Wild Child of Holy Soul Village

"Martial Souls are about to awaken. I wonder what kind of Martial Soul I'll awaken?"

On the old locust tree at the entrance of Holy Soul Village, said to be several hundred years old, Chen Ming hung upside down from a branch by his legs, doing sit-ups like an acrobat. His heart was filled with anticipation.

"Xiaoming, don't be so anxious. Lord Soul Master will be here soon." Although it was far from the first time he had seen Chen Ming perform such difficult and dangerous moves, Old Jack, sitting on a small stool and chewing on a corn stalk, still spoke with his heart in his throat.

There were quite a few children in Holy Soul Village, but two stood out above the rest. One was Tang San, who lived with his slovenly father in the blacksmith shop at the eastern end of the village. The other was Chen Ming, a wild child with no father or mother.

Tang San was special because he was solitary and had an unusual father, while Chen Ming was simply a little troublemaker.

He could eat, drink, sleep, and shit, yet people rarely saw him playing and roughhousing in the village like a normal child. Most days, he was either wandering around in the trees or heading into the nearby mountains to hunt rabbits and catch fish.

Most baffling of all, no one knew whether he truly had some talent or special trick, but Chen Ming, despite being just a child, always managed to catch enough prey. After filling his own belly, he would occasionally bring excess meat back to share with the villagers.

Calling him a savage would have been inaccurate, but he really was a wild child who could not be tamed.

At first, Old Jack had helped care for Chen Ming after his parents died. But ever since Chen Ming had become able to run and jump, the thing Old Jack did most often was mend his clothes.

However, because Chen Ming would occasionally dig up high-quality wood ear mushrooms and hazel mushrooms from the mountains, and sometimes bring back meat to share, Old Jack's household had not been dragged down by him. Instead, it had become somewhat better off.

"Grandpa Jack, I know." Chen Ming kicked off with both legs and sprang back onto the branch. He leaned against the old locust tree's trunk with his eyes closed as though resting, but his mind was anything but calm.

"Little AI, Little AI, analyze roughly when Su Yuntao will arrive at Holy Soul Village—"

"Understood. The user wishes to analyze when Su Yuntao will travel to Holy Soul Village. I will calculate based on the average environmental temperatures of the past three years, along with Spirit Hall's Spirit Master travel schedule—"

"Reference variables—"

"Engaging in deep thought..."

"Based on the environmental conditions, temperature, roads, Spirit Master travel speed, and average arrival times over the years, the best days for Su Yuntao to arrive at Holy Soul Village were yesterday or the day before."

A peculiar echo bloomed within Chen Ming's mind. Feeling groggy, he opened his eyes blankly and let out a helpless sigh.

As a transmigrator from Blue Star, Chen Ming had his own cheat ability: a special "AI."

This AI was not actually any kind of artificial intelligence. Rather, it was a beneficial mutation his soul had acquired during his journey into this world.

He could separate off a portion of his mind and place it in a mechanized deep-thinking mode. Since it was essentially like using the knowledge in his brain to build an AI algorithm on a local network, Chen Ming called it "AI."

The benefit was that, when thinking with this portion of his mind, Chen Ming could remain completely calm and rapidly sift through all the accumulated knowledge and memories in his head.

With this ability, Chen Ming had dug up and summarized all the wilderness survival videos, related knowledge, and short videos he had watched in his previous life, then made calculations based on the actual conditions.

It allowed him to move through the nearby mountains as easily as if he were at home, cultivate wood ear mushrooms in the forest, hunt wild rabbits, catch river fish, and raise hens so he could eat eggs every day to supplement his nutrition.

But this cheat ability did not come without a price.

Because it involved rapid deep thought, every use sent Chen Ming's brain into high-speed operation. Not only did it consume an enormous amount of energy, it also left his mental strength exhausted for a short time. The more complex and in-depth the thought process, the greater the consumption.

Furthermore, Chen Ming's own processing power was limited. This ability was more of a peculiarity on the level of the soul and mind, so a large part of his processing power came from converting mental strength. The stronger his mental strength, the greater his processing power.

In Chen Ming's current state, before even awakening his Martial Soul, his processing power was still quite limited despite the mental advantages of two lifetimes. Moreover, most of that processing power was used for the instinctive, basic operation of his body, and that portion could not be diverted.

More importantly, because it was constructed from Chen Ming's existing knowledge, once something beyond his understanding or expectations appeared, he would not get the correct answer even if he thought until his brain burned out.

If he completely trusted his own "plans," believing his reasoning had to be right and that everything was under control, then disaster would be inevitable.

Take Su Yuntao coming to Holy Soul Village to awaken Martial Souls, for example. Logically, Su Yuntao should have arrived the day before yesterday or yesterday, and the Martial Souls should already have been awakened. Yet in reality, Su Yuntao still had not arrived even today.

But since Chen Ming had no idea what Su Yuntao had encountered, he could not continue making detailed deductions.

Bored out of his mind, Chen Ming simply jumped down from the tree. Even a normal adult would not dare jump casually from a branch more than two meters high, but Chen Ming only swayed slightly when he landed, dispersing the force. Looking utterly unconcerned, he walked over to Old Jack and plopped down beside him.

"Grandpa Jack, give me some sweet stalk to chew on." Chen Ming spoke without the slightest politeness.

"Sure. You brat ought to calm down a little, too." Old Jack was not stingy. Since he had nothing better to do, he took out some sweet stalk from his small pouch and handed it to Chen Ming.

The old man and the boy sat at the village entrance, chewing corn sweet stalks and silently waiting for Su Yuntao to arrive.

Corn sweet stalk was not particularly sweet, but for an old man and a child born in the countryside, chewing on it to pass the time was already rather enjoyable.

"Once my Martial Soul awakens, I'll go raid a beehive. I've had my eye on that big hive in the mountains for months. There must be plenty of honey inside. After my Martial Soul awakens, I'll raid it and treat you to honey-roasted fish, Grandpa Jack."

"Sounds good, sounds good." Old Jack nodded, a hint of delight in his expression. To farmers of this era, honey was already an extremely precious source of sweetness. Even though Old Jack was the village chief of Holy Soul Village, the sweetest things he could eat all year, aside from corn sweet stalks, were his own Carrot Martial Soul.

After the old man and the boy had chatted idly back and forth for who knew how long, a figure finally appeared on the dirt road outside Holy Soul Village in the distance.