Book 4: The Golden RoadHowever, the strength of all his soul skills had increased after working together with w.a.n.g Dong to generate the Haodong Power, and although he could sense that he was near his body"s limit, he was still able to endure. Since this was the case, why didn"t the Skydream Iceworm strengthen his soul skills to this point?
“You idiot.” Just as suspicion arose in Huo Yuhao"s heart, the Skydream Iceworm"s voice rang out in his mind.
“Bro, you weren"t sleeping?” Surprised, Huo Yuhao immediately asked in his mind.
The Skydream Iceworm snorted. “I"m obviously awake. Do you think I like to sleep that much?”
Huo Yuhao secretly cursed to himself. If you don"t like sleeping, how did you sleep for a million years?
The Skydream Iceworm said, “The answer to your worries is extremely simple. It"s true that I didn"t raise the rank of your soul ring to its limit, but that"s because I can"t allow you to become an inflated balloon. Let me give you an example. There"s a type of fish called the Tiger Blowfish. Its body is filled with spines, and whenever it"s in danger, it"ll instantly inflate itself, expanding its body and releasing all of its spines. This makes it so that its predators are unable to eat it. It could be said that it allows its body to expand to its limit in a situation like that.”
“Indeed, the attack power of the blowfish"s spines is raised to its limits in a situation like this, but what if a needle stabs it? What would happen then? Likewise, you"re the same. If I raised the strength of your soul rings to the maximum amount that you can endure, you"d be just like that balloon once you encounter a mishap during a battle or cultivation; you"d explode with a bang. Because of that, the "maximum limit you can endure" I"m referring to is the limit at which you can completely endure it without any side effects. When your soul power fused with w.a.n.g Dong"s earlier, the fused energy instantly improved your physiques. This is another great benefit that I helped you obtain when you two achieved a 100% fusion and thoroughly fused your two types of soul powers last night.”
“In other words, whenever you soul powers fuse, the endurance of your bodies will also increase as a result of this fused soul power. And when you can sustain a stronger soul power, the strength of your soul skills will increase accordingly. This in itself is the secret behind a martial soul fusion. However, your martial soul fusion differs from that of ordinary cultivators, and you"ll receive different benefits. During your fusion, your bodies will be constantly improving as a result of your fused soul power, so as long as you continue to cultivate together, there"ll be a day when your physiques and cultivation speeds are the best in the human world.”
“Naturally, this process in improvement is rather agonizingly slow. If you two can achieve a True Fusion in the future, then it"s effects will be even better.?
Puzzled, Huo Yuhao asked, “What"s a "True Fusion"?”
The Skydream Iceworm seemed to turn blank for a moment before uttering, “Aih, I don"t know. I"ve never tried it either. Okay, just continue trying things out with him. You"ll receive enormous benefits from both your soul power fusion and your martial soul fusion. In the future, you"ll slowly understand what I mean.”
As he finished his sentence, the Skydream Iceworm stopped bothering to talk and disappeared.
“Oi, has your food gotten into your nose?” After looking at Huo Yuhao"s daydreaming face for a long time, w.a.n.g Dong waved his hand in front of his face.
“Eh…” Huo Yuhao hurriedly rubbed his nose, but he then noticed that w.a.n.g Dong was smiling naughtily.
“What"re thinking about? You looked like you were in a trance.” w.a.n.g Dong said laughingly. He noticed that Huo Yuhao"s blank expression was very funny to look at.
Huo Yuhao said, “I"m obviously thinking about our Haodong Power. I"m thinking about why our soul powers would fuse, and after some thought, there"s only one possibility. That is, when our martial souls fused last night, our compatibility rate was extremely high; that"s why something like this happened.
w.a.n.g Dong"s eyes lit up, “Right! You make some sense. If that wasn"t the case, why would something unique like this happen? Quickly eat, and we can go see whether we can release a fusion skill once we"re done. But do you know how a fusion skill is activated?”
Speechless, Huo Yuhao said, “How would I know? Doesn"t it just naturally come to you?”
Their two small eyes couldn"t help but expose a trace of speechlessness and a bitter smile. Right, although the teachers did talk about fusion skills in their lectures, it was an ability that belonged to only an extremely small number of the population, so their teachers had just glanced over it, and never explained how it could be activated. After all, the number of people who could truly release a fusion skill was truly too small.
w.a.n.g Dong said, “Whatever, we"ll go try it out tonight. If that doesn"t work, we"ll go find Teacher Zhou and see whether she knows of any ways we can go about this.”
“Yup.” While answering, Huo Yuhao kept crying out to the Skydream Iceworm in his mind. He believed that the Skydream Iceworm, with his million years of experience, would definitely know the answer to this question.
“Idiot, why are you disturbing me over a small matter like this? Just do whatever you did last night! You idiot.” The Skydream Iceworm seemed to be just on the verge of sleeping, so it was very unhappy when Huo Yuhao woke it up. After mumbling for a bit, it disappeared again.
Just do whatever we did last night? After thinking blankly for a moment, he quickly understood what the Skydream Iceworm meant. Hugging?
After speeding through dinner, Huo Yuhao and w.a.n.g Dong quickly left the college with an excited and curious feeling in their hearts. Huo Yuhao hadn"t sold any roasted fishes today, so as the two left through the academy"s entrance, they b.u.mped into many regulars who started to complain. Apologizing profusely was the only thing he could do, and he used the excuse of preparing for the ranking tournament to make his way through the crowd.
