They could gather specific materials from these particular Soul Beasts and use them to make equipment or prepare certain medicinal ingredients after returning.
At the very least, they could cut up meat containing trace amounts of energy and take it back as food to supplement their cultivation.
Creatures like Qianjun Ants were small, low in age, and had very little meat. They also lived in groups and were difficult to deal with, making them the quintessential pests that nobody liked.
After they circumnavigated the Qianjun Ant nest, it felt as if they had suddenly entered the true depths of Star Dou Forest. All kinds of Soul Beasts appeared in greater numbers.
Along the way, Shen Feng and the others had skirted several troublesome Soul Beast gathering places. They had also taken action many times, killing a few foolish Soul Beasts that had tried to ambush them and gathering a small amount of valuable meat and materials, which they stored in the Storage Soul Tools they carried.
Of course, during this process, Shen Feng had also seen Soul Rings that had yet to be absorbed by Soul Masters firsthand.
He had even personally shot and killed a Soul Beast, getting an early taste of what it felt like to take a life.
At dusk, following Shen Rui's directions, they left the dense forest and arrived at a valley where the vegetation was relatively sparse.
"Xiao Feng, look. That's the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo."
Following Shen Rui's gesture, they saw an extremely steep cliff. A small patch of battered blue bamboo grew at its summit, seemingly ordinary Thunder Sword Bamboo.
Not far below the top of the cliff, about a hundred meters above the ground, a massive boulder jutted slightly out from the rock face. In the narrow gap between the boulder and the cliff, a faint hint of purple swayed gently in the valley breeze.
It seemed that only by growing halfway up the mountain could this Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo avoid the brunt of the violent lightning strikes and successfully advance after so many Thunder Sword Bamboo had perished.
And because it grew in such a hidden place, it had gone undiscovered for all these years, eventually cultivating for around eight hundred years and waiting for Shen Feng, the person best suited to it, to arrive.
When all was said and done, it was all part of Heaven's mysterious arrangements. It was fate.
Flender gazed up at the cliff. "That's quite high. Xiao Feng, want me to take you up?"
Shen Feng knew Flender could fly and could easily carry him up, but he shook his head anyway. He hadn't had a chance to show off yet.
"Thank you, Dean Flender, but I have my own way."
"Dad, take out the Breaker. I want to hunt my own Soul Ring."
Seeing what Shen Feng was thinking, Shen Rui shook his head helplessly. "Take it easy. Don't hurt yourself."
As he spoke, Shen Rui took the massive weapon, over two meters long, out of his Storage Soul Tool and gently set it on the ground.
Then he took out four enormous bullets, each 45 millimeters thick and 30 centimeters long, and handed them to Shen Feng.
"T-this is a gun too?" Flender stared, dumbfounded.
He had never imagined that firearms, which had once been so small and compact, could be made into such an enormous weapon.
Shen Feng pursed his lips, forcibly suppressing the grin tugging at his mouth. "Dean Flender, no need to act so surprised."
"Crossbows come in hand-held and siege varieties, so why is it strange for my firearms to come in different sizes?"
Flender paused, then nodded vaguely. "That's true. You're right. I was being narrow-minded."
"But a weapon this big must have a lot more power, too."
As Shen Feng lay on the ground and loaded the bullets, he smiled confidently. "I promise you won't be disappointed, Dean."
Boom!
A deafening blast rang out through the quiet valley. Birds and beasts shrieked and scattered in a panic, while Shen Feng, who had fired the weapon, was jolted half a meter backward by its recoil.
The shot rang out, and a corner of the boulder on the cliff a hundred meters away shattered with a thunderous roar. Countless fragments sprayed in every direction.
Boom!
Another shot rang out, and half the boulder on the cliff crumbled away. Shattered rocks scattered and tumbled down the mountainside.
Golden light flared across Shen Rui's arms. With a roar, he swept his hands out and smashed the rocks flying toward them, keeping them from injuring anyone.
Boom!
Another shot rang out. The remaining half of the boulder split apart and rolled down the cliff.
Ling Na reacted in a flash. Blue sparks glimmered in her pupils as she held the Thunder Blade at her waist and slashed with all her might.
Whoosh—
A dazzling blade flash streaked past. Dense cracks appeared across the boulder's surface, and the raging power of lightning instantly blasted it into countless tiny stones. They fell like hail, posing no threat to the group.
