First Evolution, Hand Over the Soul Beasts!

Chu Youwei's face went pale in that instant.

It was obvious: his Martial Soul couldn't withstand the massive surge of Soul Power from the Soul Ring and was about to shatter.

"What do we do? What do we do... If the Pioneer gets hurt..."

"Dragon Kingdom won't just lose its source of supernatural power from the Douluo World—we'll be trapped here forever, too."

Whoosh!

Long Weiguo immediately dropped the assault rifle in his hands and rushed over.

"The Pioneer absolutely can't get hurt!"

Long Weiguo decisively took out a first-aid kit and applied special healing ointment directly to the White Snake. Then he wrapped it tightly in bandages, hoping to stop the cracks on its body from spreading.

Long Weiguo moved quickly. In just an instant, the nearly one-meter-long White Snake had become a tightly wrapped bundle.

Huo Si, who was absorbing the Soul Ring, suddenly felt a wave of pressure. It was as though a force had forcibly bound him.

The impact of Soul Power and the Soul Ring's stagnation left him in agony.

"Damn it. Is this really not going to work?"

Huo Si couldn't help recalling Su Yuntao's regretful look when he had first awakened his Martial Soul, and Sisi's mockery of his little White Snake Trash Martial Soul.

He'd tried relying on Grandmaster's theories, only to be met with ridicule and insults.

The hopes of the Academy of Sciences' top scientists across the nation.

The Think Tank's expectations for his future.

"I can't stop here..."

"They don't believe in me, so I'll prove them wrong!"

"I have Dragon Kingdom behind me, and the best scientists in all of Dragon Kingdom! I have the brightest Think Tank among billions of people!! I haven't lost. I have no reason to fail!!!"

Huo Si abruptly raised his head. His entire body was drenched in sweat from the powerful Soul Power surging inside the Soul Ring, while the deep yellow Soul Ring above him spun without stopping.

"Fuse... now!!!"

Hum!

The Soul Ring trembled wildly. In the next instant, a powerful surge of Soul Power crashed down from within it.

Hum! Bang!!!

The Level Ten Soul Power barrier shattered in an instant.

[Level Eleven!]

[Level Twelve!!]

[Level Thirteen!!!]

...

His Soul Power surged in an instant, and the deep yellow Soul Ring slowly descended.

Hum!

Huo Si's body was covered in conspicuous cracks, just like those on his White Snake Martial Soul.

The White Snake, bound from head to tail in bandages, trembled violently. Blinding white light pierced through the wrappings.

Bang!!!

As the bandages burst apart, the White Snake's body began to grow again, enveloped in white light.

Within the glow, the White Snake's colorful scales took on the cold gleam of forged iron. Its body officially surpassed one meter, and it grew from thumb-thick to as thick as an adult's arm.

Its fangs grew longer, and its mouth rapidly widened. When fully open, it was several times larger than its own head. Its flesh was strengthened, its bones tempered by Soul Power, and powerful stomach acid appeared in its digestive sac, instantly breaking down the food in its belly. A powerful urge to devour enveloped the White Snake.

The only thing that hadn't changed was the clear, stupid look in its eyes.

Watching the White Snake's dramatic transformation, Long Weiguo and Chu Youwei stood there, completely stunned.

"It... it evolved!"

"The Pioneer's Martial Soul has completed its evolution!!"

"Youwei, look at the Pioneer!!!"

After the deep yellow Soul Ring above Huo Si's head descended, the white cracks across his body instantly fused together. His body grew much stronger. In that instant, his formerly closed bone joints and frail frame matured, stretched taller, and were tempered... until he stood tall and sturdy.

Faintly visible over Huo Si's skin was a layer of white scales, like forged iron...

"After the Pioneer's Martial Soul evolved, his body was strengthened. It seems to have evolved along with it!"

Chu Youwei's eyes widened. She covered her mouth, her face full of disbelief.

"But why hasn't the Pioneer woken up yet?"

Hiss, hiss, hiss!

The White Snake hissed twice, then lowered its head and looked at the Giant-Mouthed Snake's body, which had been battered into several pieces. Without the slightest hesitation, it began to devour it.

Huo Si remained seated cross-legged, the deep yellow Soul Ring spinning above his head.