“We should speed up.” w.a.n.g Dong softly shouted out, and once his feet touched the ground, he suddenly sped up, causing his body to fly out like an arrow that had left a bow.
If this had been three months ago, Huo Yuhao might not even have been able to see his shadow, but his three months of bitter training wasn"t wasted on Huo Yuhao. After exerting strength in his legs, Huo Yuhao"s speed similarly soared, and although he didn"t look as graceful as w.a.n.g Dong, he absolutely wasn"t slow. He rushed towards w.a.n.g Dong, and whenever he landed, he would leave a footprint in the ground
The explosiveness from his muscles flowed endlessly to his legs, and the flow of his internal soul power unceasingly replenished his lost physical strength.
The evening air was very relaxing and refreshing, and the two of them currently felt like they were travelling in the wind. Without the constraints of the chainmail, the refreshing feeling all over their bodies allowed their speeds to reach their maximum levels.
In the end, w.a.n.g Dong"s foundation was still much better than Huo Yuhao"s, and thus he quickly widened the distance between them. When this distance exceeded 300 meters, he slowed down and waited for Huo Yuhao to catch up.
“Okay. As a control system soul master who doesn"t specialise in front line combat, your speed is still pa.s.sable.” w.a.n.g Dong spoke with a haughty air as he looked at Huo Yuhao.
Huo Yuhao chuckled. “We"re almost there. Let"s go into the forest.”
“Okay.” w.a.n.g Dong nodded. After the two made sure there was no one around them, they simultaneously ran into the forest by the roadside. They only stopped after they were several hundred metres into the forest.
“Let"s do it here. How are we gonna try it out?” w.a.n.g Dong asked.
Huo Yuhao replied, “Let"s first test the recovery speed of our Haodong Power.” He raised his hands as he spoke.
w.a.n.g Dong then joined his hands with Huo Yuhao"s. After their practice in the afternoon, they were extremely familiar with the circulation of the Haodong Power. Just as they predicted, the Haodong Power they generated after fusing their soul powers increased the recovery speed of their physical strength, as well as their soul power, by a certain amount. However, this increase wasn"t as significant when compared to the increase in their cultivation speeds.
“It"s ordinary! However, it has its uses.” After a brief moment, w.a.n.g Dong fully replenished his lost physical strength.
Huo Yuhao nodded before spreading his arms wide. “Come.”
w.a.n.g Dong was stunned. His gaze towards Huo Yuhao immediately turned vigilant. “What"re you doing?”
Huo Yuhao replied in a very natural manner, “Let"s hug!”
“You…” w.a.n.g Dong"s expression immediately changed. His face turned green before paling. “Huo Yuhao, I never thought you"d be someone like this. Do you actually think that I won"t beat you to the point where you can"t even take care of yourself?”
Huo Yuhao didn"t know whether he should laugh or cry. “What"re you even thinking about? You idiot, have you forgotten how we caused the martial soul fusion in the first place? Since we can already fuse our soul powers now, the simplest way for us to activate our fusion is to repeat what happened yesterday!”
Only then did w.a.n.g Dong understand what he had meant. He was immediately embarra.s.sed to the point where his face turned bright red. Although it was already quite dark, Huo Yuhao"s Spirit Eyes were able to clearly see things even if it was midnight; naturally, he saw w.a.n.g Dong"s reaction clearly.
“You didn"t even explain anything before you asked me to hug you. Are you purposely trying to embarra.s.s me?” w.a.n.g Dong used his anger to disguise his embarra.s.sment and awkwardness.
Speechless, Huo Yuhao replied, “I didn"t know that your thoughts were this unhealthy. We"re both guys, so what can we even do? Hurry up. Let"s get this done early so we can continue cultivating later.”
w.a.n.g Dong hesitated for a moment. “We"re outside the city now, are you sure that we won"t just fall asleep like yesterday?”
Huo Yuhao speechlessly replied, “It won"t. Today"s situation is different from yesterday"s. Why are you acting so overly careful like a woman? I"m going to start now.” As he spoke, he quickly took a step forward and hugged w.a.n.g Dong in a single movement.
w.a.n.g Dong"s body stiffened. In the instant he was hugged by Huo Yuhao, he felt his mind go somewhat blank. Huo Yuhao"s body was slightly sweaty due to his previous sprint, causing the faint smell of sweat to a.s.sault w.a.n.g Dong"s nose.
w.a.n.g Dong"s body was very soft, so hugging him was still as comfortable as last night. However, the current Huo Yuhao didn"t have any thoughts of enjoying this feeling. In the instant he hugged w.a.n.g Dong, he immediately circulated his own soul power, activating his Spirit Eyes; in that same instant, w.a.n.g Dong came to his senses as well.
The large area of contact between the two of them caused the soul powers within their bodies to be quickly converted into Haodong Power. Huo Yuhao"s eyes were especially bright due to the dim evening, and a faint golden light flickered within them.
After a brief moment of sluggishness, w.a.n.g Dong hurriedly activated his martial soul.
In that instant, a strange feeling came over the two of them. As they hugged each other, their released martial souls felt completely different to the soul skills they"d activated with the previous a.s.sistance of the Haodong Power.
Right as w.a.n.g Dong"s ice-blue wings unfurled, both of their minds blanked out briefly.
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