As the referee announced Shrek Academy's victory, all the spectators in Star Luo Square erupted into cheers.
Even though Shrek Academy had only sent a group of inexperienced reserve team members this time, they still defeated the elite members of Tianling Advanced Soul Master Academy, whose soul power levels were far superior.
Was that not enough to make their blood boil? This was Shrek! Even their reserve team was an existence other academies could not hope to defeat.
At this moment, the deafening cheers resonated throughout the entire arena, while the reserve team members maintained calm and composed expressions.
But Beibei's body was already weakening. He was barely standing thanks to Xu Sanshi secretly supporting him from behind.
Beibei forced himself to maintain a composed expression, keeping a relaxed smile on his face until he and the others exited the stage and reached the rest area.
This left a deep impression on the other academies' teams. After all, Beibei's performance had been far too stunning.
He had managed to, with only four-ring Soul Ancestor cultivation, defeat four opponents of similar strength,each equipped with defensive soul tools,along with two slightly weaker opponents who also had defensive soul tools.
But one's own people knew the truth. Beibei's actual cultivation was only that of a Soul Ancestor.
If he were already a Soul Saint, forcibly activating the power in his bloodline and entering the Golden Holy Dragon form would not consume much of his strength.
But for Beibei now, doing so was highly taxing, and he could only maintain it for a single strike.
Although using it occasionally would not harm his foundation, it would still leave him weak for at least three days, requiring rest to restore the bloodline power within him.
But in order to leave other teams with the impression that Shrek Academy was invincible, Beibei forced himself to stay on his feet instead of withdrawing early.
Otherwise, given his exhausted soul power and spirit power, resting immediately would have been the best choice.
Among the teams in the arena, the one paying the closest attention to Shrek Academy was naturally the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy.
Within their team...
"That person is the captain of Shrek Academy's reserve team?" Smiling Dust's proud eyes revealed scrutiny and solemnity,but even more, confidence in his own strength.
Ma Rulong, current captain of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy, nodded. "Yes. He will also be your greatest opponent when you lead the team in the next tournament."
"The power he used should be some kind of secret technique. Our previous investigations have information about him."
"He is Beibei, one of Shrek Academy's two outer court twin stars. His martial soul is the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon."
"But judging by what we just saw, his bloodline and martial soul have mutated. This likely comes from the lineage of Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang from ten thousand years ago."
"The lightning he released clearly contained strong light attributes."
Ma Rulong explained all the intelligence their academy had gathered.
Smiling Dust chuckled slightly. "As expected of Shrek Academy. But if their next captain is only at that level, he is not qualified to be my opponent."
As the most outstanding Sun Moon Empire soul engineer in a hundred years, Smiling Dust's talent in both soul master cultivation and soul engineering gave him every right to be proud.
At fifteen, he was already a Soul King, and his martial soul carried divine beast bloodline. With his martial soul,the Three-Legged Golden Toad,he coordinated with soul tools almost perfectly, giving him the potential of a super martial soul.
He was already a fifth-level soul engineer, and with his martial soul's assistance, he far surpassed ordinary fifth-level soul engineers.
The Sun Moon Empire's soul engineer standards were extremely high. Their fifth-level engineers were equivalent to, or stronger than, Shrek Academy's sixth-level engineers.
With such a strong foundation and advanced theory, Smiling Dust had to learn far more than soul engineers from the original Douluo Continent.
Thus, although Beibei's martial soul mutation was worth noting, it was nothing more than that. Whether in soul power cultivation or external combat strength, Smiling Dust surpassed him greatly.
At this moment, Smiling Dust had already set his sights on Beibei, who had shone brilliantly in the first match.
As for Huo Yuhao, a mere two-ring Grandmaster, he didn't even consider him a threat.
But Huo Yuhao was silently thinking about and recalling the trump card Beibei had used earlier, activating his bloodline power.
Beibei had already explained this during their strategy meeting. To make a stunning debut and establish Shrek's prestige, he had revealed this secret technique.
He explained that he stimulated his bloodline using spirit power and soul power, forcing a temporary outburst that greatly increased his level of dragon transformation, allowing the Golden Holy Dragon's power beneath the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon's surface to emerge.
But based on Huo Yuhao's True Eye observation, Beibei's explanation wasn't entirely accurate.
The bloodline power was only a catalyst. The real change came from the reaction occurring within Beibei's martial soul after the bloodline began to boil.
In truth, the boiling bloodline was a side effect, and Beibei used the martial soul's forced reaction to suppress the bloodline's berserk nature and restore balance.
