"Teleportation and plant control, eh? Good, those are two more facets of this soul skill's abilities," Yun Ming nodded to himself in a contemplative manner as he mused, "Which means that if you can fully control this soul skill, you'll have attained teleportation abilities within a set area, the ability to control all plants within that area, and a significant temporary boost in your soul power, is that correct?"

Tang Wulin replied, "That seems to be the case. However, I can't really control the soul skill. I could only sense this much before I completely blacked out."

Yun Ming nodded, and said, "It's already quite remarkable that you were able to sense this much. From now on, don't even think about using this soul skill until you attain your eighth soul ring and get your spiritual power up to the Spirit Domain realm."

Tang Wulin faltered upon hearing this. "So you're saying I won't be able to unleash this soul skill unless I possess the soul power of a Soul Douluo?"

Yun Ming replied, "That's right. At least, that's my assessment from the amount of soul power that I had to inject into your body at the time. It's good a thing that you cultivated the Mysterious Heaven Method; if you want to forcibly unleash this soul skill, you'll only be able to do so with other people who've also cultivated the Mysterious Heaven Method injecting their soul power into your body. However, most people can't control their soul power output to the extent that only pure soul power without any attributes from their martial souls is transmitted. Hence, don't attempt this unless you absolutely have to. Otherwise, the attributes from the martial souls of others will affect you, and that could even cause deviations in your cultivation."

Of course, Yun Ming was an exception to this. With his immense power and control, it was naturally a simple task to ensure the output of soul power in its purest form, but that didn't apply to most other people.

Tang Wulin gulped upon hearing this. Spirit Domain realm spiritual power? That still seemed to be very far away from him! On top of that, who knew how long it would take until he became an eight-ring Soul Douluo?Unfortunately, this soul skill clearly couldn't be fuelled using his blood essence power. As such, as opposed to becoming excited by the fact that he'd obtained such a powerful soul skill, Tang Wulin was feeling rather dejected.

Regardless of how good this soul skill was, there was no point in its existence if he couldn't use it! If he had to wait until becoming a Soul Douluo to use this fifth soul skill, then it wouldn't be able to enhance his power in any way in the immediate future, which made it a rather useless skill for now.

Furthermore, even if he were to use it in the future, he'd have to get his spiritual power up to the Spirit Domain realm first, and that was certainly not going to be a simple task.

The Spirit Abyss realm was already the upper limit for the vast majority of Soul Masters, and even though the Spirit Domain realm was only the next realm above the Spirit Abyss realm, there was a massive gulf between the two of them.

Tang Wulin's spiritual power was only able to reach the Spirit Abyss realm as he'd been blessed by the residual will of countless true dragons after burying their skeletons in their Dragon Valley, but that was an extremely rare opportunity.

As such, if he couldn't use this soul skill before his spiritual power reached the Spirit Domain realm, then it was like a powerful tool that he could only see yet not use; how could he not be frustrated by this?

However, Yun Ming clearly wasn't of the same opinion. He had thought about many things during Tang Wulin's period of unconsciousness, and his eyes were glowing as he said, "If you want to be able to make use of this soul skill, I think you should focus more of your attention on enhancing your spiritual power than improving your soul power. There are only a limited number of ways through which spiritual power can be cultivated. You're currently cultivating the Purple Demon Eyes, which will assist you in that regard, but the cultivation of the Purple Demon Eyes is something that can't be rushed. As such, I'll try to find some cultivation methods for you that are specifically designed to improve one's spiritual power."

"Thank you."

At this moment, Yun Ming's expression suddenly darkened. "However, you must be held accountable for stripping the Golden Tree of 30% of its power. Following a meeting between myself and the elders of the Sea God's Pavilion, we've already decided on your punishment."

A punishment?

Tang Wulin's heart jolted upon hearing this.

What was it going to be? Whatever it was, he was willing to accept it as long it didn't affect his cultivation.

Yun Ming continued, "You're going to have to leave the academy for a period of time to train in the outside world. This doesn't just apply to you, but also to all of the other members of Shrek's Seven Monsters. All of you are young and extremely talented, so what you need now is to accrue practical experience through hardships. You'll all be sent to the federal army, where you'll be undergoing the most rigorous training. Only after you obtain the approval of the army will you be allowed to return."

Military training as punishment? A peculiar look appeared in Tang Wulin's eyes. How could the army provide rigorous training for them? They were among the best disciples Shrek Academy had to offer, and they were all one-word battle armor masters!

