The Unrivaled Tang Sect

Chapter 69.3: Evil Soul Master

Bei Bei instantly replied, “Because mine’s bigger!”

“Bullshit.” Xu Sanshi immediately rose to his feet. “Is yours as big as this daddy’s?”

Bei Bei raised his index and middle fingers towards Xu Sanshi. “First off, I won’t compare myself to shelled peanuts.” Afterwards, he put down his index finger, which left only his middle finger extended. “Second, I was referring to my age.”

“I can’t take it anymore!” Xu Sanshi finally bared his fangs and pounced towards Bei Bei. However, it was at that exact instant that Huo Yuhao’s voice distracted him.

“The rabbit’s done.”

To a human, being ripped apart by five horses was definitely one of the most miserable tortures they could suffer. However, the most appalling tragedy that could occur to two wild rabbits was being divided amongst ten or so people.

The instant that Huo Yuhao spoke, the two rabbits were torn apart and scattered. This was a classic example of there being too many wolves, yet too little meat! The funniest thing that Huo Yuhao took away from this was the fact that his seniors even had to compete with each other in terms of strength while eating…

Ma Xiaotao was the strongest of the lot, and was also the quickest. As such, she was also the first person to make her move. Dai Yueheng wasn’t much slower than her, thus the two were able to split one of the roasted rabbits amongst themselves. The rest of them, on the other hand, had to split a single rabbit amongst them.

Xu Sanshi was once again the most miserable of the lot. As an extremely slow defense-type soul master, he was only able to obtain a rabbit head.

Of course, there were still a few people who were a bit worse off than him. Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao, who had the lowest cultivation levels amongst the fourteen, didn’t get anything. However, Huo Yuhao had managed to keep two rabbit legs for them when Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng had grabbed the first rabbit.

There were too many wolves and not enough food. As such, Huo Yuhao’s busy job had just began. He didn’t begin roasting fish immediately. Instead, he had Ling Luochen fill the wooden wok with ice, then had Ma Xiaotao heat it till the ice had melted and begun to boil. Afterwards, he added the mushrooms that Chen Zifeng had brought back, then threw two fish into it.

Ma Xiaotao’s current appearance was definitely enough to overturn a country. In one hand, she held one half of a rabbit and ate it heartily, with her other hand she heated up the wooden wok using her phoenix flames. Her control over fire wasn’t any less than Ling Luochen’s control over ice, thus the water within the wooden wok gradually began to boil. Due to her meticulous control, only the outer layer of the wok started to blacken; there were no signs of it being burnt.

Huo Yuhao was even more skilled at roasting fish than they were at controlling fire. The stove was large enough for him to roast four fish at once.

A fragrant smell soon began to diffuse outwards. By this point, the plump deer had almost was almost done.

Even Teacher Wang Yan, who usually didn’t have many requirements regarding food, was moved by the smell. He retrieved a few leather bags, each of which contained some black-colored foodstuffs, then passed them to everyone present.

These were the prepackaged meals that inner courtyard disciples usually ate when they went out on assignments; they were made using more than ten different types of medicinal herbs, alongside several refined ingredients that were highly nutritious. They had an extremely high amount of nutritional content, and could help one recover their physical strength in an extremely short period of time; they were very useful to inner courtyard disciples. However, there was just one problem with these foodstuffs: They didn’t taste very good…

Considering the fact that Wang Yan had tagged along this time, their current mission was relatively difficult. Not only did he have to serve as the leader of the team for the Continental Advanced Academy Soul Duelling Tournament, but he also had to deal with the logistics for the students. Considering Elder Xuan’s personality, would he be the sort of guy to do something like this? The importance of his appearance was more to act as a deterrent.

They all ate lunch together, beaming with joy. They had originally planned to rest for only an hour or two, but in the end, they stayed for over three hours.

Everyone ate until they were filled to the brim. Both the fish’s size and Huo Yuhao’s cooking technique were more than enough to sate everyone’s appetite. Once everyone had finished their meal, the seven seniors from the inner courtyard and the seven students from the outer courtyard immediately gathered together, which caused their relationships to improve by a decent amount. This was especially true for Huo Yuhao, who had become the most popular of the bunch now.

The thick soup that had been made with mushrooms and fish was also delicious. Huo Yuhao had only added a pinch of salt, but the soup tasted very good. The funniest thing was that, Elder Xuan hadn’t been able to finish his soup because he’d already eaten two chickens and four fish. However, he’d taken out a large calabash and proceeded to pour half a wok of the soup into it, supposedly to finish it during their journey. Everyone else couldn’t help but think of the phrase ‘If you can’t eat it all, you’ll have to take it home’, but nobody dared to say anything about it after what had happened to Yao Haoxuan.

“Yuhao, I’ll carry you this time. I’m not much slower than Dai Yueheng.” Yao Haoxuan laughed cunningly.

“Forget about it,” Chen Zifeng said unhappily, “it’s already good that you can keep up with the rest of us. It’d be best if an assault-type soul master like us did it instead. Junior brother, following your brother Chen can’t go wrong. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of any ingredients you need in the future.”

“Ice is still more suited to be with Ice. I can also take you along with me.” The normally-cold Ling Luochen unexpectedly spoke up. The moment her words rang out, the entire place turned silent. The Ice Lady, who was famous in the inner courtyard as such, had never spoken such nice words to a male before; she’d never even been to a formal marriage interview held in the inner courtyard! Yet, she seemed to treat Huo Yuhao somewhat differently.