He could borrow the martial soul's heightened state to strengthen his soul skills temporarily, but this required ten times the energy he could output, which explained why both his soul power and spirit power were severely depleted afterward.
Once he activated his bloodline, Beibei could no longer stop the process on his own.
He could only ensure he entered the Golden Holy Dragon form and prevent the backlash from damaging his foundation.
But as for whether he could fully or effectively control this form, that was unknown. Based on Huo Yuhao's observation, most of Beibei's power,nearly seventy to eighty percent,was wasted into the air, with only twenty to thirty percent landing on the enemies.
The only reason the attack was so devastating was that the Golden Holy Dragon martial soul was powerful, and the Tianling team was mentally shaken by Shrek's reputation and the dragon's aura.
Can I replicate something similar? After all, martial soul second awakenings exist. If I use the True Eye to precisely stimulate my martial soul in a controlled manner, could I enter an awakening stance?
While watching the following matches, Huo Yuhao continued stealing martial soul structures and soul skill frameworks through his True Eye and storing them in his database, all while contemplating this idea.
According to the original Body Sect's teachings, their second awakening was essentially the same,stimulating the martial soul's latent power through extreme training.
Beibei relied on his strong, pure Golden Holy Dragon bloodline to force a reaction.
The Body Sect relied on accumulated methods and experience valid for most body-type martial souls.
For now, Huo Yuhao had no access to the Body Sect, nor did he intend to join them. Compared to their combat skills, he was far more interested in soul skill structures.
After the first day's matches ended and night fell, the day's schedule concluded.
Returning to the hotel, Huo Yuhao finally had time to enter his spiritual sea and organize the martial soul, soul skill, and soul tool core array information he had collected.
Besides Shrek Academy, the other top academies hadn't participated today.
So he hadn't obtained any particularly valuable soul skills or core arrays, but he had significantly filled in his missing data on auxiliary, enhancement, and defensive skills.
Now, the next step was attempting to progress his martial soul awakening.
He kicked awake the sleeping Skydream Iceworm.
"Brother Skydream, I need you to protect me. If something goes wrong with my soul power or spirit power flow, help stabilize me with your spiritual power."
"Huh? Little Yuhao, what are you trying to do now?" Skydream asked in confusion.
"Become stronger," Huo Yuhao replied simply, and then began.
Soul power circuitry was simple and independent of the body, so he could simulate and predict it entirely within his spiritual sea.
But constructing a complete martial soul was far too complex for his current strength.
Even if simulated in the spiritual sea, applying it to the physical body was extremely difficult.
And because martial souls were intimately connected to the body, Skydream could not take control for him. Only Huo Yuhao could lead the process, with Skydream assisting from the side.
Time passed quickly. Huo Yuhao spent a full day and night to construct a complete martial soul model in his spiritual sea.
Then came countless iterations of trial and error, mimicking the changes Beibei's martial soul underwent in the Golden Holy Dragon state.
After repeated failures, collapses, and rebuilds, he finally found a method to effectively stimulate his martial soul into responding.
"But... the success rate is too low." Huo Yuhao frowned.
At full soul power and spirit power consumption, he could barely push his martial soul into the expected transformation.
But once he exhausted everything, he would no longer be able to interfere with the process.
His simulations showed that only ten percent of attempts ended with a successful, stable transformation.
Thirty percent resulted in temporary, unstable transformation.
The remaining sixty percent caused unpredictable reactions. Although Skydream could suppress the backlash to prevent permanent martial soul damage, Huo Yuhao's body and spirit would still suffer.
He sighed. The results were clear.
The problem wasn't his understanding,it was that his current cultivation simply wasn't high enough to safely support a martial soul transformation.
But he wouldn't have to wait long. Once he obtained Life Gold, which would serve as a hidden energy reserve, everything would progress smoothly.
And after two days and three nights, he wasn't without gains. He had discovered a method similar to Beibei's,a secret technique to temporarily awaken martial soul potential.
Unlike Beibei's, however, this one enhanced control rather than raw strength. It provided no large power boost, but the consumption was much smaller.
In this state, Huo Yuhao could instantly construct soul power circuits he normally needed immense time and spirit power to complete.
"That's settled. I'll call this technique the Awakening Stance. Consider it a preview of what a true second martial soul awakening will feel like."
His tense mind finally relaxed. Skydream yawned beside him.
"So, you're finally done? Good, good. Time to sleep. Your brother is going back to bed!"
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