For a while afterward, Huo Yuhao's life settled into a routine between two places.
He spent most of the daylight hours in the Laboratory at the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy. In his remaining free time, he found an open training ground and sparred with Ji Juechen.
Every time they fought, both gave it their all.
Since Cease War had recognized him as its master through his bloodline, Ji Juechen's understanding of the sword had advanced a thousand miles a day. His domain, Silence, grew ever more stable as its incomplete boundaries were filled in bit by bit.
Through one head-on clash after another, Huo Yuhao refined his control over Asura Hell, reining in its surging, violent killing intent until he could unleash and withdraw it at will.
Xuan Ziwen seemed to have hit a creative bottleneck lately.
As one of the Sun Moon Empire's foremost Soul Engineers, he had always acted with swift decisiveness. Now he often stopped beside Huo Yuhao's workbench.
With his arms folded across his chest, he quietly studied the wildly imaginative blueprints taking shape beneath Huo Yuhao's pen.
Many times, Xuan Ziwen pulled Huo Yuhao aside, tossed out idea after idea, and humbly asked for the young man's opinion. Problems long hemmed in by conventional Soul Tool principles often yielded fresh inspiration when Huo Yuhao stepped outside the usual framework.
Huo Yuhao knew perfectly well that this veteran Soul Engineer was simply trapped behind a wall in his thinking. Years spent delving into combat Soul Tools had given him profound expertise, but had also fettered his imagination.
Besides the two of them, Ju Zi and Ke Ke were in the Laboratory.
Ju Zi had long worked with Xuan Ziwen on large-area attack Soul Tools, but Ke Ke was nothing like Huo Yuhao had first