Past Life

According to Wang Teng's memories, in the "original work":

At eleven, Huo Yuhao had encountered not only the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest, but Tang Ya and Beibei as well. They had introduced him to the Tang Sect, which had earned him the chance to enter Shrek Academy.

He had studied and grown at Shrek Academy, made friends, and fallen in love with a girl named Wang Dong'er. Under Shrek's protection and "nurturing," he had ultimately inherited the divine position of the God of Emotions and ascended to the Divine Realm with Tang Wutong. He had even... brought his enemy from his previous life, Dai Hao, to the Divine Realm, where the whole family lived "happily ever after"?

"Absurd..." Huo Yuhao murmured, his voice as cold as ice.

His previous life had not been like that at all!

The true course of his previous life surfaced clearly in his mind:

At eleven, he had left the White Tiger Duke Mansion, filled with hatred, and entered the Star Dou Great Forest alone.

He had never met Tang Ya or Beibei, let alone joined the Tang Sect.

His only "stroke of fortune" had been meeting the Million-Year Soul Beast, Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, amid the cold and despair.

It was Tian Meng who had chosen him, granting him a Wisdom Soul Ring and the starting point from which to enter the world of Soul Masters.

With only eleven levels of Soul Power, he fell short of Shrek Academy's strict minimum admission requirement of fifteen. And as the illegitimate son of a duke who had fled his home, there was no way he could obtain a recommendation from a city lord or noble. He had no chance of entering Shrek Academy.

Fortunately, near the place where the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had fused with him, he found an inconspicuous Soul Guidance Ring.

Tian Meng had weakly told him that the ring's original owner was an unlucky Titled Douluo whom it had burst apart while controlling and fusing with him. At the time, Tian Meng had barely been able to save himself, let alone worry about such "worldly possessions."

Huo Yuhao picked up the ring. The lingering aura of a Titled Douluo made his heart tremble, but it also became his greatest support in those early days.

It was thanks to the resources and knowledge left behind by the Titled Douluo in the ring, along with Tian Meng's guidance, that he had managed to reach level twenty at twelve. Then, in the Far North, he had risked his life to persuade the Ice Empress to fuse with him, gaining a Second Martial Soul.

Those six months of solitary trials—sleeping under the open sky and eating whatever he could find, battling Soul Beasts, and scraping by at the bottom of human society—had quickly forced him to face reality.

His target for revenge was Dai Hao, the lofty White Tiger Duke, a pillar of the Star Luo Empire.

As a neutral sanctuary for Soul Masters, Shrek Academy would never support one of its students in overthrowing an important imperial official.

Then the enemy of one's enemy was a friend.

He thought of the Sun Moon Empire, which had long clashed with the Star Luo Empire and the White Tiger Legion under the White Tiger Duke.

And so, he chose the Sun Moon Empire.

Relying on his outstanding talent as a possessor of Twin Martial Souls, the four Soul Skills granted by the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's Million-Year Soul Ring, the Ultimate Ice bestowed by the Ice Empress, and the intelligence and resilience he had forged in the depths of despair—qualities far beyond those of his peers—

he passed the examinations and entered the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy. He soon distinguished himself and earned the appreciation and dedicated guidance of Jing Hongchen, then the master of Mingde Hall.

At twelve and a half, with the help of the academy's high-quality pills and his own accumulated strength, he broke through to level thirty. He then successfully absorbed a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring beyond his level (though he disguised it as roughly five thousand years old with the Simulation Soul Skill).

That same year, he was selected for the reserve team of the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy at the All-Continent Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Fighting Tournament. He went on to take the stage in the final.

Working in concert with Sun Moon prodigies like Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen, and relying on the precise coordination of their Soul Tools as well as his own formidable control and combat abilities, he defeated the Shrek Academy team, hailed as the "Invincible Kings," in one fell swoop. He won the long-awaited glory for the Sun Moon Empire.

