MTLNOVEL Chapter 64: Chapter 67: One More in the Bed
When Huo Yuhao's group of three returned to the waiting area, Mu Jin had already been there waiting for them for a long time.
"What on earth is wrong with you three? Why is your aura so weak? What did you do last night? And why do you always only use your first and second soul skills?" Mu Jin stood with her hands on her hips, firing off a series of questions the moment she opened her mouth.
Huo Yuhao's scalp tingled. He wanted nothing more than to sit down and rest for a while. This garbage academy's plethora of one-on-one matches was endlessly annoying, and they still had several more to go.
"Teacher Mu, we've already passed the assessment anyway. There's no need to use our full strength, right?" Cui Yejie clearly spoke up to protect Huo Yuhao. Unlike Xie Huanyue, she was a detail-oriented girl. Huo Yuhao was always hiding his skills; he definitely had his reasons.
"You'd better not capsize the boat in a ditch! I heard yesterday that in the seed team from Class Five, one of the students has already successfully advanced to a four-ring Soul Ancestor!" Mu Jin was clearly much more nervous than them. Especially after hearing that other classes also had a four-ring, she couldn't suppress the worry in her heart.
"Alright, I understand the situation," Huo Yuhao patted Cui Yejie's shoulder and, dragging his exhausted body, stood in front of her. "Don't worry, we also have a four-ring. The other teams can't make any big waves."
Huo Yuhao's gaze was extremely aggressive. Meeting Mu Jin's scrutinizing eyes, he didn't show the slightest fear. It was a pride and confidence that originated from the depths of his soul, not brainless arrogance.
Mu Jin was a little flustered by his direct gaze. She immediately turned and walked towards the viewing platform. "Then I shall wait and see. In any case, absolutely do not let the previous situation happen to me again."
Huo Yuhao smiled and, turning his head, squeezed Cui Yejie's small hand. "Teacher Mu is just like that. She has a rather competitive personality."
"Mmm..." Cui Yejie nodded obediently. No matter what, she chose to listen to him.
The subsequent matches were rather dull. It was still the same fighting style as before: Xie Huanyue as the main attacker, Huo Yuhao responsible for breaking the opponent's interference and defense, and Cui Yejie striking from behind when they were unprepared. Even though everyone knew Team Shi-Hi-Kai wouldn't change their strategy, the absolute gap in strength still left the remaining few groups of opponents completely powerless to fight back. Any tactic seemed pale and futile.
So you're good at setting up strategies? What damn use is your targeted strategy? Fights are about hardcore strength. Any routine is a paper tiger in the face of absolute power.
By the time all the matches on the third day were finished, Team Shi-Hi-Kai, with a perfect winning record, had officially passed the knockout rounds and advanced to the top sixty-four.
And among them, a total of four teams had maintained a perfect winning record: Wang Dong's team of three, Dai Huabin's team, Ning Tian's team of three girls, and Huo Yuhao's Team Shi-Hi-Kai.
At this, Mu Jin's heart was blooming with joy. One must know that among these, a full two teams were from the Class Nine she taught!
So that evening, Mu Jin endured the pain in her heart and called out Ning Tian's group of three and the three from Team Shi-Hi-Kai for a grand meal at the best hotel in Shrek City.
Normally, no matter how well children of this age ate, one meal would cost at most a few hundred gold soul coins. But among them, there was an abnormal one!
Although she had long heard of Xie Huanyue's astonishing appetite, hearing about it and seeing it with her own eyes were two different things. The dinner for seven people in the end became six people watching Xie Huanyue show off his appetite alone.
Huo Yuhao was also very speechless about this. Every time Xie Huanyue consumed stamina in battle, he had to eat a large amount of food to supplement it. Probably only the Tang Wulin from the Dragon King Legend era in the original novel could compete with him, right?
The meal for seven people, consisting of precious ingredients, cost more than fifty thousand gold soul coins, and Xie Huanyue alone ate more than thirty thousand gold soul coins' worth of food.
In the end, it was Huo Yuhao who secretly went to pay the bill under the excuse of going to the toilet. He didn't know how much salary Mu Jin earned in a month at the academy, but he figured it wouldn't exceed the cost of this one meal.
For this, Mu Jin looked at Huo Yuhao with considerable gratitude and embarrassment. But as a senior old lecher, Huo Yuhao thought Mu Jin was throwing him a seductive glance and immediately returned an extremely ambiguous expression.
When everyone had eaten and drunk their fill and were preparing to part ways, Huo Yuhao had originally planned to go back to the villa with Ning Tian and the other two girls, but he found that Cui Yejie was determined to come along.
"Yuhao, I also want to follow you to cultivate..." Cui Yejie explained shyly.
"No way!" Ning Tian's group of three immediately refused. What a joke. The three of them already wished they could monopolize Huo Yuhao, this Emperor's Auspicious Body. How could they let another outsider who was clearly like a love rival barge in?
