Entering the Star Dou Great Forest

Huang Fei waved at him, signaling that he had heard.

What the burly man did not know was that while Huang Fei was indeed heading to the Star Dou Great Forest, he was not going to the outer perimeter.

The soul beasts in the outer perimeter were of too low a year; seven or eight hundred years was already a thing of the past for him. He needed a thousand-year soul beast, at least two thousand years or older.

The outer perimeter held no such existence. He had to venture deep.

On the evening of the fifteenth day, Huang Fei stood on a hillside. Below the slope lay an expansive plain, and at the end of the plain stretched an endless sea of dark green forest, which looked like a layer of golden silk under the reflection of the setting sun.

Star Dou Great Forest.

Huang Fei stood on the hillside, looking at that sea of forest, and took a deep breath.

After half a month of walking, he had finally arrived.

He walked down the slope and entered the plain. The soil beneath his feet became increasingly soft, and the damp scent of vegetation began to fill the air. The distant forest sea magnified in his field of vision, transforming from a dark green line into a dark green wall, and finally into a boundless, profound, and daunting ocean of green.

He did not rush to enter the forest, but instead found a relatively dry spot on the plain, unloaded his pack, and sat on a flat rock.

Rest for the night first.

Tomorrow morning, enter the forest.

Huang Fei leaned against the rock, looking at the starry sky above.

The sky above the Star Dou Great Forest was different from elsewhere; the stars were exceptionally bright and dense, as if someone had scattered a handful of crushed diamonds across the heavens.

He stared at those stars for a while, then closed his eyes.

Starting tomorrow, he would no longer need to pretend.

In the early morning, the Star Dou Great Forest was thick with mist, as if someone had splashed a layer of milk over it.

Huang Fei stood at the edge of the forest, holding a branch he had picked up from the roadside, pushed aside the bushes blocking his path, and took his first step.

The soil under his feet was soft and damp, making almost no sound as he stepped on it.

The air was filled with the scent of rotting leaves and damp earth, mixed with the faint fragrance of some unknown wild flower.

The canopy overhead blocked most of the sky, with only a few scattered rays of morning light leaking through the gaps in the leaves, casting patches of light on the ground.

Huang Fei walked for about an hour before the mist gradually dissipated.

The interior of the forest was more open than he had imagined, not as impenetrable as the edges.

The tall trees were spaced several yards or even a dozen yards apart, with trunks so thick they would require two or three people to embrace them. The crowns intertwined overhead, forming a natural dome.

The vegetation on the ground was sparse because the sunlight was blocked by the canopy; only shade-tolerant ferns and mosses could grow in such an environment.

He did not rush to go deeper, but slowed his pace and carved marks into the tree trunks.

This was not out of fear of getting lost, but a habit.

The many wilderness survival tutorials he had watched in his previous life told him that in any unfamiliar environment, marking the path back was the most basic means of survival.

After walking for about an hour, Huang Fei stopped under a massive oak tree.

There was a natural hollow at the base of the trunk; the opening was small, but the space inside was not, enough for a person to curl up and spend the night.

He put down his pack in the tree hollow, used branches and dead leaves to create a simple camouflage at the entrance, and then continued forward.

He needed to first get a grasp of the situation in this area, then find a place to take down a thousand-year soul beast to test the waters.

He had set the target age for his third soul ring at over three thousand years.

Tang San was cultivating step-by-step at Notting Academy; by the time he reached level thirty, it would be at least several years later.

By then, Tang San's third soul ring would likely be around one thousand years.

Huang Fei wanted to maintain the advantage of "always being ten levels higher than Tang San," so he could not simply double the age for his third soul ring as he had for the previous two.

Between four thousand six hundred and five thousand years was the goal he had set for himself.

Not because of greed, but because he needed to widen the gap with Tang San.

With Tang San following Yu Xiaogang step-by-step, his cultivation resources would get better and better, and his soul ring age would continue to rise.

If Huang Fei simply followed Tang San's rhythm—doubling, doubling, and doubling again—although he would still be stronger than Tang San in the end, his relative advantage in soul ring age would become smaller and smaller.

He needed a "leap."

The first doubling was from four hundred thirty to eight hundred sixty, the second was from eight hundred twenty to one thousand six hundred forty, but this time he wanted to triple or even quadruple it directly.

Tang San's third soul ring would be around fifteen hundred years; he wanted something between four thousand six hundred and five thousand.

This was insane.

A six-year-old child, with the soul power of a two-ring Soul Grand Master, attempting to absorb a soul ring of nearly five thousand years sounded like suicide.

In the common knowledge of the soul master world, the optimal absorption limit for a third soul ring was one thousand seven hundred sixty years; a five-thousand-year soul ring was at least in the category of a fourth or even fifth soul ring. The energy density of a thousand-year soul beast and a hundred-year soul beast were not on the same magnitude at all.

But Huang Fei had calculated it; he could handle it.

With the foundation of level thirty soul power, plus the meridians and physical strength reinforced twice by the system, his actual endurance far exceeded that of his peers.

Five thousand might be his limit, but isn't a limit meant to be challenged?

By the time the sun reached its zenith, Huang Fei had already entered the boundary between the outer and middle reaches of the forest.

The trees here were taller and denser than those at the edge, their trunks covered in moss, and traces of soul beasts began to appear in the air—footprints on the ground, claw marks on the trunks, excrement, and the faint scent of soul beasts lingering in the atmosphere.

He kept his Purple Demon Eye maintained at its lowest state of operation, with the perception range of his Mustard Seed Realm covering five hundred paces in every direction.

There was no need to search deliberately; anything possessing life energy that entered this range would light up in his perception like a Fire Fly in the dead of night.

One hundred paces away was a ten-year-old poison bee, three hundred paces away was an Iron-Back Lizard of a hundred-year age, and four hundred paces away was a pack of wild wolves of unknown age—none of these were what he wanted. He was looking for something specific: a plant-type, life-attribute soul beast, preferably a vine, with an age of over three thousand years.

Life-type plant soul beasts were not as adept at movement as animal-type ones; most remained anchored in one place, feeding on the life energy of the surrounding environment. The higher their age, the larger the area they occupied, and the surrounding vegetation would take on a sickly, withered yellow hue as their nutrients were drained away.

In the jargon of soul hunters, this phenomenon was known as a Wither Circle.

What Huang Fei was looking for was precisely such a Wither Circle. A Wither Circle formed by a plant-type soul beast over three thousand years old would have a diameter of at least a hundred paces, making it very conspicuous in the forest.

After walking for about another hour, Huang Fei's Purple Demon Eye caught a trace of an unusual aura in the southeast.

He stopped, extended the perception range of his Purple Demon Eye toward that direction, and confirmed it once more.

It was indeed it.