Chapter 55.2: A Soul Engineer! Huo Yuhao’s True Strong Point
However, just like the stationary soul cannon that hadn’t caused an explosion to ring out, Huo Yuhao’s Soul Light Ray-like soul tools didn’t cause any rays of light to appear. On the contrary, they released an ear-piercing screech.
Six bolts of lightning shot towards Ye Canying and Ling Xue. However, they didn’t have trails of light following them.
When the six white streaks of light struck their shields, an astonishing scene occurred: White ripples began to appear on their shields, until immediately afterwards something actually drilled through them. The two of them felt their arms shake before the hands they’d raised were suddenly forced away. At the same time, they heard a snap, followed by a gray mist that covered their eyes and blocked their line of sight.
Just what sort of soul tool was this? Ye Canying and Ling Xue were simultaneously flabbergasted. However, as soul masters, they didn’t just possess soul tools; they also had their own soul skills.
Ling Xue hurriedly retreated while simultaneously releasing a large patch of snow from her body that both blocked Huo Yuhao’s line of sight and dispersed the gray mist around her.
Her martial soul was Snow. Snow was different from ice in that ice’s toughness made it so that a soul master who possessed it could become a battle soul master, while snow could only be used for assistance. As such, Ling Xue was considered an auxiliary-type soul master. Her specialty was using her Snow to change the environment and hiding herself, then using her soul tools to attack. It was only because her martial soul had been suited towards letting her become a soul engineer that she’d joined the Soul Tool Department.
Ye Canying’s reaction wasn’t slow either. His second soul ring lit up, which caused his body to shake and three shadow clones to appear. His martial soul was his Shadow.
Their arms had been knocked away, thus they couldn’t fire their Soul Light Rays for a brief period of time. Furthermore, their Soul Shields had been broken. Because of that, they chose to defend themselves while they attempted to confuse their opponent.
In the span of their short collision, Huo Yuhao had actually managed to dominate the entire field, despite being placed in a 1v3 scenario. Who would’ve expected this before the test had started?
The light beneath Huo Yuhao’s feet lit up again, which caused him to shoot forward. At the same time, a ball of light on his back lit up, which caused the light beneath his feet to grow more intense.
A Class 2 Thruster could instantly increase a soul master’s speed in a single direction for a brief moment, and the soul tool below his feet was a Speed-varying Thruster.
He hadn’t even been a soul engineer for a full year yet. In fact, he’d mainly directed his efforts towards creating soul tools that increased his speed in order to combine them with his Spiritual Detection. Because of this, the soul tool on his wrist didn’t have sufficient attack power.
At that moment, Huo Yuhao took advantage of the fact that his two opponents were currently going all-out to both defend themselves and dodge his attacks to rush out at full speed. At the same time, the two soul rings around his body suddenly changed to a single one.
The Speed-varying Thruster he wore had a relatively low propulsion force. He could use it to speed up, but the extent to which he could speed up wasn’t large; its advantage lay in the fact that he could use it to quickly change directions. The Class 2 Thruster, on the other hand, was the soul tool he used to largely increase his speed in a single direction. Though he could only minorly change what direction he was headed towards while using it, the short-distance explosiveness it gave him allowed him to catch up with the all-out sprint of a three-ringed agility-type soul master.
The two parties had originally had a distance of thirty meters between them, yet Huo Yuhao was able to appear right in front of them in the blink of an eye using this explosive burst of speed.
Ye Canying and Ling Xue had been put into a somewhat sorry state by Huo Yuhao’s gray mist. Before they were able to vanish completely amidst Ling Xue’s snow, he’d already reached them.
The two were greatly astonished when he appeared in front of them, revealing the weakness that was their unfamiliar cooperation. Ye Canying hurriedly dashed to the left, while Ling Xue quickly retreated backwards. They were instantly separated because of this.
All of the snowflakes that Ling Xue had released instantly fell to the ground without any prior warning, astonishing her. As a result, the barrier between her and Huo Yuhao completely vanished. At the same time, the full-speed Huo Yuhao appeared in front of her and reached for her with his crystalline, diamond-like hands that shone with splendor.
Ling Xue subconsciously lifted her hands. In her moment of panic, she was only able to release her Soul Light Ray.
Six rays of light shot immediately shot towards Huo Yuhao like bolts of lightning.
At that moment, a strange scene occurred. The six blazing beams of light from Ling Xue’s Soul Light Ray unexpectedly scattered in four different directions.
As it turned out, his hands had been in just the right place to block Ling Xue’s Soul Light rays; the six rays of light had instantly been reflected the moment they’d come into contact with his hands.
Afterwards, Huo Yuhao grabbed Ling Xue’s hands.
A spotless shade of white instantly spread outwards from Ling Xue and Huo Yuhao loudly shouted, “Teacher, catch!” As soon as he’d finished, he sent Ling Xue soaring through the air. Astonishingly, her body was now covered in a white layer of frost. When Fan Yu caught her, he couldn’t help but shiver instinctively.
Huo Yuhao instantly turned around once he’d thrown Ling Xue into the air, just in time for him to see a white light appear on Ye Canying’s chest, who’d split into three shadow clones. He fired a white, palm-sized ball of light from all three of his chests towards Huo Yuhao from three different directions.
Concentrated Soul Cannon!
