Chapter 26

Casting aside the jumble of thoughts in his mind.

Huo Yuhao stood up and brushed the dust from his hands.

He turned and left the dormitory, intending to grab a simple dinner at the cafeteria.

Just as he stepped out of the dormitory building's entrance,

Huo Yuhao's footsteps paused.

Not far away, beneath a lush, broad-canopied tree, stood a battered old rocking chair.

An old man in gray lay in it.

The old man had his eyes closed, a thin blanket casually draped over him. He looked like any retired old grandpa sunning himself at the entrance to a village.

But Huo Yuhao knew perfectly well.

This old man was Shrek Academy's strongest expert.

A Limit Douluo, Mu En.

He was also the master of the Sea God Pavilion, the true ceiling of combat power across the continent.

They had casually thrown the strongest man on the entire continent beneath the Freshman Dormitory to work as a security guard and watch the gate.

Shrek Academy's way of thinking truly could not be judged by common sense.

Still, in Huo Yuhao's eyes, Elder Mu was already one of the few normal people in all of Shrek Academy.

Although Shrek claimed it only accepted monsters and not ordinary people, Huo Yuhao did not know whether it had actually admitted any monsters. It had definitely admitted a whole crowd of freaks, though.

If a brick fell at random, it might hit some troubled child with psychological trauma and a broken way of thinking.

Compared to some of the inhuman actions taken by Shrek's upper echelon in the original story, someone like Mu En, who considered matters in line with the tide of the times, seemed as though he existed on a completely different plane from everyone else.

Huo Yuhao withdrew his gaze.

He did not go over to forcibly make himself familiar with him.

Nor did he deliberately reveal anything unusual.

He merely headed naturally toward the cafeteria like any ordinary freshman.

After eating and drinking his fill, Huo Yuhao headed straight for the Outer Court Library.

Shrek had been passed down for over ten thousand years. Setting everything else aside, when it came to its collection of books and scholarly records, this place was unquestionably the best on the continent.

This place was unquestionably the best on the continent.

After showing his identity as a new Outer Court student at the entrance, Huo Yuhao entered without issue.

The inside was enormous.

Rows upon rows of towering bookshelves stretched beyond sight, while the dry scent of paper accumulated over countless years filled the air.

Huo Yuhao did not wander around aimlessly.

He went straight for the section on Martial Soul theory and Soul Beast trait research.

After Sky Dream Ice Silkworm became his Wisdom Soul Ring, it had indeed left him with an empty slot for a second Martial Soul.

As long as he absorbed a Soul Beast with a suitable attribute, it could directly grant his second Martial Soul a concrete form.

According to the original course of events, he would go to the Far North and make that Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion his second Martial Soul.

But that had merely been his old plan.

Now, Huo Yuhao did not want to do that.

Ice Empress was certainly a good choice. As one of the Three Heavenly Kings of the Far North, she had nearly four hundred thousand years of cultivation and could even unlock Snow Empress's subsequent storyline.

But he truly had little interest in the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion Martial Soul.

Aside from granting him the Extreme Ice attribute and letting him bluff people a little in the early stages,

it did not seem to have played much of a substantive role in combat during the middle and later stages.

More importantly,

he truly did not want a huge green scorpion tattooed on his back.

He could take Ice Empress's origin.

But the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion Martial Soul form had to be changed.

How to change it, and what method he could use to extract the origin and strip away the form—those were the reasons he had come to the Library.

Over the next three days,

Huo Yuhao entered what could only be called an insane study mode.

Other than eating, sleeping, and maintaining the basic circulation of the Heavenly Origin Art,

he spent every remaining moment buried in these yellowed ancient books.

For an ordinary person, reading so many obscure and difficult Martial Soul documents would probably make them want to vomit within half a day.

But Huo Yuhao was different.

With the support of his first soul skill, "Mind-Clearing," together with Spirit Detection's assistance,

he flipped through books like a tireless human scanner.

Often, he only needed to glance at a page,

for its entire contents to be completely imprinted in his mind.

