Book 12: The Strength of the Preparatory Team
Chapter 107.1: The Semifinals Lineup!
Huo Yuhao, utilizing the strength in his legs, quickly stood up from the ground, then reached out and grabbed Wang Dong's ankles.
Wang Dong's body bent forwards as he pointed his downwards-facing legs forwards in order to wrap them around Huo Yuhao's neck and trap his head between his legs.
Huo Yuhao immediately retracted both of his arms to beside his neck, then reached out and grabbed Wang Dong's ankled again.
"Your arms can't twist my thighs." Wang Dong snorted. He didn't dodge Huo Yuhao's strike, instead leaning his upper body backwards and supporting his body with both hands on the floor. At the same time, he tried to encircle Huo Yuhao's neck with renewed vigor.
However, Huo Yuhao had an iron grip on Wang Dong's ankles; no matter how much Wang Dong struggled, he couldn't move his legs forwards even an inch.
Huo Yuhao laughed and said, "You're still too weak. You call these matchstick-thin legs thighs?"
Wang Dong continued to exert his strength in disbelief, but Huo Yuhao's grip remained firm. Huo Yuhao was even slowly prying Wang Dong's legs apart.
"That's impossible! You only have two soul rings, how could you be stronger than me?" Wang Dong said, unconvinced.
Huo Yuhao laughed again. "I have a soul bone."
"So do I!" Wang Dong rebutted, refusing to yield to Huo Yuhao.
Huo Yuhao became speechless when he heard this, and thought about telling Wang Dong about the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion's trunk bones. He'd also felt his strength increase palpably once he'd absorbed the Life Gold energy. If it hadn't been for that, he wouldn't have been able to resist Wang Dong's legs so easily.
Don't think that Wang Dong, who possessed the Radiant Butterfly Goddess, was weak. On the contrary, his abilities were much greater than his slender frame suggested, due to his second martial soul being one of the strongest strength type martial souls on the continent, which once belonged to the continent's first hereditary martial soul of the sect—Hao Tianchui!
To think that Huo Yuhao could defeat Wang Dong when he had not cultivated as much power as Wang Dong, it must have been a victory purely in terms of an increase in his physical body. Of course, neither of them had used their soul power either.
Wang Dong had already used all his strength, yet he still wasn't able to clamp his legs around Huo Yuhao's neck. Instead, his legs were being pulled further and further apart, causing the both of them to look rather comical. One was standing there with his hands apart beside his head, while the other was doing a handstand with his legs apart. Furthermore, half of Wang Dong's body was outside of their room.
"Wow, what're you guys doing? Do you need to be so affectionate?" Xu Sanshi's voice could be heard as he, Bei Bei, and Ma Xiaotao emerged from the room. All of them could tell with one look that Wang Dong's body was the one sticking out of the room.
Wang Dong was both ashamed and annoyed as he said, "Let go of me."
Huo Yuhao finally let go, then immediately took a few steps backwards as Wang Dong flipped backwards and stood upright, glaring at Huo Yuhao. Wang Dong then turned to face Xu Sanshi and the rest and said, "We're just practising our fusion skills, is there anything wrong with that?"
He definitely couldn't say that they were fighting because Huo Yuhao had touched his butt.
Huo Yuhao touched his nose with a smile.
Ma Xiaotao burst out laughing, then said, "Go on, young people should be lively."
Wang Dong humphed, then said, "You aren't so old yourself, Ms. Tao!"
Ma Xiaotao replied, "Alright, let's go. Teacher Wang has called for a pre-battle meeting. We'll have to compete tomorrow, so we need to make our final preparations now. " After being lectured by Wang Yan the other day, Ma Xiaotao's temper was much more restrained. She had become less of a maniac, and was acting more calm; she was finally showing some semblance of a team leader's qualities.
"Tomorrow?" Huo Yuhao gasped, surprised. "You must mean the day after. We just competed yesterday, so the other teams should still be competing in the quarter-finals today. We should get a day's rest after the end of the competition, right? Ms Tao, you must have remembered the dates wrongly."
Wang Dong snapped, "Ms Tao didn't make a mistake, it's you who got confused. You were in deep meditation for an entire day and night, and I'm dead tired from trying to protect you, yet you still bullied me."
"Er…" Huo Yuhao didn't expect that a day and a night had already passed. In light of this revelation, he noticed the dark bags under Wang Dong's eyes and felt deeply touched.
Bei Bei gave Huo Yuhao a thumbs up, then said, "My Little Junior is amazing. Let's go."