This was the strongest soul tool available to low-ranking soul engineers. After focusing their soul power into a formation array for a short period of time, a soul engineer could release a powerful attack. Unlike the Soul Light Ray, the Concentrated Soul Cannon had a siphoning effect. In other words, it would expedite the absorption of a soul master’s soul power. Thus, though it was powerful, its soul power consumption was just as large. Normally speaking, a single shot from the Concentrated Soul Cannon would drain a soul master by a third of his soul power at the very least.
The Concentrated Soul Cannon had a single disadvantage, which lay in the fact that it had a short attack range. It could only normally only lock onto an opponent within a ten meter range. If they were any further away, both its strength and accuracy would progressively deteriorate.
Ye Canying’s martial soul was his shadow, which made it an extremely strange martial soul. A martial soul like his was relatively decent at assisting him as a soul engineer, but it was unfortunate that his opponent was Huo Yuhao, who’s martial soul perfectly countered his.
Huo Yuhao’s Spirit Eyes’ Spiritual Detection would cause all illusions to vanish. Huo Yuhao didn’t even bother with the Concentrated Soul Cannon shots to his left and front. He immediately charged towards Ye Canying with his right hand raised, then grabbed the genuine Concentrated Soul Cannon shot with his right hand.
Afterwards, Ye Canying unexpectedly lost control of the left cannon shot. It didn’t explode, but rather was flung by Huo Yuhao towards him. Furthermore, he’d even used the Tang Sect’s Arrow Throwing Technique.
Stunned, Ye Canying was only able to activate his Class 2 Soul Shield in time to block Huo Yuhao’s attack. At the same time, he released his third soul skill, causing a black shadow to emerge from his body and attempt to help him withstand the Concentrated Soul Cannon shot.
Despite this, Ye Canying’s body was flung away with a violent explosion, but was caught midair by the proctor. The intense vibrations that came from the attack caused Huo Yuhao to retreat a few steps backwards before he was able to regain his footing.
Huo Yuhao was inwardly astonished. This Concentrated Soul Cannon’s so powerful…it seems that I should make one for myself. Ye Canying had clearly sent out a shadow clone to block the blow in addition to his Class 2 Soul Shield, yet he’d still been sent flying. Furthermore, he’d unexpectedly fainted as soon as the proctor caught him. The might of this attack was comparable to the all-out blow of an assault-type Soul Elder.
Huo Yuhao was so astonished by the power of the attack that he hardly realized that the spectating students were all looking at him with flabbergasted expressions on their faces.
Just how had a twelve or thirteen-year-old student pulled this off? He was only a Soul Grandmaster, and he was still a Class 2 soul engineer. He wasn’t even that much stronger than his opponents! However, he’d still been able to defeat all three of them by himself. Not only had he won, he’d done it in a spectacular manner. The entire battle had gone smoothly, and he’d seemingly made no errors; this had clearly been a flawless victory.
Even Fan Yu hadn’t expected Huo Yuhao to deliver such a perfect performance in his test.
In reality, a Class 2 soul engineer’s participation in the advancement test was a mere formality. Their regular tests—in other words the creation of their soul tools—were more important to them. This was especially true for their achievements in the field of formation array carving.
It had been a 1v3 match, yet he’d achieved a flawless victory. He’d started the match off by using his Imitation to fake the activation of a stationary soul tool, had suppressed Ling Xue’s Snow, then blocked the Soul Light Ray using the tyrannical Ice Empress’ Pincer, before finally freezing and reflecting Ye Canying’s Concentrated Soul Cannon back towards him. Regardless of whether it was his achievements in combat, his decision-making skills, or his usage of his martial soul and soul tools, Huo Yuhao was truly flawless. Furthermore, the soul tools that he’d fired from his arms had caused Fan Yu to smile slightly. When Huo Yuhao had first made it, he’d given Fan Yu a big surprise due to the brand-new philosophy of soul tool creation that he had created. The soul tools on his arms that resembled Soul Light Rays were actually miniature Stationary Soul Crossbows he’d made. The reason he’d been able to shatter a Class 2 Soul Shield was actually extremely simple: He’d used an attack that was half physical and half energy. This allowed him to fire them using his soul power. Because this had only been a note-comparing session, he’d fired ball bearings instead of crossbow bolts. The ball bearings that had been released by both crossbows had struck Ye Canying and Ling Xue’s arms and released a gray mist that blocked their line of sight. This sort of move had absolutely reached the pinnacle of accuracy.
Huo Yuhao’s reasoning was actually very simple. Why did a Stationary Soul Tool always have to release a powerful cannon shell? Doing it that way would indeed generate a powerful attack, but its production costs would be extremely high. If he could combine the creation techniques of soul tools and the Tang Sect’s hidden weapons to create a Stationary Soul Crossbow, he’d be able to incorporate both the driving force of a soul tool and the mechanics of a crossbow into his attacks. Doing this would allow him to fuse material attacks and energy-based attacks together, and would let him use different arrows based on the situation. Wouldn’t that make his attacks much more flexible?
His line of reasoning was extremely beneficial to the Soul Tool Department. This was also the reason that Fan Yu liked him so much, and was also the main reason why the Soul Tool Department was as adamant as they were on having him stay with them. He was simply too talented in the field of soul tool creation.
