First Arrival at the Star Dou Great Forest, Soul Beasts That Can Return to Ancestry

Time flew by in an instant.

The vacation ended, and the new school term arrived.

Wang Sheng, Xiao Chenyu, and the others had long since graduated, while Xia Yan had advanced to the second grade. The newly enrolled students, especially the work-study students, were incredibly awestruck by his legends.

Powerful, mysterious... these were the very proofs of a strong individual!

Those freshmen who had not seen him with their own eyes and could only imagine the scenes based on the heated accounts of others, wished they could glue their eyes to Xia Yan, hoping to see him make a move once again.

As for Xia Yan's life, it remained the same as before, unchanged: cultivation, eating, sleeping, cultivation, eating...

One year later, his soul power reached level twenty.

By this time, two years had already passed since he obtained his first soul ring.

Star Dou Great Forest.

Xia Yan stood atop the canopy of the outer forest, gazing into the distance at the endless forest that stretched for ten thousand miles. The rich green surged with the wind like materialized vitality.

In the distance, one could faintly see soul beasts circling and towering mountains rising.

This was the place on the continent where soul beasts were most dense and the species most diverse.

"Hiss, hiss~"

Beside him, a seven-meter-long Datura Snake coiled around a tree trunk, observing the forest and the sky with curiosity. This place was countless times larger than the Soul Hunting Forest.

Feeling the murderous aura in the wind, it could not help but become vigilant. Even without Xia Yan saying a word, it could sense that this forest was very dangerous.

Xia Yan gripped his palm in the air, conjuring a yellow map. After unfolding it to confirm his direction and location, he looked up toward the east:

"Xiao Qing, let's go."

"Hiss!"

Xia Yan and the Datura Snake leaped down lightly together, the man and the snake advancing with caution.

Needless to say, Xia Yan had come to the Star Dou Great Forest, naturally, to obtain his second soul ring.

For his second soul beast, it was best to be wind-attributed and of the flying type, to facilitate long-distance movement.

In fact, Xia Yan had already made plans in his heart. He had his sights set on a flying-type soul beast with extreme speed called the Jade Green Bird.

This soul beast was incredibly fast and extremely suitable for agility-attack assassin-type soul masters.

However, this was not the reason Xia Yan chose it.

In reality, almost no one knew that besides being fast, the Jade Green Bird could also possess immense power, and that was—atavism!

Yes, in the ancient era, the ancestors of the Jade Green Bird had another name:

Jade Green Luan.

A true hegemon of the wind, possessing the power to rule the skies.

The Jade Green Bird was a descendant of the Jade Green Luan; although it did not measure up to its ancestors, it still possessed a trace of recessive bloodline power.

As long as it consumed a celestial herb called the Luan-Condensing Flower, it could stimulate that bloodline power, undergo atavism to become a Jade Green Luan, and become a true top-tier wind-attributed soul beast.

As for where the Luan-Condensing Flower was, it went without saying—it was, of course, at the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well. As for why Xia Yan knew they could undergo atavism, it was naturally because, long after, someone had discovered to their surprise that they were capable of it.

Fortunately, the Jade Green Bird was not considered rare. Its habitat in the Star Dou Great Forest was vast, and one could find traces of them from the middle mixed zone to the outer perimeter.

Therefore, Xia Yan had bought a marked map, following the map to search.

The Star Dou Great Forest was far more complex than the Soul Hunting Forest.

Xia Yan's speed of travel was very slow. As a level twenty soul master, he could not enter any deeper and could only search the outer perimeter.

An entire day passed by quickly.

Nighttime is the most dangerous period in the Star Dou Great Forest. Darkness obstructs a soul master's vision, and the sensory abilities of low-level soul masters are extremely limited, yet those soul beasts possess incredibly keen senses and smell.

Therefore, Xia Yan decisively returned inside the Demon Suppressing Pagoda.

"Hiss~"

The atmosphere instantly relaxed.

Being able to enter the Demon Suppressing Pagoda at any time was the greatest reliance Xia Yan had for daring to explore the Star Dou Great Forest alone.

Inside the Demon Suppressing Pagoda, it was also nearing night, but it was absolutely safe here.

Crickets chirped, swarms of fireflies danced between blades of grass, emitting tiny specks of fluorescent light, while a clear stream flowed through the forest and meadows.

