Volume 24, Chapter 214.1: Love at First Sight, Love at Second Sight
What could he do by leaping two meters into the air? He Caitou immediately gave them an answer!
The soul thruster behind his back erupted with strong light, propelling him forward with bedazzling speed. He wasn’t surging forward with this rapid motion, but diagonally upwards instead.
He was already in midair when two enormous wings from a flying-type soul tool extended behind his back. The radiance of soul power burst forth, and he appeared in the sky above the female students in no time.
The wings began to change shape at this moment. They shifted forward speedily, and became like the surface of an umbrella as they circled around He Caitou’s chest. Light was released downwards, a little weaker than before. He Caitou used this propulsive force to hover in the sky, and his nimble manipulations were extremely impressive.
“Watch out, everyone.” He Caitou’s hands began to move as he spoke.
He was tall and robust, so he was dense and clumsy to a certain extent. However, his hands displayed unnatural agility as black metal lumps flew out from his hands and dropped directly into the water. There were several hundred of them.
What are those? Every single young woman thought at the same time.
With He Caitou’s previous performance, the girls saw him as someone who was both straightforward and extremely reckless. They subconsciously assumed those things to be some powerful explosives, and even if they weren’t familiar with soul engineers, they knew that they shouldn’t come into contact with the things soul engineers tossed out.
Almost all the young women reacted the same way – everyone leapt up.
Seventeen figures soared into the sky, while the black metal lumps dropped into the water one after another. But… nothing happened.
He Caitou chuckled, and he pointed downwards with his finger. A single beam of light tunneled into the water, and a magical scene appeared immediately afterwards.
The water’s surface suddenly lit up, and several hundred pillars of light burst out from underneath the water piercing through the lake’s surface, instantly covering all seventeen girls.
What attack is this? The girls weren’t sure. However, they didn’t feel threatened at all.
The speed of light was indescribably fast. Some girls who reacted fast enough unleashed their defensive soul skills, while other girls who didn’t feel threatened at all were struck by the beam of light while they were still shocked and surprised.
The pillars of light didn’t represent any threat at all, and didn’t do anything to their bodies. However, there was a gentle repulsion force.
Three hats! Of the seventeen girls, besides those whose hats had already been lifted, three more bamboo hats were blown away!
“He’s such a liar! He was pretending before this!..” Han Ruoruo was the sharpest, and she reacted at the first possible moment. He Caitou had been setting this up ever since he had pretended to want to use a Class 7 soul tool against them from the beginning. This was the reason why he made the girls leap into the air at the same time as he threw out those metal balls, instead of defending themselves against the soul tools he had tossed out.
He had managed to achieve his goal! Even though nobody knew how he did it, the pillars of light carrying an air flow were shot out from beneath the water.
He Caitou chortled in midair, and another soul cannon appeared on his shoulder. Before the girls could react, he fired his cannon. This cannon didn’t have a specific target. Instead, he relied on the powerful recoil to fly backwards rapidly. This soul cannon was used as a soul thruster, and not only was it extremely quick, but it could be used to fly backwards, so there was no need for a soul thruster to be strapped around his chest like Huo Yuhao had.
Huo Yuhao wasn’t the only one who had improved in the two and a half years at the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy. He Caitou didn’t reveal much from day to day, but his skill with soul tools was one of the highest among all the students.
“He Caitou!” Fan Yu shouted angrily. The cannon shell He Caitou fired was coincidentally launched in their direction, and even though it landed in the water several meters away from the boat, it still caused an eruption of water and mist.
Qian Duoduo laughed heartily and said, “This fella is becoming more and more mischievous. He must have been influenced by Bei Bei and Xu Sanshi.”
Bei Bei’s face was already starting to turn black from anger at what He Caitou was doing. Then he heard Qian Duoduo’s loud and bright voice, and his face turned even blacker. He glared at He Caitou with even more vengeful eyes.
Xu Sanshi felt even more lost and wronged. This, this isn’t my fault at all, but I’m still blamed anyway! Caitou has been with Yuhao over the past two years – what’s that got to do with me?
He Caitou returned steadily to his leaf, the recklessness and clumsiness from before having disappeared entirely. He chuckled as he dropped down and waved at the girls before him, but his eyes were fixed on Xiao Xiao from beginning to end.
