The Speedster's Domain

Over the next few days, the Outer Court became positively bustling.

Every year, Shrek Academy's admissions season was the busiest time in Shrek City. The number of first-year students admitted alone could reach over a thousand.

Add in all the people who came to catch a glimpse of Shrek's splendor, sightsee, and join the fun, and calling the entire Outer Court a sea of people was no exaggeration.

That was also why Shrek Academy had its students help out. The teachers alone genuinely couldn't handle it all.

Ye Qing, however, didn't particularly care how lively the Outer Court was. After all, he had lived at Shrek Academy for almost ten years, and it wasn't as though he had never watched the Outer Court's admissions in previous years.

To put it bluntly, there wasn't much to it.

Compared with the noisy, clamorous world outside, Ye Qing preferred cultivating by himself in his quiet dorm room.

Just as Li Zhiyi had said, Room 234 really was quite nice. After looking at the other rooms, he could clearly tell that this one was larger and had a better setting.

A row of lush osmanthus trees stood just outside the window. He could only imagine how fragrant the room would be when they bloomed.

It also faced the sun and received plenty of light, which made it an excellent place for a light attribute Soul Master like Ye Qing.

Looking farther into the distance, he could even see the shimmering waters of Sea God Lake.

The furnishings, however, were the same as in every other room: Shrek's standard stingy setup. Aside from two hard plank beds, there were only two medium-sized wardrobes and a table, plus a bathroom by the balcony with no hot water.

Hmm...

Ye Qing's verdict was that even the employee dormitory from his previous life, when he'd worked nine to nine, six days a week, tightening screws, had been better than this.

Absolutely outrageous.

Still, Ye Qing didn't particularly mind. As a light attribute Soul Master, manipulating his soul power to make his light produce heat was already a basic operation. Though it wasn't as convenient as it was for a fire attribute Soul Master, heating some water was no problem.

He could use the toilet and draw cold water to heat himself. At least he wouldn't have to use the communal bathhouse or fight a crowd of people for a toilet.

The conditions were a little rough, but cultivation was cultivation, wherever he did it.

Ye Qing could only sigh, then clean the dorm room first.

"Second Soul Skill, Holy Light Shuttle!" Ye Qing called in a low voice. Three Soul Rings lit up around him, and then his entire body became a streak of light. Broom in hand, he swept through the room like a god of war descended upon the world.

Countless afterimages flickered through the dorm room. Ye Qing wielded his broom with leisurely ease, and at his extreme speed, it swept out every speck of dust in the room, finally gathering it into a small pile of rubbish by the door.

Ten seconds later, all the afterimages vanished at once, and Ye Qing's real body appeared at the doorway.

Once he stopped, however, his body swayed almost imperceptibly, and his face looked a little pale.

"Mm, pretty good control!" Looking at the little pile of dust before him, Ye Qing set down his broom in satisfaction.

Ever since obtaining Holy Light Shuttle, Ye Qing had considered using the momentum of extreme speed to attack.

Back then, however, his control over the Soul Skill had been rather weak. He could basically only move in straight lines; the moment he turned, he could easily lose control and veer off course.

That sort of crude control simply wouldn't do. Anyone could accelerate on a straightaway. Being fast through the bends was what truly counted.

From then on, Ye Qing had added another goal to his training: precisely mastering Holy Light Shuttle's speed and angles so that he could control the skill perfectly.

He had begun by accelerating in a straight line, then slowly sensing the Soul Skill's changes as he moved. From not actively controlling it at first, he had progressed to minute adjustments, small adjustments, normal control, and complete control, increasing his proficiency step by step.

When he had first obtained this Soul Skill, he could never have darted freely around such a small dorm room. One stomp on the gas and he would have flown straight outside. How could he possibly have moved about with leisurely ease while cleaning the room?

Still, this speedster's perspective gave Ye Qing the feeling that he had become Quicksilver or The Flash. Within the speedster's domain, everything he looked at seemed motionless.

But truly entering the speedster's domain consumed far too much mental power.

For now, his brain couldn't withstand such an enormous influx of information.

He was different from true speedsters. They slowed everything around them, and within their high-speed domain, moving was no different from walking normally. Ye Qing, however, accelerated himself. Everything around him remained unchanged; he alone was fast.

How could making his reflexes keep pace with his body's extreme speed consume anything less than a tremendous amount of mental power?

The longer he remained in that high-speed state, the more mental power he consumed. Taking in that vast amount of information could easily wring his mental power dry.

It was equivalent to the difference between Time Zero and Moment in the world of a certain dubious university.

Cleaning the room had taken less than ten seconds in total, yet Ye Qing's mental power had already bottomed out. Holy Light Shuttle didn't consume much soul power; the amount could even be called negligible.

But controlling a high-speed Soul Skill with such precision, allowing his senses to keep up with the changes around him, consumed a terrifying amount of mental power.

"I still can't last long enough..." Feeling the waves of dizziness coming from his mind, Ye Qing shook his head helplessly.

The delicate work of opening his meridians had already been constantly training his mental power, bringing it to a level comparable to that of a high-ranking Soul Emperor. Even so, he couldn't withstand this kind of expenditure.

The good news was that, since Ye Qing could now control Holy Light Shuttle to this degree, he could try lowering his speed and using Train Collision.

"It's too powerful. I'm afraid I might accidentally ram someone to death, or even wipe myself out in the collision. I'd better wait until I get a chance in the future to try it."

After finishing the cleaning, Ye Qing endured the dizziness caused by his depleted mental power, made his bed, and sat cross-legged on it to cultivate.

He could only wait for his mental power to recover gradually. With it depleted, he had no way to perform the delicate work of opening his meridians.

Since things have come to this, I'll cultivate first.

The hidden meridians he had already opened happened to need occasional nurturing anyway. Otherwise, since he didn't use them when cultivating soul power, if he neglected them in his everyday life as well, they would eventually clog up again on their own.

His slightly hurried breathing gradually steadied, and Ye Qing entered a meditative state.

It wasn't until the sun was nearly setting that the faint sound of the door opening jolted Ye Qing out of meditation. After Ye Feng's downright shameless sneak-attack training, Ye Qing maintained a certain degree of vigilance at all times.

The sound of the door opening wasn't loud, but it was enough to wake him.

"Who's there?"

"Huh? Ye Qing?" The dorm room door opened, and Bei Bei's bewildered face came into Ye Qing's view.