Whenever the White Snake devoured a piece of the Giant-Mouthed Snake's body, powerful stomach acid dissolved it in its belly, and the massive Soul Power surged through Huo Si's body once more.

Bang!

[Level Fourteen!]

Bang!!

[Level Fifteen!!]

Bang!!!

[Peak Level Sixteen!!!]

When the White Snake had swallowed every last piece of the Giant-Mouthed Snake, it looked at Chu Youwei and Long Weiguo with an unsatisfied, pitiful expression.

"Brother Weiguo, what do we do? It looks like the Pioneer's Martial Soul is still hungry."

Long Weiguo gripped his assault rifle tightly and swallowed hard. The White Snake's eyes looked clear, with a touch of stupidity, but it seemed to recognize them and hadn't attacked.

If it really did attack, Long Weiguo had no idea what he'd do.

This was the Pioneer's Martial Soul, after all. They couldn't kill it like the Soul Beasts in Soul Hunting Forest.

"There's still some wolf meat..."

Long Weiguo spoke with difficulty, then slowly walked over to the wolf pack they'd killed earlier and tossed the corpses of the wolves in front of the White Snake.

The White Snake wasn't picky. It swallowed them one by one, devouring every last bit under Chu Youwei and Long Weiguo's horrified, gulping stares.

After it finished eating, it looked at Long Weiguo and Chu Youwei again.

Bang!!!

[Level Seventeen~!!!]

Huu!

Huo Si let out a long breath and slowly opened his eyes. The Soul Ring above his head descended and merged into his body.

"Success!"

The moment he successfully absorbed his First Soul Ring, Huo Si turned and looked toward the White Snake through his connection to his Martial Soul.

The White Snake had successfully grown beyond one meter, and its belly had become round. Through his Martial Soul, Huo Si could still sense its desire to eat, but there was still undigested food in its mouth and throat.

"It inherited the Giant-Mouthed Snake's gluttony, along with its powerful stomach acid?"

Huo Si didn't indulge the White Snake. He immediately recalled it into his body.

The instant the White Snake returned to his body, a powerful feeling of fullness spread through him.

Huo Si quickly circulated the Martial Soul Devouring Evolution Method, rapidly digesting the food inside the White Snake.

A massive amount of Soul Power appeared in an instant and began another fierce assault on his Level Seventeen Soul Power.

It stabilized Huo Si's Soul Power at Level Seventeen and pushed it to the peak.

"Good, good! It really works!"

Huo Si's eyes gleamed. He hadn't expected the White Snake Martial Soul to be so powerful.

Who said his Martial Soul was a Trash Martial Soul?

It had just started out a little small. Once it absorbed a powerful Soul Ring, it could still grow huge.

One meter definitely wasn't the limit. It was only the beginning!

As Huo Si refined the food inside his Martial Soul and converted it into Soul Power, Long Weiguo and Chu Youwei hurried over.

"It worked! You did it!"

Long Weiguo's eyes glittered.

Chu Youwei's eyes were full of disbelief, too.

"That was so dangerous!"

It wasn't until a pale fish-belly white light slowly appeared in the east that Huo Si opened his eyes.

"Pioneer, how did your first evolution feel?"

"Do you feel unwell?"

Chu Youwei hurriedly asked about Huo Si's condition.

"I feel great. The Martial Soul Devouring Evolution Method really does work... It's just..."

After putting the Martial Soul Devouring Method into practice and experiencing its power, Huo Si felt the faint Soul Power permeating the air in Soul Hunting Forest and furrowed his brows deeply.

If he hadn't tried the Martial Soul Devouring Evolution Method—having Xiao Bai devour Soul Beasts while he refined Soul Beast meat to gain massive Soul Power—the Soul Power in Soul Hunting Forest would have been quite good.

But after trying to devour meat rich in Soul Power, Huo Si couldn't settle for that meager amount anymore.

"The downside of this cultivation method is that I need Soul Beasts to keep my Martial Soul fed. Otherwise, my cultivation progresses too slowly."

But he couldn't spend every day in Soul Hunting Forest or Star Dou Great Forest, could he?

That's it!

He couldn't spend every day in Soul Hunting Forest or Star Dou Great Forest, searching for Soul Beasts to feed his Martial Soul.

But he had the Plane Star Gate.

Couldn't he just capture a large number of Soul Beasts and transfer them to Dragon Kingdom, where they could raise them for him? Then he could take them from the Plane Star Gate whenever he needed them.