Xiao Xiao was initially a little astonished when He Caitou made his move. She met his passionate gaze, and her face began to heat up, so she lowered her head. However, a bald black head began to sway in her mind, and she felt as if she could see the same person from four years ago on the stage during the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Dueling Tournament, the same person who gave everything he had. Two years have gone by – how has he become even darker than before?
If He Caitou knew what Xiao Xiao was thinking, he would definitely reply with tears trickling down his face, Dear, it’s nighttime! Won’t we all become a little darker than usual…?
No matter how Huo Yuhao and He Caitou had accomplished this feat, the two of them managed to remove eight bamboo hats in total. Of the seventeen girls, less than a third still had their hats on, but this included the second girl from the left that Huo Yuhao had been watching from the beginning. The bamboo hat on her head still seemed as stable as ever.
The rest of the first segment was much faster than before. The male students came out one by one, and everyone displayed their skills and abilities. Some people tried to play cheap tricks, but perhaps He Caitou had given the girls too strong an impression, and it didn’t end well for them. It didn’t take long before two more dropped into the water, and after the first segment, only thirty-six male students were left from the original thirty-nine.
There were three more girls who still had their bamboo hats on. One of them was the girl that had caught Huo Yuhao’s attention, the one who had a hundred year soul ring, and a thousand year soul ring right afterwards. This was greatly disappointing, as he would be able to judge better if he could see her appearance.
After the first segment, the inner courtyard’s students were roused, and their emotions completely worked up. Huo Yuhao was in the first row, and he could acutely feel the eyes all around him; everyone had passionate and fiery gazes.
Most of the guys were watching the girls of their dreams. Of the girls that had already revealed themselves, Jiang Nannan was still the prettiest, and her enchanting looks almost made everyone else look bad. However, everyone knew the perennial entanglement between Xu Sanshi and Jiang Nannan, so most of the guys didn’t think about her at all. In the end, Jiang Nannan had never showed feeling to any other guy, including Xu Sanshi.
They were going to switch positions next. They would be rearranged according to the number of bamboo hats they had removed in the previous round. Huo Yuhao was mercilessly placed first with his tally of five bamboo hats.
Bei Bei raised his voice and said, “We are moving into the second segment. After the first round of getting to know each other, the next round is for the girls to express who they like. Therefore, the second segment is called Love at First Sight. The rules are simple – every girl will receive a switch, which is used to control the soul lamp beneath them. They will turn on their lamps for the guys, and the guys will continue into the subsequent segment as long as they have at least one lamp lit. If a guy doesn’t have a single lamp at all, then he will have to regrettably remove himself for the evening.”
Huo Yuhao vividly remembered that Bei Bei had told them that the second segment was the shortest. However, it was an important test for the guys – no matter how powerful you were, or how outstanding you thought you were, you would immediately forfeit if not a single girl kept her lamp on for you. There were many more guys than girls after all, so this segment was meant to simplify the situation.
Huo Yuhao was at the front, and he was the first person to face this important assessment.
“Please give it some serious thought, Sea God’s Fairies. You will have one minute – you have to be sure! Let me emphasize once more, if you don’t leave your lamp on for any of the thirty-six guys, then that also means that you are giving up this Blind Date, and you will have to leave this area of the Sea God’s Lake.”
The girls naturally had their own plans. They seemed exceptionally calm as they stood out there above the lake, and nobody knew if they already had someone they liked.
One minute quickly passed, and Bei Bei continued the event at Zhang Lexuan’s signal.
“Alright, the second segment, Love at First Sight, shall begin. First, the Sea God’s Fairies will leave their lamps on for Huo Yuhao. During this second segment, leaving your lamps on for him doesn’t mean you will have to choose him in the end. You can give him a chance as long as you have a good impression of him, and you can also give yourself this chance. I trust that he will pay attention to the girls who leave their lamps on for him. Begin.”
Huo Yuhao would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. He stared at the seventeen girls in the distance, and could clearly feel his heartbeat speeding up. His mind was a complete blank at this moment, and no matter how good his judgment normally was, he had no idea how many girls would leave their lamps on for him.
“Three, two, one.” Bei Bei began his countdown, and suddenly a single golden lamp was extinguished.
Huo Yuhao focused his eyes on the one who extinguished the lamp. Wasn’t that Wu Feng?
There was an indifferent look on Wu Feng’s face as she raised her chin haughtily in Huo Yuhao’s direction.