Soul Hunting Squad

A few days later, the Soul Hunting squad was formed.

The Soul Master leading the team was Wei Lin, a 55-year-old, rank 78 Power Attack System Soul Saint whose Martial Soul was the Riftwind Blade. His regular job was deputy captain of the academy's enforcement team, where he mainly patrolled the academy, prevented enemies or spies from infiltrating it, and maintained order.

Just as Yan had expected, the Soul Master leading the hunt was indeed a Soul Saint, and a veteran one at that.

The academy's arrangements might have seemed excessive, but a Soul Saint had been assigned not just to hunt Soul Beasts, but even more to guard against other factions.

Spirit Hall was powerful, but it had enemies too. Evil Soul Masters had yet to become a major force on the Douluo Continent, but there was still no shortage of Soul Masters who committed evil.

"Those with martial prowess use it to break the law" was an objective reality in this world. Not every Soul Master was willing to follow the rules and leave ordinary people utterly unharmed.

Many Soul Masters who had no hope of advancing used their martial strength to ride roughshod over ordinary people, throwing their weight around and even committing atrocities that angered heaven and man alike.

Given the current level of civilization across the continent, a high-rank Soul Master who kept a low enough profile would have little difficulty seizing a territory and ruling it as a local emperor.

Much of the time, local authorities lacked the ability to handle cases involving Soul Masters, so they could only hand them over to the local Spirit Hall, which would then investigate, pursue, and try the Soul Masters involved.

Thus, although no formal law stipulated it, Spirit Hall had in practice always managed the vast majority of Rogue Soul Masters on the continent. That was also one reason Spirit Hall registered Soul Masters and kept records of them.

Spirit Hall might have been internally corrupt, divided, organizationally rigid, and possessed of enormous ambitions, but its existence was indeed, objectively speaking, the rein that kept the Soul Master community from falling into depravity as a whole.

But that had also earned it many enemies.

Spirit Hall's branches had sprung up everywhere. In an age when royal authority did not reach the countryside, Spirit Hall had managed to establish itself at the village level. How could so many factions not view it with fear and hostility?

They could not stand against Spirit Hall as a whole, but they could pick on soft persimmons, such as the young seedlings Spirit Hall prized so highly. If Spirit Hall dared let its promising geniuses go out alone, it could expect to collect their corpses!

During Spirit Hall's rapid expansion, its young seedlings had been secretly assassinated from time to time. Although such incidents were rare now, there was still no room for carelessness.

A Soul Saint leading the team was enough to deter many petty villains.

Besides Wei Lin, who was leading the expedition, and Yan, who needed to hunt a Soul Beast, the group included Zhou You, Zhang Ping, Hu Liena, and Xie Yue, who had come along because he was worried about his younger sister.

Sun Chuantao had originally wanted to tag along too, but he clearly lacked a good enough reason and had failed to persuade Liu Suxin.

As a result, Zhang Ping seemed somewhat outnumbered in the group.

Although it might have been her imagination, she always felt that everyone around her was looking at her, which made her very uneasy.

So when the group assembled, she stayed quietly beside Zhou You the whole time, as though he had become the only person she could rely on.

Zhou You glanced at her but said nothing.

Take someone's money, take care of their troubles. He at least had that much professional integrity.

Wei Lin looked at the little radish heads before him, his eyelids twitching slightly. He took a deep breath, already feeling a faint regret over volunteering for the job.

He had originally thought he would only need to look after Yan. How easy would that be? So he had accepted the assignment without another word.

Then Zhou You had been added. He had thought that was still fine, but things had soon started to go wrong. Zhang Ping, Hu Liena, and finally even that brat Xie Yue had come along.

He was almost numb. Liu, are you making me babysit for you?

But he could only grumble inwardly. After all, these little brats were all Spirit Hall's precious treasures. Even Zhang Ping, who seemed the least conspicuous, was a member of the elite class and would count as a genius wherever she went.

Wei Lin had volunteered for the job precisely to forge a good connection. Perhaps he could even use that experience to advance in the future.

So even though he was nearly cursing up a storm inside, he showed none of it on his face and even tried to force a kindly expression.

"Is everyone here? Then let's set off."

