"Finally done registering. Brother Hao is officially a student at Shrek Academy now."
Leaving the Freshman Teaching Building, Huo Yuhao stretched and hummed a tune, ready to wander around the academy and familiarize himself with his surroundings.
"Hm? A canteen?"
He happened to arrive at the academy's canteen. Since he was feeling a little hungry, he went inside to check it out.
The surroundings inside the Freshman Canteen made him frown.
There wasn't a single seat in the canteen. Since mealtime had already passed, there weren't many students eating, making the place seem especially empty.
A sign at the entrance read: No food may be taken out of the canteen.
"All these rules just for a place to eat? If Brother Hao puts it in my Soul Tool, how are you going to stop me?"
Huo Yuhao snorted and headed toward the serving windows.
There were eight windows in total, each offering different dishes, but the prices grew progressively higher.
Huo Yuhao ordered a meal from every window. Without standing on ceremony, he ate each meal as he ordered it, polishing off all eight right there.
He had discovered that cultivating his body martial soul could greatly strengthen his physique, and the stronger his physique became, the more energy it consumed. Finishing these eight meals was a breeze.
"The taste is nothing special. All I can say is that it isn't bad. It's miles behind Brother Hao's cooking."
After eating, Huo Yuhao stayed in the canteen, surveying his surroundings with a toothpick between his lips.
This canteen threw its weight around thanks to its monopoly within the academy, with absolutely no sense of customer service.
Even the expensive meals priced in Gold Soul Coins weren't particularly delicious. They simply contained soul beast meat with a little energy in it, making them beneficial for cultivation.
Before entering the academy, Huo Yuhao had noticed plenty of vendors hawking their wares outside Shrek City's eastern gate.
Many students didn't eat at the canteen, and the marketplace in the city center was too far away. Instead, they went to the academy entrance to buy snacks and meals from those vendors' stalls.
This was a perfect opportunity to set up his own barbecue stall.
Before coming in, he had spotted an unoccupied location with a broad view and excellent foot traffic. He couldn't let someone else beat him to it.
He acted as soon as the thought struck him. After chatting up the canteen staff, Huo Yuhao quickly got in touch with the logistics personnel responsible for purchasing supplies.
As luck would have it, the food supplier was there too. After some bargaining, Huo Yuhao reached a verbal supply agreement with them and even obtained the address of a food supply center in Shrek City.
Shrek City was exceptionally prosperous, with steady supplies of chicken, duck, fish, and meat. If he offered a little more money, he could even buy a fair amount of soul beast meat.
It didn't take long. Everything was settled in less than two hours.
As for the stall itself, there was no need to worry. Huo Yuhao's belt-shaped Storage Soul Tool contained a complete set of equipment.
Once everything was taken care of, Huo Yuhao headed toward the dormitory building.
"Yuhao... why are you so determined to sell barbecue?" Tian Meng asked in puzzlement.
Huo Yuhao had already grown used to Tian Meng's chatter in his ears. All these days, he had been like an endlessly curious child, asking about this and that inside Huo Yuhao's head.
Still, he didn't mind. Being able to chat and bicker with Tian Meng anytime and anywhere made things a little livelier.
The only drawback was that he sometimes answered aloud without thinking, making Bei Bei and Tang Ya believe he was talking to himself.
"After spending so long in my head, haven't you noticed that I cultivate fastest when I'm barbecuing?"
"Huh? Do you...?"
Huo Yuhao shrugged. "When I'm barbecuing, I'm using both my martial souls at very high intensity. Take grilled fish, for example. Demon Eyes has to constantly monitor how thoroughly every part of the fish is browned and cooked, while Frost has to precisely control the temperature of the flames."
"Grilling fish really tests your heat control and concentration. The head, body, back, and tail all need different temperatures, and controlling the flames takes considerable skill."
"My spiritual power and control over the ice element are both improving rapidly. It's much more effective than sitting around meditating. Haven't you noticed?"
Tian Meng stammered, "Um... I think I noticed a little, but I wasn't paying attention..."
Huo Yuhao said helplessly, "Besides, haven't you seen my memories? How can you still not know what I'm thinking?"
"Um... I didn't look that closely... How about..." Tian Meng's eyes suddenly sparkled as he wheedled, "Yuhao, let me take another look~"
Huo Yuhao refused without hesitation. "Not~ happening!"
"Just once~ I really want to get a good look at what the world from your previous life was like. I didn't pay attention last time~" Tian Meng continued acting cute.
"No~ way!" Huo Yuhao remained unmoved.
"Please, just once~ Yuhao's the best~ I really..."
Tian Meng's sugary voice gave Huo Yuhao goosebumps, but it abruptly stopped at the most sickeningly sweet part.
"Hm? Why'd you stop?" Huo Yuhao asked in confusion.
Tian Meng's solemn reply sounded in his mind. "Yuhao, I'm going to hide for a while. I'll come back out when it's safe."
With that, Tian Meng's voice vanished from his mind. He hid deep within Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness, granting Huo Yuhao's normally noisy ears a rare moment of peace.
Safe?
Was there danger here?
Huo Yuhao froze for a moment and looked around.
He had now arrived in front of the dormitory building. It was absurdly large.
This single dormitory was only six stories tall, yet it had to accommodate nearly every student in the outer court. There were just under five thousand students, with two assigned to each room. One could imagine how enormous the building's footprint had to be.
How could there be danger here?
Whoosh-
Without warning, Huo Yuhao revealed his Soul Ring. The white-jade Million-Year Soul Ring pulsed around him, emitting a faint glow.
Million-Year Soul Ring Soul Skill, Spiritual Detection, activate!
Every detail of his surroundings formed a stream of data that flowed into Huo Yuhao's brain. The dormitory ahead became like a hollow model, with nothing inside it able to hide.
Huo Yuhao paused. He hadn't discovered anything strange.
"Ahahaha, look! He's only got one Soul Ring, and it's actually white!"
"It really is! How did he get into Shrek Academy?"
The whispers of several freshmen reached his ears. Although they had lowered their voices, Huo Yuhao still caught their words and shot them a fierce glare.
Perhaps those freshmen still had some sense of shame, because they walked away guiltily.
They couldn't be the danger. Then who was it?
Huo Yuhao slowly turned his head toward the entrance of the Freshman Dormitory Building.
An old man was reclining there.
He was very old and dressed in gray cloth robes. The wrinkles on his face told of the vicissitudes of the ages, and he looked frail and decrepit.
He sat in a reclining chair with his eyes narrowed. The chair rocked gently, and the golden afternoon sunlight spilled over his face, as though trying to fill the ravines formed by his wrinkles.
Was it him?
Huo Yuhao narrowed his eyes and withdrew his Soul Ring.
Although the man looked like nothing more than an ordinary, kindly elder from every angle, Huo Yuhao didn't dare assume that.
Once every impossibility was eliminated, whatever remained, however outrageous, had to be the truth.
This old man was the danger Tian Meng had spoken of!