"Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!"
Huo Yuhao's brows were knitted tightly enough to crush a fly. Fine beads of sweat kept falling from his forehead as his eyes remained fixed on the spherical Soul Tool before him.
He looked as though he wanted to blast the entire spherical Soul Tool apart with his eyes.
Under the control of his Spiritual Power, the Soul Tool kept trembling slightly, but that was the limit of what Huo Yuhao could manage.
"Ah, ah, ah..." In the end, Huo Yuhao still failed. He had not lifted the entire Soul Tool, only made it wobble, and he panted heavily from exhaustion.
Waves of warmth rose from his lower abdomen, washing upward through his mind. Only this kept Huo Yuhao from passing out after expending so much Spiritual Power.
"Not bad. If you used your first Soul Skill, Spiritual Shock, what you previously hurled out was a mass of Spiritual Power. Now you should be able to compress it, shrinking it from the size of a fist to the size of a thumb. But that is your limit. Going further will require more precise control.
"For your first attempt at this kind of training, reaching this level shows that you truly have exceptional talent in Spiritual Power." Electrolux, who had said little earlier, spoke up to assess the results of Huo Yuhao's training.
For someone who had only just begun to master spiritual energy, being able to compress his Spiritual Power to half its size-and on his first attempt-was already remarkable.
After all, Huo Yuhao had previously only manipulated his Spiritual Power through Spiritual Detection and sharing. He had never even attempted anything else.
"Teacher, I just tried controlling the Soul Tool. According to my mom, if I can compress my Spiritual Power until it's as fine as a strand of hair, I'll be able to float the whole Soul Tool. But just now, even making it wobble a few times was exhausting, let alone making it float. Is there something wrong with how I'm doing it?" Hearing Electrolux's words, Huo Yuhao humbly asked for further guidance. The discrepancy seemed far too great.
Electrolux smiled. "That is normal. This is precisely why your mother had you train with this Soul Tool. She did not give you this method to increase the quantity of your Spiritual Power. You need that cultivation method of yours for that. She is honing your skill at manipulating Spiritual Power. To make the entire Soul Tool float, you need to shape your Spiritual Power into hair-fine strands.
"But there is a prerequisite: your Spiritual Power must be of high quality. Controlling this Soul Tool places tremendous pressure on your mind, and it uses that pressure to continually temper the quality of your Spiritual Power."
"Spiritual Power quality?" This was Huo Yuhao's first time hearing the term. Did Spiritual Power have quality too?
Electrolux explained, "Yes, of course it does. Its quality improves through constant cultivation and tempering. This big worm is an exception, of course. He has cultivated for so many years-or rather, you could say he has never cultivated at all. He spends most of his time sleeping.
"You could say that the quality of all his cultivation is only comparable to yours, and you have only just begun cultivating.
"I, for instance, have already attained Divine Sense. Even if the quantity of my spiritual energy now is less than one ten-thousandth of that big worm's, even if he attacked me with sheer volume, he could forget about shaking me in the slightest.
"Although you can now compress your Spiritual Power to the size of a thumb, its quality is too low. This exercise does not merely train your spiritual control.
"As you manipulate this Soul Tool, it also constantly puts pressure on your Spiritual Power to temper its quality. Once that quality improves, you will gradually be able to lift the Soul Tool.
"And the Heavenly Treasures your mother has given you to drink provide excellent energy for restoring Spiritual Power. They allow you to repeat this training many times rather than collapsing in exhaustion after a single session."
By this point, Electrolux truly admired Huo Yun's store of knowledge.
This was his first time learning of a combination of Heavenly Treasures with such effects: it could restore an injured body, accelerate Soul Power cultivation, and even rapidly replenish exhausted Spiritual Power.
It was extraordinarily comprehensive. He could call himself widely experienced and knowledgeable, yet this was his first time seeing anything like it.
But when he thought about it, how long had he lived? Competing with an entire world in lifespan, records, and accumulated knowledge was indeed beyond him.
After hearing Electrolux's explanation, Huo Yuhao understood the real reason he could only make the Soul Tool before him wobble despite having already met a certain requirement.
