi also made it clear that, since they had already been selected, anyone with objections had a problem with both of them.

They directly invoked an old martial-world saying: "Fight one of us, and both of us will come at you. Fight a hundred of us, and both of us will still come at you."

No one wanted to provoke those two lunatics. Thus, amid an atmosphere with very few blessings, Class One's promotion match slots were more or less settled.

Ye Yingluo was quite satisfied with the lineup. Her only warning was for Lin Yu to be more careful when using poison. After all, friendship came first and competition second. If he truly poisoned someone to death, it would also deal a tremendous blow to Lin Yu's future.

Lin Yu was also considering how to respond in a way that would control his toxic power to the greatest extent possible.

Of course, given Ye Yingluo's obsession at the moment, although she said friendship came first and competition second, Lin Yu could not say what would happen if competition truly came second.