Assessment and a Wager (Part One)

The bluestone of Assessment Platform Thirty-Three gleamed. Huo Yuhao and his two teammates stepped onto it, and their triangular formation for attack and defense took shape in an instant.

Three students from Freshman Class Two mounted the platform opposite them: Yang Yanwu stood eight feet tall, broad-shouldered and thick-backed; Feng Qingyang was lean in his green robe, his face brimming with swagger; Huo Chengfeng was a round, chubby boy holding a bronze compass, an honest smile on his lips. Yet he was the team's support core.

"Both sides, take your positions. Assessment—begin!" As Wang Yan's voice fell, a Soul Power barrier sprang up.

"Martial Soul Possession!"

Yang Yanwu roared. Tawny bear fur covered his arms, his muscles swelled, and a savage light blazed in his beastly pupils. Feng Qingyang flicked his fingers, the Soul Ring around his green longsword lit up, and the aura of an agility attacker burst forth.

Huo Chengfeng's compass spun, its bronze patterns shimmering with color. "Five-Element Compass, First Soul Skill: Separation Fire! Second Soul Skill: Abiding Water!"

Crimson fire surged into Yang Yanwu, boosting his attack power by thirty percent. Azure mist wrapped around Feng Qingyang, greatly strengthening his defense. In an instant, the Class Two trio had enhanced both offense and defense.

"Finish this quickly!" Huo Yuhao ordered in a low voice.

"First Soul Skill: Elemental Tide!" Gu Yue made the first move.

A pale green elemental halo swept around her, pushing her elemental affinity to its limit and increasing the power of her subsequent Soul Skills by forty percent.

"Second Soul Skill: Elemental Control—Ice Wall Bind!"

She drew a line through the air with her fingertip. Three ice walls, dense and smooth as jade, shot up from the platform and closed around Yang Yanwu, Feng Qingyang, and Huo Chengfeng, trapping them in a tiny space.

"Seven treasures turn forth from glazed tile!" Ning Tian's pagoda rose into the air, three Soul Rings pulsing around it. "First: Speed! Third: Strength!"

Seven-colored enhancement halos enveloped Huo Yuhao and Gu Yue with precision. Their speed and strength soared together, lifting their combat power another level.

"Break through! Yang Yanwu, smash the ice wall with everything you've got!" Feng Qingyang cried. Trapped in an enclosed space, his agility advantage was worthless.

Yang Yanwu swung his bear paw at the ice with all his strength, but left only a white mark.

Golden light suddenly blazed in Huo Yuhao's eyes. Heaven's Apex: All-Seer Clarity opened to its fullest, and his Heavenly Eye's innate Soul Skill, Annihilation, activated without a sound!

An invisible, formless mental shock stabbed straight into the trio's seas of consciousness, precisely interrupting their Soul Skill incantations!

The Soul Ring beneath Feng Qingyang's feet had barely flashed halfway around before its light collapsed. Yang Yanwu froze in place, and Huo Chengfeng's compass stopped spinning.

The mental stun lasted less than half a second, but it had already opened a fatal gap.

The Reignbow Arbiter appeared in Huo Yuhao's palm, and three platinum arrows of light formed on its stringless bow.

He drew it back to a full moon and released.

Twang—!

Three blue-gold arrows tore through the air with sharp sonic booms. Their paths were straight as rulers, and each pierced a nonfatal spot on one opponent's shoulder. The force was controlled to perfection: enough to decide the match without taking a life.

"Victory goes to Huo Yuhao's team from Freshman Class Nine!" Wang Yan declared.

The assessment area fell deathly silent, then broke into scattered murmurs.

The freshmen looked at Huo Yuhao with eyes full of envy and resentment. A level-sixteen One-Ring Soul Master who had never even shown his Soul Ring had plainly been carried to victory!

With Gu Yue controlling the field and Ning Tian providing top-tier support, anyone could have won with that lineup. Feng Qingyang's team had simply slipped up!

Only Wang Yan gazed thoughtfully at Huo Yuhao's retreating figure.

He had seen it clearly. The three had not slipped up. That invisible mental shock had interrupted their Soul Skills. The true key to victory was the boy who seemed weakest.

"Interesting. He's hidden himself well," Wang Yan murmured, his curiosity thoroughly piqued.

In the spectator area below, the weight on Mu Jin's heart finally lifted, and a smile touched his lips.