Wang Dong said, "Senior, you're being biased. I'm obviously the youngest one; shouldn't you be calling me your Junior?"
Bei Bei gave him a strange look and said, "Really? Are you certain that you want to be my Little Junior?"
Wang Dong felt rather sheepish after getting stared at like that, so he stuck out his tongue and said, "Who cares, let's go." He then rushed out of the meeting room before the others.
Huo Yuhao followed, rather confused as he asked, "Big Senior, what's gotten into him? Why'd he just let it go?"
Bei Bei chuckled and said, "Don't ask so many questions, it's fine like that for now. Let's go, we have a meeting to attend. Tomorrow's competition is no joke."
Huo Yuhao was still in shock about how he'd managed to stay in deep meditation for a full day and night. Previously, he thought that he had only mediated for a very short while—only a few minutes. Now, he realized first-hand how amazing the results of deep meditation were. Besides, it was also a great way to evade monotonous training. No wonder every soul master yearned for such an opportunity.
As these thoughts ran through his mind, Huo Yuhao followed the others into the meeting room.
Wang Yan was clearly the first to reach the room, and had been waiting for everyone. Seeing that everyone had arrived, he said, in a deep voice, "Alright, let's begin the meeting."
"Now that the quarter-finals have finished, the semifinals will start tomorrow. We will undoubtedly be in the first match. Another round will take place tomorrow. After the semifinals, there will be 3 days till the final.
"Teacher Wang, who's our opponent in the semi-finals?" Xiao Xiao asked curiously.
Wang Yan replied, "I'm still unsure. For fairness' sake, the semi-finals pairings are to be decided through lot drawings. As the reigning champions of the tournament, we'll definitely compete tomorrow. Thus, we can't make any specific preparations to target our opponent. Our only option is to consider everyone in our preparations. Even though this is a drawback, all of our opponents have to face the same situation as us. They're also not sure whether or not they'll meet us."
"The remaining 4 teams are us, the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy, the Star Luo National Academy, and the Imperial Mystical Academy."
"It's fair to say that the other 3 academies are all old rivals of our academy. They're all very powerful, with our strongest rival undoubtedly being the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy. Even if we don't meet them in the semifinals, we'll meet them in the finals. Thus, we need to aim our strategies at them."
"Let me brief you all on these 3 teams, as well as what we'll have to take notice of when we compete, and the specific strategies against them."
"The Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy is definitely our strongest opponent out of these 3 teams. Their team leader, Ma Rulong, hasn't appeared yet. However, based on previous tournaments, Ma Rulong should be a soul emperor. Luckily, he's the only soul emperor from the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy."
"Of the 14 people in the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy's official and preparatory teams, only Ma Rulong, Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen haven't competed yet. Both Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen are from the preparatory team. For reference, Meng Hongchen is that young lady that Wang Dong tried to pick up back then." Wang Yan couldn't help but grin and look at Wang Dong as he said this.
Wang Dong did not seem to take this awkwardly at all.
Wang Yan continued, "The rest of their official team are all soul kings, but only 2 of them are above Rank 55. The rest of them are below Rank 55 but above Rank 50. They've also all inherited martial souls with some useful characteristics to soul engineers, that not ones that are too outstanding. They're main strongpoint is their soul tools. As for the 5 preparatory team members who've already competed, 2 are soul ancestors and 3 are soul elders. However, we shouldn't see these preparatory team members at all."
"The Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy isn't our strongest rival because they have nurtured students that can match us, but due to the countless changes in their soul tools. Without a doubt, they must have many soul tools that they haven't used in this tournament, and they have kept these soul tools to use them against us. This has always been the case in previous tournaments. Over these past few decades, the Sun Moon Empire's soul tools have been changing at a faster rate, and are becoming increasingly difficult to handle. That's why our strategies have to be able to adapt against them. In the team round, we'll likely be at a disadvantage because of the group advantage of their soul tools. But in the individual round or the 2-2-3 fight, we won't be at a disadvantage. We'll have our chance their."
Huo Yuhao asked, "Teacher Wang, are there any more changes in the rules for the finals?"
Wang Yan nodded and said, "A team round will be organized, along with an individual round and a 2-2-3 fight. Furthermore, these 3 competition segments will be completed in one go after both teams have chosen all 7 competing members. There will be no intermission. The eventual champion will be the one that wins 2 out of the 3 segments."
Huo Yuhao was stunned when he heard his words. It wasn't easy to become the champion of the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Dueling Tournament!