Capítulo 169: Chapter 162: Bet

"Get out!"

"Boo! Be serious!"

"Hahahaha! You're funny little bro!"

"Yeeaah! Wooo! Shrek! Shrek!"

Boos and cheers boomed from the audience, their mixed reactions creating a cacophony of noise. Xu Sanshi stood firm, a smirk on his face as he glanced at the crowd.

He let out a boisterous laugh, "That's right, that's right! Praise me, hate me! You all just watch as I bring victory!" saying that, he pulled back his short lustrous red hair and took another blunt of his cigar, exuding an air of cocky confidence.

'Hmm. Coconut flavor...'

At that moment, the leader of Cloud Luo Advanced Soul Engineering Academy's team took the stage and took large strides towards Xu Sanshi.

From the viewpoint of the spectators, this leader should've been angry and lashed out at Xu Sanshi due to his previous actions.

However, the fact that he didn't do so astonished even the referee somewhat.

Although he had a somewhat chilly and stern expression on his face as he faced Xu Sanshi, he didn't fly into a rage. Instead, he bowed slightly to Xu Sanshi.

He then said, "Cloud Luo Advanced Soul Engineering Academy, Situ Yu."

'...He's strong,' Xu Sanshi's expression turned serious, furrowing his thick brows. "Shrek, Xu Sanshi."

In Shrek's waiting area.

"Alright, we all lost to Huo Yuhao, since his prediction was the closest. Yuhao, I hope you're not asking us to hunt down an extremely powerful ten thousand year old soul beast." Ma Xiaotao said, huffing as she glanced at Huo Yuhao beside her, with Wang Dong'er taking the other side.

Huo Yuhao shook his head, "Do you really think that I'm that unreasonable?"

"Yes," Were the response of most of his teammates, surprising him.

Ma Xiaotao then said, "Anyone wanna take another bet?"

"Eh, what are the stakes this time?" Xi Xi asked.

"....The losers get to do one silly thing for the winner?"

"Within reason? Just not too humiliating that it affects us for the rest of our whole life?"

"Yeah. Is everyone on board?"

Everyone exchanged a glance with each other and they all nodded.

"Alright! So, what's everyone's take?" After Ma Xiaotao asked, everyone started to voice their predictions one by one.

It was almost the same as last time; bets on fifteen minutes, then ten minutes, seven minutes, and lastly, five minutes.

It was way longer than previous predictions because they could tell, that Xu Sanshi's opponent was not to be underestimated.

'C'mon, show us what soul tools Star Luo's Soul Engineers have managed to make.' Huo Yuhao was honestly disappointed with the soul tools the Cloud Soul Engineering Academy had.

As a fellow countryman, he had some expectations for his country's soul engineering skills.

Now, he could see that it was misplaced.

He closed his eyes, going completely unnoticed that he used his Spiritual Detection on their opponents.

On a surface level, they had a pretty good chance of winning. From the other academies, there were a lot of Soul Kings but only one Soul Emperor in one academy that looked to be from the Heavenly Soul Empire.

Compared to Shrek Academy, who had 1 Soul Sage equivalent expert(Huo Yuhao), 1 Soul Emperor, 2 Soul Kings, and a whole lot of tricks up their sleeves, it seemed like they had the overall edge in victory over the competition.

But Huo Yuhao knew better than to trust the surface level of knowledge of his opponents. Underestimating your opponents was the quickest way towards defeat.

Huo Yuhao's eyes twitched, the veins in his eyes throbbed and he pinched his eyes slightly, trying to alleviate the strain.

The evolution of his eyes to Mangekyou Sharingan has still not fully adapted to his body, the controls are a little unstable; the amount of soul and spiritual power in order for him to use his soul skills has lessened(specifically the ones related to his main martial soul), the passive abilities he already had with Sharingan had been enhanced as well, but there's also the mysterious strain on his eyes whenever he uses Mangekyou Sharingan.

It was always present, even if he just uses Sharingan, the strange stinging feeling of his eyes.

He opened his eyes and looked at the arena before letting out a sigh.

Huo Yuhao stood up and started walking towards the exit, his hands in his pockets as he looked completely bored and aloof.

His actions immediately caught the attention of his teammates and some observant people.

Wang Yan worriedly asked, "Yuhao, where are you going?"

"Sorry, but I'm going back to the hotel."

"Why? The match isn't over yet."

Huo Yuhao shrugged, raising his right arm towards them. "The end result is pretty obvious at this point, I'm not gonna stay here and do nothing. I'm going back to the hotel and cultivate."

"Wait, before you go! What's your bet?" Ma Xiaotao asked.

"Five minutes! If I win, you guys yell at the crowd here: Huo Yuhao's my daddy!"

"You—! Xu Sanshi's a bad influence on you!"

Huo Yuhao chuckled and left.

As he went past the other academy teams, he cast a glance at them momentarily. Those who met his cold and indifferent eyes trembled, it was as if he could see through their souls and read their minds effortlessly.

They quickly looked down on the ground, beads of sweat pouring down their faces. Their eyes showed awe and fear, but some of them showed anger, jealousy and determination.

"Hmph." Huo Yuhao's eyes momentarily flashed red.

He was curious, can his teammates win against them without his help? Well, he'll just wait and see.

For now, he was going to train.

