Chapter 97: I Am Indeed Questioning It
Contrary to what Zhou Yi and all the students had expected, Furina did not evade the question in the slightest. Instead, she smiled brightly and admitted without the faintest hesitation, "Ah! Teacher Zhou, you've hit the nail on the head. I am indeed questioning it!"
"Wha—" A wave of uproar swept through the classroom. Aside from Huo Yuhao, who seemed to already know what was coming, every other student drew a sharp, collective breath and stared in utter disbelief at the smiling young woman on the lectern.
Questioning Yu Xiaogang? That was the man universally acknowledged as the foremost master of martial soul theory ten thousand years ago! His work had laid the very cornerstone of modern soul master theory!
Zhou Yi herself was momentarily stunned. She had only meant to probe with that question. She had never imagined Furina would admit it so directly, so openly.
"And shouldn't he be questioned?" Furina countered, her tone calm yet carrying an undeniable, immovable force.
Zhou Yi steadied herself and pressed further. "In that case, genius student, from which angle do you intend to question him? And on what grounds do you presume to question a master whose theories have been validated by ten thousand years of history?"
"Very well. Then let us begin by dissecting his most widely circulated famous saying: 'There are no useless martial souls, only useless soul masters.'"
Furina spoke unhurriedly, with measured deliberation. "In the common understanding, the so-called 'useless soul master' typically refers to those with innately low soul power, who struggle their entire lives to break through the thirty-rank bottleneck, possessing neither offensive capability nor effective support ability."
"Well then—by this very standard, the man who proposed this theory, Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang himself, remained stuck at rank twenty-nine for several decades before meeting his disciple Tang San. Did he not, by his own definition, qualify as a 'useless soul master'?"
A buzzing storm of whispered discussion instantly erupted among the students. They turned to one another, their faces a mixture of shock and deep contemplation. The angle Furina had taken was simply too incisive—and far, far too... reasonable!
Zhou Yi's expression flickered. She immediately shot back, "But Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang ultimately broke through rank thirty! Furthermore, his Luo Sanpao martial soul was able to combine with Dean Flender's and Senior Liu Erlong's martial souls to execute the tripartite martial soul fusion skill—the Golden Sacred Dragon! This is sufficient proof that his martial soul was anything but ordinary!"
"Oh? Is that so?" Furina seemed to have fully anticipated this counterargument. A deeply meaningful smile curved at the corner of her lips. "Then allow me to ask Teacher Zhou—did he break through rank thirty by his own strength? To my knowledge, it was only through the immortal herb 'Nine-Rank Purple Ganoderma,' gifted by his disciple—the later Sea God Tang San—that he was able to shatter the shackles binding him."
"And as for the Golden Sacred Dragon—doesn't the fact that his martial soul could fuse into such a mighty, top-tier existence precisely demonstrate that his Luo Sanpao martial soul inherently possessed an exceedingly high latent quality? If that is the case, then why, before obtaining that immortal herb, could he not break through that mere thirty-rank barrier despite exhausting all the efforts of a lifetime? Is this not the most exquisite irony—the most devastating rebuttal—to his own famous saying?"
Zhou Yi was momentarily speechless. She opened her mouth, only to find that Furina's logic was so airtight that she had no ground on which to refute it. Worse still—her own supporting argument had been turned into evidence for the opposing side. Her face darkened. The discussion in the classroom grew louder and louder.
"Quiet! Everyone, please remain quiet!" Furina tapped the lectern lightly. Her voice was not loud, yet it strangely overpowered all the noise.
The classroom swiftly fell silent again. Every gaze was fixed upon her.
"From this, we can see that this famous theory of his inherently contains contradictions that cannot be reconciled with itself." Furina continued her dissection, her reasoning crisp and clear. "Now let us consider his disciple, Tang San. Tang San was thought to be the possessor of the 'useless martial soul' Bluesilver Grass. But that, in itself, was a misunderstanding."
"The most important precondition for the birth of twin martial souls is that the quality of the two martial souls must be comparable. The Clear Sky Hammer is the foremost assault-type tool martial soul under heaven. Then the Bluesilver Grass that appeared alongside it—could it possibly have been ordinary Bluesilver Grass? Judging merely from the astonishing resilience displayed by its first soul skill, and the speed of Tang San's early cultivation, it is clear that this was far beyond the reach of any common Bluesilver Grass. And as facts later proved—it evolved into a top-tier plant-type martial soul: the Bluesilver Emperor."
She paused, then dropped another bombshell. "Furthermore, Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang proposed that plant-type tool martial souls could absorb the soul rings of beasts. In my view, this is more a statement of helpless resignation than a brilliant theory."
"Can a tool martial soul master possibly find a 'hammer soul beast' or a 'blade soul beast' to hunt? For those commoner soul masters throughout history who were starved of resources, they often simply absorbed whatever soul ring they could get their hands on. Who had the luxury to care about perfect compatibility? To package this practical dilemma as a 'theory'—what value does it truly hold? At best, it is merely a summary of an unavoidable reality."
"Finally—there is the theory of soul ring age limits." Furina's voice rang clearly through every corner of the classroom. "The so-called optimal soul ring ratio he proposed is: yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black, black, red. But all of you have just seen my soul rings."
With a mere thought, the four soul rings that defied all convention—two purple, two black—manifested behind her once more, drawing a wave of sharp, stifled gasps.
"Huo Yuhao. Wang Dong. Please show everyone your soul rings as well," Furina called upon them.
Huo Yuhao obediently rose to his feet. Behind him, three soul rings rose into view—one white, one purple, one black. That deep, unfathomable thousand-year second ring and ten-thousand-year third ring made everyone's pupils contract once more.
Wang Dong, though inwardly startled that Furina somehow knew his soul ring configuration—as far as he knew, only Huo Yuhao at Shrek Academy was aware of it, and Huo Yuhao shouldn't have had the chance to tell her yet—still complied and revealed his own two soul rings. One yellow, one purple. Both already far exceeding the so-called optimal ratio.
"Th-this... how is this even possible?!" Cries of astonishment rippled through the room. Even Zhou Yi's face was etched with shock. Huo Yuhao's and Wang Dong's soul ring configurations had completely overturned everything the textbooks had defined!
"Apart from the living examples standing right before you—is there not, in history, an even more famous and powerful piece of evidence?"
Furina's voice carried a guiding, galvanizing force. "That would be Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang's own personal disciple—the Sea God Tang San! His third soul ring already reached the two-thousand-year range, far exceeding the so-called optimal thousand-year limit. And his fourth soul ring vaulted directly to the ten-thousand-year tier! Does his very existence not serve as the most powerful refutation of his teacher's theories?"
She concluded, her gaze sweeping across the room with razor keenness. "Therefore, I hold that the absorption limit of soul rings should never be shackled by a few fixed numbers."
"It is primarily tied to three major factors: the inherent quality of the martial soul itself; the physical resilience and endurance of the soul master; and the most critical yet often overlooked factor—the soul master's spiritual power! It is the latter two that often prove to be the decisive keys to surpassing the limits!"
A long, profound silence fell over the classroom.
The expressions on the students' faces had shifted from initial doubt and surprise to deep, soul-shaking shock and contemplation. This lesson of Furina's was not merely imparting knowledge—it was attempting to shake the very foundations of how they perceived the world.
Zhou Yi looked at the confident, radiant young woman on the lectern, her heart a tangled knot of complex emotions.
She understood that after today, many of the young people in this classroom would likely never again be able to view the world of soul masters through the same lens as before. And Shrek Academy itself might soon be hit by a shockwave of ideas the likes of which it had never seen.