However, in the end, for the sake of building his own team base, Huo Yuhao persuaded the three girls for a long time, and only then did they make an exception and let Cui Yejie enter the villa to sleep on a floor mat and cultivate together.
As for Xie Huanyue... a male was out of the question. Even if the four girls agreed, Huo Yuhao would kick him out.
When they returned to the villa that night, after Huo Yuhao had washed up and was preparing to go to bed, Ning Tian and the other two girls had already been waiting for him for a long time.
It's unknown what kind of mentality they were in, but this time, the three girls were actually wearing only a single, very thin piece of underwear. The large patches of exposed skin exuded an alluring luster. While doing their utmost to tease Huo Yuhao, they didn't forget to cast a provocative glance at Cui Yejie on the floor mat.
In terms of pure martial soul quality, the twice-awakened Cui Yejie was far superior to the three girls. How could she tolerate this kind of provocation? She immediately threw her floor mat out the window and pounced directly at the lying-down Huo Yuhao.
The four girls instantly got into a scuffle, their pink fists flying, even affecting the innocent bystander Huo Yuhao who was caught in the middle...
Huo Yuhao was both annoyed and helpless. He directly sent a gentle Soul Shock at each of them, then stuffed all four girls into the specially customized giant blanket.
A wordless night—
The next two days of competition were the top sixty-four advancing to the top thirty-two, then to the top sixteen, until the top eight teams were selected.
Although Shrek Academy had always prided itself on being fair and just, advertising that it gave every new student a chance, the arrangement of the draw was also deliberately made to avoid the collision of several seed teams. With their eyes, how could they not see which teams were stronger and more worthy of cultivation?
So it was basically impossible for the four seed teams to meet before the semi-finals. The other teams were nothing more than their stepping stones.
The full-strength Huo Yuhao team could only be described as "easy" when dealing with other teams. The moment the four-ten-thousand-year-ring Xie Huanyue stood there, you knew the outcome.
In everyone's eyes, Huo Yuhao and Cui Yejie had undoubtedly benefited from Xie Huanyue's light, which was how they had mixed their way into the top eight. After all, Huo Yuhao, with only one soul ring for his Death God martial soul, was too eye-catching. By this point in the knockout tournament, almost no team still had a one-ring member.
And only some sharp-eyed students would notice that every time Team Shi-Hi-Kai came on stage, it was Huo Yuhao who led the other two onto the stage as the main position. In other words, Huo Yuhao, who looked to only have one ring, was the true core of their team of three.
With the birth of the top eight, the subsequent competition would completely enter a white-hot stage. The members of each team were absolute elites among the new students. At this step, every single person was incomparably eager for the throne of the champion.
Soon, the results of the draw came out. Under the backstage manipulation of the academy, the four seed teams still did not meet, but were each pitted against a dark horse team.
Huo Yuhao took the match schedule from Cui Yejie's hand, and his expression immediately became one of astonishment. Their opponent in the quarter-finals was actually a team from their own Class Nine.
The classmates from the same class knew about his body martial soul, the Spirit Eyes, and would definitely be fully prepared for his terrifying spiritual power before the match.
However, Huo Yuhao had already reached the Spirit Domain realm in his spiritual power cultivation. Even if he was limited by the bottleneck of his soul power and the constraints of his physical body, he could at most exert the Soul Shock and Spiritual Interference of the early Spirit Abyss realm. But to deal with some two or three-ring cannon fodder, it was still enough to blow up one head per shot.
But in that case, he would be highly watched by the academy, which was not what he wanted. And Xie Huanyue had long been a public target. His first three soul skills had been used more or less, so it was inevitable that he would be deliberately targeted.
After hesitating repeatedly, Huo Yuhao turned his gaze to Cui Yejie beside him. As a new student who had just transferred to the class, her classmates knew almost zero about her.
"Tomorrow is all up to you, Yejie," Huo Yuhao gently patted her shoulder. "Bring out your full strength!"
Cui Yejie was stunned for a moment, then a look of wild joy appeared on her face. She had been holding it in for a long time!
Huo Yuhao saying this meant that she could truly let loose and fight with her Nine-Tailed Sage Fox martial soul!
"Leave it to me!"
Huo Yuhao turned his gaze back to the list in his hand. The smile on his face slowly faded. Only Xie Huanyue, who had been paying attention to his expression, sharply caught that a trace of almost imperceptible hatred had flashed through Huo Yuhao's eyes.
"Quarter-finals match for advancement to the top four. A duel between two teams from New Student Class Nine. Team Shi-Hi-Kai: Huo Yuhao, Xie Huanyue, Cui Yejie. Versus, the World-Shaking Team: Chang Cheng'an, Gu Xiaoli, Pei Xiaoqi."