Whenever some complicated theory started to bore him,

he would casually pull out a few continental rumor collections or historical travelogues to read like novels and clear his head.

In truth, Huo Yuhao already had a rough idea in mind.

The mystery of a body Martial Soul lay in the secondary development of oneself.

Since his second Martial Soul was a blank slate, why did it have to be limited to an external Soul Beast?

Since the Soul Beast Soul Rings he absorbed would determine the shape of his second Martial Soul, could he perhaps use some special method himself?

Could he make that incomplete, blank second Martial Soul become the Martial Soul he wanted, and the one most suitable for him, according to his own intentions?

It was only a preliminary idea.

But it required extensive foundational theory to support it.

After these three days,

Huo Yuhao's mind had already been filled with Shrek's academic material accumulated over ten thousand years.

As knowledge continued to pour in,

he discovered an absurd problem.

The academic world of the entire Douluo Continent was simply too primitive.

Shrek did indeed possess the most comprehensive Soul Master knowledge on the continent.

Nor was there any shortage in these records of advanced ideas, some even brilliant enough to be called genius.

However,

all of that knowledge was scattered.

No one had organized it, nor had anyone established a systematic underlying logical framework.

Huo Yuhao sat at the desk.

He closed the thick ancient tome in his hands.

Rubbing the space between his brows, Huo Yuhao sighed inwardly.

Without a system of organization, it led to a ridiculous result.

Two pieces of knowledge that could often be combined to produce terrifying effects

were recorded in two completely unrelated books, or even categorized under entirely different fields.

Even if someone truly noticed inspiration in one of them,

they had no theoretical foundation from the other field to verify it.

In the end, it could only be left unresolved.

Not only were Soul Masters lopsided in their fighting methods, even those conducting theoretical research were absurdly specialized.

Huo Yuhao stood and returned the book to its original place.

Yet to him, all of this was instead an enormous treasure trove.

He possessed the logical thinking of modern scholars, as well as the habit of drawing inferences from foundational material.

Once he reorganized this scattered fragmentary knowledge and stripped away its mystifying wrappings, it would undoubtedly have unimaginable uses in the future.

It would undoubtedly have unimaginable uses in the future.

Before he knew it, the sky had darkened.

Huo Yuhao left the Library and returned to the Freshman Dormitory.

He pushed open that peeling wooden door.

Huo Yuhao froze for a moment.

Because a faint fragrance filled the air.

It was completely different from the male dormitory corridor outside, where the smells of sweat and mold mingled together.

Then, he saw that there was someone else in the room.

A boy.

And he was outrageously good-looking.

He had neat, short pink-blue hair, and skin so fair it was almost unbelievable.

The youth's features were exquisitely refined, carrying both a boyish sharpness and an indescribable beauty.

He was absolutely the kind of stunningly handsome person who could make a crowd of girls swoon just by walking down the street.

At that moment, the youth stood before the bed assigned to her, leisurely arranging the bedding.

Huo Yuhao glanced at that bed.

His eyelid twitched violently.

Not only had it been made with brand-new, high-end sheets, it had somehow been layered with several extremely expensive velvet cushions.

This was not coming to school.

This was practically a young mistress traveling incognito to experience ordinary life.

Hearing the door open,

the pink-blue-haired youth stopped what she was doing and turned around.

A pair of equally beautiful pink-blue eyes swept indifferently over Huo Yuhao, carrying a hint of appraisal.

The atmosphere grew somewhat quiet.

Huo Yuhao said nothing. He simply shut the dormitory door behind him and walked to his own bed.

The two sized each other up.

Very quickly,

the youth lifted her chin, and a proud expression surfaced on her aloof, haughty face.

She looked at Huo Yuhao and gave a cold snort.

"It's your good fortune that this young mistress is sharing a room with you."

Hearing those words,

Huo Yuhao draped the towel in his hand over the bedframe.

He turned around and looked with utmost seriousness at this roommate who was almost excessively beautiful.

Then he nodded.

"Then thank you, young mistress?"

Wang Dong:?

All the intimidating words she had prepared instantly got stuck in her throat.

Why wasn't this guy playing by the rules?