Douluo Continent, border of the Heaven Dou Empire.
Outer reaches of the Star Dou Great Forest.
Ye Xuan raised his eyes toward the path ahead, his palm growing slightly damp.
As a transmigrator, this was also his first time in the Star Dou Great Forest.
Although a Soul Emperor powerhouse was leading them,
he still felt extremely nervous.
At that moment, his gaze was fixed on a clearing ahead, where the trees had been violently swept away.
A giant bear, over three meters tall, with fur like dark, dull steel, lay sprawled on the ground, lifeless.
A four-hundred-year-old Dark Silver Bear.
Its defense was astonishing.
Its strength was ferocious.
It was the first pet he had carefully chosen for his First Soul Ring.
The one who had dealt with this Soul Beast
was Lin Yue, the director of instruction at their Martial Soul Academy.
A sixty-seventh-level Soul Emperor.
He had just ended the brief hunt with overwhelming force.
The phantom of his Martial Soul, Mad Lion, slowly faded behind him.
Yet that suffocating, savage aura still lingered.
"Ye Xuan, hurry up," Lin Yue said, his voice low but carrying unquestionable authority.
Beside him, the other three students all wore satisfied expressions, along with a hint of fatigue.
Their Innate Soul Power had reached level seven or even eight.
They could be called the true favored children of heaven at Martial Soul Academy.
This time, they had all smoothly obtained the Hundred-Year Soul Rings they wanted during the Soul Hunting.
Now they looked toward Ye Xuan, the "genius" with level-nine Innate Soul Power, with either curiosity or faint superiority.
After all,
Ye Xuan's Martial Soul, the Red and White Poké Ball, was far too strange.
No one knew what it could do.
Even finding a suitable Soul Beast had taken far longer for him than it had for them.
"Yes, Director Lin."
Ye Xuan answered,
suppressing the unease and anticipation he felt toward his Martial Soul.
He stepped forward.
He held out his right hand.
Soul Power surged in his palm.
A strange sphere about the size of a fist appeared.
It was red and white,
with a black button in the middle.
It was his Martial Soul.
A Pokéball.
According to the hazy information he had received when his Martial Soul awakened,
it seemed to possess a power of "capturing," much like in the world of Pokémon.
His method of obtaining a Soul Ring might be different from that of Douluo Continent's natives.
He gathered his Soul Power,
aiming at the Dark Silver Bear's corpse on the ground.
He was just about to throw the Pokéball
when, perhaps because he was nervous,
or perhaps because he hadn't yet mastered controlling his Soul Power,
the moment he threw it with all his might,
his fingers... slipped...
The red-and-white sphere abruptly veered off course.
With a whoosh,
it didn't fly toward the Dark Silver Bear.
Instead, it traced an awkward arc
and plunged straight into a nearby clump of unusually dense bushes.
"Uh..."
Ye Xuan's expression changed.
He could feel that his Pokéball Martial Soul seemed to have hit something.
"Hm?"
Lin Yue, standing nearby, frowned,
his gaze sweeping toward the bushes like lightning.
Xiao Ran and the other two also looked over in surprise.
The very next second,
"Ah!"
A clear, sweet cry,
filled with alarm and pain, suddenly rang out from behind the bushes!
Then,
under the stunned gazes of everyone present,
the bushes shook violently.
A barely perceptible flash of pink light flickered and vanished.
Ye Xuan's Pokéball, which had missed its target,
actually sprang open with a pop.
Then
it transformed into a streak of light and flew back into his body.
At the same time,
a strange wave of energy suddenly surged around him.
In Ye Xuan's mind,
it was as if something had gone "buzz" and connected.
A warm,
supple,
yet immensely vibrant energy filled with the breath of life
passed through his Martial Soul and formed an unbreakable bond with him.
"Soul Ring... successfully absorbed? No, this feeling..."
Ye Xuan was dumbfounded.
Completely dumbfounded.
His very first Soul Ring
had just... been obtained in this ridiculous way.
And the target wasn't even the Soul Beast he'd chosen?
After obtaining this Soul Ring,
he discovered that he could apparently peer into a cramped space of about ten square meters.
A petite figure was currently sitting inside, rather unsteadily.
She was a little girl who looked only six or seven years old.
She wore a short pink dress,
and a long scorpion braid hung down her back.
The ends of her hair were also tinged with a faint pink.
Her large, bright eyes
were now brimming with incredulous horror.
Feeling this,
Ye Xuan fell silent.
Good grief.
What kind of insane luck had he stumbled into?
A Hundred-Thousand-Year Transformed Soul Beast had become his Soul Ring right from the start?
And how could Xiao Wu possibly have appeared here?
At the same time,
Xiao Wu, inexplicably shut inside this cramped space, forced down her fear.
She had planned to wait until these Evil humans finished absorbing their Soul Rings and left before quietly slipping away.
After transforming for a hundred thousand years, she had to cultivate her strength from scratch.
At that moment, she was incredibly vulnerable and most afraid of being discovered by powerful humans.
But she had never imagined
that a... ball would fall from the sky?
It had hit her right on the forehead.
Even more terrifying,
the instant it struck her, a bizarre force of rules she could not resist had forcibly acted upon her soul.
Before she could react,
she had already been bound tightly to the human boy who threw the ball.
She could clearly feel
that part of her most essential source power, along with part of her soul,
had been confined.
No—
it would be more accurate to say it had been fused.
Forming something like... a Soul Ring?
Had she become that boy's possession?
But how was that possible?!
What kind of evil Soul Skill was this?!
But soon,
she could feel
a warm current spreading through her entire body.
And in that very moment,
Ye Xuan's name, appearance, even his scent and aura
were imprinted completely in her mind.
A sense of security welled up within her and enveloped her whole body.
She no longer felt uneasy.
She no longer felt afraid.
It was as if, as long as Ye Xuan was there, no one else could hurt her.
At the same time,
outside,
a deeply colored Hundred-Year Soul Ring appeared behind Ye Xuan.
With a thought,
the Pokéball he had just recalled into his body appeared in his hand again.
Only this time,
he could feel that his Pokéball wasn't empty.
At that moment,
the three students who had accompanied him were all gathered around, curious.
Even Lin Yue, the Spirit Hall director of instruction,
was watching him as if he were some kind of monster.
"Ye Xuan, did you successfully obtain your First Soul Ring?"
Hearing Lin Yue's question,
Ye Xuan nodded, his feelings complicated.
"Mm, Director Lin, I really have obtained my First Soul Ring."
To be honest, Ye Xuan wasn't sure whether he was lucky or unlucky.
But by a twist of fate, Xiao Wu had become his very own "Pocket Monster."
That should count as helping the protagonist, Tang San, deal with his early-romance problem.
Seeing this scene,
Lin Yue, a man who'd lived half a lifetime, was witnessing such a bizarre method of absorbing a Soul Ring for the very first time.
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