Sacred Soul Village

Sacred Soul Village.

If one only heard its name, it would certainly sound astonishing. In reality, however, it was merely a small village south of Nuoding City in Fasnuo Province, with just over three hundred households. It was called Sacred Soul Village because legend said that a Soul Saint-level soul master had emerged from here a hundred years ago.

This was also Sacred Soul Village's everlasting pride!

In the early morning, warm sunlight once again spilled over the quiet, peaceful village. Mist drifted through the woods, crystalline dew slid from tender Blue Silver Grass, startling sleeping fawns awake.

In one corner of Sacred Soul Village, white cooking smoke slowly rose from a small house.

In the little courtyard outside the house, two figures stood facing each other.

"What are you looking at?" the burly middle-aged man asked the child before him.

The child, around five or six years old, stared fixedly at him with wide eyes. Seeing this, a smile curled across his lips. "Then why are you looking at me?"

The middle-aged man's mouth twitched, his eyes narrowing slightly. His right fist suddenly shot toward the child's face, tearing through the air with fierce force. He clearly showed no mercy.

The child showed no surprise. Only when the man's fist was less than three fist-widths from his face did he say with a grin, "Dad, you're getting slower and slower."

At the same time, the child raised his small right hand. Though he moved later, he struck first, steadily catching the middle-aged man's punch. The large and small arms looked utterly mismatched, yet the large hand could not move the little hand in the slightest. It stopped one fist-width from the child's face.

The little hand seemed to want to grasp the larger one, but the difference in size was simply too great, leaving him no choice but to give up.

When his first attack failed, the middle-aged man decisively swept a leg at the child. The child lightly leaped up, then stomped down hard, landing squarely on the man's shin.

"Ow, damn it! Brat, get off me! You're going to break it!" the middle-aged man cried out in pain, begging repeatedly.

Standing on the man's shin, the child said leisurely, "Dad, you really are getting weaker and weaker. You used to be able to teach me a few fighting techniques, but now you can't even take two moves from me."

"Ah, how boring." One hand behind his back, his youthful face tilted forty-five degrees toward the sky, he wore an expression of utter melancholy.

The middle-aged man's face twitched violently. A wave of bitterness rose in his heart, and he felt utterly humiliated.

But this kid was a complete freak. Even someone born with divine strength shouldn't be this outrageous, right?

"Are you really my son?" the middle-aged man complained.

"Not your son? If he's not your son, whose son is he?" At that moment, a plainly dressed woman walked out of the house. She happened to hear the man's words and immediately flew into a rage. A Wok Spatula suddenly appeared in her hand, and she swung it fiercely at him.

Seeing this, the child grinned and hopped off the middle-aged man's shin, laughing from the side.

Freed from restraint, the middle-aged man immediately began dodging. The woman refused to let up, chasing him around the courtyard and beating at him as he begged for mercy again and again.

Watching from the side, Zhao Xuan's thoughts gradually drifted away.

That's right, you weren't seeing things. This child, barely five or six years old, was Zhao Xuan. Even Zhao Xuan himself had no idea why he had been reborn with his memories intact, arriving in a world utterly different from his previous life.

Perhaps it had something to do with those strange things after his death, but they were no longer what concerned him now.

Here, he was a brand-new Zhao Xuan! A Zhao Xuan with a complete family!

His father, Zhao Shi, had once been a Martial Master with decent skills. But in this world where martial souls reigned supreme, personal strength alone was useless. Zhao Shi's martial soul happened to be a useless one—a hoe. After traveling outside for half a year, Zhao Shi returned to Sacred Soul Village in despair and settled down as a farmer. Thanks to Sacred Soul Village's location, farming was not a bad profession, and they managed to get by.

His mother, Mu Qin, was a farmer's daughter from a neighboring village of Sacred Soul Village. Her martial soul was also a useless one—a Wok Spatula. Somehow, through a twist of fate, she ended up marrying Zhao Shi.

Zhao Xuan often teased Zhao Shi. Though his mother was not a breathtaking beauty, she was at least a rare and lovely girl from a humble family. How had she fallen for a brute like him?

Whenever that came up, Zhao Shi would always look proud. All the villages within ten miles had useless martial souls, but none of them could beat these fists of mine.

