area51novel Chapter 258 Say Hello
Chapter 258 Say Hello
After an online conversation, Long You's small team took shape, and as expected, Long You met Wang Dong'er next to Huo Yuhao. A barely perceptible shadow flashed deep in his eyes, but Long You quickly completed the social etiquette of the meeting with a normal expression.
Long You knew very well that Wang Dong'er was an important tool for a certain God King in the God Realm to completely control the Douluo Continent under the Tang Dynasty. After establishing a relatively friendly relationship with Huo Yuhao, Long You took many measures to prevent Huo Yuhao from having too much contact with Wang Dong, or rather, Wang Dong'er. However, Long You couldn't reveal the truth, so Huo Yuhao ultimately fell into the cage woven by Wang Dong'er—no, the cage woven by a certain God King using Wang Dong'er.
On one side, Long You was still racking his brains trying to figure out if there was any way to help Huo Yuhao untie himself, while on the other side, Huo Yuhao had already begun to explain to Long You, who did not outwardly show any signs of thinking, why Wang Dong'er was there.
As the next Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Tournament approaches, news about the competition has spread throughout the Douluo Continent from the Sun Moon Empire. While other changes are minimal, the Sun Moon Empire has announced that sects will be allowed to participate in this year's tournament. This announcement has caused a huge stir within the Sun Moon Empire, with many sects preparing their teams, hoping to gain fame through the competition. Coincidentally, the Tang Sect is among them, and Wang Dong'er has already become a member of the Tang Sect.
Since Long You gathered everyone under the guise of training team cohesion, it's not surprising at all that Wang Dong'er was there; in fact, it made perfect sense.
Seeing Huo Yuhao's attitude towards Wang Dong'er, Long You sighed silently again. But that was all; the things that needed to be explained still needed to be explained. Long You explained clearly where they were going and what they were going to do on this trip.
"If that's what you're saying, Xiaoyou, then we shouldn't be in any danger at our final destination, right?"
"Theoretically, that's true. It's unlikely that the Earth Dragon Gate Master would confront us head-on; doing so would be completely detrimental to both sides. If I know about the Earth Dragon Gate, then others might know as well. Under these circumstances, choosing Shrek Academy, a reputable trading partner, is definitely her best option. After all, if another group comes knocking, they might not be people like us who are willing to trade properly."
However! Just because the Earth Dragon Gate Master probably won't make things difficult for us doesn't mean our journey will be smooth sailing. In fact, the biggest challenge of our trip lies in the journey itself. If we don't handle those rats from the Sun Moon Empire outside the academy properly, we might ultimately face a hellish level of difficulty.”
"You don't need to remind me of that, Xiao You. You've been on the New World for a long time, so when it comes to understanding these rats of the Sun Moon Empire, you're definitely no match for us."
As soon as Long You finished speaking, Xu Sanshi immediately took over the conversation. It seemed somewhat disrespectful to Long You, but Long You completely disregarded the ambiguity in Xu Sanshi's words. In fact, after Xu Sanshi spoke, Long You felt a great sense of relief.
Planning before acting is Long You's consistent principle. However, having been away from Shrek Academy for too long, Long You is indeed unaware of the latest developments at the academy. He knows that the Sun Moon Empire has surrounded Shrek Academy with forces prepared to cause trouble, but he knows nothing about their strength or how they intend to disrupt the academy. Even if Long You wanted to devise targeted preventative measures, he currently lacks the necessary information and can only passively prepare by operating his detection soul tools at full power throughout the journey.
It's fair to say that Long You would never have embarked on this trip if it weren't for its necessity (obtaining the Ice Extreme God Crystal to upgrade his Soul Guiding Power Mech). Now that Xu Sanshi dared to say such a thing, Long You believed that the other party must have some specific methods to get rid of the Sun Moon Empire's surveillance personnel.
