Entering the Star Dou Great Forest

Huang Fei waved at him to show that he had heard.

What the burly man didn't know was that Huang Fei really was heading for the Star Dou Great Forest, but not the outskirts.

The Soul Beasts on the outskirts were too young. Seven or eight hundred years was already behind him; he needed thousand-year Soul Beasts, at least two thousand years old.

There were no creatures of that level on the outskirts. He had to venture deeper.

On the evening of the fifteenth day, Huang Fei stood on a hillside. Below the slope stretched an open plain, and beyond it lay an endless sea of dark green forest, glimmering like a sheet of golden silk beneath the setting sun.

The Star Dou Great Forest.

Standing on the hillside, Huang Fei looked out over the forest and took a deep breath.

After half a month on the road, he had finally arrived.

He walked down the slope and entered the plain. The earth beneath his feet grew softer, and the damp scent of grass and trees began to fill the air. The distant forest swelled in his view, changing from a dark green line into a dark green wall, then at last into an endless, profound green ocean that inspired awe.

He didn't rush into the forest. Instead, he found a relatively dry spot on the plain, set down his pack, and sat on a flat rock.

He would rest for the night first.

Tomorrow morning, he would enter the forest.

Huang Fei leaned back against the rock and gazed up at the stars.

The sky above the Star Dou Great Forest was unlike the sky elsewhere. The stars were especially bright and densely clustered, as if someone had scattered a handful of diamonds across the heavens.

He watched them for a while, then closed his eyes.

Starting tomorrow, he wouldn't need to keep pretending.

At dawn, the mist over the Star Dou Great Forest was so thick it looked as though someone had poured a layer of milk over it.

Huang Fei stood at the forest's edge with a branch he had picked up along the road in hand. He used it to part the bushes blocking his way and took his first step inside.

The earth beneath his feet was soft and damp, and his steps made almost no sound.

The air was filled with the smell of rotting leaves and damp soil, mingled with the faint fragrance of some unknown wildflower.

The canopy overhead blocked most of the sky. Only a few thin shafts of morning light slipped through the leaves, casting patches of brightness on the ground.

Huang Fei walked for about half an hour before the mist gradually began to clear.

The forest interior was more open than he had expected, unlike the tightly packed outskirts.

The tall trees stood several yards, even dozens of yards, apart. Their trunks were so thick that two or three people would have needed to join hands to encircle them. Overhead, their interlocking canopies formed a natural dome.

The vegetation on the ground was sparse by contrast. The canopy blocked the sunlight, leaving only shade-tolerant ferns and mosses able to grow in such conditions.

He didn't rush deeper. Instead, he slowed his pace and carved markers into the tree trunks.

It wasn't because he was afraid of getting lost. It was simply a habit.

All those wilderness survival guides he had read in his previous life had taught him that marking his way back was the most basic means of staying alive in any unfamiliar environment.

After walking for about an hour, Huang Fei stopped beneath a huge oak.

At the base of the trunk was a natural hollow. Its opening was small, but there was plenty of room inside for one person to curl up and spend the night.

He left his pack in the hollow, made a simple disguise for the entrance with branches and dead leaves, then continued onward.

First, he needed to get a sense of the area. Then he would find a place to test himself against a thousand-year Soul Beast.

He had set his target for his third Soul Ring at over three thousand years.

Tang San was training steadily at Notting Academy. It would be at least several years before he reached level thirty.

By then, Tang San's third Soul Ring would probably be around a thousand years old.

If Huang Fei wanted to maintain his advantage of "always being ten levels above Tang San," he couldn't settle for simply doubling the age of his third Soul Ring as he had the first two times.

His target was between four thousand six hundred and five thousand years.

It wasn't greed. He needed to widen the gap between himself and Tang San.

Tang San was following Yu Xiaogang step by step, and his cultivation resources would keep improving, as would the age of his Soul Rings.

If Huang Fei simply followed Tang San's pace—doubling, then doubling again, and again—he would still be stronger in the end, but his relative advantage in Soul Ring age would grow smaller and smaller.

He needed to "skip a grade."

The first doubling had taken him from four hundred and thirty years to eight hundred and sixty. The second had taken him from eight hundred and twenty to one thousand six hundred and forty. But this time, he wanted to jump straight to three or even four times the age.

Tang San's third Soul Ring would probably be around one thousand five hundred years old. Huang Fei was aiming for between four thousand six hundred and five thousand.

It was madness.

A six-year-old child with the Soul Power of a two-ring Soul Grandmaster, trying to absorb a Soul Ring close to five thousand years old—it sounded like suicide.

According to common knowledge in the Soul Master World, the ideal age for a third Soul Ring was one thousand seven hundred and sixty years. A five-thousand-year Soul Ring was suitable for at least a fourth, if not a fifth, Soul Ring. The energy density of a thousand-year Soul Beast was on a completely different level from that of a hundred-year Soul Beast.

But Huang Fei had done the math. He could take it.

The foundation of level-thirty Soul Power, combined with meridians and a body strengthened twice by the system, meant his actual capacity far exceeded that of his peers.

Five thousand years might be his limit, but weren't limits made to be challenged?

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

Here, the trees were taller and denser than at the edge. Moss covered their trunks, and signs of Soul Beasts began to appear in the air—their tracks in the dirt, claw marks on tree trunks, droppings, and the faint traces of their presence.

His Purple Demon Eye remained in its lowest state of activation, while his Mustard Seed Realm sense covered a radius of five hundred paces.

He didn't need to search deliberately. Anything with vital energy that entered this range would light up in his perception like a firefly in the dark.

A ten-year poisonous bee lay a hundred paces away; a hundred-year Iron-Back Lizard, three hundred paces away; and a pack of wolves of unknown age, four hundred paces away. None of them was what he wanted. He was searching for something specific—a plant-type Soul Beast, with life as its attribute, over three thousand years old, preferably a vine.

Plant-type Soul Beasts with life attributes weren't as mobile as animal-type ones. Most were rooted in one place, feeding on the vital energy in their surroundings. The older they were, the larger the area they occupied. The vegetation around them would also turn a sickly, withered yellow as they drained away its nutrients.

In Soul Hunting jargon, this phenomenon was called a "Wither Circle."

That was what Huang Fei was looking for. A Wither Circle formed by a plant-type Soul Beast over three thousand years old would be at least a hundred paces in diameter, making it very conspicuous in the forest.

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

He stopped, extended his Purple Demon Eye's range of perception in that direction, and checked again.

It was there.