Inside the Sea God Pavilion, the atmosphere was as heavy as an abyss.
Atlas Douluo's gaze was cold and heavy as he looked at Cai Yue'er. "Do you know your mistake?"
"..."
Cai Yue'er did not answer. She simply stood still in place, her white hair falling over her shoulders, her gaze slightly lowered, revealing no emotion.
The air inside the Sea God Pavilion seemed to freeze, with only the rustle of golden leaves falling outside the window.
Atlas Douluo gazed at her, a flicker of complex emotion passing through his deep eyes. He slowly stood up, his tall figure casting a faint shadow in the halo.
"Your insolent words provoked six Title Douluos, nearly causing a conflict between two major powers..."
When Cai Yue'er heard "provoked six Title Douluos," her expression changed. Her originally calm gaze instantly sharpened like a blade.
"Six Title Douluos? The Spirit Transmission Tower certainly put on quite a display. Are they joining forces to pressure us?"
Yun Ming's brow furrowed deeply. His tone grew heavier. "Mind your attitude!"
Cai Yue'er was expressionless. "I was the one who got taught a lesson. The academy was the one that paid compensation. Can't I even say a word? Since when are we afraid of them?"
A flicker of disappointment passed through his eyes, but seeing Cai Yue'er's not yet fully recovered injuries, Yun Ming finally just sighed.
"Effective immediately, you are confined to the academy. You are not to set foot outside without permission."
Cai Yue'er's head snapped up. Her spirit power surged like a storm, only to dissipate on its own moments later.
"Heh..."
Cai Yue'er was so angry she laughed. "So in the eyes of the number one person on the continent, hiding like a turtle is the right path!"
As she finished speaking, she turned on her heel with a flick of her sleeve. Her silver hair cut a sharp arc through the air.
Amid the loud crash of the Sea God Pavilion's doors closing, only Yun Ming's barely audible sigh remained.
"Zhuoshi, go deliver the spirit bones to the Spirit Transmission Tower."
"Yes, Pavilion Master."
"Well, at least that's finally over. Life has been pretty exciting lately. I even had to face a Super Douluo's pressure."
In the audience stands, Xie Xie glanced at the Spirit Soul competition below and sighed. "But seeing a Limit powerhouse in action was worth it."
"It was your mouth that was too sharp. Otherwise, would it have come to that?"
Zhang Yangzi rolled his eyes and looked at Huo Yuhao. "Yuhao, our competition is over too. When are we going back to Eastsea?"
"Wulin needs some time. Once he's done, we'll leave."
Huo Yuhao explained as he watched the Spirit Soul competition below, his expression was strange.
On the stage, two ten-year-old children were commanding their Spirit Souls to fight, but...
"Go, Ice Silkworm! Use Ice Shards!"
"Go, Gray Rabbit! Tackle!"
On the stage, the ice silkworm slowly wriggled and sprayed out a small patch of ice mist, barely counting as "ice shards." Meanwhile, the little gray rabbit Spirit Soul on the other side ignored the ice mist, leaped forward, and bumped into the ice silkworm.
Thump!
The ice silkworm was knocked over, rolled a few times, and then slowly righted itself, looking like it hadn't woken up yet.
Zhang Yangzi's expression was strange. "The ice silkworm's body is so soft it can't even perform a simple tackle. It's on the Weakest Spirit Soul ranking list. Doesn't that kid know? At this rate, he'll be eliminated in the first round."
The corner of Xie Xie's eye twitched. He wanted to laugh.
"...Boss, your first Spirit Soul is an ice silkworm, isn't it? Is it really this weak?"
Hearing this, Gu Yuena beside Huo Yuhao's mouth curved slightly, amusement also in her eyes.
Huo Yuhao: "..."
In the Sea of Spirit, the little ice silkworm and Skydream Iceworm were furious.
"Yuhao, let Brother out! Brother will show them what a real ice silkworm looks like!"
Little Ice Silkworm: "Long live the Great Emperor! Make the ice silkworm clan great again!"
Huo Yuhao sighed.
He should have known better than to come watch.
Never mind. He would practice his second spirit ability.
Under Gu Yuena's gaze, Huo Yuhao caused four spirit rings to appear around him. He directly used his Interference Domain to conceal the scene, covering her as well.
Then, his second spirit ring lit up.
Points of starlight appeared around Huo Yuhao. After a flicker of indistinct fluctuations, several small soul tool floating turrets appeared around him in the blink of an eye.
Gu Yuena blinked, somewhat amazed.
Not at the spirit ability itself, since she had seen it before. Her amazement was at Huo Yuhao's spiritual control.
She was a mecha designer. She could clearly see those soul tool floating turrets. In terms of design, they were all Grade Four soul tools, very intricate, and all different from each other.
Now, Huo Yuhao was simultaneously using two spirit abilities and creating such intricate, distinct soul tool floating turrets. How was he doing this?
No matter how strong his spiritual control was, it shouldn't reach this level, should it?
This was dozens of times more valuable than her manipulation of multiple elements at once.
Moreover, each soul tool required the engraving of a soul tool array. Normally, when Yuhao made a soul tool, it took considerable time. Why was it so fast now using his spiritual power?
Thinking this, Gu Yuena frowned, remembering something. In the past, when Huo Yuhao was fully focused on making soul tools in class, he could also use his domain to conceal his actions. Now that she thought about it, that was also odd.
Suppressing her curiosity, Gu Yuena waited until Huo Yuhao withdrew his spirit ability before moving closer and asking curiously, "Yuhao, how do you do that?"
"..."
Huo Yuhao looked at Gu Yuena with a somewhat complicated gaze. Although he had long suspected it, learning that she truly did not understand still stirred something in him.
How should he put it?
Gods possessed a kind of overwhelming, absolute beauty in terms of scale and power, yet almost none of them cared about delicate control or precise manipulation.
Huo Yuhao explained: "Take divine consciousness, for example. Divine consciousness can launch attacks, store memories, and even an independent thread to solve various problems without affecting one's own thinking. And if a Divine Origin realm cultivator wants to, they can split off a great deal of divine consciousness. So if you split off those divine consciousness strands and have them help you share the burden of spiritual control, with each thread solving a small problem, what would happen?"
Gu Yuena looked blankly at Huo Yuhao, her expression adorably dazed.
Huh? You could do that?
"That's how simple the principle is. Moreover, from my experience, you don't need to reach the Divine Origin realm, nor do you need to give your spiritual power the ability to think. You just need to give a portion of your spiritual power the ability to perform the same repetitive task, like an assembly line. Then you can increase your spiritual control many times over. As the quality of your spiritual power rises and you create more assembly lines, your spiritual control will continually increase."
"I call this technique Soul Programming. Do you want to learn it?"
This was Huo Yuhao's gradual development and utilization of his spiritual power after experiencing the mysteries of the Divine Origin realm.
With those spiritual power assembly lines, he only needed to input spiritual power, and the function would run automatically. Naturally, it saved him worry and effort. Using his second spirit ability to quickly form soul tools became easier, since the corresponding soul tool manufacturing process had already been simulated in his Sea of Spirit. He was only using his spirit ability to quickly shape it in the outside world.
Foolproof operation. Of course, it was fast.
Using it to release spirit abilities was even simpler, since spirit abilities were just programs. His spiritual power only needed to act as a trigger.
Gu Yuena nodded silently at this.
First forging, then spiritual control. It seemed her understanding of her own abilities and potential was not as deep as Yuhao's. She needed him to help her develop them.
Just Like with combat experience, was her grasp of her own power too poor?
***
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