"Hmm. It looks quite nice," Huo Yuhao commented as he fixed his new uniform, the official Sun Moon Imperial Academy's uniform, in front of a mirror.
He was a little taken aback by how mature he looked; instead of a 14 year old staring back, he looked like someone 19-20 years old with his tall frame. His face was sharp and angular, white hair and blue eyes, dark circles under his eyes—a striking contrast that made him stand out even more.
It's widely known that soul masters mature physically more than ordinary people because of absorbing and accumulating soul power into their body, which nourishes their physique.
For Huo Yuhao, who developed an Ultimate Ice-Fire Physique and practices the Eight Inner Gates, his body matured more than the ordinary soul master.
"Hmm. I feel like I should add something to my appearance," Huo Yuhao muttered, tightening his tie.
If he wanted to stand out and attract attention, he needed to do more than just wear the uniform well. Everyone here had talent, pedigree, or power.
But presentation....that was something else.
Huo Yuhao looked around for a moment and smiled.
"This will do."
Every dormitory block in the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy had its own canteen. The higher the grade, the nicer the food in the canteen of the dormitory block.
Huo Yuhao and the others stayed in the sixth-grade dormitory block, which meant that the food in the canteen there was the best.
Huo Yuhao and the rest met up in the canteen.
Fan Yu, He Caitou, and everybody else in the canteen stared.
"Yuhao..." He Caitou started, blinking. "Are you okay?"
"Hehehe. What do you think?" Huo Yuhao grinned, white elastic bandages covering his eyes and looping neatly around his head, hiding the piercing blue eyes that many would swoon for at the first look.
Although he covered half of his face, he still came off as absurdly striking—no, dangerously charismatic. The white hair, tall frame, and wrapped eyes gave him the air of someone untouchable. Add that to his quiet confidence, and he didn't just walk into the canteen—he owned it.
Although he covered half of his face, he still came off as effortlessly cool, like a character from a story who walked straight out of legend and into reality.
Students all around were whispering.
"Who is that…?"
"Is he a teacher?"
"No way, he's our age—look at his uniform."
"Is he really blind?"
Fan Yu rubbed his eyes. "Please....Please don't cause too much trouble."
"Who? Me? Why would I cause any problems?" Huo Yuhao was still smiling as he picked the tomato from his tray and took a juicy bite of it.
'I can think of a couple of examples,' Fan Yu thought to himself.
He shook his head and then said, "I spoke with the Hallmaster of the Illustrious Virtue Hall yesterday. They're more sincere than I thought they would be. Just do your best to learn and don't worry about other things. The Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy won't do anything to any of you before these two and a half years are up. As for how much you'll learn, that depends on you."
"Yes, teacher!" He Caitou, Ye Xiaosheng and the rest said, while Huo Yuhao gave a thumbs up.
Huo Yuhao didn't mention anything to He Caitou and the other members of Akatsuki about his true plans of the Sun Moon Empire. He wanted to test the Shadow's Order first before he asks them to do anything.
Regardless, having them learn and grow as Soul Engineers was more important for now.
After they all had their breakfast, they were then told to gather at the first level of the sixth-grade teaching block.
The sixth-grade teaching block was not smaller than the first-grade teaching block that they saw yesterday.
The teaching director, Lin Jiayi, was already waiting here. There were ten teachers of various ages standing behind him.
"Students from Shrek, you'll be learning from our teachers from today onwards. I hope that you'll treat this as your room for the next two and a half years. To facilitate your learning of more advanced soul tool knowledge, your learning arrangements will be as follows:
All of you will follow the ten sixth-grade teachers who are standing behind me now. They are the most capable teachers in the academy. They're all at least Class 7 soul engineers. Each of them is in charge of a few sixth-grade students...."
Huo Yuhao tuned out the rest, crossing his arms behind his head. He waited for which of them was going to be his teacher. Even with the blindfold, he can still easily see through it with just his normal eyes thanks to practicing the Purple Demon Eye.
'Oh right. There was still that project about creating a storage unit for the purple Qi that would be used for cultivating the Purple Demon Eye.
That project had really frustrated me for a while because the materials and research models used for storage-type soul tools are incredibly rare. Fortunately, I had Fūinjutsu!' Huo Yuhao smiled.
It took a lot of trial and error, but thanks to his greatest cheat(Shadow Clone Jutsu), he managed to create a specific Fūinjutsu to seal the Purple Qi. Huo Yuhao made it look like a crystal ball, hiding the roll of paper in it with the seal formations. It can seal up to two weeks worth of cultivating the Purple Demon Eye.
Huo Yuhao didn't need to continue practicing it, he was already at the final stage of the technique according to it—the Boundless Realm. But he felt like he could continue improving the technique, possibly it needed an equal or higher quality of energy like the Purple Qi to breakthrough into a higher realm.
