Chapter 103: Class Dismissed
At Huang Tian's command, Wang Ye fumbled frantically to pull the pistol from his waist. The cold, metallic touch felt deeply unfamiliar in his grip. He recalled the steps from the instruction manual—released the safety, raised the pistol, aimed at Huo Yuhao, and pulled the trigger.
Bang—!
The deafening gunshot exploded through the enclosed hall, startling many spectators right out of their seats. Wang Ye himself was jolted by the recoil, his arm going numb. The bullet had long since gone who-knew-where, leaving only a faint white mark on the distant wall.
As for Huo Yuhao—he had already sidestepped a fraction of a second before the shot rang out, his movement fluid and natural, as if he had simply adjusted his stance at random.
Huang Tian's heart sank.
The battle that followed was almost entirely without suspense. Under the coverage of the shared Spiritual Detection, Huo Yuhao's team fought as if they had full map vision. Every offensive intention of Huang Tian's trio was seen through in advance. Every coordinated attack was effortlessly neutralized.
Two minutes later, Huang Tian was forced out of bounds by a Butterfly Wing Slash from Wang Dong. Su Su and Wang Ye, disrupted by Xiao Xiao's flute sound, surrendered one after the other.
"First match—victory to Huo Yuhao's team!" Teacher Li announced in a booming voice.
Silence blanketed the spectator seats. Then, a clamor of heated discussion erupted.
"It's... already over?"
"What exactly did Huo Yuhao do? I didn't see him use any soul skill at all!"
"But his white soul ring definitely lit up..."
"Wang Dong's and Xiao Xiao's reactions were way too uncanny—like they could see the future..."
The confusion of the upperclassmen and teachers reached its peak. They could see the results, but they couldn't make any sense of the process. What kind of ability did that white soul ring of Huo Yuhao's actually grant?
The matches that followed each had their own highlights. Some teams cleverly used smoke bombs to create vision blind spots and launched successful ambushes. Some relied on the tricky angles of hidden weapons to achieve surprise victories. Still others fought purely through martial soul coordination and pulled off brilliant counterattacks. Every match lasted longer than Huo Yuhao's, and the tactics were far more varied.
But one question lingered in every spectator's heart: just what was Huo Yuhao's first soul skill?
After every team had completed at least one match, Furina announced the start of the second round.
Shuffle and reorganize.
"To give everyone more experience with different team compositions, we will now regroup." She held up a new list. "Members of stronger teams will be split into weaker ones to balance the strength of each side. Huo Yuhao—" She looked toward the youth at the edge of the platform. "You are assigned to Team Eight. Still only permitted to use your first soul skill."
Huo Yuhao nodded and walked toward his new teammates—two new students whose performance in the previous matches had been thoroughly unremarkable, but whose faces were now flushed with excitement at the prospect of teaming up with Huo Yuhao.
The result was without the slightest suspense. Even carrying two teammates of obviously weaker ability, even restricted to that seemingly useless white soul ring, Huo Yuhao still led the team to victory.
This time, the spectators were able to see a bit more clearly. Huo Yuhao's teammates always managed to evade danger ahead of time. They always found the optimal timing to strike. The entire team's coordination flowed so smoothly that it was hard to believe they were a hastily assembled provisional unit.
"It's an auxiliary-type soul skill!" In the spectator seats, an upperclassman control-type soul master slapped his thigh fiercely. "It has to be some kind of auxiliary skill that enhances perception or predictive ability! And very likely an area-of-effect one!"
This assessment was quickly confirmed. As Huo Yuhao was split into different teams again and again—no matter who his teammates were, no matter how strong the opponents—as long as they were on the same team as him, it was as if they had been granted some kind of "battlefield intuition." Their reaction speed, their coordination and synergy—all rose by an entire tier.
And when Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao, who had once fought shoulder to shoulder with Huo Yuhao, found themselves facing Huo Yuhao's team as opponents, their response was even more direct.
"Focus fire on Huo Yuhao first!" Wang Dong commanded without the slightest courtesy. "Take him out of the match, and the rest will be easy!"
Xiao Xiao was in full agreement. "Right. With him on their side, the overall combat strength of the opposing team is boosted far too much!"
Though Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao ultimately won by trading one-for-one against Huo Yuhao, that particular match was the longest fight any team managed against Huo Yuhao's squad in the entire session.
Thus, an amusing scene unfolded in the subsequent matches: whenever Huo Yuhao stepped onto the platform, the opponent's first target was, without exception, him. All manner of soul skills, hidden weapons, even that single precious bullet—everything was directed at him first.
Yet Huo Yuhao's performance left everyone stunned once more. Under the coverage of Spiritual Detection, he could always evade the most dangerous attacks with the smallest possible movements, while simultaneously providing his teammates with precise battlefield intelligence. Time and again, the opponents clearly had him encircled, only for him to find a gap at the very last moment and turn peril into safety.
When the final whistle of the last match sounded, the entire Spirit Arena district fell into a brief, breath-held silence. Then—an eruption of fervent discussion. Students gathered in clusters of two or three, replaying the battles in their minds, exchanging impressions of the new weapons they'd used. But the center of every conversation inevitably circled back to Huo Yuhao's mysterious white soul ring.
The upperclassmen gathered around the teachers, asking all manner of questions about perception-type auxiliary soul skills.
Zhou Yi sat in the supervision seat, her expression complicated. She had witnessed Huo Yuhao's performance in its entirety, and had also seen the awkward fumbling and tentative experimentation of the other students with those "new-model weapons." As a veteran instructor, she could clearly see the value this class had brought—not merely the accumulation of practical combat experience, but a genuine influence on their established ways of thinking.
Furina walked unhurriedly to the center of the arena and clapped her hands.
"Today's practical combat class is hereby concluded." Her voice brought the hall back to silence. "Everyone, write a summary when you return. Include an analysis of your own performance, an evaluation of your teammates and opponents, and your impressions of the new weapons used today. Submit it before class tomorrow."
She paused and swept her gaze across every face in the room.
"Remember—the strength of a soul master has never been determined solely by soul ring age or martial soul quality. How you apply your own abilities. How you coordinate with your teammates. How you make the right decisions in the ever-shifting flow of battle—these are the things that determine how far you can go."
"Class dismissed."
The students began filing out, but the discussions didn't cease. Huo Yuhao was surrounded by several classmates and teachers, all asking for details about his first soul skill. Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao stood off to the side, proudly recounting the experience of fighting in sync with Huo Yuhao. Still other students clustered around the long table, continuing to study the hidden weapons and pistols they hadn't yet had a chance to try.
In the spectator seats, the upperclassmen rose in twos and threes, arguing heatedly as they walked.
"If a perception-type auxiliary skill like that were applied in team battles..."
"But the limitations must be huge too. Huo Yuhao himself has almost no offensive power."
"Think about it, though—if you had a team entirely composed of assault-type soul masters, paired with a support like that... And besides, it's not that Huo Yuhao has no offensive power. He just only used his first soul skill."
"Those things called 'pistols' are pretty interesting too. They may be inaccurate now, but if someone practiced enough..."
The voices gradually faded into the distance.
A satisfied smile bloomed at the corner of Furina's lips. The effect of this class had been even better than she'd anticipated. She had a feeling that before long, people would be coming to find her to pledge their loyalty~.