"My family cuts keys. How many do you think you're worth?"
At those words, the students in the room looked either stunned or amused. Some of the quicker-witted boys caught the barb hidden in Huo Yuhao's words and laughed outright.
Even though the red-haired girl did not understand what Huo Yuhao meant, his tone and everyone else's reactions told her that he was mocking her.
Springing to her feet, the red-haired girl snapped at Huo Yuhao, "What? Was I wrong to say that a piece of trash with rank-eleven soul power doesn't deserve to be class monitor?"
"Who's the trash talking about?" Huo Yuhao stood up as well and asked with a smile.
"The trash is talking about you!" the red-haired girl shouted. But the moment the words left her mouth, she realized her mistake and flew into a rage.
"What good are word games? If you want to prove you're not trash, then fight me and let's see who wins!"
"Since you insist, I suppose I can only agree." Huo Yuhao shrugged.
Mu Jin frowned slightly. He stepped forward, intending to turn down the red-haired girl's challenge on Huo Yuhao's behalf.
To his surprise, however, Huo Yuhao, whom he had thought rather timid, simply nodded and accepted the fight.
"Huo Yuhao, you..." Mu Jin walked over to him, looking worried. "Wu Feng belongs to the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect, and she's a Soul Grandmaster. You don't have to push yourself."
"Teacher, before my mother passed away, she told me not to stir up trouble, but she also told me to have some dignity and never let others bully me." Huo Yuhao smiled faintly. "I've swallowed my anger far too many times. This time, I don't want to."
That was a lie!
The reason Huo Yuhao had previously avoided clashing with Wang Dong and had stirred up all that trouble with Zhou Yi was simply to escape the disastrous choices made by the original story's Huo Yuhao.
His bond with Wang Dong had gradually brought Huo Yuhao under God King Tang's control, because Wang Dong was the bait God King Tang had cast out to hook a big fish like Huo Yuhao.
As for Zhou Yi, her habit of expelling students at the drop of a hat had made Huo Yuhao, already psychologically scarred since childhood, increasingly melodramatic and fragile as glass. His hunger for affection had slowly turned into an obsession with romance, until his unscrupulous father-in-law used his feelings to keep him firmly under his thumb, reducing him to the Tang family's watchdog.
Now that he had avoided dealing with God King Tang's walking disaster of a daughter and that twisted teacher Zhou Yi, Huo Yuhao naturally no longer needed to pretend to be weak and easily bullied.
Wu Feng's appearance could not have been better timed. It was about time he gave these children, whose noses were stuck high in the air, a little shock.
Meanwhile, the blonde girl beside Wu Feng frowned and said to her, "There's no point in doing this. Beating a rank-eleven Soul Master won't earn you any respect. It'll only make people think you're bullying the weak."
"But, young mistress..." Wu Feng hurried to explain.
"I've told you already. Don't call me young mistress at the academy. Call me Ning Tian," the blonde girl said firmly.
"Sorry, young... Ning Tian." Wu Feng looked toward Huo Yuhao a short distance away, anger still burning in her eyes. "A mere rank-eleven piece of trash dared to make a fool of me. Today, I have to teach him how high the heavens are and how deep the earth runs!"
"But have you considered why he dared to accept your challenge when his cultivation is so much lower than yours?" A gleam flickered in Ning Tian's eyes. "If he dares to do this, he must have something to rely on."
"Whatever he's relying on, he's absolutely no match for me!" Wu Feng declared arrogantly.
After speaking with Huo Yuhao and Wu Feng for a while, Mu Jin took all the students of Freshman Class Nine to Shrek Academy's training grounds.
Several classes were putting their newly enrolled students through basic physical training on the grounds.
A Soul Master's physical condition directly affected whether they could absorb older soul rings and use more powerful soul tools, so these new Shrek Academy students had to do basic physical training every day.
Naturally, the intensity varied from person to person. Soul Masters with beast martial souls underwent more strenuous training, while those with average physiques had their workloads reduced slightly and gradually increased later.
After all, few teachers were like Zhou Yi, acting every day as though they held a grudge against their students. Whether they specialized in the power attack system, agility attack system, or support system, she ran them all into the ground and outright expelled anyone who ran too slowly.
To put it in terms of Huo Yuhao's profession in his previous life, some assassins specialized in close-range gun combat, some in long-range sniping, and some in cold weapons. Making all of them switch their daily training to running without another word-wasn't that pure idiocy?
"This spar will be one-on-one. Both of you may use everything at your disposal. But remember, you absolutely must not maim your fellow student, and you must not retaliate afterward. Anyone who breaks these rules will be expelled from the academy," Mu Jin warned them.
"Understood!"
"Understood."
Huo Yuhao stood facing Wu Feng, his feet set loosely apart, looking rather casual.
Wu Feng, meanwhile, still glared furiously at him. Her tightly clenched fists made it clear that she intended to give him a thorough beating.
"Begin!" Mu Jin called out.
Wu Feng let out a sharp cry and sprang into the air. A thick wave of heat surged from her body, accompanied by a faint dragon's roar.
Her body suddenly grew taller. While she was still airborne, she already looked like a fully developed girl of sixteen or seventeen.
Her lengthening frame burst through her school uniform, exposing the close-fitting clothing underneath. Clearly accustomed to this, she wore an extremely stretchy leather outfit beneath it, leaving only her toned thighs bare.