"What? He left?!" The Emperor of Star Luo exclaimed, his eyes slightly wide with surprise, so did the Empress and the military officers.

This was the first time they've heard or seen anyone leave in the middle of a match, especially in the Continental Advanced Academy Soul Dueling Tournament.

The most important event in the entire continent, and someone is leaving? Especially during their team's match? It was unheard of!

Sure, in the opening match, Shrek Academy had left early but they had left as a team so most weren't as shocked. But one person, whose teammates are still fighting, has left?

"What was his reason for leaving?" The Emperor asked the soldier that was keeping an eye on the participants, specifically Huo Yuhao.

The soldier dutifully responded, "I have heard that he could already foresee the result of the match and is retiring back to the hotel to cultivate."

Arrogant! This was the thought everyone shared as they stared at the soldier in disbelief.

To act so confident and aloof....

That sort of attitude, how could anyone not recognize it?

Most of the military officers' eyes lit up and thought, 'The mindset of the strong!'

The Emperor thought so as well as he nodded in understandingly and waved his hand at the soldier. "Let him go, there aren't really any rules that forbid participants from leaving the venue anyway."

There wasn't, because who would think on doing so? The Continental Advanced Academy Soul Dueling Tournament is a grand event that not only brings fame and glory to themselves and their respective institution, but also a great experience for them to fight the elites of their generation!

However, there hasn't been a case like Huo Yuhao. Who was so unbelievably strong that his peers couldn't be considered even training dummies, lest they die an unfortunate death.

'I just hope we can see him fight in this tournament...' The Emperor and the rest of the audience that had been eager about Huo Yuhao's performance on stage all had this thought.

Just what was the capability of a boy that had a hundred thousand year old soul ring? What were its abilities?

All of them couldn't wait for it to happen.

Star Luo Grand Hotel.

"I hope this works." Huo Yuhao muttered, assuming a meditation pose. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

For a while now, he was discontent about his current progress. Specifically, his combat experience.

Sure he had been fighting around, but it always felt so... one-sided, too easy. He had been developing too fast.

How could he be a strong expert if he doesn't have a proper fighting experience? He needed to experience life and death situations, understand the true essence of fighting and killing them in the most efficient way possible even if they were stronger than him.

Huo Yuhao was trying that with his Shadow Clones, specifically the one that was in the academy and training the recruits, would also fight in the Soul Battle Arena where he would have battle simulations with numerous soul beasts that were at least 5,000 years old.

Shadow Clones don't need to sleep, eat or relieve themselves. So it gained a lot of fighting experience. Huo Yuhao gained that when it dissipated after he woke up from his coma.

But Huo Yuhao felt that it wasn't enough, especially since his shadow clone didn't have all of his abilities.

The experience was lacking.

So, he decided to come up with a special training method.

Huo Yuhao would split his consciousness into two, one would remain in his physical body to continue on cultivating while his other consciousness would go into his Spiritual Sea to train with Ancestor and the rest.

There in his Spiritual Sea, Ancestor and Skydream would provide him with powerful and very realistic enemies that he would fight against.

In his Spiritual Sea, he would have all of his abilities and his senses would be the same in the physical world—so that the threat of death would also be real.

It was the greatest form of training that anyone would like.

Except, there was a bit of an issue.

Splitting one's consciousness and making sure one of them doesn't dissipate and merge back together into one, was hard.

His first attempt at it failed, expectedly. The concentration needed to keep a balance of his spirit was quite demanding, it was unlike what he does when he uses his shadow clone.

But after several attempts, there was a bit of progress but the consciousness in the physical world dissipated only after a minute when the one in the Spiritual Sea started training.

A bead of sweat rolled down his face and he opened his weary eyes.

Splitting his consciousness like this several times would of course do damage to his spirit. It was only because he has a lot of spiritual power that it wouldn't be severe and he would recover with some rest.

"I just don't get it. It's basically like using my shadow clone jutsu anyway, so what am I getting wrong?" Huo Yuhao sighed and plopped on his bed, grumbling.

But instead of being disappointed, he became even more determined.

'If I can split my consciousness into two, somehow, doesn't that mean... I'm creating a new cultivation method?'

Time passed and just as lunch time rolled around, his teammates returned and as expected, though a bit surprising to Huo Yuhao, Xu Sanshi had won them the entire match since their opponents' team leader made a bet against him, and Xu Sanshi won.

And you know who else won a bet?

"Hahahahaha! Y-You guys actually did it?!" Huo Yuhao burst out laughing, taking on the beatings he was getting from his team.

"You ass!"

"I-It was so embarrassing!"

"Ugh! Lecher, pervert, idiot!"

"Die!"

Most of the complaints came from the girls, their faces were completely red as they rained punches and kicks onto Huo Yuhao.

It didn't really hurt since his body was strong and sturdy, but even if it wasn't, Huo Yuhao would still say it was worth it.

Ah, if only he was there to see it happened.

"Ah! Ah! Not the crotch, not the crotch!"

.....

AN: Goddamn, I really have a problem of having too many ideas. I have this story and others on the works, most being rewrites, and I'm already thinking of writing a new DD fanfic.

Set in Douluo Dalu 3 and either SI or OC, they have the Booster Gear as their martial soul. I haven't checked if there is a fanfic about it, but if you had, please comment down.

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