Cai Yue'er's brows knitted tightly. Among Shrek's students in the same age group, there really wasn't anyone who could overpower Luo Chen.
After all, he had already been a Soul Emperor at twelve. Who knew what heights his cultivation had reached in the years since?
Yet Cai Yue'er still refused to back down.
"Luo Chen, you're nothing but a student who failed to get into Shrek. What right do you have to speak here?"
Hearing Cai Yue'er's words, Yu Xiaogang began sneering again.
"So he's a student Shrek rejected? Trying to ride on our reputation as the continent's number-one academy?"
"I remember this Luo Chen was already a Soul King at ten, wasn't he? Looks like our Shrek Academy really is overflowing with talent!"
"I was being too conservative earlier. From now on, Shrek Academy won't accept anyone who hasn't become a Soul Emperor by twelve. Change the graduation requirement to reaching Titled Douluo by twenty!"
"What's wrong with this Cai Yue'er? Hurry up and pick any student to send Luo Chen flying! Why give him any face?"
By then, Yu Xiaogang was completely lost in his own art.
Hearing this, Yan Shaozhe also assumed that Shrek's strength had made a tremendous leap ten thousand years into the future.
"To think Luo Chen, who became a Soul Emperor at twelve, was actually rejected by our Shrek Academy!"
"What's a rejected student acting so arrogant for?"
Luo Chen had just exposed Yan Shaozhe's origins to everyone! Yan Shaozhe was furious.
Luo Chen had no idea that a single remark from Cai Yue'er had led several people watching the sky screen to misjudge Shrek Academy's strength.
Faced with Cai Yue'er's aggressive pressure, Luo Chen remained utterly relaxed.
In his eyes, these Outer Court students posed no threat whatsoever.
Already a Titled Douluo, he considered the Inner Court's senior disciple the only one who might pose even a slight threat.
"How about this? So you can't say I'm bullying you, I won't use my martial souls. Sound good?" Luo Chen declared arrogantly.
His twin martial souls were incredibly powerful: the Devouring Ancestral Talisman and the Ice Ancestral Talisman.
An ancestral talisman was itself a road to invincibility; more ancestral talismans meant more roads.
The Devouring Ancestral Talisman, in particular, allowed him to grow stronger simply by continuously devouring soul power.
He could even grow stronger by devouring other people's injuries, without any side effects at all!
As a result, Luo Chen's standing in the Federation had already surpassed Ya Li's!
His cultivation had also reached rank 91! And that was without claiming all those system rewards!
This ***** useless system! Can't it let me transmigrate one more time so I can claim those rewards?
Meanwhile, outside the sky screen,
Tang Hao: ??
"Isn't that my line?"
Under Luo Chen's verbal barrage, one of Shrek's students finally lost patience.
A tall young man stepped forward, five soul rings appearing beneath his feet.
"Li Qiankun, rank-52 defense-type Battle Soul King, One-Word Battle Armor Master! I accept your challenge!"
Li Qiankun placed heavy emphasis on those final words, "One-Word Battle Armor Master." In his eyes, Luo Chen was merely playing to the crowd!
He was the Shrek Outer Court's greatest genius, someone guaranteed to enter the Inner Court. How could he tolerate someone from the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy making such a racket here?
Little did he know that his stepping forward displeased Shrek's founder.
"Come on, what's a mere Soul King showing off for? Hurry up and send out another student," Yu Xiaogang said impatiently.
"Rank 52?" Luo Chen scoffed. "If you can take one attack from me, you win!"
Luo Chen had agreed not to use his martial souls, but he hadn't said he couldn't use soul bones or soul spirits.
As a god of the new era, Luo Chen was well known for never keeping his word.
"Snow Empress, give him a sword strike!" Luo Chen said to the Snow Empress, who was resting in his Sea of Consciousness.
"All right, little Luo Chen. You need your big sister's help to deal with a Soul King?" the Snow Empress teased with a scoff.
"Emperor Sword, Ultimate Ice, Peerless!"
A deep-blue longsword, seemingly condensed from ice crystals, appeared out of thin air in Luo Chen's hand.
