The Yuhao Chronicles - Volume 1 Chapter 50

After entering the Assessment Area, both teams stood facing each other and introduced themselves. This time, their opponents were from Class 9, and all three of them were Spirit Grandmasters. In comparison to the teams Yuhao and Wang Dong had defeated before, they were not that strong.

“Two agility-types and an assault-type. It’s this combination again, how boring. How should we go about this?” Wang Dong whispered to Huo Yuhao.

Yuhao sighed, “Let’s just brute force our way through them.”

“Fine.”

The level of synergy between the two had become much higher. After a simple exchange of pleasantries, the match started.

Both sides simultaneously released their martial souls. However, the assault system Wang Dong didn’t immediately charge out. Instead, he flapped his blue wings and prepared to use his second spirit ring. Just before the attack was launched, a portal formed in front of him, thanks to Yuhao, which teleported him right into the middle of their opponent’s triangle formation.

Their opponents never expected Wang Dong to go all out the instant he made a move. More importantly, they’d never expected the strength of his Light of the Butterfly Goddess to be this terrifying. They were, therefore, caught off guard by the sudden attack and were unable to activate any defensive skills that they might have had.

The three boys were hit with several bombardments of powerful light blasts, which injured them all and directly knocked out the two weaker agility-type spirit masters. The assault-type spirit master moved to recover; however, he was instantly punched in the face by Yuhao using his insane physique and strength. This added onto the injuries gained earlier, directly knocked him out.

With that disappointing fight out of the way, the duo had moved straight into the top four teams of the tournament. They both casually made their way back to their rooms to cultivate until the next morning. Even though they hadn’t used much of their spirit power reserves in that fight and wouldn’t be making any ground-breaking breakthroughs, they were still diligent with cultivating every night.

When morning arrived, they went through their morning motions to get ready, grabbed breakfast and cultivated until the time for the next assessment fight. After the sun had risen sufficiently, they left their rooms and headed towards the Assessment Area. The champions of this year’s knock-out tournament would be decided today, and after getting all the way to the top 4, none of the teams would cower from the others.

The number of spectators today was even greater than yesterday. All of the spectators were teachers, of course, as the students still had to continue their classes. The only difference was that the sloppy old man who’d appeared on the tall stage yesterday hadn’t turned up today.

“Greetings, youths. I’m Yan Shaozhe, the 261st Dean of Shrek Academy.” The white-clothed old man carried a smile on his face as he spoke. He had an extremely warm temperament, which made it seem as if he was only an ordinary old man.

The Dean continued, “I know that all of you are very curious as to why I’ve come here, and you’re not wrong to be so. Normally, when the freshmen assessment enters its last stage, a Vice-Dean would be sufficient to show how much the academy values you. However, I have to admit that your performances during this freshmen assessment have left me extremely pleased. I’ve come because you all are the best batch of freshmen that I’ve seen during the past hundred years, so I’m very interested in you all. In addition to that, I’ll be watching all of the matches today, so I hope that I’ll continue to be pleasantly surprised by you all.”

The Dean took a step back to allow Du Weilun to begin talking, “Team Huo Yuhao from Class 1 will be facing Team Zhou Sichen from Class 10. This match will be held on arena 2. Team Dai Huabin from Class 5 will be facing Team Xiao Xiao from Class 1. This match will be held on arena 1. Students, if you could make your way to your respective arenas.”

Finishing the pre-tournament announcement, Weilun, along with the other teachers and spectators, speedily disappeared from the platform and moved to the spectator’s platform.

Yuhao hearing had many thoughts going through his mind right now. He was very happy for Xiao Xiao to be able to show off her talent despite not being in their team as she was in the original story. Not including Wang Dong and himself, she was quite possibly the greatest talent in the class.

While he felt happiness for Xiao Xiao and her team, hearing the name Dai Huabin, caused his hate for the family to stir. He had suffered under the Dai family’s thumb for his first six years of life here, with his mother suffering for way longer than he has. He was not one to let bygones be bygones, especially considering the fact that he knew that without his intervention in persuading his mother to move, she would have died by their hands. While he may not have the power to confront his biological father, due to his status being a Titled Douluo, he definitely had more than enough power to have some ‘fun’ with his stepbrother. At this thought, he couldn’t help but let a brief smile flash across his face.

When they arrived at the arena, the two teams quickly shared introductions before the proctor announced the start of the match.

Their opponents had clearly done some research on their battle styles. Considering Wang Dong’s sudden explosiveness in yesterday’s match, alongside Yuhao’s insane portal skill, they were extremely cautious. As such, their opponents instantly released all of their strength the moment the match started.

They all moved into a line, with Zhou Sichen standing in front. He instantly used his first two skills of his spirit, the Treasure Bible, to summon two spirit beasts into the arena, one bear and one tiger. The bear and tiger duo hurriedly rushed in front of the three, then roared towards Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong. The beasts then began running towards them aggressively. While this happened, his teammates also released their martial spirits and their skills. It seemed that they were moving for an all-out attack from the get-go.

Long Xiangyue released his martial spirit, an enormous boomerang appeared in his hand. One ‘side’ of the boomerang was more than a foot long, so it looked somewhat imbalanced in the hands of Long Xiangyue, who hadn’t even turned twelve. After the boomerang appeared in his hand, he paused slightly for a moment. Immediately afterwards, he bent his body backwards, then abruptly swung his body back towards the front as he sent the boomerang flying out.