His spiritual quality was simply too poor. At present, making the entire Soul Tool wobble was the most he could do. Even controlling it to roll along the ground would be difficult.
Now that he knew the cause and knew the solution was to bury his head in hard practice, Huo Yuhao went ahead and practiced.
Since he could not lift it yet, he simply tried controlling the direction in which the Soul Tool rolled across the ground. First, he would get the whole thing moving, making it roll when he wanted and stop when he wanted.
First learn to walk, then learn to run, and finally learn to fly. That was Huo Yuhao's plan from here on.
To that end, Huo Yuhao added this kind of Spiritual Power training to his daily routine.
His current training began with a set of Body-Forging Fist upon waking in the morning, pushing himself until he collapsed. After resting and eating breakfast, he spent the entire morning training his Spiritual Power. After lunch, he devoted the afternoon to studying, learning from his mother, Huo Yun. After grilling fish in the evening, he stayed awake through the night cultivating Soul Power or Spiritual Power.
As for Soul Tools, he lacked the necessary facilities for now. Huo Yuhao was considering whether, when he visited Xinghe Manufacturing in ten days, he could pay to rent a workshop long-term.
He had essentially planned out all twenty-four hours.
This was a schedule Huo Yuhao had made for himself. Huo Yun had not participated. Or rather, he now had his own plans and the resources he needed, so his cultivation time should be his to manage. Huo Yun was glad to see him make his own arrangements and naturally did not stop him.
However, faced with Huo Yuhao's schedule, which left practically no rest in all twenty-four hours, she insisted that he take a day off after every stretch of cultivation.
After all, as the saying went, work and rest had to go hand in hand. With Huo Yuhao training around the clock as though he were forged from iron, even the finest iron would be worn to ruin.
Thus, after six consecutive days of cultivation, Huo Yun forced Huo Yuhao to take a day off.
On the seventh day, Huo Yuhao had nothing to do, apart from habitually completing a set of Body-Forging Fist that morning-which had still met with Huo Yun's disapproval. Although he felt that a single set took hardly any time, it made her feel as though her son had entered his rebellious phase. She had expressly ordered him to rest, yet he had still done it.
She now seriously suspected that if her consciousness went elsewhere for even a moment, Huo Yuhao might secretly start cultivating.
Fortunately, Huo Yuhao did not cultivate again afterward. But once he stopped, he found himself at a loose end. He had already grown accustomed to full, busy days. Even his earlier trip to Xinghe Manufacturing had actually been an outing to forge Soul Tools.
This day was his only true day of rest, doing nothing at all, in the half year since he had arrived here.
After breakfast, he sat there doing nothing but basking in the sunshine and watching the blue sky and white clouds.
"Yuhao, what are you doing?" In the end, Sister Lin passed by and asked in puzzlement when she saw Huo Yuhao sitting in the courtyard in a daze.
Normally, Huo Yuhao would be cultivating in his room at this time, regardless of spring, summer, autumn, or winter, all year round. Of course, "all year round" might be overstating things, since during the past half year, she had indeed never seen Huo Yuhao sitting there in a daze like today.
Even when she occasionally passed through the courtyard, she never saw Huo Yuhao. Apart from coming down to grill fish in the evenings and eating his regular meals, he spent all his remaining time cultivating in his room.
So when Huo Yuhao's true cultivation level became known among the hotel staff, those who knew how he had spent the past half year were not surprised. Instead, they thought it only natural.
They even felt that something would have been wrong if a genius with innate full Soul Power who worked so hard had not reached rank fifteen.
Huo Yuhao worked so hard that he seemed forged from iron, utterly ignorant of what it meant to be tired.
Thus, when Huo Yuhao said, "I'm resting."
Sister Lin's face filled with surprise. "Well, now, that's a rare sight! To think I'd get a chance to see little Yuhao resting. No, no, I have to go brag to the others."
"Sister Lin, stop teasing me," Huo Yuhao said helplessly. He seriously suspected that Strawberry's fondness for teasing people now and then had come from Sister Lin.
Incidentally, Sister Lin was married and nearly thirty this year. Her child was only a year younger than Huo Yuhao and would awaken their Martial Soul next year.