Before Li Qiankun could even make out the sword's appearance, Luo Chen's sword hand slashed downward.
Deep-blue radiance traced a fan-shaped arc through the air, shifting from deep blue to light blue, then pale blue, before finally turning white.
Wherever that terrifying sword light passed, cracks appeared in the air, as though all the air had frozen into ice before being cleaved apart.
Li Qiankun didn't even have time to release his One-Word Battle Armor before the slash froze him into an ice sculpture.
Had Luo Chen not held back, Li Qiankun might not have survived.
"This is the standard of Shrek Academy's students? You can't even withstand one attack from me?" Luo Chen taunted.
Every student from Shrek Academy sucked in a breath of cold air.
They were roughly the same age, so how could the gap in their strength be so enormous?
The new students, especially, were beginning to lose their admiration for Shrek Academy.
Seeing that the moment was ripe, Luo Chen took out a new Amplifying Soul Tool and played a prerecorded message.
"Shrek Academy does nothing but lead its students astray! We recommend that everyone leave Shrek Academy and join our Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy! Every new student who joins the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy will receive a purple soul spirit from the academy!"
The Douluo Federation had long been wary of Shrek Academy, so the academy and the Federation had joined forces to provide tremendous support for Luo Chen's visit.
Another reason, of course, was that people within the Federation had learned in advance that the Spirit Pagoda might move against Shrek Academy, so they wanted to poach a batch of students before that happened.
For this undertaking, the Federation and the Sun Moon Royal Academy had promised Luo Chen a hefty payment, which would be handed to him when the Federation's delegation next traveled to the Star Luo Empire.
Luo Chen would also travel to the Star Luo Empire as a representative of the Federation.
Among Shrek's new students, people began making their way over to Luo Chen, one after another.
They all had one thing in common: they had no powerful families behind them and limited means of obtaining resources.
Cai Yue'er had also stated in her speech earlier that Shrek Academy would not provide any resources.
Offering no resources while flaunting the title of the continent's number-one academy-did they really take these soul masters who had clawed their way up from the bottom for fools?
As Shrek's new students switched sides on the spot, the uproar rose again like a boat lifted by the swelling tide.
At that moment, the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy also issued an announcement: anyone who applied to their academy, passed the assessment, and reached the required rank would receive a purple soul spirit free of charge.
Outside the sky screen, Jing Hongchen, the dean of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy ten thousand years earlier, already had tears streaming down his aged face.
"Do you know how long I've waited for this day? Shrek Academy, I never thought I'd see you brought to this!"
Meanwhile, the people from Shrek Academy were trembling with fury.
"What is this Shrek Academy doing? Just watching their students get poached?"
Yu Xiaogang wished he could travel twenty thousand years into the future and give these people a proper lesson!
Yan Shaozhe was just as furious.
"Our Shrek Academy has stood against the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy for years. When have we ever suffered such humiliation?"
Only Di Tian from ten thousand years earlier remained confused.
"Soul spirits? What are soul spirits? Have we soul beasts been given a new name ten thousand years from now?"
"Luo Chen, this is our Shrek Academy! Not a place for you to run wild!" Cai Yue'er's aura erupted.
The oppressive might of a Super Douluo surged straight toward Luo Chen.
Gu Yue instinctively tried to shield Luo Chen. Several years earlier, Cai Yue'er had done the same thing and forcibly driven him away.
But to Gu Yue's surprise, Luo Chen gently caught her hand, then stepped forward himself and stood in front of her.
"Cai Yue'er, how have you made no progress after all these years? Looks like before I test your Inner Court's senior disciple, I'll have to test you first, you old fossil."
The aura of another Titled Douluo swept outward, firmly blocking Cai Yue'er's pressure.
Cai Yue'er was shocked. "A Titled Douluo? How is that possible? How could you cultivate so quickly?"
"How is it possible?" Luo Chen sneered. "Your level is too low-or rather, Shrek's level is too low! Your cultivation methods were wrong from the start!"
"And the source of those errors is Yu Xiaogang, the man who broke past fifty years of age while still at rank 29 and claimed to have created the Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul."
Before you continue