The Hell White Tiger passed straight through Yan Qing's body and slammed heavily into the edge of the arena.
Enormous fluctuations of Soul Power battered the entire arena, but the expected elimination notification never appeared.
Wu Siduo could no longer maintain her Martial Soul Fusion Skill. Her luminous white wings and tiger body dissolved together into countless tiny specks of light, slowly fading away.
The next moment, her surroundings abruptly changed.
She was still standing in the arena, but Tang Wulin, Xie Xie, Gu Yue, and Xu Xiaoyan, whom she had just eliminated, were standing a short distance away, all in one piece.
They had minor injuries, but showed no sign whatsoever of having been seriously wounded by the Hell White Tiger.
When she heard Yan Qing's question in return, Wu Siduo realized she was still inside an illusion.
Yet actually seeing the team completely unharmed still shocked her beyond measure.
That fierce clash and the exchanges of Soul Skills had all been illusions!
What terrifying spiritual power that must have taken.
Had this been a real fight to the death, she would already have died who knew how many times.
Wu Siduo could not help looking toward the center of the arena, where a boy with sword-like brows and star-bright eyes stood.
Yan Qing smiled as he spoke.
"Should I do it, or will you leave on your own?"
The arrogance faded from Wu Siduo's face, and she gave Yan Qing a long, searching look.
"My skills fell short. I accept my defeat wholeheartedly."
With that, she slowly fell backward. The instant her back touched the ground, teleportation light enveloped her, and she vanished.
Wu Siduo, eliminated.
In the martial arts arena's main hall, the students who had come out early were watching the big screen.
With Wu Siduo's elimination, the match drew to a close, and the last five simulation pods opened simultaneously.
Yan Qing stepped out of his pod, rubbed the space between his brows, and looked toward the crowd.
When his gaze swept over Yang Nianxia and Xu Yucheng, both instinctively lowered their heads.
The Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear had left quite a psychological shadow over the two of them.
Zheng Yiran, whom Yan Qing had swindled while impersonating Wu Changkong, looked furious instead.
She glared fiercely at Yan Qing, muttering plenty of "blessings" for his family.
Shen Yi's voice rang out at just the right moment.
"Since everyone remaining belongs to the same team, and the disparity in strength is too great, the selection will end early. You may decide the class committee positions yourselves."
Xu Xiaoyan and Xie Xie both said they had no interest in becoming class officers.
To Shen Yi's surprise, Yan Qing also took a step back.
In the end, Tang Wulin and Gu Yue became Class One's class president and vice president respectively.
The remaining vice president position passed down to Wu Siduo.
With that, the class committee for Year One, Class One was officially settled.
Yan Qing did not care about any of this. He was still thinking about further developing his grand enterprise of building a fortune from nothing.
The work-study dormitory.
The moment Yan Qing opened his little shop, several sharp-eyed students quickly gathered around.
Sales for the first round of Yan Qing's Battle Armor blind boxes had exploded.
The lucky few who had won the grand prizes became living advertisements, promoting his shop everywhere for free.
The first batch of nearly a hundred blind boxes sold out, even giving rise to a proxy-buying business.
However, Yan Qing's opening hours were irregular, and classes had not yet ended for everyone, so word spread relatively slowly.
After serving the first few customers, his little shop actually enjoyed a brief lull.
Just then, a slender figure approached the counter.
"Hello, I'd like a Battle Armor blind box."
"One thousand one hundred contribution points, thank you."
Yan Qing raised his head from a pile of blind boxes and answered casually.
The customer opposite him did not respond for some time.
Yan Qing focused his gaze, and a striking head of red hair came into view.
The visitor was none other than Yuanen Yehui.
When Yuanen Yehui saw that Yan Qing owned the shop, she turned to leave.
She took two steps, then slowed, standing there in indecision.
For a Shrek student, possessing one's own Battle Armor was undoubtedly the greatest pursuit in the outer court.
As a work-study student, she was stretched thin for contribution points.