In the outside world, they would be considered to be very powerful Soul Masters already; how was military training supposed to be difficult for them in any way?

Tang Wulin was rather confused.

However, the smile on Yun Ming's face struck him with a sense of foreboding. The smile was rather peculiar to behold, and Tang Wulin couldn't help but feel that it seemed to be a rather cruel smile, as if Yun Ming were deriving some kind of gloating pleasure from this.

"This army is technically part of the federation, but in reality, they don't belong to the federation. In other words, even the federation is unaware of just how powerful they are. Once you get there, you'll find out how difficult it is to join this army. Rest here for today; you can go back tomorrow after you've recovered somewhat. We'll give you a few days to prepare, and you'll be setting off immediately right after you've fully recovered."

Yun Ming was clearly intentionally keeping everything quite vague, so Tang Wulin naturally couldn't ask too many questions. An army that could be held in such high regard by the master of the Sea God's Pavilion clearly wasn't any ordinary army! But what could they be? He didn't know much about the military, so he couldn't derive an answer no matter how much he thought about it.

As such, he decided to abandon that train of thought altogether. He had experienced so many hardships already; all he had to do was overcome any obstacles that were thrown his way, regardless of what they were. Besides, this was just military training; it was no big deal.

The stir that ran through the entire Shrek City by the sightings of golden plants quickly died down. In the eyes of most people, this had most likely been the result of one of the unfathomably powerful beings of Shrek Academy testing out one of their abilities. Of course, this incident enshrouded Shrek Academy in an extra layer of mystery and intrigue.

Five days later. Tang Wulin and his friends were ordered to gather on a plaza in the inner court of the academy.

Elder Cai of the Sea God's Pavilion was already there to greet them.

The sense of foreboding in Tang Wulin's heart became even more pronounced at the sight of Elder Cai. Every time she assigned them with a mission, it was always quite a difficult mission to complete.

"Military training with a minimum duration of a year?" Everyone else had also received this news, and just like Tang Wulin, they were also completely in the dark about just what this military training entailed.

Tang Wulin looked at his friends, all of whom were also looking back at him. Tang Wulin had been living on the Sea God's Island for the past few days, so this was their first meeting in a while. To be more accurate, Tang Wulin had rarely ever appeared before them during the past six months unless it was to forge uncommon metals for their suits of battle armor.

He'd initially been planning to pay a visit to Divine Blacksmith Zhen Hua, but he clearly didn't have any time to go now. He'd just have to wait until after this stint of military training. Feng Wuyu had already bestowed upon him the techniques, requirements, and cultivation methods required to succeed in soul forgeries; all that was left now was for him to find his own way.

"What's going on, Captain?" Yue Zhengyu asked in a quiet voice. He was standing right beside Tang Wulin while Xu Xiaoyan was situated on the other side of the group, which was a clear indication that their relationship was still quite strained, despite the fact that everything seemed to have gone back to normal.

Tang Wulin shook his head, and replied, "I don't know what this military training entails, either, but I can tell you that this is a punishment handed down to me by Elder Yun himself."

Everyone's jaws fell to the ground in unison upon hearing this.

Yun Ming was arguably the most powerful being on the entire Douluo Continent! If this military training were a punishment that had been handed down by him, then there was no way that it was normal military training.

At this moment, Elder Cai had already made her way over to them. She cleared her throat, and said, "You've all grown up, and military service is a mandatory undertaking for every citizen of the federation. You've all come of age, so consider this your mandatory military service. There's no set time frame, but the military training will span a maximum of two years. I hope you can all complete it before coming back."

I hope you can all complete it? Why did that sound so unsettling?!

Xie Xie couldn't help but ask, "Elder Cai, can you tell us what kind of military service this is going to be?"

Elder Cai glanced at him, and replied, "Do you think I can just go around spilling confidential information from the military? The only thing I can tell you is that less than 30 people from our academy have undertaken this military service, yet only four were able to complete the entire two-year term. I was not one of those four."

A stunned look appeared on Tang Wulin's face. "Do these 30 people also include the elders of the Sea God's Pavilion?"

Elder Cai nodded in response. "Of course, but not all of the elders have undertaken this military service. Alright, there's no point for you to overthink things; you won't be getting any useful information from me anyway. As opposed to considering all of these pointless matters, it's better for you to make more preparations instead. I hope all of you can reap bountiful rewards from this stint of military service. Now then, I'm going to elaborate on some matters that need to be addressed."