A faint red sheen rippled over Wu Feng's skin. A layer of fine dragon scales spread from the left side of her face, extending down her neck and across her shoulder to cover her entire left arm and hand.
Her figure looked slender and alluring, yet gave the impression of explosive strength.
Two yellow soul rings rose from beneath her feet. Her martial soul was a Red Dragon, a top-tier fire-attribute dragon martial soul.
Compared with Wu Feng, Huo Yuhao's transformation was far less dramatic. Nothing about his body changed; only his eyes turned fiery red.
A gleaming white soul ring rose from beneath his feet. It was shining, indicating that Huo Yuhao had already activated his first soul skill.
Under the gaze of Huo Yuhao's Flame God Eyes, time around him seemed to slow. Everything became exceptionally clear, and vast amounts of information about whatever he looked at instantly appeared in his mind.
When he looked at Wu Feng, the distance between them appeared in his mind, along with even the changes in force within every muscle of her body. Every minute detail was clearly presented deep within his mind.
Not only that, everything within thirty meters appeared in his mind in three dimensions without him needing to look. The slightest change anywhere was immediately relayed to him as information.
At this stage in the original story, Huo Yuhao's use of Spiritual Detection had still been somewhat unpracticed. After all, he had possessed no experience fighting other people before leaving the Duke's Mansion.
But the current Huo Yuhao was not that ignorant original owner of this body. In his previous life, he had been the finest assassin on all of Blue Star, with an immense wealth of combat experience.
His physique had previously prevented him from displaying his formidable combat abilities. But through Yao Lao's recent conditioning, along with Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid and highly nutritious meals, he had largely overcome this weakness.
Without his physical condition holding him back, the combat instincts he had earned by dancing on a knife's edge through countless perilous missions-instincts comparable to a soul beast's-could finally come into play.
With Spiritual Detection assisting him, Huo Yuhao could even predict where Wu Feng would strike and when her attacks would arrive.
In the online games of his previous life, this sort of thing was generally called cheating.
In a flash, Wu Feng reached Huo Yuhao. Her left arm, covered in fiery red dragon scales, swept toward his body.
Yet Huo Yuhao merely took a small step backward, evading her attack by less than an inch.
Startled by this, Wu Feng lifted her long right leg and kicked toward Huo Yuhao's chest.
Huo Yuhao twisted slightly, once again avoiding Wu Feng's kick by a hair's breadth.
Then he caught Wu Feng's ankle with his left hand and supported the bend of her knee with his right. With a slight exertion of his arms, he flung her away.
Thrown off balance, Wu Feng hurriedly executed an elegant backflip and landed firmly on her feet.
But she no longer dared underestimate Huo Yuhao. Those two exchanges had confirmed that his close-combat ability was astonishing.
"You like close combat? Then I'll make sure you don't even qualify to touch me!"
"First soul skill, Dragon's Fire!"
Her yellow first soul ring abruptly lit up. A thick layer of red flames erupted from Wu Feng's body, enveloping the space roughly a foot around her. The air surrounding her rippled slightly, revealing the flames' astonishing heat.
Advancing again, Wu Feng stepped forward and drove her right fist, wreathed in the red flames of Dragon's Fire, straight toward Huo Yuhao's face.
Huo Yuhao had intended to dodge, but suddenly noticed his eyes growing hot. The pale yellow soul power inside him began circulating along the Flame Mantra's pathways on its own, actually attempting to devour the flames on Wu Feng's fist.
Flame Mantra? Inspiration flashed through Huo Yuhao's mind. He stopped dodging and instead seized Wu Feng's incoming right fist.
Mu Jin, Ning Tian, and all the other students present were stunned. They saw the flames on Wu Feng's body turn into a stream of fire that Huo Yuhao's eyes steadily devoured.
"Second soul skill, Dragon's Wrath!"
Her second soul ring shone. The Dragon's Fire rising from Wu Feng's body abruptly turned dark red, and the scales covering half her body thickened.
As the red glow in her eyes intensified, her left hand transformed completely into a dragon claw and swept toward Huo Yuhao's abdomen.
"Eight Extremes Collapse!"
Seeing Wu Feng strike at a vital area, Huo Yuhao gave an angry snort.
His left hand restrained Wu Feng's right fist, never interrupting his consumption of the flames on her body. Meanwhile, his right elbow slammed outward, striking her incoming dragon claw squarely.
Bang!
Huo Yuhao had used only sixty percent of his strength, but the impact still left Wu Feng's dragon claw numb and powerless, her entire left arm drooping.
With Huo Yuhao's current mastery of Eight Extremes Collapse, he could shatter bluestone into powder. Had he truly used his full strength, Wu Feng's hand would inevitably have been crippled.
The dark red flames surrounding her body were converted from her own soul power. As Huo Yuhao continued devouring them, the soul power within Wu Feng drained away in torrents, leaving her body so weak and limp that she could barely stand.
"I... I surrender..." The words that escaped Wu Feng's mouth sounded almost like a moan.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you!" Huo Yuhao said with a cheerful smile.
"I said I surrender!" Wu Feng shouted, a few tears of unwillingness spilling from the corners of her eyes.
"I lost!"
Before you continue