However, Xuan Zi, the hot-tempered leader of the Shrek Academy team, flew into a rage from humiliation. Disregarding the rules and dignity of the tournament, he tried to seize Huo Yuhao by force and take him back to Shrek.

At the critical moment, Kong Deming, the father of the Sun Moon Empire's Soul Tools and a Titled Douluo of rank ninety-four, intervened in time and saved him.

At thirteen, through a twist of fate, he forged a deep bond of destiny with the Emperor Auspicious Beast, the Three-Eyed Golden Lion of the Star Dou Great Forest, through an exchange of attributes. He then went to Shrek as an exchange student.

There, despite being a level-forty Soul Ancestor, he consecutively defeated several Soul Emperors, including Han Ruoruo and Zhang Lexuan, top Shrek Inner Court students whose Soul Power had been suppressed to level sixty. He shook both academies, not only bringing renown to the Sun Moon Empire but also making Shrek Academy's leadership deeply wary of him.

At fifteen, after his exchange ended, Huo Yuhao returned to the Sun Moon Empire and devoted himself to cultivation, breaking through to level fifty.

With his powerful physique, formidable spiritual power, and profound understanding of the laws of ice, he made a shocking decision: he would try to absorb a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Ring. And he succeeded!

He became the first Soul Master on record to possess a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Ring at the Soul King stage.

At the same time, without the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Jade Bed to provoke Snow Empress's rampage, Electrolux did not burn his divine consciousness. Yet he still created the earliest version of the Soul Spirit Contract. Because Snow Empress's origin was unstable, she became the contract's first test subject.

Huo Yuhao signed a contract with Snow Empress using the Soul Spirit Contract. With Snow Empress conscious and willing, he added a second seven-hundred-thousand-year Soul Ring to his Ice Jade Empress Scorpion.

That same year, he reunited with Di Qiu'er, the Emperor Auspicious Beast who had transformed and enrolled at the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy. The two were of one heart and soon became a couple.

Knowing that one could not break through bottlenecks by shutting oneself away, Huo Yuhao and Di Qiu'er traveled the continent together.

In Sunset Forest, they discovered one of the legendary Three Great Treasure Basins—the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

Although many Immortal Herb Soul Beasts spoke human language and said things like "Child of Destiny" and "Tang San"—strange words they could not understand at the time—once they sensed the vast, ultimate chill of Snow Empress within Huo Yuhao, they wisely chose to "cooperate."

After obtaining a wealth of rare Immortal Herbs, the two made another leap in strength and successively broke through to level sixty.

Afterward, they traveled to the deep seas of the Far North. With the help of the Auspicious Beast's aura and Huo Yuhao's sincere communication, they successfully persuaded the Sea Princess Clan. The hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast mermaid princess, Li Ya, willingly sacrificed herself and became Huo Yuhao's Soul Ring and Soul Spirit.

When he was sixteen or seventeen, the Body Sect came looking for him.

The sect master, Du Busi, was astonished by the purity and power of Huo Yuhao's Spirit Eye Martial Soul and personally invited him to become the Body Sect's young sect master.

Huo Yuhao refused without hesitation.

But he turned the tables, using his deep analysis of the continent's circumstances and the Body Sect's predicament to persuade Du Busi. In the end, he convinced the entire Body Sect to join the increasingly powerful Sun Moon Empire, adding a formidable force of high-level fighters to the empire.

At eighteen, Huo Yuhao broke through to level seventy.

This time, he did not rush to find a new Soul Beast and absorb a Soul Ring.

Seeing that many of his friends were Soul Beasts and that he himself had benefited greatly from their generosity, he began to reflect on the "Soul Spirit Contract" he had helped research and promote.

He keenly realized that although the existing Soul Spirit Contract had reduced the number of Soul Beast deaths, in essence it still exploited and bound the potential of the Soul Beast Clan. In the long run, if the contract became the norm, the Soul Beasts' autonomy and future would remain in jeopardy, and the decline of certain groups might even accelerate.