There were also hundreds of pounds of air-dried meat piled on the grass, large cooking pots, over thirty vats of clean water, neatly stacked fruits and vegetables, tons of firewood, various seasonings, a simple tent, healing ointments, detox pills, crossbow bolts, shields, and five tons of high-potency sulfur explosives...

They were piled into a small mountain, Just looking at it provided a sense of security.

To explore the Star Dou Great Forest, Xia Yan had made full preparations; if he were targeted, he would immediately enter the Demon Suppressing Pagoda to avoid danger.

He wasn't even afraid of being camped at his spawn point.

The stored food alone was enough for him to live inside the tower for over a month, and that wasn't even counting the gophers, rabbits, wild boars, goats in the woodlands... or the various fish and shrimp in the water...

Not to mention, there were over five tons of sulfur explosives.

In the outer perimeter, almost no soul beast or soul master could withstand the explosion of five tons of sulfur explosives.

If one could truly withstand it and was willing to risk their own life to bite Xia Yan to death, then Xia Yan would accept his fate.

At worst, he would just give up this space.

He would go out and invite the soul beast or soul master in; although it was comfortable to stay here, where they ended up when they left wouldn't necessarily be the same place.

Those who couldn't fly would be dropped off a cliff, those who could breathe fire would be tossed into the water, and if all else failed, he would dump them back into the human world, To let them enjoy what it meant to be on the receiving end of a righteous mob beating.

Whether it was a soul master or a soul beast, they were bound to have valuable items on them, And in the end, he could even farm some Gold Soul Coins.

Xia Yan couldn't help but marvel at the convenience of the Demon Suppressing Pagoda. Although he didn't have a storage Soul Tool, he had the Demon Suppressing Pagoda.

Even a storage Soul Tool worth thousands of Gold Soul Coins, Might not necessarily be able to store all these things, let alone the fact that the tower could sustain living creatures and allow them to thrive.

Who could compare to this?

Exhausted after a day of exploration, Xia Yan set up a campfire. The flickering flames became the only splash of orange-red light in the dimness. He went to the stream to take a bath; even though the Datura Snake only needed a rinse with water, It insisted on having Xia Yan scrub it down.

After washing up, Xia Yan cooked a pot of stew, And after eating, he lay in his tent, sleeping soundly until daybreak.

In the Star Dou Great Forest, this counted as top-tier luxury.

The next day, he continued his exploration. The Star Dou Great Forest was extremely dense and complex; ordinary methods of judging direction based on the sun or intuition were completely ineffective.

Fortunately, he had the Datura Snake, It could distinguish directions.

Along the way, Xia Yan encountered quite a few soul beasts, the weak ones being less than ten years old, and the strong ones over a thousand years old.

Generally speaking, the absorption limit for a second soul ring was seven hundred and sixty-four years; this was a figure exchanged for with the lives of countless predecessors.

However, Xia Yan's physique was far stronger than the average person's. For the past two years, he had been eating Whale Rubber and training his body, plus the physical enhancement brought by the Datura Snake, He was fully capable of contracting a one-thousand-one-hundred-year-old soul beast.

The second day still yielded no results, but Xia Yan discovered that the Datura Snake was very fond of a small, bright red, juicy spirit fruit.

It had a sweet fragrance and looked quite delicious.

The entire spirit fruit plant was less than chest-high to him, with slender, round leaves growing in clusters.

Since the Datura Snake liked it, Xia Yan naturally did not hesitate to transplant it, along with all the surrounding spirit plants, into the Demon Suppressing Pagoda, For the Datura Snake to enjoy at its leisure.

The third day, the fourth day, the fifth day... the seventh day...

It wasn't until the tenth day, Just as Xia Yan was doubting the authenticity of the map and wondering if he had been deceived:

"Hiss hiss!"

Deep in the dense forest, the Datura Snake ahead suddenly began to cry out in excitement, before slithering back to Xia Yan's side.

Xia Yan's gaze sharpened as he saw the Datura Snake holding a slender feather in its mouth.

He took it, the feather feeling so light it was as if it had no weight at all.

It was a gradient shade of cyan throughout.

The tip was a pure cyan, but the closer it got to the quill, the whiter it became, with the quill itself appearing completely snow-white.

This cyan feather was very fresh, looking as if it had only just fallen off.

Finally found it!