In the end, Huo Yuhao ended up continuing onwards with Dai Yueheng. His reasoning was sufficient: One, his strength; secondly, to continue with his arrangements from the morning.

The fourteen students were truly quite quick. Even though they’d rested for such a long time, they’d still obtained a sufficient amount nutrients. They finally arrived at the border between the Heavenly Soul Empire and the Star Luo Empire after two hours. When they arrived, a large army camp blocked the path in front of them.

Dai Yueheng put Huo Yuhao down, then entered the barracks by himself. Huo Yuhao rapidly learned why Dai Yueheng had been so secretive in the morning.

They didn’t enter the barracks, yet Dai Yueheng borrowed more than ten military-grade flying-type soul tools.

If a soul master wanted to fly, the only way for him to do so other than having a martial soul that could fly would be to wait until he’d become a seven-ringed Soul Sage. However, one could only rely on pure soul power to fly short distances at that rank. Only Titled Douluo-ranked super experts were capable of flying extended distances.

However, flying-type soul tools first began to appear in the Sun Moon Empire following the rapid development of soul tools. Their appearance brought about enormous trouble to the neighbouring Heavenly Soul and Star Luo Empires. The two countries used almost all of their strength to obtain the blueprints for the Sun Moon Empire’s flying-type soul tools, then manufactured their own.

A flying-type soul tool could naturally only be utilised by soul masters, and it also had a relatively high cost of production. Normally, only soul masters with at least four soul rings could use one. The army didn’t have many of these soul tools either; after all, four-ringed soul masters were simply too few in number!

Despite this, Dai Yueheng had managed to borrow more than ten flying-type soul tools in one go; this wasn’t something that a normal person could do. This made all sorts of feelings well up in Huo Yuhao’s heart. Right! Dai Yueheng’s father was the White Tiger Duke—the commander of the Star Luo Empire. If he used his identity as the eldest son of the Duke’s first wife, what did borrowing a few flying-type soul tools amount to?

Huo Yuhao clenched his fists when he thought of that person. Fortunately, a large part of his attention was drawn to the flying-type soul tools, thus he didn’t lose his composure in front of everyone else.

The Star Luo Empire’s flying-type soul tools were somewhat cumbersome. The main body of the soul tool was a meter-long, half-meter wide, and one-foot thick metallic box. The two sides of the box were connected to a set of folded wings, which would have a four-meter wingspan when they were unfurled. These ensured that the user would have enough buoyancy in midair.

This wasn’t their first time that the inner courtyard disciples had used a flying-type soul tool. However, Dai Yueheng patiently gave a simple tutorial to the students from the outer courtyard.

The most important step in using a flying-type soul tool was the take-off, during which the user had to pour their soul power into the soul tool and shoot it towards the ground. The user could unfurl its wings once they’d risen into the air, then could rely on the turbulence in the air to float. After that, they only needed to convert their downwards propulsion into a parallel one via the soul tool to be able to accelerate in midair.

However, there was a certain difficulty involved in the usage of a flying-type soul tool. Only a soul master with four or more soul rings could use one due to the amount of soul power required to reach an altitude of a certain level. If the user wasn’t that strong, they wouldn’t be able to reach that height, which in turn meant that they wouldn’t have enough buoyancy to even float in the air, much less fly.

At that moment, a problem arose due to Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong, and Xiao Xiao’s cultivation levels. However, there was a more pragmatic solution to this, which was relatively simple. That solution was for them to let someone else bring them into the sky, then let that person fly using the flying-type soul tool.

Of course, it was somewhat simpler for Wang Dong, as he could fly in the first place! It wouldn’t be too hard for him to rely on the Radiant Butterfly Goddess’ wings to rise into the air, then fly forwards with the flying-type soul tool. Thus, the real problem lay with Huo Yuhao and Xiao Xiao.

He Caitou didn’t use the flying-type soul tool that Dai Yueheng had brought over, as he’d brought one himself. Furthermore, his one was much more compact and delicate. His was only half the size of the Star Luo Empire’s, while its wings were somewhat smaller. Despite this, it was clearly more effective. Not only had he brought one for himself, he’d also brought one for Huo Yuhao as well.

Wang Yan said, “Students from the outer courtyard, go practice using your flying-type soul tools for a bit. Students from the inner courtyard, you’re responsible for teaching and protecting them.”

Dai Yueheng had originally planned to help Huo Yuhao, but he now had no choice but to extinguish this thought when he saw He Caitou helping the latter get used to the delicate flying-type soul tool made by the Soul Tool Department.

As He Caitou helped Huo Yuhao put on the flying-type soul tool, he said, “Yuhao, once you reach a higher level of cultivation, our teacher will teach you how to make a flying-type soul tool. The soul tools made by our Soul Tool Department only need their users to have three or more soul rings, and they’re more economical with their use of soul power. However, these aren’t the most advanced types of flying-type soul tools on the market. Supposedly, the Sun Moon Empire has managed to add a special gem that’s capable of storing and replenishing soul power to their flying-type soul tools. Even a one-ringed soul master is able to use them once it’s stored enough soul power.”

Huo Yuhao was astonished. “Can soul power even be stored in a soul tool?”

He Caitou smiled bitterly. “Exactly. Currently, this is the greatest gap between us and the Sun Moon Empire. However, it isn’t that easy to complete this piece of research. The Sun Moon Empire wants to allow ordinary people to use soul tools, however if a day like that truly comes, a great war would be inevitable.”