In the dean's office, Jing Hongchen and Ma Rufeng sat facing each other.
" Ma Rufeng, I'll be troubling you with the team leadership on this trip to the Star Luo Empire. I think Xu Zhengyang's suggestion is excellent. I've already arranged for people to build the necessary materials, and they should be ready in a week at most. You can start preparing in advance."
"The college has invested so much this time, we absolutely must achieve good results, otherwise I won't be able to explain myself."
Ma Rufeng nodded. "Dean, don't worry. With these things, I guarantee we'll win the championship this time, and I guarantee we'll bring Shrek Academy down."
Jing Hongchen remained silent for a while before continuing to speak.
"By the way, Ma Rufeng, I also think Xu Zhengyang's suggestion to sell Soul Tool in the Star Luo Empire is a very good idea. Over the years, our Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy has indeed had quite a few defective Soul Tool. For example, some have insufficient functions, some have limited usage times due to array inscription issues, and some may even have the risk of exploding due to other reasons. These things are quite troublesome to deal with. Rather than scrapping them ourselves, it would be better to sell them in the Star Luo Empire."
Upon hearing this, Ma Rufeng felt as if a thousand grass mud horses were running through his mind. He wished he could strangle Xu Zhengyang. He, a dignified Level 9 Soul Engineer, actually went to the Star Luo Empire to sell defective Soul Tool. If word got out, he would lose all his reputation and might even become a laughing stock in the Soul Engineer world.
"Dean, this isn't a good idea. What if they discover there's something wrong with the Soul Tool we're selling? Won't that damage the reputation of our Sun Moon Empire's Soul Tool?"
"Moreover, if something goes wrong, especially if there's a barrel explosion, it could pose a great danger, and we wouldn't be able to handle the situation then."
Jing Hongchen shook his head. "You should be somewhat aware of the current situation of our Sun Moon Empire. We have been secretly preparing for war for a long time, but the process has been extremely costly, even affecting our national strength. Moreover, a large number of defective devices were indeed produced during the manufacturing process of the Soul Tool."
"If we could sell them in the Star Luo Empire, it might alleviate this situation, and even give the Star Luo Empire Star Luo Empire illusion that our Soul Tool aren't that advanced after all."
"Even if something does go wrong, as Xu Zhengyang said, we are enemies to begin with. Do you think they can come to our Sun Moon Empire to demand an explanation?"
Ma Rufeng remained silent for a while before speaking, "Dean, I'm just wondering if if we sell Soul Tool in large quantities in the Star Luo Empire, won't their people take them for research? Won't that increase their knowledge of Soul Tool?"
Jing Hongchen laughed and said, "Wouldn't that be even better? Anyway, they're researching problematic Soul Tool. If they continue their research along that flawed line of thought, it will only mislead them and lead them to utter ruin."
In the end, Ma Rufeng reluctantly agreed to Jing Hongchen's arrangement. After all, he was the team leader going to the Star Luo Empire to participate in the Soul Master Tournament.
A week later, everyone received the items that Xu Zhengyang had proposed at the previous meeting, including a Level 7 Soul Tool Armor, Level 6 Soul Tool: the Ring of Teleportation, three Invincible Shield, and various other miscellaneous Soul Tool.
These Soul Tool are at least level six and extremely expensive. Even considering the raw materials, each person's Soul Tool alone are worth millions of Gold Soul Coin. It seems the academy has great confidence in this Soul Master Tournament and has really gone all out.
Everyone was preparing to depart for the Star Luo Empire. Besides Ma Rufeng, the team leader, there were two other teachers, one of whom was none other than Xu Jie.
Even though the journey was extremely long, this time they did not travel by carriage or use Flying Soul Tool; instead, everyone set off on foot.
For Soul King- level Soul Master, running 50 to 100 kilometers per hour is no problem at all. The Star Luo Empire is more than 10,000 miles away from Mingdu, but it is only a journey of more than ten days.
In particular, all team members are physically fit and have experienced various real-world scenarios, so they are not averse to this kind of escape.
What Xu Zhengyang and the others didn't know was that at this very moment, an extremely fierce battle was taking place in the Ming Dou Mountain Range of the Sun Moon Empire.
Seven Shrek Academy regulars and seven reserve members, led by team leader Xuan Zi, set off for a mission outside Ming Dou Mountain. The mission was to eliminate the Death Hand Bandit Group. Ming Dou Mountain Range was located at the border between the two countries, making it inconvenient for the military to handle the situation.
Although Xuan Zi was the leader of the Shrek Team, he observed from the shadows the whole time. The real commanders were the captain and vice-captain Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng. This was also Xuan Zi's test for everyone.
But precisely because of this, an extremely fierce battle ensued, and the fourteen Shrek members ultimately relaxed their guard when facing the Death Hand Bandit Group.
The leader of the Death Hand Bandit Group calls himself the Death Messenger. Not only does he possess extraordinary abilities, but he also manages to transform all his subordinates into corpse slaves and implant level-five Soul Tool Elemental Bomb into each of them.