"Alright, now that everyone understands the basic situation, let's get ready to set off. Xiao You, you might not know this, but these days, when the academy has any team activities, everyone basically leaves separately when they leave the academy."
Since we have convenient communication capabilities, there's no need to make our target too large, and incidentally, to prevent those hyenas from figuring out our final destination from the start.
"Is that so? What methods do you usually choose to break through the first layer of encirclement outside the academy?"
"There's only one way: speed. If we're fast enough, we can keep the hyenas around the academy from calling for reinforcements. That way, we'll have much less of a numerical disadvantage. Then, whether we shake off the pursuers or choose a more drastic approach to deal with them is basically up to us."
When faced with Long You's question, Bei Bei gave an answer, but the moment Long You heard the answer, his brows furrowed involuntarily.
Even without careful consideration, Long You could sense the various dangers inherent in this method. In Long You's view, leaving Shrek Academy using this method was essentially handing over the initiative of one's life to the people of the Sun Moon Empire for decision—a completely passive approach.
Fortunately, before Long You could completely furrow his brow, Bei Bei, who knew her friend well enough, continued, "Alright, no need to frown. When the Sun Moon Empire first started taking such measures to harass the academy, it was natural that the academy's disciples couldn't use this method when they went out. But now, more than a year has passed, and many things have changed."
This is Shrek Academy. No matter how well the people from the Sun Moon Empire conceal their identities, they are fighting on foreign soil. Whether it's manpower or daily life, those from the Sun Moon Empire are actually quite restricted. Furthermore, after our academy suffered losses in the early stages, the forces behind the students basically mobilized their own resources, digging deep to uncover a wave of Sun Moon Empire infiltrators.
This greatly increased the difficulty for the people of the Sun Moon Empire to enter the vicinity of the academy. After the students of the academy took advantage of their communication skills and cooperated with the academy teachers to wipe out some of the experts of the Sun Moon Empire, the Sun Moon Empire fell back into the same state of not being able to afford any more losses.
The academy now issues raid missions intermittently, while the Sun Moon Empire issues infiltration missions intermittently. The entire process has essentially become a training exercise for the students; although there are dangers, the dangers and casualties are controllable.
With Bei Bei's explanation, Long You immediately understood the key point of the whole matter: In any case, the academy and the forces of the original three kingdoms of Douluo Continent had already noticed the Sun Moon Empire's conspiracy. Under the circumstances that a full-scale war had not yet broken out, it would be very difficult for the Sun Moon Empire to send experts to invade again. The casualties would be high, and the gains would not be enough to make up for the cost. Therefore, it was unlikely that the Sun Moon Empire would send an opponent that Shrek Academy students could not completely resist.
Therefore, the enemies that Shrek Academy students face when venturing out are basically opponents of similar strength. These levels of opponents are the perfect whetstone for Shrek Academy students, who value practical combat. It is precisely because of the possibility of being attacked by multiple enemies that the academy has established a safe zone for its students. If a student leaves this zone but hasn't shaken off the pursuing enemies, they must consider seeking help or retreating back to the academy to find another opportunity.
As for those trainees who can't even detect their opponents' tracking, their skills are not up to par, and they can't blame others for the problems that arise.
Having understood this, Long You had nothing more to worry about. They could each set off on their own; with the invisibility soul tool he possessed, the Sun Moon Empire would have no chance of detecting him without deploying a level nine soul master or a Limit Douluo. After confirming the meeting point with his companions, Long You generously offered to let the others go first, while he himself would go do something else.
Well, Long You is just lazy. Waiting for others in the wild is nothing compared to waiting in the academy. Since Wang Dong'er has joined the journey, Long You has decided to slack off as much as possible. Anyway, with this addition, the team doesn't lack Long You's combat power, so for safety's sake, Long You doesn't plan to show any more of his abilities. After all, he should already be conspicuous enough in the eyes of a certain God-King.