The boomerang began in a wide arc around the arena however Yuhao was sure that it was aimed towards them. As it moved, Xiangyue and Jinxuan used all of their spirit skills simultaneously. As they did, the boomerang’s speed sped up, it seemed to move through the air much smoother and Yuhao felt that it would also be much sharper. With his defences, he would be able to defend against it however, his teammate, on the other hand, would be very vulnerable.

As their opponents had made their first move, so had Yuhao and Wang Dong. The began running towards the two charging beasts. Once these beasts were destroyed, it would take a very long time before they could be resummoned. Therefore, Yuhao and Wang Dong decided to take them out first.

As they arrived, Wang Dong released his first spirit ring and attacked the tiger using his sharpened butterfly wings. He was much faster than the tiger and with his wings, he could manoeuvre the arena very easily. Due to this, he managed to get several early hits on the approximately seven-hundred-year-old Flaming Demon Tiger.

With Wang Dong attacking the tiger, Yuhao was confronting the Earthen Bear. Their first clash was one of pure force, with Yuhao’s physique going against the natural weight and strength of the summoned spirit beast. In this clash, Yuhao managed to get the upper hand, causing the bear to stumble back several steps. Roaring angrily, the bear charged again, only this time its fur shining a bright yellow. As they clashed again, Yuhao could instantly feel that the bear had increased its strength and weight by almost double. With this additional effect, he had to take a single step to stabilise himself.

With his small desire for pure, forceful combat satisfied, Yuhao used the Ghost Perplexing Track to quickly manoeuvre around the bear and lay several strong punches in its throat and sides. It reared back from the blow, allowing Yuhao to press the advantage and lay several more punches and kicks on its body. As it was a physical construct made purely from spirit power, any amount of damage inflicted upon it, contributed to weakening it. The yellow l.u.s.tre of the bear had noticeably decreased already from the brief fight.

By this time, Xiangyue’s boomerang had finished its arc and was only several metres away from Wang Dong’s back. Yuhao quickly shouted out, “I got it!” as he noticed Wang Dong get ready to dodge. With his trust in Yuhao’s skills, he focused back on the tiger in front of him which was being a pain to deal with. As it was a feline-type species, it was very flexible in its movements, allowing it to dodge the vast majority of his wing blades. Wang Dong was also unable to make physical contact as Yuhao has done with the bear, due to the blazing heat of its fur.

After calling out, Yuhao quickly moved several metres away from the bear and used his portal skill. He created a larger than usual portal to completely protect Wang Dong from the boomerang as he wasn’t aware how much control Xiangyue has over the boomerang mid-flight. The portal swallowed up the boomerang and just before the boomerang’s owner wiled it to disappear, the weapon cut into the Earthen Bear. It cut straight through its chest without effort before finally disappearing on the other side of the body.

With this attack on the Earthen Bear, the acc.u.mulated damage caused it to dissipate due to a lack of energy. This caused Sichen to shoot an annoyed look at his sour-faced teammate as he did not react fast enough. They had discussed before the fight the possibility of Yuhao using that method to deal with his spirit, and yet, it still was able to work.

Yuhao quickly began running towards the three unguarded opponents. Xiangyue moved to the front as his boomerang spirit appeared in his hand again. Both himself and Jinxuan used their two spirit rings again, as he launched another attack, only this time as a vertical throw straight for the charging Yuhao.

As the boomerang closed in, Yuhao used his first ring, materialising the Black Turtle Shell to stop the boomerang. As it collided with it and his spirit power was used to sustain the shield, Yuhao surprisingly felt a much larger drain on his spirit power reserves than he expected. However, even with this drain, he still had more than enough energy to finish the fight.

He finally arrived within a few metres of Xiangyue who was currently holding his boomerang in his hand. He hadn’t launched it again seeing his previous failure and was instead preparing to use it as a makeshift close-combat weapon. With him never using the boomerang in this form, it was however quite pointless.

When Yuhao was in range, he slashed the boomerang out at Yuhao, who easily ducked it and moved right up close to his opponent. Yuhao quickly hit Xiangyue’s elbow, making him drop the boomerang from his hand before punching him in the chest. This punch staggered and winded Xiangyue.

Xiangyue’s teammates, not wanting to simply surrender, attempted to jump and tackle Yuhao to the ground. Yuhao used his turtle shell to stop Sichen, while he used his Controlling Crane, Capturing Dragon skill to get a strong rip on Jinxuan and perform a simple shoulder throw. With his strength, Jinxuan hit the ground very hard, spitting out saliva and a little blood at the intense impact.

As he moved to attack Sichen, he sensed, then saw Wang Dong run past him and appear next to Sichen. He had his guillotine butterfly wings pointed dangerously at Sichen’s body as he sharply said, “Surrender.”

Sichen defeatedly nodded causing the proctor to announce the match, “Team Yuhao wins!”

Yuhao and Wang Dong both shared a high five and a wide smile as they had finally moved through to the finals. Yuhao sent a glance over at arena one as they were making their way out of the assessment area, noticing that they were still fighting. He both wanted Xiao Xiao to win and lose. If she won, he would be happy as his appearance won’t negatively affect her progress too much, not to mention the achievement of having two teams from class one being in the finals. However, if she did win, then he couldn’t bring the pain to Dai Huabin without a good reason.

With him thinking on it not going to change the outcome of the battle, he shook his thoughts off and strolled back to his dorm room alongside Wang Dong.