Possibly a dimension of vision that could pierce the veil and see that which lays beyond the world... of course, that was just his theory.
"Huo Yuhao!"
"Here!" Huo Yuhao smiled nonchalantly as he was called. With his spiritual power, he can easily split his thought process into two. He had heard that the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan has a certain technique that lets them split their thought processing into more than two.
'Hmm. Would Tian give it to me if I ask? Yeah, no. I better prepare a suitable exchange of equal value before I ask her.'
He stepped forward and eyed the teacher assigned to him.
The teachers assigned to them were decided by drawing a lot.
The teacher who drew his lot was the youngest among the ten teachers. He appeared to be around thirty or so, and was even younger than Fan Yu.
'Oh? He's pretty good,' Huo Yuhao didn't judge him quickly and silently assessed the man using his spiritual perception. To truly understand the qualities of a soul engineer, one must look at their hands and eyes.
A Soul Engineer doesn't just handle the core and soul formations of a soul tool, but also needs to forge its inner and outer shell—refining alloys, balancing weight, channeling energy flow, and shaping each part so that it functions as one seamless whole.
It is art wrapped in science, where one wrong stroke can cause a feedback explosion or a total energy collapse!
This man's hands were calloused, steady, and scarred in just the right places—clear signs of years spent hunched over a workbench, not just giving lectures. His eyes, narrow and focused, carried the gleam of someone who thought in mechanisms. A builder. Not just a teacher.
'Yeah... he's likely even better than all of the Class 8 Soul Engineers in Shrek Academy. He's the real deal,' Huo Yuhao concluded, his estimation of the man rising.
The young teacher narrowed his eyes, a glint of shock and disbelief flashed across his gaze after seeing Huo Yuhao's Class 7 soul engineer badge, he slowly said. "Follow me."
He turned around and walked away. He didn't wait for the other teachers.
"Alright teach," Huo Yuhao shrugged, and followed him out. He proceeded to the second teaching block of the sixth grade as he followed this young teacher.
'Let's see what you can teach me.'
Huo Yuhao walked behind the teacher for some time before reaching their destination.
'3rd Laboratory? Already straight to giving me a test, I presume.' Huo Yuhao mused.
"Come in."
"Yes, sir~"
The lab was extremely large and spacious; it was larger than Fan Yu's lab in Shrek Academy. There were all sorts of soul tools and metallic materials on display, while the gigantic lab desk was more than thirty square meters in size. The matte, silverish-white metallic surface was squeaky clean, and gave off a pleasant sensation.
The lab was empty save for them; nobody else was around.
The young teacher said in an uninterested tone "My name's Xuan Ziwen, and I'll be your teacher from today onwards."
"I don't care what the assessment rank you've received from Shrek Academy is; you'll have to retake my tests from the very beginning. If you can't pass my assessments, you'll have independent learning in the library so that you don't waste my time."
Huo Yuhao smirked and coolly tucked his hands into his pants. "Alright, cool. What's your assessment?"
Xuan Ziwen squinted his eyes and he coldly said, "How arrogant. Very well, since you're so confident. The badge on your chest should represent a Class 7 soul engineer from Shrek Academy. I don't care if it's false or not, what is placed there is the level of difficulty I will be giving you.
I'll give you an hour – and I'll give you my storage soul tool ring from which you can select from any of the materials here, and you will forge your best Class 7 soul tool formation arrays for me. Succeed, and I will not have you pay me back for the materials. Fail...." His face darkened.
Eight soul rings shimmered to existence from underneath his feet, and the air around him trembled.
Most Soul Emperors would've buckled from the pressure emitted from a Soul Douluo, even if they were weaker than the average, but Huo Yuhao was just built different.
He faced constant immense pressure from the Great Beasts for almost 2 years, and they were at least Transcendent Douluos!
The gap in pressure was simply too wide.
"I'm sure you understand?" Xuan Ziwen said.
Huo Yuhao still smiled and nodded. "100%!"
Xuan Ziwen frowned. "I do hope so, and that your.... disability won't hinder you."
"This is my first test for you," He fixed his glasses and walked over to hand his storage soul tool ring to Huo Yuhao, before heading towards the lab desk and pulling out a countdown timer soul tool.
"You may begin." He said.
Huo Yuhao hummed and started looking through Xuan Ziwen's storage soul tool ring.
'Oh this is good...' His eyes slightly widened and so did his smile.
If he's going to pass this test, he's going to do it in stride and in style.
'Time for Godly Shotgun 7.0 to be reborn!'
...
AN: Hey, it's been a while. Sorry for ghosting y'all for so long, college has been taking a lot of my time and now it's the pre-finals so I got a lot of studying and projects to do. But rest assured! This story will not be dropped yet! I am still largely interested and I want to complete one story.
Btw, I also changed the Story Title now. The title has always been pending and so far in the story now, I realize that the original title is far too limiting in writing future plotlines and it kinda sounded lame.