It was deep into the night.
Most of the new students were either asleep in their dormitories or meditating in cultivation.
The two figures stood out clearly on the path leading to Sea God Lake.
Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong walked side by side. They occasionally ran into a few students out for a nighttime jog, but neither side disturbed the other.
With her hands behind her back, Wang Dong took light, brisk steps as she stayed close beside Huo Yuhao.
"Huo Yuhao, what Martial Soul are you even coming out to test in the middle of the night?" Wang Dong turned to look at him, her pinkish-blue eyes full of curiosity.
"Do you need a sparring partner?" She lifted her delicate chin and put on a magnanimous expression. "As long as you beg this young master, I can reluctantly serve as your guinea pig."
As she spoke, she unconsciously swallowed and added, "But afterward, you'll have to treat me to grilled meat."
Ever since that picnic by Sea God Lake,
this young master had become completely hooked on the taste of grilled meat.
Back in the dormitory, she was always trying every possible method to pester Huo Yuhao for food.
Most of the time, Huo Yuhao could not be bothered with her.
Only when he happened to want some himself would he put on a reluctant act and agree.
And even that alone
was enough to make this tsundere girl happy for days.
"No." Huo Yuhao shook his head.
"Why?"
"I'm testing my second Martial Soul. I don't need a living punching bag."
As soon as he said that,
Wang Dong, who had been walking beside him, abruptly stopped.
A second Martial Soul?
She widened her eyes and stared at him in disbelief.
Aside from his bizarre methods, this bastard actually had Twin Martial Souls?
But before long, her shock was replaced by a strange excitement.
"What a coincidence." Wang Dong leaned closer and gave Huo Yuhao's shoulder a hard pat. "This young master has Twin Martial Souls too. See? The two of us are a pretty good match."
Hearing her reveal this, Huo Yuhao found it somewhat amusing.
What Twin Martial Souls? This girl clearly had three Martial Souls.
But he showed nothing on his face and instead put on an intensely interested expression.
"Oh?" Huo Yuhao raised a brow. "Summon it and let me see."
That was exactly what Wang Dong had been waiting for.
She took half a step back and proudly raised her left hand.
Black light flashed.
An exquisitely crafted little black hammer appeared in her palm.
It did not have any Soul Rings attached to it.
Yet the intangible pressure it gave off was incomparably pure—heavy, tyrannical, as if it could smash everything apart.
Even at a glance, anyone could tell that this was no ordinary tool-type Martial Soul.
Huo Yuhao immediately widened his eyes in cooperation.
He drew a breath and feigned a gasp. "Th-this is... the Clear Sky Hammer? You're from that reclusive Clear Sky Sect?"
Seeing Huo Yuhao's astonished, inexperienced expression, Wang Dong's vanity was immensely satisfied.
Ever since they had enrolled, she had constantly suffered setbacks in front of this bastard.
Now, she had finally won back some face.
She nodded in great satisfaction, then put away the little hammer in her hand.
"Alright, your turn." Wang Dong urged, "Hurry up and show me your second Martial Soul. Let this young master admire it properly."
Huo Yuhao did not refuse.
He extended his left hand and slowly circulated the Soul Power within him.
Very soon,
a tangible yet formless stream of icy-blue air gradually gathered in his left palm.
An extremely frigid temperature instantly spread outward.
Even the air between them froze into a fine layer of white frost.
Wang Dong stared curiously at the stream of air in his hand.
She watched for a long while but still could not make sense of it.
"What is that?" She frowned slightly. "Why doesn't it even have a fixed shape?"
"This is my second Martial Soul." Huo Yuhao's tone was calm.
"It's currently incomplete and hasn't condensed into a specific form."
Wang Dong was utterly stunned by that explanation.
Could a Martial Soul exist without a physical form?
That completely shattered everything she had understood about Soul Masters for over a decade.
"Why is it like that?" she asked instinctively.