"But it really is a rare sight. And you have no idea how adorable you looked sitting there in a daze just now. I absolutely have to share this with everyone." Sister Lin had come to the back courtyard to fetch something. Once she had it, she immediately hurried toward the hotel.
Watching her retreating figure, Huo Yuhao did not know what to say. Was it really worth making such a fuss over?
"If you don't know what to do, you could go for a walk. Looking at the scenery outside would be nice too," the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm suggested in his mind upon seeing him at such a loose end.
"Sure." Huo Yuhao thought it over. He had nothing to do anyway, so a walk would be fine. Shrek City currently posed little danger to him.
After all, he was wearing ordinary cloth clothes, and security in Shrek City was quite strong. Common petty thieves did not dare commit crimes here.
As long as he did not leave the city, this was also why Uncle Cao and Aunt Lan felt comfortable letting Huo Yuhao wander around.
After letting Uncle Cao and Aunt Lan know, Huo Yuhao went out for a stroll.
He had no destination, simply wandering aimlessly.
Before he knew it, Huo Yuhao felt as though time around him had slowed tremendously. Half a year had passed, and it was now early spring. Tender new buds sprouted from the roadside trees, bursting with vigorous life.
Children chased one another and played all around. Beneath a large tree, several elderly people sat together, seemingly matching wits over Chinese chess.
Adults gathered in groups of two or three, or five or six, both women and men. Some discussed whose dishes were better and whose vegetables were affordable, while others even discussed affairs of state. In short, from firewood, rice, oil, and salt to the current circumstances of the Douluo Continent's four great nations, there was a bit of everything.
Huo Yuhao walked among them. Sometimes, when something interested him, he stopped to observe for a while. At other times, he merely glanced over before moving on.
As he rounded a corner, a glass marble slid right to his feet. Huo Yuhao bent down to pick it up and saw a child close to his age running over.
"That's mine."
"Here you go." Without a second thought, Huo Yuhao handed the glass marble back.
Shrek City was a strange place when one thought about it. The continent's foremost academy stood beside it, yet precisely because of that, there were almost no other schools in the city.
Those that existed were private schools operating under names such as tutoring classes.
Ordinary people without Soul Power were taught some general knowledge.
Parents sent children with Soul Power to those tutoring classes. Most of the classes were run by outstanding graduates of the Shrek Academy Outer Court, most of whom were capable of teaching children who had just awakened their Martial Souls and had little Soul Power.
Uncle Cao and Aunt Lan had previously considered finding a tutoring class for Huo Yuhao too. But after looking around, they discovered that all the private schools and tutoring classes in Shrek City were run by outstanding graduates of the Shrek Outer Court.
Such people might be elites in ordinary people's eyes, but one must not forget that their daughter was in the Shrek Inner Court.
Of Shrek's two courts, the Outer Court was like a place that trained geniuses for the various nations. Those who could graduate from it would at least become Soul Ancestors, and that was the bare minimum. The Inner Court housed the true elite. One could say that the Inner Court was where Shrek truly recruited geniuses and nurtured monsters.
Although Uncle Cao and Aunt Lan counted as ordinary people in Shrek City, they had a genius daughter. As a result, they did not think much of those outside tutoring classes and simply had Strawberry teach Huo Yuhao.
This was also why Strawberry occasionally tutored Huo Yuhao alongside Zhang Lexuan. Those two were his tutoring class, though Strawberry did most of it. Zhang Lexuan only came to help from time to time, as she had her own cultivation to attend to.
Among these children who looked close to Huo Yuhao's age, some might have had a day off from tutoring classes, while others might not yet have awakened their Martial Souls and were still at an age for playing.
Three children had gathered here and were playing marbles.
It was a simple game. Each held a few marbles and tried to shoot them into a hole some distance away.
Yet the three children never tired of playing. Though it was a simple game, Huo Yuhao stood there watching with keen interest.
"Want to join us? Let's play together." Seeing Huo Yuhao lingering there, one of the children took out a marble and invited him without much thought.
"Sure." Huo Yuhao did not give it much thought either. Since he had nothing to do, he joined them, just like any ordinary child.
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