Having found their location without incident, Long You glanced at his teammates, who remained unresponsive in the distance, and a sly smile crept across his lips. Since the purpose of this trip was to hone their teamwork and develop their skills, why not begin the training process right now!
Without hesitation, Long You increased the distance slightly and arranged a large number of combat machines around himself. Theoretically, in a battle with relatively ample time, Long You should have created an encirclement effect when setting up the battlefield. However, unfortunately, Bei Bei and the others were far from lacking in vigilance. If they were to leave the protection of these invisible soul tools that utilized the effects of spatial laws, Long You was certain that he would be exposed immediately.
Fortunately, as long as the firepower is strong enough, whether or not there is an encirclement is not important. Throughout the history of warfare, the most deadly ambushes occur when multiple ambushers are deployed. Long You knew very well that he alone could not possibly defeat seven people. Therefore, the beginning of the entire sneak attack was the only moment when Long You had a chance to inflict damage. All firepower was concentrated at this moment, and whether or not there was an encirclement was truly unimportant.
Having spent so much time in the New World, with ample free rare metal resources, Long You has truly made significant progress in his soul tool skills. Currently, although the limited protection range of his invisibility soul tools prevents him from deploying many more powerful ones, the small soul tools Long You can produce are already enough to surprise Bei Bei and the others.
"The moon is high in the sky, it's time to give gifts."
Looking up at the sky, Long You's face, hidden within his soul-guided power mech, broke into an excited smile.
"Bourne, let's begin. Human EMP to clear the way, the upgraded Thunder Hell to begin its setup, and the rest will be fixed with the flawed soul-guided cannons I created."
After quietly repeating his battle plan, Long You slowly left the prepared soul-guided array. As for Bourne, who had received the order, he immediately activated the soul-guided device that Long You had set up.
The reason why Long You dared to remove the invisible soul tool covering the soul tool array at this time was entirely because at this point, there was no need to hide the entire soul tool array. After all, Huo Yuhao was the cheat code among the seven people on the other side. The location where Long You set up the soul tool array was not far from where the seven people were resting. Once activated, there was no possibility of hiding it from Huo Yuhao.
However, although Huo Yuhao did notice the attack from Longyou at the beginning, neither Huo Yuhao, who issued the warning, nor Bei Bei and the others, who received the alert, took many effective preventative measures before the arrival of the fixed-position soul-guided cannons.
The reason for this situation was not that Beibei and the others were too lax or failed to react correctly to the prompts, but rather that Longyou had allowed Bourne to release the human EMP bomb first, which then took effect.
EMP bombs were a type of attack method used by Long You in his previous life against electronic information weapons. Their working principle can be roughly understood as these bombs interfering with the electronic magnetic field, thus causing a short circuit in electrical appliances. During his years in the New World, while creating a new generation of healing soul tools, Long You inadvertently discovered that each of the soul-powered life forms on the Douluo Continent possessed an extremely powerful and clear magnetic field.
Upon discovering this, Long You immediately conceived the idea of creating a soul tool that could target this magnetic field. Through research, Long You discovered that the more powerful a soul master (soul beast) is, the more pronounced their magnetic field characteristics become. Once this pronounced magnetic field is forcibly altered, the soul master (soul beast) will be greatly affected.
In light of this, Long You used Xiao Yan's abilities to directly deduce this soul-guided weapon specifically designed to target the magnetic field of soul masters. Although Long You already knew that this soul-guided weapon was not based on the same principle as the EMP bomb in his previous life after its development, he felt that the two things were similar in principle when naming the project! So, the new soul-guided device was hastily named "Human EMP" by Long You.
Currently, although the human EMP bomb that detonated first did not produce the paralysis effect shown in Longyou's experiment due to the distance of the explosion, it still caused Beibei and others to experience sluggishness.
Beibei and the others were quite adept at dealing with sudden attacks from soul tools, and their defensive and counter-attacking combos were incredibly smooth. However, Longyou's "slow" start made it impossible for Beibei and the others to execute their combos.