"A cave?"
Flender's pupils had already turned into sharp, hawklike slits. His keen gaze fixed on the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo atop the cliff and the small crack not far from it.
Shen Rui and Ling Na were also startled. They stared at the fissure, which was no more than half a meter wide, their expressions shifting.
"How could there be a cave behind that boulder? Could it have formed naturally?"
Flender shook his head slightly. "I'm not sure. Probably."
"It's not unusual to find naturally formed fissures in ancient mountains like these."
Shen Feng came over with a grimace, shaking out one numb side of his body.
"Why don't we go up and take a look? I was going to blast that Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo down, but now we'll have to climb up and check, in case the fissure collapses."
Shen Rui and Ling Na exchanged a glance and nodded slightly. "Senior, wait here. I'll go up and check it out first."
With that, Shen Rui lightly pushed off the ground and bounded several times until he reached the base of the cliff.
As a Five-Ring Soul King, climbing a cliff was easy. Using the cracks and crevices in the rock face, Shen Rui leaped his way up a hundred meters and stopped less than ten meters from the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo.
It wasn't that Shen Rui didn't want to approach the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo directly. It was just that the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo wasn't an ordinary bamboo plant. It was a Soul Beast with intelligence.
Shen Feng's three shots earlier had already alarmed it. If plant-type Soul Beasts had legs, it would have run off long ago.
That had been fucking terrifying. The boulder that had sheltered it for decades had shattered just like that. Since gaining intelligence, when had the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo ever witnessed such a horrifying sight?
Sensing Shen Rui approach, the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo felt its life was in danger. A massive burst of purple lightning erupted around it.
The lightning gathered at the leaves atop its stalk, and its purple leaves instantly blazed with dazzling color.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—
The next moment, the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo began swaying wildly. Hundreds, even thousands, of leaves wrapped in purple lightning shot toward Shen Rui like flying arrows, transforming into streaks of purple light.
Shen Rui snorted. The third purple Millennium Soul Ring around him lit up.
"Third Soul Skill: Golden Light Body Protection."
Brilliant golden light erupted from Shen Rui's arms and quickly spread across his entire body.
He stamped down hard. The cliff beneath his feet shattered in a huge chunk, and he transformed into a golden streak, charging into a world filled with dancing purple light.
"First Soul Skill: Bright Gold Face-Breaking Fist."
Amid a series of clanging impacts, a continuous stream of bright-gold fist shadows burst from Shen Rui's fists, pounding furiously against the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo's tough purple stalk.
Caught in the sudden, relentless assault, the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo was stunned. The purple leaves it fired grew visibly sparse.
The corners of Shen Rui's mouth lifted in a mocking smile. "Second Soul Skill: Energy Gathering Punch."
A massive amount of golden Soul Power gathered around Shen Rui's right fist. He drew back and punched, and the golden Soul Power suddenly erupted. A powerful gust of wind transformed into a clearly visible golden beam that swept toward the Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo.
Crack—
The eight-hundred-year-old Purple Thunder Sword Bamboo snapped in response, no longer displaying its earlier ferocity.
Shen Rui grabbed the fallen bamboo's tip and used it to swing himself around, then hooked his right hand onto the rock beside the fissure.
He peered inside, and his pupils suddenly contracted.
It really was a cave. Sunlight streaming through the fissure let Shen Rui clearly see bones scattered across the floor inside.
There was even a piece with an alluring, earthy-yellow sheen.
At the sight, Shen Rui's heart pounded. His Second Soul Ring lit up again, and he smashed the cave's outer rock wall with an Energy Gathering Punch.
He squeezed inside and picked up the yellowish bone. With no time to admire this hard-won treasure, Shen Rui hurriedly put it into his Soul Tool.
So as not to arouse Flender's suspicion, Shen Rui didn't explore any farther. He took a few deep breaths until his excitement had somewhat subsided, then went to the cave entrance and called down.
"Senior, Nana, something's going on up here. You two, come up quickly."
Hearing him, Flender glanced at Ling Na. "I can fly. I'll carry Xiao Feng up."
Ling Na cupped her hands. "Then I'll trouble you, Senior."
Flender activated his Martial Soul Possession, and a pair of enormous dark-gold wings unfurled behind him. He grabbed Shen Feng by the shoulder and beat his wings, soaring into the sky.