What a creepy smile, the little radish heads unanimously thought.

For this trip, the academy had prepared two carriages for the group, one for the passengers and one for their belongings.

Zhou You stuffed his backpack into the second carriage and kept the Eye of Truth on him.

He had spent the past few days studying it but had yet to figure anything out. This was a field he had never encountered before.

The carriage was not particularly large, just big enough to hold the belongings the children had brought with them. The Soul Saint, however, had brought nothing at all.

Zhou You guessed that he must have a storage Soul Tool on him, and felt a little envious.

Soul Hunting was actually quite time-consuming, because no one could predict when or where the Soul Beast they needed would appear.

As a result, Soul Hunting squads spent most of their time searching for and tracking their prey. It was a dull, monotonous process, utterly devoid of excitement.

A Soul Beast breeding base was not like an ordinary household, where one simply fenced off some land and herded Soul Beasts inside to raise as livestock.

Instead, it involved artificially modifying a natural environment where Soul Beasts already lived, preserving its basic ecology while turning it into an area better suited for low-rank Soul Masters to explore.

Most of Spirit Hall's Soul Beast breeding bases were established on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest. Artificial barriers were built and connected to natural mountain ranges, physically separating the enclosed areas from the inner regions of Star Dou.

Angel God Statues were also erected along the boundaries. The Power of Faith and residual divine power contained within them would drive back Soul Beasts of greater age, making them afraid to take even one step across the forbidden boundary.

However, to Soul Beasts more than ten thousand years old and possessed of greater intelligence, the Angel God Statues were mere decorations.

Zhou You raised this question with Wei Lin, who answered him amiably.

"For those more intelligent Soul Beasts, provoking a behemoth like Spirit Hall over a few low-rank Soul Masters isn't worth it, so they try to stay away from the areas we've enclosed."

"Soul Beasts over ten thousand years old are already no less intelligent than humans. The Angel God Statues standing there serve as both a deterrent and a warning to them. They weigh the pros and cons, seeking benefit and avoiding harm, so they actually follow the rules better than populations of Soul Beasts with a thousand years of cultivation or less."

Although Wei Lin's expression remained restrained as he spoke, the pride in his voice was unmistakable. Zhou You looked around and found that the others wore expressions of shared pride as well.

He felt a little out of place here...

The journey was not especially long, but it would still take several hours to reach their destination. Zhou You took the opportunity to ask the Soul Saint many questions.

He focused particularly on some details of the "Martial Soul Avatar." In Zhou You's deductions, it was a very important dividing line in the Soul Master cultivation system.

Thanks to his previous experience, he did not probe too deeply this time, touching only briefly on many of his questions.

Even so, Wei Lin's back broke out in a sweat under his questioning. He simply managed his expression well enough that no one else noticed.

Only when Zhou You finally settled down did he discreetly breathe a sigh of relief. What the hell? he thought.

If Zhou You had asked even a little more, his lack of knowledge would have shown!

Like most other Soul Masters, Wei Lin relied on experience. When it came to theory, he too knew how things worked but not why.

His understanding of the essence of Martial Souls, Soul Power, and Mental Power was even inferior to Zhou You's. Thus, he did not know that Zhou You had already gauged his level from those questions and had only refrained from probing further to spare him some embarrassment.

Wei Lin was not the only one who felt as though he were sitting on pins and needles. The other young Soul Masters traveling with them also looked as though they were listening to a heavenly scripture.

Yan had expected this, so he gave up thinking altogether. As long as his boss was awesome, that was all that mattered.

At first, Xie Yue tried hard to follow along, but eventually his head began to spin. Unable to keep up, he could only give up and sit there sulking by himself.

Hu Liena's feelings were complicated. She was displeased at having her intelligence crushed, yet also felt an admiration she could not quite put into words, as though someone like him ought to perform this way.

Zhang Ping stared at Zhou You with wide eyes, admiring him inwardly and surprised that he actually dared to speak this way with a Soul Saint.

She had noticed that the Soul Saint was not as confident as he appeared. Several times, his answers had obviously faltered...

Hu Liena noticed the look in her eyes. Her eyes darted, and she struck up a conversation with her.