Chapter 75: What Kind of Monster
"Please extend your hand. I need to test your bone age. This is standard procedure." The teacher maintained his professional composure, but his voice carried an undertone of unmistakable, non-negotiable seriousness.
"No problem."
Furina extended her left hand as instructed. Her wrist was slender, her skin so fair it seemed almost translucent. The teacher placed two fingers on her wrist and channeled a faint wisp of soul power into it.
Moments later, the last vestiges of calm on his face finally crumbled. A look of undisguised astonishment surfaced—even tinged with disbelief. "The bone age shows... fourteen years old?! This... this is indeed over the age limit."
He paused, withdrew his hand, and his expression grew increasingly grave, even tinged with regret. "Young lady, according to the academy's regulations, explicitly written in black and white, the minimum soul power requirement for new students is rank twenty-one. Reaching rank twenty-five exempts one from the preliminary exam. However, considering your age issue... being somewhat over the limit, I believe you would need to reach at least rank thirty—the Soul Elder realm—before you'd even have a chance to apply for an exception or exemption from the preliminary exam. This requirement is... exceedingly high."
"Rank thirty?" A deeply meaningful smile curved at the corner of Furina's lips. Those heterochromatic eyes of hers sparkled with a sly, cunning light, as if she had just heard something immensely amusing. "It seems... we're being looked down upon, Yuhao."
No sooner had her words fallen than a gentle yet utterly undeniable wave of soul power radiated outward from her as its center.
Then—four soul rings slowly, silently rose from beneath her feet without the slightest forewarning. Two purple, two black! This utterly horrifying soul ring configuration, which defied every scrap of common knowledge, gleamed with a heart-stopping radiance beneath the afterglow of the setting sun.
"Allow me to introduce myself," Furina's voice remained soft, yet it carried an intangible, invisible force that struck against the hearts of everyone present. "Furina. My martial soul is Cake. Rank forty-seven, food-type tool soul ancestor. I wonder—might this level of strength be sufficient to compensate for that trifling, insignificant age gap?"
The teacher responsible for registration felt his eyes fly wide. His mouth opened unconsciously, then snapped shut, then opened again—repeating this several times. It took him a long, agonizing moment before he could stammer out a few fragmented words: "Th-this... this... how is this possible?! A food-type... rank forty-seven?! And these soul rings..." The scene before him utterly demolished every fixed notion about the soul master cultivation system he'd held for decades.
A fourteen-year-old food-type Soul Ancestor—this alone was earth-shattering news that could send tremors through the entire soul master world. And beyond that, the first two rings were already thousand-year, and the latter two had vaulted directly to ten-thousand-year—a heaven-defying configuration! This was a merciless, absolute overturning of every known soul ring absorption theory.
Even the current generation of Shrek's Seven Monsters, cultivated with the academy's full, unrestrained resources, would seem dim and lackluster before this young woman.
Before the teacher could even begin to recover from this colossal shock, Huo Yuhao, who had been standing quietly at Furina's side, stepped forward at precisely the right moment. His voice was respectful yet neither servile nor overbearing. "Hello, teacher. My name is Huo Yuhao. Eleven years old. My martial soul is Spirit Eyes. Rank thirty-one, control-type battle soul elder."
As his words fell, three soul rings—one white, one purple, one black—each equally defying all conventional understanding, began to slowly revolve around his body.
Though the first soul ring was merely a plain, unadorned ten-year white, the second—a thousand-year purple ring—and the third—a ring as deep and dark as night, unmistakably of the ten-thousand-year tier—once again slammed into the teacher's heart like a heavy sledgehammer.
"An... another little monster! An eleven-year-old Soul Elder! Wh-what is with this year's new students?!" The teacher felt his very breath grow labored. His mind went completely blank.
The two new students he'd encountered today had, with their absolutely aberrant strength, effortlessly shattered Shrek Academy's admissions records—records that had stood for countless years. They had even overturned numerous foundational cultivation theories.
Not far away, Bei Bei and Tang Ya, who had witnessed the entire spectacle, could only exchange wry, helpless smiles. Their faces bore an expression of "we knew this was going to happen" resignation, along with a healthy measure of sympathy for the poor, beleaguered admissions teacher. After all, when they had first experienced the unfathomable depths of Furina's strength and the equally astonishing potential of Huo Yuhao, their own reactions had likely been little better than this teacher's.
Furina gave an elegant wave of her hand, and the oppressive, soul-crushing radiance of her soul rings instantly receded. She looked every bit as if she had just done something utterly inconsequential. Smiling at the still-shell-shocked teacher, she asked with relaxed ease, "So then, teacher—I wonder if our current level meets your esteemed academy's admissions standards? If it's still not enough, perhaps we could think of something else..." She deliberately drew out the final syllables.
The teacher jolted as if struck by lightning, finally snapping fully out of his extreme stupor. An unprecedented, almost feverish enthusiasm—tinged with a hint of fluster—instantly flooded his face. He nodded his head so rapidly it blurred like a chick pecking at grain. "It meets them! Of course it meets them! One hundred percent! More than meets them—you're exactly the kind of geniuses the academy dreams of but can never find! Please, wait just a moment, both of you. I'll handle your registration procedures at the highest possible level right away! All tests—fully exempted!"
He scrambled to produce two special, gilt-edged forms, his demeanor at least ten times more deferential than before. Even the hand gripping his pen trembled faintly from sheer excitement. As he swiftly filled in the basic information, he couldn't help sneaking furtive glances at these two new students who could only be described as "monsters."
A powerful intuition told him that the arrival of these two young people was far more than a mere infusion of fresh blood for Shrek Academy. Their utterly irrational strength and talent were like two colossal boulders hurled into a placid lake. They were destined to stir up unpredictable, world-shaking waves within the depths of this millennia-old institution.
The coming storm would likely be far more ferocious than anyone could imagine. It might even alter the future structure of the academy—and the entire continent.
Furina accepted the forms and filled in her information with smooth, unhurried strokes, every character exuding effortless poise. Her gaze drifted unconsciously toward the depths of Shrek Academy—toward that sprawling complex of majestic buildings nestled among ancient trees. A faint, almost imperceptible flicker of anticipation passed through her eyes.
This place gathered the continent's most elite young soul masters. It would be a critical piece in her grand design—and the perfect hunting ground to find like-minded spirits, the best possible companions to stand with her against the storms to come.
Huo Yuhao's expression remained comparatively calm. But deep within those Spirit Eyes of his, the same yearning for the unknown future and thirst for strength blazed just as brightly. After all, only by growing stronger could he protect the people he cherished. Only then could he protect Sister Furina.
As the final procedure was stamped with the seal representing Shrek Academy's authority, the teacher carefully placed two gleaming, radiant badges—symbols of formal Shrek Academy student status—into the hands of Furina and Huo Yuhao. His voice was heavy with solemnity. "Welcome, you two geniuses, to Shrek Academy. May you achieve great things here and walk a path of boundless promise!"
Furina accepted the weighty badge. Her fingertip traced lightly over the intricate Shrek monster crest embossed upon its surface. Then, with a crisp, decisive motion, she pinned it at the most conspicuous spot on her chest. The golden rays of the setting sun spilled across her exquisitely sculpted profile and the brand-new badge, illuminating a smile that blended confidence, anticipation, and a faint, unmistakable glimmer of ambition.
The new stage had been set. And her talent-poaching... ahem, her companion-seeking campaign—had now officially begun.