Huo Yuhao from The Peerless Tang Sect is incredibly talented.

"Recently, there has been a new person in my spiritual sea."

Huo Yuhao looked up, the twig he was using to draft something on the ground stopped in mid-air.

"A woman who looks a lot like me. Lately, every time I enter the Sea of ​​Spirit, she appears. She doesn't say anything, just stands there and stares at me." Wang Dong bit his lip, looking somewhat uneasy.

Huo Yuhao remained silent for a moment, mentally summoning the world-shaking wisdom within him.

"Did you do this?"

"Yes!" The tone of the astonishingly wise man carried a hint of schadenfreude, as if to say, "You made me do that kind of work, even though we are essentially the same person."

"What is that?"

"The true soul and memories of Wang Dong'er in the original timeline."

Huo Yuhao's face was flushed red. "Damn it."

Although I cursed him in my heart, I didn't say anything, after all, these were my own thoughts.

After listening, Huo Yuhao sighed inwardly, but remained expressionless on the surface.

"The woman in your sea of ​​consciousness is not an illusion." He carefully chose his words and spoke slowly. "She is related to a restriction deep within your sea of ​​consciousness. That restriction is not simple; it's not something I can confront head-on right now."

Wang Dong was taken aback: "What kind of restriction?"

"I can't tell you the specifics right now. Because telling you would alert the people behind it."

Wang Dong fell silent. She lowered her head, her long, light blue hair falling down and obscuring most of her face.

After a long silence, she spoke softly, her voice carrying a hint of bewilderment she had never shown in front of others: "Then... why do I always feel that she is very sad? Every time she appears in the Sea of ​​Spirit, I feel a tightness in my chest, it hurts so much."

After saying that, tears welled up in Wang Dong's eyes.

"...How about this? The holidays are here, I'll go to Tiandou City with you." Huo Yuhao looked away, pretending to be busy. "I know the city lord of Tiandou City, his agent as the Lord of the Void Realm. Once we get to Tiandou City, he's confident he can break this restriction."

Wang Dong looked at him, the confusion in his eyes gradually fading, replaced by that familiar scrutinizing look: "You still know the City Lord of Tiandou City?"

"I've met him a few times and helped him with a small favor," Huo Yuhao said casually.

"...Fine. I'll trust you this once. During the holidays, in Tiandou City, you'd better keep your word."

"I never lie."

Wang Dong turned around, a flash of blue light, and exited the virtual realm.

After she left, Huo Yuhao squatted on the ground and drew circles for a long time before exiting the virtual realm.

The next day.

The air in the Soul Tool Laboratory always smelled of metallic shavings.

Fan Yu pushed aside the scattered blueprints in front of the lab bench and looked at the gray-haired boy in front of her who was tightening the last screw. She suddenly realized that she didn't know where to start teaching him.

"Huo Buxiao".

"Hmm?" Huo Yuhao didn't even raise his head. The Heavenly Dream Ice Silkworm crawled on the back of his hand, and the carving knife in his hand traced the magic array pattern of the soul guide core once more.

His movements were so precise, as if he had practiced them millions of times—in fact, he had practiced them millions of times, but not in Shrek's laboratory, but in outer space.

"I read the paper you submitted last week." Fan Yu crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. "It's a mathematical analysis of twelve level-four core magic arrays, and the appendix includes three of your own optimization schemes."

Huo Yuhao finally raised his head, blinked, and gave a well-behaved and harmless smile: "Teacher, I just wrote this casually in my spare time."

"Just writing whatever comes to mind." Fan Yu repeated these four words, his expression as complicated as if someone had smeared a pile of shit on his face. "Do you know how long it took me to understand your optimization plan? Two nights. It took me, the dean, and a bunch of teachers two nights to fully understand the mathematical analysis written by a Grand Soul Master."

Mathematics is very talent-dependent, and Huo Yuhao's crazy jumping around made the teachers in the Soul Guidance Department lose their heads trying to figure it out.

Two days after Fan Yu started tutoring Huo Yuhao, Fan Yu realized that he could no longer teach him.

Besides having a strong strategic vision, the Soul Guidance System abandoned the pursuit of lethality and instead focused on how to cultivate Soul Masters, thus achieving a leapfrog development.

Furthermore, they possess astonishing talent in practical application.

