It was August, and the sun blazed like fire.
The vicious sunlight was like rolling magma, searing everyone's skin until it stung.
Heat that warped the view surged wildly upward from the ground, while cicadas chirped beneath the trees, their cries like a saw being dragged across one's eardrums.
Yet in weather so miserable that people would do anything to avoid it, someone was going against the grain.
He was willingly braving the blazing sun to search for something he needed.
Spirit Hall, the undisputed strongest force on the Douluo Continent ten thousand years ago.
Under the diligent rule of several successive popes, it had risen to its peak, commanding more than a dozen Titled Douluo. It had truly flourished for a time.
Alas, fate had been unfair. At the height of its glory, it had run into two love-struck fools and one stubborn old man.
One disastrous move after another, one blunder after another—they had thrown away their hard-won advantage and ruined everything at the final hurdle.
And the magnificent halls and splendid palaces that countless Soul Masters across the land had once yearned to see had been ruthlessly purged after the War of the Three Gods.
The empire had plundered them as wantonly as locusts passing through.
Soul Masters had searched every inch of the ground with painstaking thoroughness.
Then the merciless grind of time had done its work.
In the end, Spirit Hall had been reduced to a brief mention in the history books.
And Jialing Pass, the main battlefield of that war, had likewise become a barren wasteland where not even birds alighted and no trace of human life remained.
All that was left was a stretch of broken bricks and shattered tiles, so changed that its former appearance was unrecognizable, silently telling of glory and vicissitude.
However, a steady, powerful voice, tinged with frustration, suddenly shattered the oppressive silence of the desolation.
"This cursed weather's going to turn me into jerky!"
Looking toward the voice, one could see a handsome, well-built boy who looked about twelve or thirteen. He was sheltering beneath half a crumbling wall, complaining with a deeply furrowed brow.
"Sigh, I wonder if those two relics that no one's dug up yet will still be here."
As he spoke, the boy raised his head to look at the ruins before him, which bore the unmistakable marks of age. A hint of anticipation showed in his eyes.
"I'd better not come back empty-handed..."
As his words fell, the boy slowly closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the worry and hesitation in them had vanished in an instant.
Soul Power surged around him. He formed the Wealth-Summoning Seal with his left hand and held it before his chest, then called out softly.
"Seek wealth and find hidden treasure; treasure mouse, track its trail!"
A golden-furred mouse about the length of a forearm, plump-bodied and slightly translucent, suddenly appeared out of thin air.
It then bowed respectfully before the boy, its beady eyes glittering with intelligence.
Judging by its hazy, indistinct body, it clearly wasn't a living creature in the ordinary sense.
"Jinbao, go. Bring back everything I told you about!"
At his command, the golden-furred rat nodded, then turned and darted toward the ruins.
Its four little legs moved at astonishing speed.
When it reached the center of the ruins, it sniffed to the left, then to the right.
Suddenly, its eyes lit up. It had clearly found something.
After pinpointing the spot to dig, it waved its two forepaws and began tunneling into the hard earth ahead.
"As my strength grows, this golden-furred rat gets smarter and smarter. Its hundred-year Soul Ring is now nearly a thousand years old, too."
Watching it, the boy couldn't help shaking his head with a laugh. Then he leaned back against the crumbling wall and let his thoughts drift far away.
Ning Huan was a university student majoring in accounting. He had grown up in an orphanage, lived a quiet, uneventful life, and liked peace and freedom.
He had a clean background and was just the right fit.
If nothing unexpected happened, he would have been the perfect scapegoat.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
A sudden, large-scale epidemic had casually erased him from his original world.
Yet for reasons unknown—perhaps as compensation, or perhaps something else—his death had also brought him a new life.
[Douluo Continent] was one of the more unusual worlds in many respects.
So the moment Ning Huan opened his eyes, he had easily figured out where he was.
There was no other explanation for the old man murmuring an incantation, the staff he waved again and again, and the five yellow and purple rings of light revolving around him.
Taken together, unless it was the Martial Soul system of the Douluo Continent, he couldn't think of another world so peculiar.
He got a definite answer about the timeline and his own circumstances on the third day after waking up.
The timeline didn't need much explanation. If there weren't two people with the same name in the Nine Treasures Glazed Sect, then the news that the sect master had a beloved daughter and named her [Ning Tian] told him plenty.