A fierce-looking figure approached. The old woman's face was pinched with spite, her wrinkles bunching together. "Mu Jin, you really have grown more foolish with age. You put a level-sixteen Soul Master on a team with two Soul Elders—and they're from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile and an Elemental Envoy, no less. Aren't you ashamed?"

Coldness gathered in Mu Jin's eyes, but he held himself back. "Old Madam Zhou, you have no right to tell me how to teach my students."

What he hated most was Zhou Yi's teaching methods—

Harsh and brutal, she treated her students' futures like worthless weeds. She cared only for eliminating the weak and keeping the strong. She had no business calling herself a teacher.

"Tell you how to teach?" Zhou Yi shrieked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "Your younger brother Mu Lin was mediocre. He should have been expelled. Keeping him only wasted the academy's resources!"

"Zhou Yi!" Mu Jin's eyes flew wide, and years of pent-up anger erupted. "You expelled over sixty students in your first three months! You destroyed young people's futures on a whim, and you call that teaching? All the complaints against every other teacher in the academy put together don't match the complaints against you! If Fan Yu hadn't taken the blame and the scolding for you, Shrek would have thrown you out long ago!"

"You don't know a damn thing! This is elite education!" Zhou Yi's face turned livid as she glared venomously at Mu Jin. "Do you dare make a wager? We'll bet on our classes' rankings in this freshman assessment. Whoever ranks higher wins!"

A glint crossed Mu Jin's eyes. He sneered inwardly.

Zhou Yi had no idea that her class did not have a single Soul Elder, while his had two in Gu Yue and Ning Tian—not to mention Huo Yuhao, Qian Duoduo's personal disciple and a hidden trump card with Twin Martial Souls. She still thought Huo Yuhao was an ordinary Soul Master.

Old grudges and new scores—he would settle them all today!

"Then let's make it a big wager!" Mu Jin's gaze sharpened like a knife. "If I win, you owe me a Soul Bone and a Level 8 Soul Tool custom-made by Fan Yu! If you can't afford to lose, resign and get out of Shrek!"

Zhou Yi was startled at first, then scoffed.

Convinced Mu Jin was courting disaster, she dismissed the idea that a level-sixteen Soul Master could make any waves. "Fine! I accept! And if you lose, you pack your things and leave too!"

Their gazes clashed, the air thick with the smell of gunpowder. The wager was set. The other teachers looked over, but none dared intervene.

During a break between matches, Ning Tian was worried about Wu Feng, so the three went to watch her in Area Thirty.

Wu Feng's team faced a plant-type Control System Soul Master. She activated Red Dragon Martial Soul Possession and unleashed Dragon's Wrath and Dragon's Fire together. Her two-ring assault overwhelmed the opposing team; she tore through them single-handedly, quick and clean.

The pace of the freshman tournament grew ever more punishing: one match on the first day, two each in the morning and afternoon on the second, then five consecutive matches on the third. Endurance, Soul Power, and tactics were all tested. It was a devil's schedule.

Huo Yuhao's team swept through every match with the same strategy: Ning Tian enhanced them, Gu Yue controlled the field, and Huo Yuhao ended the fight in an instant. They never lost.

Their high-profile record of five wins in five matches spread far and wide, giving them a strong reputation for the club they planned to establish.

Yet Huo Yuhao still held fast to one private resolve.

The round-robin stage ended, and the elimination rounds were about to begin. He looked toward Shrek Academy and murmured, "My foolish brother, I hope you don't get eliminated early. Otherwise, this revenge won't be any fun."

"Yuhao, what did you say?" Ning Tian sat beside him, her gentle brows knitting. She had caught the chill in his voice.

Huo Yuhao immediately hid his hostility and put on a warm smile. Turning toward Gu Yue and Wu Feng in the little courtyard, he asked, "Nothing. What do you all want for dinner tonight?"

"Golden Shrimp Balls!" Ning Tian blurted out, though his mood a moment ago still troubled her.

"Almond Tofu!" Gu Yue answered at once, revealing her foodie nature.

Wu Feng scratched her head, looking a little awkward. "I... I want Golden Shrimp Balls too."

Huo Yuhao rose with a smile and tossed out a reference none of them understood. "All right. But we can't eat Golden Shrimp Balls every day. I don't want to end up like Liyue's Raiden Shogun."

With that, he went into the kitchen, leaving the three of them bewildered.

He had not told Ning Tian what worried him: that the butterfly effect might change the course of events and keep Dai Huabin out of the elimination rounds.

After all, personally teaching his bullying half-brother a lesson was one of his private reasons for entering the freshman tournament.