Nowhere in Shrek City offered better value for Thousand Refinement metals than this shop.
After agonizing for a long time, Yuanen Yehui finally turned back, transferred one thousand one hundred contribution points at the counter, and picked up a blind box beside her to leave.
Yan Qing called her back.
"Senior Yuanen, during the Shrek entrance examination, scores were at stake, so I had to give it my all. I offended you in quite a few ways."
As Yan Qing spoke, he took another Battle Armor blind box from beside him and held it out to her.
"Please accept this as your junior's apology. It's just a small token, nothing worth mentioning."
Looking into Yan Qing's clear eyes, Yuanen Yehui lightly bit her lower lip.
She discreetly crooked a finger toward the space behind Yan Qing.
Two miniature fallen Angel Phantoms leaped out from behind Yan Qing and merged into Yuanen Yehui's body.
"The examination was a matter of everyone relying on their own abilities. I was being petty."
The sincerity on Yan Qing's face froze for an instant, and he hurriedly reached out to hold down the blind box.
"Wait, Senior. Give this back to me first."
Yuanen Yehui frowned slightly.
"What's wrong?"
Yan Qing scratched his head and rummaged out two new boxes from beneath the counter.
"Those two were defective. Sorry."
"These two contain Fusion Forged spirit alloys, both with fusion rates above eighty percent. There's absolutely nothing wrong with them."
Yuanen Yehui pressed her lips together, a faint blush coloring her pretty face.
Yan Qing was somewhat bewildered. Then he saw his senior crouch down and retrieve a small metal box from beneath his counter.
With his spirit abyss realm spiritual power, Yan Qing saw it perfectly clearly.
[Grade Two Fixed Soul Cannon Shell]
"Sorry. I was still being a little petty."
Yuanen Yehui murmured those words.
"Senior, you've been so kind and righteous. What else can I say?"
"Give those back too."
Yan Qing was also finding it a little hard to keep up appearances.
"Those are Fusion Forged spirit alloys, ahem, but the two metals have mutually repelling properties. Installing them could easily damage your Battle Armor."
At those words, the guilt on Yuanen Yehui's face vanished without a trace.
She slapped both boxes onto the counter, her voice turning cool again.
"Give me a refund!"
The weekend arrived in the blink of an eye. Yan Qing was still pouring everything he had learned in his life into devising a sales plan when someone knocked on his door.
He opened it to find several familiar faces from Class Zero.
After asking for details, he learned that Xu Xiaoyan's Soul Power had reached rank thirty, and she was preparing to obtain her third Soul Ring.
However, buying Soul Spirits directly from the Spirit Pagoda was too expensive, and there was a considerable chance of buying a poor-quality one.
This brought them to another way of obtaining Soul Spirits through the Spirit Pagoda-challenging the tower.
The Soul Spirit Tower built at the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters had a total of one hundred and eight floors.
Each floor was guarded by a different Soul Beast. Defeating a floor's guardian allowed challengers to choose a Soul Spirit on that floor to purchase.
They would even receive a fifty-percent discount.
Of course, their chance to challenge the tower was thanks to Gu Yue. She had now officially joined the Spirit Pagoda and become the vice pagoda master's disciple.
Yan Qing happily agreed to help. Come to think of it, he himself was still short of a Soul Ring.
Although he used the Passionate Ruthless Sword ninety-nine percent of the time now, his first Martial Soul, the long brush, still came in handy occasionally.
The ten-year solitary bamboo Soul Spirit had only provided him with three rings, which was also the limit for a ten-year Soul Spirit.
He had to give it a try too. His spiritual power had already reached the spirit abyss realm; surely he could not still contract a ten-year one.
The tower challenge was undertaken as a team, which was also why Xu Xiaoyan had come to ask for his help.
The team limit was seven. Yan Qing and the others numbered five, and recruiting the second-years Yuanen Yehui and Yue Zhengyu as outside help brought them to exactly seven.
The group headed for the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters in grand procession.