As for himself...
He was the three-year-old orphan of an outer sect steward of the Nine Treasures Glazed Sect.
Because his memories had been jumbled before, he had a reputation for being simple-minded within the sect.
In a sense, he was even rather famous for it.
Still, after spending so many years on his own, he felt no particular way about his circumstances.
Ning Tian?
The Nine Treasures Glazed Sect's favored daughter and future successor.
Their stations were worlds apart. Only an idiot would waste time dreaming about anything more.
The rumors that he was simple-minded?
There was even less reason to care about those.
As long as they didn't interfere with his life, that was all that mattered.
Unfortunately, talent was something no one could predict.
Especially in the Douluo Continent, where the strong relied on inheritance and ordinary people gambled on mutation.
Just look at his parents, who had ordinary Martial Souls and had only reached the Soul Ancestor realm...
It would have been stranger if he'd awakened a powerful Martial Soul.
So he had set his sights low in advance and prepared to live an ordinary life.
But after three peaceful years, his Martial Soul Awakening at the age of six had instead opened up new possibilities for him.
[Spirit Bestowal Platform].
Its origins were unknown, and its form was unclear.
It was the last special term Ning Huan had known before he died.
After it turned into his Martial Soul, it seemed only natural that it had no offensive, defensive, or support abilities.
As a tool-type Martial Soul, it couldn't even manifest outside his body. In the eyes of others, it was worse than Blue Silver Grass.
The impatient Soul Ancestor steward had therefore labeled it a "trash" Martial Soul on the spot.
He had even deliberately skipped the test for Innate Soul Power.
But only Ning Huan knew that awakening the [Spirit Bestowal Platform] had not only given him over ten times the Soul Power reserves and recovery speed of others at the same level.
It had also granted him an ability called [Contract], along with the corresponding [Summoning Technique].
The rare Soul Beast from the mainland, [Treasure Seeking Mouse], which he had summoned earlier, was the first summoned beast he had contracted after absorbing his first Soul Ring on the way to Tianluo City. It was also the first stroke of good fortune he had encountered in this world.
As for his innate rank...
The Soul Power in his body was incredibly abundant, but no matter how he cultivated, he couldn't make the slightest progress.
Other than Innate Full Soul Power, there shouldn't have been any other possibility.
At the time, Ning Huan had been genuinely excited for quite a while after confirming it.
He completely forgot that a six-year-old couldn't stay up all night. As soon as his excitement wore off, he fell fast asleep without a care in the world.
Who could have guessed that the sect would act so quickly?
He had only completed his Martial Soul Awakening the previous day, yet the assignments had begun before dawn the next morning.
They had moved so quickly that they hadn't even given him the most basic notice!
Without a doubt, as someone with no connections, no backing, and no "talent," Ning Huan had naturally been sent out to one of the sect's businesses as an ordinary laborer.
By the time he was jolted awake by the carriage, the convoy had already traveled more than a hundred miles.
There was no going back!
At first, he had planned to reveal his talent once he reached his destination.
But the appearance of the [Treasure Seeking Mouse] had thrown his plans into disarray.
After a long inner struggle and careful consideration, he had ultimately chosen to keep a low profile in Tianluo City for six years.
For one reason only: safety.
Fortunately, thanks to the Treasure Seeking Mouse's bloodline ability to scour the area for treasures, Ning Huan could continually obtain all kinds of resources within a certain radius.
Even in the resource-poor borderlands of the Tianhun Empire, small gains accumulated into a vast fortune. The resources he enjoyed could be called an ocean.
Few elite disciples of the Nine Treasures Glazed Sect could compare.
Thinking of this, Ning Huan took a deep breath.
He raised his hand and gently stroked the Storage Soul Tool hidden at his waist.
Inside were more than a hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins, a great deal of property he didn't dare use lightly yet, and medicinal herbs he hadn't had a chance to put to use.
"I don't want to make an enemy of anyone, but in my experience, some things aren't decided by what you want."
"If that's the case, I might as well prepare in advance."
His quiet words faded. A glimmer suddenly passed through Ning Huan's eyes, flickering in and out.
"Besides, I can't shake the feeling that my Martial Soul still has some ability I don't know about."
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