Ling Na put the Breaker on the ground into her Storage Soul Tool, then quickly followed, bounding up the cliff.
At the cave entrance, Flender stared into the interior, dumbfounded.
"W-what happened here? Why are there bones everywhere?"
Shen Rui shook his head gently. "I don't know. I was startled by the sight too when I came up."
Flender crouched and picked up a bone, examining it. "The bones are slender, with long hands and feet. They're ancient, yet still intact. They seem to belong to a primate Soul Beast."
"Their surfaces are earthy yellow, and trace amounts of earth element are still flowing inside. They should be Mountain-Moving Apes."
"After all this time, they've still retained trace amounts of energy. They must have been Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts."
"The cave isn't very large, but there are plenty of bones. At a rough guess, there are more than ten sets. This was probably a Mountain-Moving Ape nest."
"But why would there be a Ten-Thousand-Year Mountain-Moving Ape nest on the outskirts of Star Dou Forest? And how did they all end up dying here, when their cultivation had reached ten thousand years?"
"Strange. This is truly strange."
Flender really was a seasoned veteran. After spending so many years in the Soul Master World, his eye for detail was extraordinary. With only a brief examination of the bones on the ground, he had already worked out so much.
Shen Rui was doing his best to hide his excitement. He hadn't expected the Soul Bone he had picked up earlier to belong to a Mountain-Moving Ape—and to be such a valuable Ten Thousand Year Soul Bone, at that.
"Dad, Mom, Dean Flender, look over here!"
Ling Na had just climbed up when she keenly spotted an unusual mark on one part of the cave wall.
At her call, Flender and Shen Rui immediately walked over.
In a dim corner of the cave, a deep claw mark had been carved into the wall.
Flender furrowed his brow and ran a hand along its edge. "It's a small mark, and the edges are neat, without any raggedness. It doesn't look like a Soul Beast made it."
Shen Rui nodded thoughtfully. "Soul Beasts live outdoors all year round and use their claws often, so they'd inevitably wear them down."
"But this claw mark is clean and precise, with clear grooves. It looks more like it was made by a Soul Master with a Beast Martial Soul after activating Martial Soul Possession."
"If that's the case, then a battle must have taken place here. The Mountain-Moving Ape bones on the ground were probably left by the Soul Master who hunted them."
At that, Shen Rui felt even more confused.
Soul Masters hunted Soul Beasts for three reasons: Soul Rings, Soul Bones, and meat or materials.
No matter which of the three reasons it was, they would always give their prey a quick inspection afterward.
If they were hundred- or thousand-year Soul Beasts, that would be one thing. Some powerful Soul Masters wouldn't bother with such small prey.
But the Mountain-Moving Apes outside had genuinely been Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts. Even Titled Douluo powerhouses wouldn't ignore such valuable prey, let alone skip even the most basic inspection.
"Dad, Mom, Dean Flender, there's a mummified corpse over here."
Shen Rui was still puzzling over it when Shen Feng's sudden call drew everyone's attention.
When they came over, they saw a human mummy sitting quietly in the innermost corner of the cave.
The corpse was severely dehydrated. Its flesh had long since dried out, leaving only skin tightly stretched over its bones. Its clothes had decayed beyond recognition. Its left arm was missing, many of its ribs were broken, and its chest was slightly sunken. It had probably died from severe injuries.
Flender's brow furrowed. "The Ten-Thousand-Year Mountain-Moving Apes in the cave have been reduced to bones, yet this corpse has retained its flesh and skin."
"Judging by that, this senior must have been at a high level while alive—at least an Eight-Ring Soul Douluo, and quite possibly a Nine-Ring Titled Douluo."
"Unfortunately, this senior wasn't very lucky. Even while looking for a place to recover from his injuries, he stumbled into a nest of Mountain-Moving Apes."
Shen Feng looked puzzled. "Dean Flender, how can you tell this is a senior?"
"Could he have been a Soul Saint, or even just a Soul Emperor, who died fighting those Mountain-Moving Apes?"
Flender smiled slightly and pointed to the mummy's severed left arm. "Look there. The cut is smooth, and there are no signs of healing, which means the corpse came here with severe injuries."
"Those Mountain-Moving Apes were earth-elemental Soul Beasts that relied on strength. They couldn't have made an injury like this."
"Now look at the corpse's chest. The ribs are broken and the chest is slightly caved in. That's a sign of a heavy blow."
Before you continue