Thunderstorm · Piercing Kill Spear!

He heard the faint discussions behind him and felt several complicated gazes on his back, but his steps remained firm as he headed toward the public carriage station in the western part of the city, following the route he had planned long ago.

He hired a long-distance carriage bound for the western border.

His destination was Nuoding City in the Heaven Dou Empire.

Since he could not resolve the issue of his soul ring for the time being, perhaps the theories of this world could offer him clues or a new line of thought.

Yu Xiaogang, the Master reputed to be unrivaled in theory, had received wildly divided reviews on the forums Chen Li knew before his transmigration. Yet his foundational research on martial souls, particularly his discussions on mutated martial souls and soul ring compatibility, made him the person Chen Li could think of who was most likely to provide valuable information.

Nuoding City Junior Soul Master Academy was, as far as he knew, where Yu Xiaogang might have stayed for an extended period.

The carriage rumbled as it traveled west.

Inside the carriage, Chen Li rested with his eyes closed, but his mind remained immersed in repeatedly inventorying the items within his bracelet Soul Tool and working through his future plans.

He had to be cautious. A six-year-old child carrying a fortune and secrets was in danger everywhere when alone.

Several months later, the carriage arrived at the last small town on the western border of the Star Luo Empire.

Beyond it lay the Horag Mountain Range, stretching between the two great empires, rolling endlessly with soul beasts lurking within.

By agreement between the two nations, official carriages could not cross the border. Travelers had to pass through the border checkpoint and part of the mountain route on their own before reaching a frontier town in the Heaven Dou Empire, where they could change transportation.

After paying the fare, Chen Li rested briefly in the town and replenished his supply of fresh food and water.

He changed into a more durable leather coat and checked several child-sized self-defense crossbows with simple mechanisms, as well as short blades coated in a paralytic agent, inside his bracelet.

Then he slung his pack over his back and headed alone toward the towering mountain range that marked the border.

After passing through the busy yet laxly guarded border checkpoint, the real challenge began.

The commonly used mountain trail leading to the Heaven Dou Empire was rugged and winding, far from smooth. Dense forest surrounded it, and the air was filled with the scents of earth and vegetation. The occasional cries of unknown birds and beasts only made the woods feel deeper and more secluded.

Chen Li moved at an unhurried pace, his spiritual power highly focused. The Rumble-Rumble Fruit had granted him senses beyond those of ordinary people.

He followed the obvious paths whenever possible, avoiding areas that looked overly gloomy or bore dense traces of soul beasts.

As evening approached, the light in the forest dimmed.

Chen Li found a wind-sheltered hollow in the rocks with a relatively open view and prepared to spend the night there. He cleared the ground, scattered insect-repelling powder, then took out dried rations and water for a simple meal.

"System..." he murmured inwardly.

Where is the next check-in point? What will it bring me? Can it solve the soul ring predicament?

He knew that crossing this mountain, reaching the Heaven Dou Empire, finding Nuoding City, and meeting Yu Xiaogang might only be the start of another journey, not the end of his problems.

His path was destined to be different from that of every other Soul Master.

The night wind passed through the treetops with a mournful howl, like the whispers of the wilderness.

Chen Li's footsteps rustled softly over the accumulated fallen leaves.

The deeper he went into the Horag Mountain Range, the fainter the traces of man-made paths became. The trees around him grew taller and denser, blotting out the sky and turning the forest light dim and mottled.

The air was thick with the scent of grass and trees, mixed with the faint odor of decaying humus. Strange screeches that did not belong to ordinary birds or beasts, along with distant, indistinct roars, occasionally drifted through the woods, clearly reminding him that this was already an area where soul beasts were active, even if it was only the outer region.

He did not dare let down his guard in the slightest.

With a thought, the lightning within him pulsed gently. Threads of extremely fine blue-white ions, invisible to the naked eye like intangible feelers, silently radiated from the surface of his body and blended into the surrounding air, trees, and even the earth. This was an exploratory application of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit's basic abilities, inspired by a certain concept from memories of his previous life.

It was far from the miraculous realm of a Mind Network capable of hearing the voices of all things, but through the disruptive interactions between ions and charged particles in the environment, he could create a sensory field with a radius of roughly thirty meters.

Within that range, the movement of any sizable object—especially a living being with a biological electromagnetic field—would find it difficult to completely escape his notice.

After he had cautiously advanced for about fifteen minutes, an unusual biological electrical fluctuation came from the edge of his sensory field near a small forest stream, carrying a distinctly active lightning attribute.

Chen Li immediately stopped and concealed himself behind an ancient tree, his sharp gaze fixed in that direction. There, he saw a fierce tiger as large as an adult male lion. Its fur was blue-gray with dark golden stripes, and two long saber teeth protruded from its mouth as it drank from the stream.

Tiny sparks flickered around its body. It was a Thunder Saber-toothed Tiger, one of the fiercer ten-year soul beasts. Judging by its aura and the intensity of its electricity, its cultivation was around fifty years.

The Thunder Saber-toothed Tiger seemed to sense something as well. Its drinking paused, and its massive head snapped up, nostrils flaring rapidly. The next instant, those beastly eyes flashing with vicious electricity locked precisely onto the direction where Chen Li was hiding!

I've been discovered?

Chen Li frowned slightly. In his ion-based perception, there were several weaker ten-year soul beasts nearby, but they did not seem to have noticed him. Only this Thunder Saber-toothed Tiger, which was sensitive to lightning...

ROAR!

A deafening roar suddenly exploded, shattering the silence of the forest!

The Thunder Saber-toothed Tiger had clearly regarded Chen Li as either an intruder into its territory or a tasty piece of prey. The violent nature of a lightning-attributed soul beast was fully provoked.

Its limbs drove into the ground, sending mud flying. Its enormous body, wrapped in suddenly blazing electric light, charged straight at the tree where Chen Li hid like a blue-gold bolt of lightning!

As it charged, the lightning around its body violently converged around its head and saber teeth, forming an expanding cone of crackling lightning. It was its innate attack method: Lightning Charge!

It was incredibly fast and fiercely imposing, far beyond an ordinary wild beast!

Facing an attack that would have put even ordinary Soul Masters on high alert, Chen Li showed no panic in his eyes. He stepped out from behind the tree and faced the charging beast head-on.

"Not having a soul ring doesn't mean I'm a lamb waiting to be slaughtered."

Chen Li muttered softly, raising his right hand and spreading his fingers toward the frenzied lightning tiger. "Perfect. I'll use you to test the most basic transformation of lightning."

"Thunderstorm · Piercing Kill Spear!"

The surging lightning Soul Power within him erupted—not in a disorderly burst, but under his precise control, rapidly gathering and taking shape before his palm!

The dazzling blue-white lightning compressed and stretched wildly. In an instant, a lightning spear more than two meters long took form, entirely composed of highly condensed lightning, its spearhead incomparably sharp and fine electric arcs coiling around its body!