Ye Xinglan conceded without hesitation.
Yan Qing held out his hand to her.
"I took a shortcut. Without my One-Word Battle Armor, I might not have been able to take that."
"When your Soul Skill had me restrained, you could have attacked."
Ye Xinglan answered earnestly, gently taking Yan Qing's hand.
She hesitated for a while, then quietly uttered two words.
"Thank you."
Yan Qing was rather puzzled instead.
What exactly had she seen inside Heart Prison?
With that, the duo from the inner court officially joined the team.
Yan Qing's squad expanded to seven members.
Luo Guixing could no longer sit still. He shamelessly came over to negotiate, hoping to have the number of participants in the selection tournament adjusted to five.
Their squad already had enough trouble fighting Yan Qing's team.
With Ye Xinglan and Xu Lizhi added as reinforcements, they could only expect to be whipped like spinning tops.
They were only doing this because they had seen Yan Qing's Battle Armor get blasted apart. Otherwise, had they known Yan Qing possessed a complete set of One-Word Battle Armor, they would not even have formed a new team.
Yan Qing agreed casually. The result would be the same no matter how many people they fielded.
The selection tournament arrived as scheduled.
A special spectator appeared below the arena.
Upon seeing her, Shen Yi and Wu Changkong both hurried forward to pay their respects.
Someone Wu Changkong respected so deeply, coupled with that signature green hair.
It was not difficult for Yan Qing to recognize the woman in green as Holy Spirit Douluo Ya Li, a Four-Word Battle Armor Master.
She had actually come to watch the first-year selection tournament.
The selection tournament was practically an open hand of cards. Over a hundred students formed a dozen or so squads, but they were all just going through the motions.
Whenever they encountered Yan Qing's or Luo Guixing's squad, they conceded of their own accord.
Soon, the final became a crazed showdown between the two teams.
"Both sides, confirm your number of participants."
Wu Changkong, serving as referee for this match, addressed the captains of the two teams.
Yan Qing held up five fingers and walked onto the stage with Tang Wulin, Gu Yue, Xie Xie, and Xu Lizhi.
Luo Guixing's side still consisted of the five students on the Young Genius Rankings.
Holy Spirit Douluo glanced at Yan Qing's squad. A trace of surprise flashed through her eyes, but she said nothing.
Three, two, one!
As the countdown ended, they all revealed their Martial Souls.
Of the ten, the one who went all out from the opening was, unexpectedly, Jade Snake Zheng Yiran.
She poured out her Soul Power without reservation, and a fine poisonous mist soon covered the entire arena.
Gu Yue used the elements to extract a wisp of poisonous gas. After briefly sensing it, she shook her head at her teammates.
The poison was very weak.
Rather than an attack, it was more a means of locating them.
The students from the Young Genius Rankings had gone to painstaking lengths to restrict Yan Qing's Simulation.
Zheng Yiran had a keen perception of the surroundings within her poisonous mist. Even if Yan Qing pulled them all into an illusion, she could still provide her teammates with their opponents' precise locations.
Of course, their preparations did not end there.
At the instant Yang Nianxia and Tang Wulin clashed on the front lines of their respective sides.
Luo Guixing's second and third Soul Skills lit up in succession.
Beside him, Xu Yucheng cooperated by revealing his scythe, turning and slashing at his teammate Wu Siduo.
Spatial Substitution!
A spatial matrix appeared beneath Xu Lizhi's feet as he stood surrounded in the very center of his team.
The next instant, Xu Lizhi appeared amid three members of the Young Genius Rankings.
What greeted this food-type Soul Master was a fully charged Dark Demon Scythe.
The one swapped to the other side was none other than Wu Siduo.
Her Martial Soul Fusion Skill, Hell White Tiger, activated immediately, its tiger claw slamming ferociously toward Yan Qing.
Luo Guixing's squad had run over a hundred simulations.
This was the only way to crush Yan Qing's squad in an instant.