Huo Yuhao glanced at her, clear disdain evident in his bright eyes.
He shook his head and sighed. "Even if I explained it to you, with that pitifully small brain of yours, you probably wouldn't understand."
A cool breeze blew past.
Wang Dong's pretty face darkened at a visible speed.
She took a deep breath. She had originally wanted to lash out immediately, but when she saw the sincere disgust on his face, she forcibly held it in.
He's infuriating!
Though she was raging inside, she truly had no idea how to refute him.
After all, ever since enrollment, her intelligence seemed never to have gained the upper hand against this guy.
She could only grit her teeth in secret, snort coldly, and turn her head away.
At this moment,
the two of them had reached an open clearing by Sea God Lake.
Huo Yuhao took several specially made little glass bottles from his storage Soul Tool.
They contained various unique Soul Beast essence blood samples he had prepared in advance.
Every drop of essence blood retained an extremely faint trace of Soul Beast origin.
He pulled the stopper from one of the bottles.
As Soul Power surged, a drop of dark-red essence blood was drawn out and fell directly into the cluster of icy mist in his palm.
The next second,
the icy mist abruptly began to boil.
Under Huo Yuhao's guidance, the origin within the essence blood rapidly fused with the icy mist.
The originally formless chill began to stretch and expand.
In the blink of an eye,
the phantom of a strange beast with wings on its back, a tiger's head, and a wolf's body appeared out of thin air.
It floated silently above his palm, emitting a fierce aura.
But this state did not last long.
After several breaths, the beast phantom twisted violently before collapsing and returning to a scattered mass of icy mist.
Rejection reaction.
Huo Yuhao silently noted it to himself.
Although it possessed pure ice-attribute origin, it still could not stabilize an external form.
He did not stop. Instead, he opened a second bottle and continued with the next test.
Very soon,
under the stimulation of different essence blood samples, the icy mist in his palm became a heavy Ironclad Bear, then transformed into a nimble Wind Baboon.
Huo Yuhao's gaze was focused.
He precisely recorded the duration of each transformation and the point at which it collapsed.
Not only that,
he even took out several small Soul Tool core formations and tried stuffing the Martial Soul origin directly into Soul Tools for compatibility testing.
This string of operations left Wang Dong beside him dazzled.
Although she had no idea what exactly he was doing, all the different transformations were quite interesting.
She crouched beside Huo Yuhao, resting her cheeks in both hands as she watched with great interest.
The nighttime lake breeze carried a trace of moisture.
For some reason, as she watched Huo Yuhao's focused, quiet profile, Wang Dong felt her heart beat a little faster.
Even the air around them seemed to have inexplicably become calmer.
Sea God Island.
Beneath the Golden Tree.
A graceful, fiery-red figure was curled up painfully beside the thick roots.
It was Ma Xiaotao.
At that moment, her entire body was trembling violently beyond her control.
Her originally fair skin was flushed an unnatural red, radiating a suffocating heat.
Hot.
Even her reason was being stripped away bit by bit.
The extreme Evil Fire had not only given her a cultivation speed unmatched among her peers, but also left her suffering year-round from the backlash of the blazing flames.
Tonight,
the suppression within her body had completely collapsed.
The scorching heat, enough to burn away all reason, frantically battered the last line of defense in her mind.
Ma Xiaotao clenched her teeth tightly.
A thread of blood ran from the corner of her mouth, only to be instantly evaporated into white vapor by the heat of her body.
At last,
the defenses of reason crumbled.
Boom!
A mass of violent dark-red flames shot into the sky from around her.
Ma Xiaotao's eyes became completely unfocused, replaced by emotionless savagery and madness.
"Screech—"
A violent phoenix cry that could pierce gold and shatter stone rang through the night sky.
Scorching wings of flame suddenly spread wide behind her.
Ma Xiaotao, now in a berserk state, shot into the sky and flew straight toward the shore of Sea God Lake.
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