Fan Yu felt a headache coming on whenever he thought of Huo Yuhao's method for learning the core formation of soul tools.

Normally, learning the core array of a soul tool involves rote memorization, and designing a new array requires exhaustive search, wasting a lot of resources.

Huo Yuhao is learning the core array of the soul tool: Fan Yu, this is one, this is two.

Huo Yuhao, I understand, then it's f(x), sin...

Thinking of Fan Yu, I couldn't help but sigh, "What a monster that is."

Fan Yu walked over and picked up the blueprint on Huo Yuhao's desk. It was the class assignment he had given yesterday—to design a standard level three shield generator.

The other senior students submitted standard, conventional structures, with only one or two talented individuals making minor modifications to the energy loops, which was considered outstanding.

In contrast, Huo Yuhao, a freshman who hadn't even chosen his major yet, submitted a blueprint in which the core array of the shield generator was broken down into three parts, connected by a set of arrays that Fan Yu had never seen before, reducing energy loss by at least 30%.

"Where did you learn this collaborative algorithm?" Fan Yu asked, pointing to the blueprints.

"I haven't studied it; I derived it myself." Huo Yuhao scratched his temple with the end of his carving knife. Fan Yu remained silent.

Fan Yu: I shouldn't have asked. Another day of being stupid.

He has taught soul tool instruction for over twenty years and mentored countless talented students.

Some people are naturally sensitive to soul guidance circuits, and some can replicate complex level-four core arrays within three days. But no student can describe the core array of a soul tool with numbers and pictures—because these concepts simply don't exist in soul tool theory.

The student in front of him was not learning about soul tools.

He was using a completely different theoretical system to look down on the soul guides from above, and then telling Fan Yu: Your system is too inefficient.

Fan Yu put the blueprints back on the table and took a deep breath.

"Huo Buxiao, I have a question for you. Answer me honestly."

"Please ask."

"How long do you think the Sun Moon Empire can maintain its leading advantage in the field of soul tools?"

Huo Yuhao thought for a moment and gave a very subtle answer: "If Shrek Academy can cultivate enough talents in soul tools, it shouldn't be difficult to catch up with the Sun Moon Empire within ten years."

Fan Yu stared into his eyes for a long time, then suddenly smiled. That smile contained both relief and a sense of helplessness, a bittersweet realization that came after a lifetime of teaching.

"Alright, get back to your work." Fan Yu turned and walked towards the door. "I'll call you and Cai Tou over tomorrow. You're about the same age, so you should chat more and not always stay cooped up in the lab by yourself."

Huo Yuhao looked up, somewhat puzzled: "Teacher, I can manage on my own."

"I know you can do it." Fan Yu stopped at the door, glanced back at him, "But the path of soul tools is not one that can be walked alone. Your talent is higher than anyone I've ever seen—higher than the Sun Moon Empire, higher than any so-called genius I've ever met. But the faster one progresses, the more trustworthy people they need by their side."

He paused, his tone unusually candid: "To be honest, I don't know how to continue teaching you. Your way of understanding completely exceeds the framework of conventional soul tool education—sometimes I even feel that what lives in your head is not a great soul master, but an old monster who has been cultivating the field of soul tools for tens of thousands of years."

Huo Yuhao kept his head down, tightening the screws, his expression unchanged: "Teacher, you're joking."

"...Anyway, I will continue to arrange solo projects for you, but at least you can chat with He Caitou, just to help me mentor him." The footsteps faded away, and the laboratory returned to silence.

Soon after, footsteps approached, and the door was pushed open.

He Caitou carried two bowls of rice into the laboratory, sat down next to Huo Yuhao, and pushed one of the bowls towards him.

"Teacher Fanyu said I should communicate with you more, and that he wanted to show me what a real genius is." He took a bite of his chicken leg and mumbled, "But I think the teacher is wrong—you're not a genius, you're a monster. A normal person couldn't possibly cram a completely new algorithm into a Level 3 Soul Tool course assignment."

Huo Yuhao finally put down his work, stretched his wrists, picked up his rice bowl, and began to eat.

"He Caitou (a type of vegetable)".

"Um?"

Huo Yuhao swallowed his food, raised his head, looked into He Caitou's eyes, and calmly said a sentence.

"Let's reintroduce ourselves, for example, by using our real names."

"Xu He".