First Soul Skill

Leng Qiu brought Zi Ji, Gu Yue, and Li Chen into a circular room.

The room still had a futuristic metal structure. A ring of huge soul-guide screens hung on the walls, displaying flickering images of a forest.

A staff member pressed a button, and two metal cabinets slowly slid out from the adjacent wall. The cabinets lay horizontally, each containing a human-shaped recess. They looked rather like coffins.

Li Chen curiously looked around before lying down in one of the coffin-like metal pods under the staff member's guidance.

Gu Yue did not resist much and lay down in another metal pod as well.

Before the pod door closed, the staff member solemnly reminded them, "Within the Spirit Ascension Platform, all actions are your own choice, but there is only one core objective! Survival! Do everything you can to stay alive. The longer you survive, the greater the benefits you will gain."

"Once you encounter danger that you cannot handle, immediately press the SOS Signal Device on the back of your hand and leave the Spirit Ascension Platform. Do you understand?"

"Understood!" Gu Yue and Li Chen replied in unison.

"It's about to begin. Get ready. Just relax your entire body. You may feel a little discomfort during the scan. Endure it, and it will pass."

Li Chen only felt waves of tingling sensations spreading through every limb and bone. It was as if something were constantly passing through his body. His Soul Power was stimulated and began to fluctuate on its own, while the numbness grew stronger and stronger until his entire body seemed paralyzed.

The metal box was gone, and the numbness had completely vanished. Only an object resembling a metal device had appeared on the back of his hand, with a conspicuous red button on it.

An SOS Signal Device?

Rising to his feet and sensing this world, Li Chen felt a dense Power of Life rush toward him. His eyes narrowed involuntarily.

Around him stood thick, towering trees. Ahead was a vast stretch of shrubs without any path at all. It felt as though he had entered a primeval forest.

He did not act rashly. From the staff member's earlier words, he could tell that the Spirit Ascension Platform was far from safe. It should be an extremely dangerous place where he might be attacked by soul beasts at any moment. That was what suited the setting of a primeval forest.

He then tried using the Power of Life to establish contact with the surrounding trees.

He succeeded!

Everything around him was filled with life's cheers and joy. The silent great forest and its dense aura of life naturally drew him into it.

Outside the Spirit Ascension Platform, Leng Qiuyu's eyes widened at this sight, and he felt more and more that something was wrong.

He lifted his gaze toward the other side of the surveillance display. Gu Yue's location was not far from Li Chen's, only about a hundred meters away.

During the cross-domain data transmission process just now, there seemed to have been a slight signal error. The image carried a faintly unstable lag.

Deep within the dense forest, Gu Yue walked alone through the lush and thriving primeval woods.

The light in the young woman's exquisite eyes was hazy and distant, while a faint layer of confusion veiled her deep gaze. Ancient trees towered all around her, their intertwined branches blocking out the sunlight. The flourishing vegetation carried crisp, vibrant spiritual energy that rushed toward her. Fresh air that seeped into her heart and lungs lingered around her, and the mountains, trees, wind, and rustling leaves were all so realistic that they gave her the ethereal illusion of having been transported into another lifetime.

A soft murmur drifted through her heart—What a real world.

She gathered her chaotic thoughts and followed her senses with steady steps, heading toward Li Chen.

Along the way, she encountered several wild soul beasts wandering in search of food. However, these soul beasts were weak in cultivation and lacked much hostility, unable to approach her at all. Without any unnecessary movement, she merely condensed fluctuations of law at her fingertips through her innate, overwhelming control over the elements and instantly slaughtered them.

The moment the soul beasts collapsed, their bodies turned into specks of shattered light and dissolved into the world. Strands of faint, lustrous light drifted slowly through the air, all winding toward and gathering around her body.

Each time she caught sight of this strange flow of light, another trace of disbelief appeared in Gu Yue's eyes.

Although she could easily upgrade soul rings with her own strength, this experiment capable of elevating all humanity on such a massive scale still shocked her somewhat.

Just then, a commotion came from ahead.

Li Chen was crouching in a tree, while a massive figure beneath the branch was approaching him.

It had a woman's face, beautiful in appearance, but its open mouth revealed savage fangs. What made Wang Jinxi's scalp tingle even more was that this human face grew from the belly of a gigantic spider!

A Man Faced Demon Spider. It was a Man Faced Demon Spider, a top-tier powerful soul beast known as a soul beast killer. Even at the hundred-year level, it could contend with ordinary thousand-year soul beasts. Li Chen had attracted it when he shared the Power of Life with the surrounding branches.

Without hesitation, Li Chen quickly retreated. When he saw Gu Yue approaching from ahead, he immediately moved toward her.

Seeing this, Gu Yue stopped. She lightly tapped the ground with her left foot, and an earthen wall rose from the earth, temporarily blocking the Man Faced Demon Spider behind it.

The instant the wall rose, wind blades spun around her fingertips and flew forth like life-reaping scythes.

Then fireballs and water tornadoes poured toward it as though they cost nothing.

The Man Faced Demon Spider immediately fell silent. Just as Gu Yue was about to finish it off, it suddenly moved. It then ran toward Li Chen. To it, Li Chen, with his immense life force, was more important. If it devoured him, it might even evolve directly.

Seeing this, Li Chen no longer hesitated. His first soul ring flashed beneath his feet, and dozens of streaks of light shot out!

First Soul Skill, Fate Thread Judgment (Lock-On)

At first glance, it might not seem like much. It had no damage and no defense, but its truly overpowered aspect was its ability to turn invisible threads of fate into blades. Silent and formless, they were difficult to evade. They could cut through flesh and Soul Power, and even sever an enemy's short-term fortune, reducing the chance of explosive Soul Skill effects and lowering luck. In high-level battles, it could directly restrain an enemy's fate and actions—at best preventing them from using Soul Skills for a short time, and at worst robbing them of all ability to resist.

The charging Man Faced Demon Spider instantly felt its Soul Power being stripped away, while its body became completely incapable of resistance.

Seeing this, Gu Yue immediately summoned several wind blades in her right hand and sent them flying toward the Man Faced Demon Spider.

This time, with its body weakened, the wind blades easily dismembered the Man Faced Demon Spider.

After Gu Yue felt that energy enter her body and confirmed that the Man Faced Demon Spider was completely dead, she looked at Li Chen as he walked over and said,

"Let's keep moving forward."