Chapter 147: Poaching Talent
The next morning, the assessment area was once again bustling with noise, saturated with an atmosphere of tension and anticipation. Furina and her three companions arrived at Area 33 punctually.
Unlike the round-robin stage, after the first round of eliminations, the five remaining teams in this area had undergone a turnover. The newly arrived teams, though not necessarily the top seeds of their original divisions, were generally a tier stronger than the opponents they had faced before. Those who had advanced this far were none of them mediocre.
However, the situation in Area 33 was somewhat unique. Strictly speaking, this area had the anomaly of "two first-place finishers"—Huo Yuhao's team topped the rankings with a perfect record, and while Furina had also won all her matches, her uniquely exceptional personal circumstances had forced the academy to make certain special arrangements when calculating rankings and scheduling opponents.
Considering that Furina's presence delivered near "annihilating" blows to ordinary freshman teams, excessively disrupting the balance and developmental purpose of the assessment, the academy's higher-ups had specifically adjusted the rules:
Any team eliminated in the knockout stage due to encountering Furina would be granted an additional "revival match" opportunity, competing against other teams in similar circumstances to determine a single "strongest survivor" slot. This ensured that teams with genuine potential would not be "accidentally wounded" out of the tournament.
After all, any fool could see that this was Furina outright "bombing the fish pond"—completely and utterly unfair.
In fact, under normal random seeding, it was highly likely that Furina and Huo Yuhao's teams would have met early on.
But Yan Shaozhe clearly knew they were closely connected, both belonging to the "Church of the Water God" faction. To avoid an early civil war that would prematurely consume one of the championship favorites—or rather, to preserve more suspense and entertainment value—he had covertly adjusted the match schedule, ensuring that these two teams would not face each other before at least the quarterfinals, if not the semifinals.
Once all six advancing teams were fully assembled, Teacher Wang Yan, serving as the chief proctor for this area, swept his gaze across the field and declared in a clear voice: "According to the elimination round rules, the highest-ranked seeded team in this area shall compete first."
His eyes scanned the match schedule in his hand, and he stated with precision: "Per the draw results, the competitors for this match are: Freshman Class One—Furina, versus Freshman Class Seven—Huang Chutian's team. Will both parties please enter the field. Release your martial souls only after I declare the match begun."
The opponents that would have originally been faced by Huo Yuhao's team had now become Furina's whetstone. She was quite satisfied with this—it was precisely one link in her "talent poaching" plan, aimed directly at that pair of twin sisters who possessed the rare Body Martial Soul: Lan Susu and Lan Luoluo. She had long wanted to recruit these two gems of limitless potential into the Church of the Water God.
In her view, even following the original plot's development, the one-ring Huo Yuhao, paired with Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao, had been able to defeat these sisters' team. Now, with Huo Yuhao's spiritual power even stronger and having already unlocked the practically bug-level martial soul fusion technique "Path of Gold" with Wang Dong ahead of schedule, dealing with them would be even easier.
Whether in terms of soul power disparity, martial soul quality, or that unprecedented one-hundred-percent fusion compatibility, the Lan sisters' martial soul fusion technique "Heavenly Net" simply could not compete.
Furina even felt that, looking across the entire Soul Land series, the only things that could possibly compare to the sheer "absurdity" of the martial soul fusion technique of Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong—this "divinely engineered CP"—would be the later "self-fusions" that involved God King bloodlines and touched upon the level of fundamental laws.
But those were more the product of bloodline resonance, inherently different in nature from Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong's case—where their martial soul attributes didn't seem to fully align on the surface, yet were forcibly twisted into one-hundred-percent fusion by the covert machinations of a certain God King. To replicate a "miracle" like this, it would likely require the "personal intervention" of yet another God King-level existence to orchestrate.
Thinking of those figures on the Divine Realm Council, especially the famously "trollish" conduct of the former God of Kindness and God of Evil, the God of Destruction truly had... remarkable "fortune" in having such colleagues.
Her thoughts returned to the arena. From the Freshman Class Seven team, a male student—tall, powerfully built, with bulging muscles—was the first to stride out with wide steps. Following closely behind him were two female students whose features were practically identical, like mirror images. Both wore waist-length, silky blue hair. Their features were delicate, and their bright, expressive eyes carried that unique, wordless understanding exclusive to twins.
The male student who had taken the lead was precisely the team captain, Huang Chutian—a generic background character who, in the original story, practically exited the stage the moment he appeared.
The sisters Lan Susu and Lan Luoluo, by contrast, left a deeper impression due to their unique "Hair" Body Martial Soul and their rare twin martial soul fusion technique, "Heavenly Net."
Furina had always felt that if they could be introduced to the Body Sect, which specialized in Body Martial Soul cultivation, their developmental potential and future achievements would surely far surpass what they could achieve by staying at Shrek and following a step-by-step, conventional path.
Seeing that Furina was indeed all alone, and a white-haired maiden of exceptional elegance at that, Huang Chutian immediately connected her to the recently rampant gossip swirling around the academy—the tales of the one who had "bombed the fish pond even among Inner Courtyard students."
Suppressing the nervous flutter in his heart, he maintained his poise and was the first to offer a courteous salute. "Greetings. My name is Huang Chutian, and these two are Lan Susu and Lan Luoluo. Pray instruct us." His attitude was neither servile nor overbearing.
Furina, however, responded with an exceptionally radiant smile—one that even carried a hint of barely-contained promotional enthusiasm. "Hello to you all! I'm Furina—the current Pope of the Church of the Water God and the future Water God herself, a rank fifty-two food-type support soul master."
"May I be so bold as to ask—would the three of you have any interest in joining our Church of the Water God? Especially you two beautiful and extraordinary young ladies—our Church of the Water God thirsts for talent and guarantees to provide you with the most suitable development platform and resources. Your futures would be absolutely dazzling, I promise!"
This passionate recruitment pitch was delivered openly—right in front of proctor Wang Yan and the many spectating students. Brazen beyond belief.
Down below the field, Teacher Wang Yan felt the corner of his mouth twitch uncontrollably. He very much wanted to step in and stop her: Student Furina, are you seriously poaching openly right in front of Shrek Academy? Are you not taking the academy too lightly?
But the words reached his lips and he swallowed them back down. He had long since heard from other colleagues that this "Pope," who marched to the beat of her own drum, had more than once proclaimed the benefits of the Church of the Water God in public settings—even going so far as to state outright that in certain aspects it was not inferior to Shrek—and had already succeeded in "luring away" the attention of quite a few students.
In all fairness, Wang Yan couldn't wholly refute it either. Furina had indeed brought forth a number of jaw-dropping things—like those peculiar weapons, "pistols," that required no soul power to drive yet possessed considerable might, and her own set of soul ring configuration and cultivation speed that defied all known conventions.
Even the once-glorious Tang Sect had willingly become a subsidiary, and within the Church of the Water God, it seemed to have found new life. In the hearts of some students—especially those from commoner backgrounds or those with no strong attachment to traditional great sects—the image of the Church of the Water God had already become one of mystique and power.
What's more, even Dean Yan Shaozhe himself seemed to have adopted an attitude of tacit permission—even cautious observation—toward all this. So why should he, a mere ordinary teacher, stick his neck out? Doing his own job well and ensuring the fairness of the assessment was his primary duty. Unless... the day ever came when they needed a scapegoat.
After a brief internal struggle, Wang Yan decided to keep his eyes on his own nose and his nose on his own heart, focusing solely on performing his duties as referee. He chose to turn a blind eye to Furina's "on-site recruitment" activities.