Their pupils reflected a sight they had never seen before. The teacher stood there, doing nothing and not even looking at them. The four 100,000-year soul rings beside him were slowly pulsating—a deep, dark red, like congealed blood, so red it seemed as if they could drip color.
They resembled four breathing tombstones. With each rise and fall, the air grew heavier. At first, Zang Xin thought it was an illusion, until he realized his hands were trembling—his body was instinctively crying out for help. The four red lights pressed down, like an invisible mountain slowly descending on his shoulders. The surrounding colors were completely swallowed up. The white light outside the window, the fluorescent blue of the soul tool, even the orange-yellow glow in the flames of the Flame Dragon Winged Lizard… everything faded to ashen white before those four red rings. He even felt that he dared not make a sound when circulating his soul power.
He tried to call out "teacher," but found that his throat felt like it was being choked.
The teacher did nothing. But the mere presence of those four 100,000-year soul rings was enough to make the teacher and students so estranged.
He hadn't yet shaken off the oppressive feeling of those four red suns; he felt as if he were nailed to the spot. Then—
The red light disappeared.
Huo Dong put away the spirit ring as casually as if he were tossing away a piece of trash. All the heavy, solidified, and awe-inspiring power instantly evaporated. The air began to flow again, and the noise outside the window poured into the room. He could even hear his own heartbeat gradually calming down from the drumming sound.
The four of them looked up blankly. The teacher was smiling at them, her demeanor completely different from before, even carrying a hint of smug satisfaction from having successfully pulled off a prank.
"Fake." He uttered two words lightly, as casually as if he were remarking on the nice weather. As the earlier moisture gradually dissipated, the four of them discovered that in a corner no one had noticed, the Flame Dragon Winged Lizard, having nowhere to retreat, had chosen to commit suicide.
"...No...no, no, no, no!" Leng Yulai's lips were still trembling. "Teacher, what...what exactly is it..." Leng Yaozhu instinctively stepped in front of her sister, but she too was trembling with fear. "It can't be fake...that oppressive feeling...it was so realistic..."
“A real 100,000-year spirit ring is a hundred times more terrifying than this,” their reaction seemed to be within Huo Dong’s expectations. The elder patted non-existent dust off his clothes. “And if I showed you the real spirit ring so easily, what was the point of my previous concealment?”
"So...so you wanted to scare us?" The optimist Zang Xin had already regained his usual carefree way of thinking.
“I’m not that bored,” Huo Dong said in a tone as flat as plain water. “I’m doing this just for efficiency. Why complicate things when they can be solved simply?”
"It's definitely gotten more complicated now," the four of them complained in unison.
"It's just a little trick that all spirit-type soul masters have to some extent."
"Really, teacher? You mean I'll do that in the future too?" Zang Xin stared at him with a skeptical look.
"That depends on whether you have the opportunity," Huo Dong replied, while scanning the interior of the building again. "Let's go, you've had enough practice for today. Quickly find suitable spirits and then go back to review."
"Can I say it?" Cao Dezhi took a deep breath. At this moment, the four of them were standing at the door watching their dear teacher use a 100,000-year soul ring to scare the opposite soul beast into unconsciousness for the seventeenth time. "Although I have seen it many times, every time those 100,000-year soul rings appear, my heart almost jumps out of my throat."
“That’s only human nature,” the other three commented. Leng Yaozhu added, “And you can tell the teacher was holding back. If he could solve it with a mental attack, he wouldn’t even pretend.” Suddenly, as if she had thought of something, she pulled a soul-guided camera from a pocket. “Actually, I brought professional recording equipment today, thinking I’d film some of the teacher’s combat footage to analyze later.” The three’s attention immediately shifted from the battlefield to her, only to find Leng Yaozhu adjusting the equipment with a puzzled expression. “Strange, it’s not working? I remember it working before we came.”
“It’s okay if we can’t record it,” Leng Yulai patted her shoulder and said comfortingly, “Anyway, we probably won’t be able to figure anything out in this situation.”
With Teacher Huo Dong's intervention, the speed at which they cleared the tower exploded. Before long, the four of them, under the teacher's guidance, found suitable soul spirits and successively left them to fuse and absorb. The last to find a soul spirit was Cao Dezhi. He was about to sit cross-legged when he realized that Huo Dong clearly had no intention of stopping there.
"Teacher...? Are you going to continue going up?" he asked, somewhat puzzled.
"Go see what's up there." Huo Dong turned back and smiled at him. "No new souls will appear on this floor. It's safe for you to absorb them here. Once everything is settled, go straight back. You don't need to wait for me to come out."
Is it really just for a look? He asked himself silently, watching Huo Dong's figure disappear behind the door on the eighty-first floor.
Huo Yuhao felt completely relaxed as he stepped into the eighty-first floor.
Based on his previous mental exploration, this so-called tower-climbing structure had numerous soul-guided monitoring devices starting from the thirty-second floor, used to collect soul master information. This feeling of being watched reminded him of his days at Mingde Hall. But then again, Mingde Hall wasn't his home, and he couldn't control it. What was the point of this Spirit Pagoda? So he simply subjected all the monitoring devices in the tower to a mental shock, preventing data collection while simultaneously hacking into the other party's soul-guided network, replacing the original surveillance footage with normal images.
The next steps were much simpler, and the corners of his mouth unconsciously turned up in a smile.
A gentleman takes his revenge even after ten years.
The soul beasts that were once used by the Qian Gu family,
I will return to you the power of revenge.