Book 2: Academy of Monsters
Chapter 11.1: The Weakest Class Monitor
By the time the sweat-drenched Huo Yuhao had finished his tenth lap, the person in first place—Wang Dong—had already lapped him three times. The other students had already lapped him at least one time. Many people had even cast disdainful gazes at him. After all, they all knew that Huo Yuhao definitely had the weakest cultivation amongst them.
However, the running speed of the students in front had already started to slow down. As time passed, the effects of the chainmail started to become more obvious. Even Wang Dong had a face full of sweat.
The few male students who’d followed Wang Dong from the start had started to fall behind. Some had even been overtaken by the students behind them.
Drops of sweat seeped into the running track. After around an hour had passed, a female student who had a weaker body collapsed to the ground. She struggled to get up, but she couldn’t do anything.
Wang Dong happened to be running next to her when this happened. He helped her up and sent her an inquiring gaze. However, that female student shook her head and sat down on the plaza, unwilling to get back up. She didn’t even have the energy to speak.
With the first, the second was bound to happen. Perhaps it was because they had the cushion of Huo Yuhao, who was dead last. Although the students persevered, in the end, their willpower didn’t seem to be too strong.
The burden of carrying the heavy chainmail whilst running was truly enormous. This was especially true since everyone had started running at full speed, which had quickly depleted their soulforce. On the other hand, withstanding the weight of the chainmail with their bodies alone was truly something strenuous at their age.
When two hours had passed, half of the students had collapsed to the ground. From the beginning to the end, Zhou Yi had stood there with an expressionless face. She hadn’t urged them to continue either.
Huo Yuhao was also reaching his limit. Although he’d decided to run with a constant speed, which meant that the drain on his physical strength was the lowest, his soulforce was still the weakest amongst the people present, and his physical strength wasn’t that much different either. Being able to persevere until now was already quite difficult for him. If you looked at it from the viewpoint of the number of laps that he’d completed, he was no longer the last, due to the fact that he’d managed to persevere for a longer time than some.
When everything in front of him started to turn black, he suddenly felt that there seemed to be a lump of fire within his stomach that was burning. He was extremely parched, and the stickiness he felt from the sweat all over his body was hard to bear. As the heavy chainmail ground against his skin through his school uniform, bursts of scorching pain passed unceasingly through his body.
Not good, I can’t hold on any longer. A voice continuously echoed out in Huo Yuhao’s mind. He activated his soulforce and poured it into his Spirit Eyes with much difficulty.
A refreshing feeling spread out from his Spirit Eyes, causing him to sober up a little.
This won’t do, I can’t collapse like this. I will definitely persevere. As he looked at the many students running in front of him, he thought about the increase in cultivation speed that he’d experienced that afternoon after the extremely large drain to his soulforce. Huo Yuhao suddenly bit his tongue, rousing himself to continue running.
At this moment, he suddenly felt a comfortable, warm feeling spread out from his lower abdomen. Although his soulforce had already almost been exhausted, the warm feeling flowed slowly through his limbs and bones, causing his aching muscles to feel slightly alleviated.
This is...
The power of the Mysterious Heaven Technique?
Huo Yuhao quickly recognised the source of the warm current. After cultivating the Mysterious Heaven Technique, it would gather in his lower abdomen at the very end. Although the time he’d spent cultivating the Mysterious Heaven Technique so far was still short, he still had a foundation of soulforce, after all. After converting his previous soulforce into the Mysterious Heaven Technique’s, he could be considered to have completed the first layer of the Mysterious Heaven Technique.
Both his eldest senior brother and the Skydream Iceworm had said that the Mysterious Heaven Technique was very suitable for him, since it could nourish his passageways. Was it finally displaying its effects?
As he pondered the matter, Huo Yuhao’s consciousness very naturally followed the passageways of the Mysterious Heaven Technique, and felt it out for a moment. He didn’t sense any obstructions, and the warm feeling within his lower abdomen wandered around his passageways, following his consciousness.
Huo Yuhao saw that it was a weak trace of the Mysterious Heaven Technique’s soulforce. Only, it would slowly spread into his passageways as it travelled, which was also the reason behind the warm feeling.
The thing that astonished him even more was that his passageways were actually absorbing these strands of soulforce at an extremely rapid pace. This was also the source of the comfortable feeling he’d felt earlier, which had in turn relieved his weariness.
Huo Yuhao’s natural physique wasn’t that good, but he was still quite smart. The fact that the Mysterious Heaven Technique could be absorbed by him when his body reached its limit signified that he could also circulate it while moving, not just when he was meditating. The circulation of the Mysterious Heaven Technique under these circumstances was slightly different than when he was normally cultivating. The speed at which his soulforce increased in strength wasn’t high, but its integration with his body was much more intimate.
With this discovery, Huo Yuhao hurriedly concentrated whilst simultaneously slowing his steps. He quietly started to circulate the Mysterious Heaven Technique.
The Tang Sect’s Mysterious Heaven Technique had been brought over from another world by the first generation Tang sect master, Tang San. From a certain standpoint, it wasn’t a technique that belonged to the Douluo Continent, but was definitely a top notch technique. It had extremely large benefits towards the nourishment of one’s body.
Due to an accident, Huo Yuhao had actually created a method of circulating the Mysterious Heaven Technique without entering a state of meditation. When it was circulated like this, the main effect of the Mysterious Heaven Technique would be to nourish one’s body by using soulforce to nourish the passageways.
Due to the progressive recovery that resulted from the circulation process of the Mysterious Heaven Technique, a miraculous cyclical state had formed within his body. This could be considered cultivation while moving.
Huo Yuhao didn’t know it, but even the first generation sect master of the Tang Sect, Tang San, hadn’t managed to achieve this. The reason behind this was simply because he’d had richly endowed advantages. Huo Yuhao’s cultivation, on the other hand, was still weak, which was the reason why his body was able to reach such a state, where it was at its limit. Furthermore, both his spiritual energy being very strong, combined with his possession of a spiritual-type martial soul, made it so that he could sense and manipulate the miraculous energy.
The Tang Sect had birthed many experts, but none of them had possessed the conditions that the current Huo Yuhao had. After they became strong, they wouldn’t easily reach their limits, and they wouldn’t carefully sense the warm feeling that appeared in their dantians. It could be said that an evolution of the Mysterious Heaven Technique had appeared in Huo Yuhao’s body.
With the harmonization of this warm feeling, Huo Yuhao’s body, which had originally reached its limit, was relieved of its exhaustion by a certain amount. Not only did this strengthen his willpower, it also made him pour more of his spiritual energy into guiding this warm feeling.
The warm feeling circulated around his body, following the circulation path of the Mysterious Heaven Technique. When it completed an entire cycle, the strand would be almost fully drained. However, it was also at the moment that the cycle was completed that the warm feeling would be slightly strengthened once again, and would continue to move forward.
Huo Yuhao’s body was getting more and more exhausted, but he was getting more and more excited. The Mysterious Heaven Technique’s nourishment of his passageways under his current state was exactly what he needed the most right now! His thin passageways, which he’d previously needed extreme care to handle, became more elastic under the nourishment of the warm feeling, and even widened slightly. The unprecedented lack of obstruction within the areas that the warm feeling passed through told Huo Yuhao that he was doing the right thing.
The number of students who’d collapsed within Shrek Plaza was gradually increasing. Even the students who’d been running at the very front were starting to gradually be unable to persevere. The sounds of chainmail smashing into the ground occasionally echoed out from time to time.