After the fourteen Shrek members killed all the corpse slaves, the bandit Death Messenger, actually detonated the Soul Tool Elemental Bomb on the corpse slaves. He even used special methods to make the bones, muscles, and blood vessels of the corpses form the final bomb.
The seven Shrek Academy members at the forefront were in the center of the bomb and were all severely injured. Yao Haoxuan was killed instantly, Chen Zifeng's right leg was blown off, and the strongest members, Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng, were blown away. Chen Zifeng, Gongyang Mo, and Xi Xi were blown to pieces and severely injured. Only Ling Luochen was less injured because of his Frost Armor.
Besides the extremely miserable state of the Shrek players' starting lineup, the substitutes also coughed up blood and suffered serious injuries.
At this critical moment, although Xuan Zi acted immediately, the bandit Death Messenger, acted extremely strangely, displaying the skills of an Evil Soul Master, escaping Xuan Zi's pursuit, and even capturing Huo Yuhao.
At this critical moment, substitute player Huo Yuhao displayed astonishing strength, transforming himself into a giant Emperor Ice Jade Scorpion, turning everything within a radius of hundreds of meters into ice sculptures. Even the Evil Soul Master's bizarre methods were frozen in that instant, and even his last twelve corpse slaves were all frozen.
Xuan Zi seized the opportunity to unleash terrifying power, killing all the Evil Soul Master.
By the time everything was dealt with, Shrek had suffered an unprecedented blow. One of the main team members died on the spot, three were seriously injured, and the other three were in relatively better condition, but would still need a long time to recover.
Although Huo Yuhao used the Ice Empress's ability to unleash extremely strong attack power in a short period of time, and this ability even had a wide-range freezing effect, he himself was not in much better shape, and his mental strength was damaged to some extent.
In the original novel, Huo Yuhao used the abilities of the Death Holy Spirit Mage to solve the problem of the Evil Soul Master's self-destruction, but...
Huo Yuhao currently lacks his third Martial Soul, Electrolux, and can only rely on his own strength, along with the help of the Ice Empress and the Skydream Iceworm. However, the energy sealed by the Ice Empress is too strong, so he himself has also suffered some injuries.
Faced with such a tragic situation, Xuan Zi felt extremely guilty. However, with the Soul Master Tournament fast approaching, Xuan Zi had no choice but to arrange for the other teachers to take Chen Zifeng, Gongyang Mo, Xi Xi back to the Shrek Academy to heal their injuries, while he himself led the rest of the group to the Star Luo Empire.
This battle was even more brutal than in the original story, especially for Huo Yuhao, whose mental strength suffered some damage, and it is unknown how long it will take for him to fully recover.
After a nearly twenty-day long journey, Xu Zhengyang and his group finally arrived at the capital of the Star Luo Empire:
Star Luo City is also the venue for this Soul Master Tournament.
Star Luo City is the capital of the Star Luo Empire Star Luo Empire and its largest city. Its city walls are hundreds of meters high and hundreds of meters thick, covering an area of over 1,000 square kilometers, with a length and width exceeding 10 kilometers. It is divided into an inner city and an outer city.
Its true core is the inner city, which is 960 meters long, 750 meters wide, and has walls 20 meters high, and is known as a city within a city.
Star Luo City was quite crowded at the moment. The number of tourists had surged recently, and all the hotels were fully booked, making it look extremely prosperous.
However, compared to Mingdu, Star Luo City is somewhat backward, while Mingdu is more advanced and technologically advanced.
The Star Luo Plaza, located in the center of Star Luo City, is the venue for this Soul Master Tournament, and the entire Star Luo Plaza is guarded by tens of thousands of soldiers.
This Soul Master Tournament is a grand event in the Douluo Continent. According to the rule that the four major countries take turns hosting it, the Star Luo Empire can only host it once every twenty years. For this reason, the royal family has made many preparations to maintain order.
Not far to the east of Star Luo Plaza, there is a seven- Lou Gao hotel called Star Luo Grand Hotel, which is owned by the royal family.
As the runner-up of the last competition, the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy was assigned to the top floor, the seventh floor, and each student had a bedroom and a dedicated conference room.
The entire seven floors have hundreds of luxury rooms, and the seven floors combined have more than a thousand rooms, but even so, apart from the most luxurious seventh floor, the other floors feel a bit crowded.
There are 113 Soul Master Academy participating in this Soul Master Tournament. The team leaders and students of these academies are all staying at the Star Luo Grand Hotel, totaling nearly 2,000 people.
In the conference room, Xu Zhengyang and his group all remained silent, sitting quietly.
Among everyone present, the main players have been training with the team for at least seven years, and substitutes like Xu Zhengyang have been training for more than two years. Everyone has given their all to become stronger, and now it's finally time to show their strength.
At this moment, Xu Zhengyang also closed his eyes tightly, feeling as if the blood in his body was starting to boil, and his fighting spirit was gradually spreading. He had been waiting for this day for far too long.
Since arriving in the Douluo World, Xu Zhengyang had been waiting for this day, waiting to meet the main characters, and waiting to use this place as a base to reach the pinnacle of the Soul Master World.