Wu Siduo was very close to Yan Qing now, close enough to clearly see the expression on his face.
What emotion would it be?
Panic or regret?
When she made out the faint smile on Yan Qing's face, it was exactly the same as the one she had seen at the final moment of the previous class monitor selection tournament.
Wu Siduo's heart skipped a beat.
Black light collided with the tiger claw, and their brief exchange was actually evenly matched.
Wu Siduo cried out inwardly.
Just what rank was his Soul Power?
And what blocked her seemed to be... a stalk of bamboo?
On the other side of the battlefield.
White light had already flared, and two people were taken off the arena.
As referee, Wu Changkong had determined that they were about to lose the ability to fight and brought them down ahead of time.
The light vanished, revealing none other than Luo Guixing and Xu Yucheng.
Cries of surprise rose one after another among the spectating students.
Even Xu Xiaoyan below the stage could not help asking Xu Lizhi beside her.
"How did such a dangerous situation suddenly turn around?"
"Ah!"
She realized it too.
"If you're here, then who's that onstage?"
Xu Lizhi scratched his head and answered with simple honesty.
"Big Sister Xinglan, of course."
Yan Qing's Simulation had actually remained active ever since they stepped onto the stage.
He had simply disguised Ye Xinglan as Xu Lizhi.
With their chances of winning slim, their opponents would most likely choose to focus their attacks on one person first and eliminate them.
A food-type Soul Master with no offensive power was the best choice.
That was why Yan Qing had arranged for everyone to surround "Xu Lizhi" in the middle.
He had Ye Xinglan begin gathering starlight as soon as the battle started, waiting for the other side to teleport her over.
Sure enough, Luo Guixing took the bait. With Spatial Substitution, instead of the little fatty he expected, he was greeted by a streak of starlight.
The Stargod Sword clashed with the Dark Demon Scythe.
Xu Yucheng, with his weaker physique, suffered badly. After a few head-on exchanges, blood began seeping from the corner of his mouth, triggering the rescue mechanism.
His departure also doomed Luo Guixing, who was left unprotected beside him.
They had lost two people before even five minutes of the match had passed. There was no longer any need to continue.
The three onstage conceded decisively.
The first-year final ended in victory for Yan Qing's squad! They would represent the first years in the exchange match against the second years.
The scene shifted. Yan Qing sat inside the mystery shop, busily tapping away at a soul-guided calculator.
His little shop's turnover had already approached ten million contribution points. Even after deducting costs and labor, the profit was several million.
He had certainly made a fortune.
He also knew that he needed to introduce a new business model more quickly. The Battle Armor blind boxes would reach saturation sooner or later, and he reckoned counterfeits would come flooding in before long.
Just then, a long-haired man walked in. His gaze swept across the entire little shop before finally settling on Yan Qing.
He casually pointed at a blind box. "Pack this one up for me."
"One thousand one hundred."
The man paid readily, then opened the blind box right in front of Yan Qing.
He reached into the box, and when he withdrew his hand, a Battle Armor card was already pinched between his fingertips.
Against a blue background with white patterns, a streamlined helmet sat in the center. It was none other than the rarest helmet card.
The man raised an eyebrow, then reached into his trouser pocket.
"Looks like I'm in luck. I happen to have a few other Battle Armor cards too. Sorry for the trouble, but please exchange them for a set of One-Word Battle Armor."
Smiling, Yan Qing accepted the eight cards and examined them carefully.
Then he tore the helmet card in half and handed the other cards back to the man.
"Senior, please leave."
The long-haired man's expression turned cold.
"What do you mean?"
He slammed a palm onto the counter. Faint fluctuations of Soul Power emanated from him; his cultivation was at least that of a Soul Ancestor.
Yan Qing was not someone who could be frightened so easily. He rolled his eyes at him.
"I'll be blunt. That lousy card of yours is fake."
"Hmph, do you have any proof?
"Or is it that you never printed any helmet cards in the first place?"