Although Zhao Xuan often mocked him, he had also grown curious about these miraculous martial souls.

But it'll be soon.

A few days later, soul masters from Nuoding City would send someone to awaken the children's martial souls.

After Mu Qin finished dealing with Zhao Shi, she called out to Zhao Xuan, "Son, breakfast is ready."

Zhao Xuan answered, then went inside. After finishing breakfast, he greeted the two of them and hurried out the door.

Once outside, Zhao Xuan did not wander around. He headed straight for a small hill beyond the village.

At the top of the hill, a familiar figure sat cross-legged.

A smile tugged at Zhao Xuan's lips. He crept quietly behind the figure, about to startle him, when a helpless voice reached him first.

"Xiao Xuan, can you stop being so bored?"

Zhao Xuan curled his lips, lay down beside the figure, casually plucked a stalk of Blue Silver Grass, and put it in his mouth to chew.

The figure was another child of five or six. Perhaps because he often basked in the sun's warmth, his skin had a healthy wheat-colored glow. His short black hair looked neat and tidy, and though his clothes were plain, they were clean.

He gently closed his eyes. A moment later, he opened them again, and a faint, barely noticeable violet gleam flashed through them.

"Xiao San, what's so interesting about staring at the sun every day? You'd be better off sleeping at home." The child was named Tang San. He was also a child of Sacred Soul Village, and Zhao Xuan's only playmate.

It was rather strange. There were several other children their age in Sacred Soul Village, yet Zhao Xuan and Tang San, these two seemingly withdrawn children, had become companions.

Others might say it was because they were both "withdrawn" children, so perhaps they got along better.

But only the two of them knew that they had been drawn to each other by a strange attraction. Perhaps they were alike, but it was certainly not because they were supposedly "withdrawn."

After all, Zhao Xuan did not play with the other children simply because his mental age was far older than theirs. As for Tang San, perhaps it was because of that similarly "mature" way of thinking.

"I told you already, this is a peculiar cultivation method. I can teach it to you," Tang San said softly. His voice was gentle, with a warm, jade-like quality.

Zhao Xuan shook his head. "No. You've been staring at the sun for who knows how long, and you still haven't mastered it. I have no idea how long it would take me to learn it."

Tang San looked at Zhao Xuan seriously. "Nothing can be accomplished overnight. Even dripping water can wear through stone. If you settle down and cultivate, with your talent, you should be able to get started quickly."

Zhao Xuan suddenly propped himself up and looked Tang San straight in the eye. "Say, Xiao San..."

"What?" Tang San looked at Zhao Xuan curiously.

"You should just change your name to Tang Sanzang." Zhao Xuan looked at Tang San with a serious expression at first, but the next moment, he could not help laughing.

"Tang Sanzang? Who... is that?" Tang San looked utterly confused, searching his memories for anyone named Tang Sanzang.

Seeing Tang San's honest expression, Zhao Xuan suddenly found it rather boring. His eyes shifted as he said, "Xiao San, how about we spar?"

Tang San's body stiffened. Then he forced a smile at Zhao Xuan. "I still need to cook for my dad. Maybe next time."

Before Zhao Xuan could react, Tang San hurriedly used Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track to flee. Zhao Xuan could not help feeling depressed. "Is it really that scary?"

Tang San, who had not run far, stumbled to a halt and smiled bitterly. Scary was an understatement—it was downright life-threatening!

Whenever Tang San recalled how Zhao Xuan had accidentally smashed a tree as thick as a bowl with one punch, he would feel a lingering fear. Was that really something a human could do?

Zhao Xuan looked depressed as he blankly watched the rising morning sun.

"Come to think of it, I haven't eaten anything weird. Why has my physical constitution become so strong?"

(PS: As for why the two have similar mentalities, Tang San had been a shut-in for many years while making the Buddha Rage Tang Lotus, while Zhao Xuan had also been a shut-in for many years as a hacker.)

(PS: As for Zhao Xuan's physique, his soul had undergone the baptism of chaos and acquired a trace of the nature of a Chaos Demon God. The soul affected the body.)

(The early part did not escape the clichés of fanfiction, so there was too much content following the original work. The author will improve it later. Also, the protagonist's original world can be seen as a parallel world where there was no novel called Douluo Continent, so he did not know the so-called plot.)