"Capture Soul Beasts!"

"Transfer them back to Dragon Kingdom!!"

"I need a lot of them—lots of Hundred-Year Soul Beasts!!!"

When his Martial Soul had devoured the Giant-Mouthed Snake's body, gained a massive amount of Soul Power, and raised his Soul Power Level, then gone on to eat the corpses of those Ten-Year Gale Wolves, Huo Si had already realized it.

The higher a Soul Beast's level, the more Soul Power its body contained. The corpse of a Hundred-Year Soul Beast held dozens of times as much Soul Power as that of a Ten-Year Soul Beast.

The White Snake could only eat so much. Its belly had limited space, so he could only capture Soul Beasts with higher concentrations of Soul Power.

Though his Martial Soul kept sending him urges to eat, Huo Si knew it couldn't eat any more.

The food was stuck in its throat, and the food in its belly hadn't finished digesting. How could it eat anything else?

That urge to eat was merely a habit it had inherited from the Giant-Mouthed Snake.

After Huo Si gave the order, Long Weiguo excitedly began making preparations.

Chu Youwei looked at Huo Si in confusion.

"Pioneer, how do you plan to transfer Soul Beasts back to Dragon Kingdom? If I remember correctly, you can only bring a limited number of people each time you open the Plane Star Gate, right?"

Huo Si nodded.

"Right, there's a limit. That's a problem, too."

"We'll have to test it."

In the next instant, Huo Si decisively summoned the Plane Star Gate.

After a moment's thought, Huo Si didn't walk through it. He simply opened the Plane Star Gate.

Meanwhile,

in Dragon Kingdom,

inside the Douluo World Planar Research Institute,

the moment the Plane Star Gate appeared again, the entire research institute erupted in excitement, and everyone gathered.

Even Elder Long was called out of a meeting and arrived at the institute at once.

"What's going on?"

"Where is everyone?"

"Why hasn't the Pioneer come back? Could it be..."

Elder Long's expression shifted.

"Elder Long, it should be fine. The Plane Star Gate is the Pioneer's Martial Soul. If something had happened to the Pioneer, his Martial Soul wouldn't have appeared by itself."

"Since it's appeared here, but the Pioneer hasn't, there can only be one explanation."

"The Pioneer hasn't entered the Plane Star Gate on the other side. He may be held up by something."

The institute's director, Elder Ke, pushed up his glasses.

Elder Gong from the Think Tank pondered briefly.

"He probably has something to tell us."

Elder Gong stepped forward and shouted toward the gate.

"Pioneer! Pioneer, can you hear me?"

Inside Soul Hunting Forest,

hearing the voice from within the gate, Long Weiguo and Chu Youwei immediately looked delighted.

"Pioneer, that's Elder Gong—the Think Tank's head, Elder Gong."

Huo Si nodded. If he didn't have to go through, but the sound could still pass through, then he had a lot of options.

Huo Si hadn't forgotten that the Plane Star Gate could be stored inside his mind. As long as he could establish stable communication and open the gate to receive signals from the other side, could he eventually use it like a walkie-talkie, too...?

No sooner had the thought occurred to him than Huo Si put it into practice.

"Throw a military walkie-talkie from the Academy of Sciences through!"

Hearing Huo Si's words, Elder Long didn't hesitate.

"Quick, bring the most advanced walkie-talkie!"

Two and a half minutes later, a black object was thrown through the Plane Star Gate.

Huo Si picked it up and fiddled with it for a while.

"I know how to use this."

Long Weiguo quickly stepped forward, grabbed the walkie-talkie, and pressed the button.

"Xianglong Army, Xiaolong Squad, Squad Leader Long Weiguo calling Dragon Kingdom Command. Please respond if you can hear me."

Command Center

Listening to the information coming back through the walkie-talkie in his hand, Elder Long slowly curled his lips into a smile.

"Good lad."

"Command Center here. Caller, this is Dragon Army. Any anomalies?"

When he heard who was speaking through the walkie-talkie, Long Weiguo stiffened, deep fear showing in his eyes.

"Sir, sir, you're speaking."

He quickly handed the walkie-talkie to Huo Si.

A flash of surprise crossed Huo Si's eyes. He didn't know why Long Weiguo was so afraid.

"Douluo Plane Pioneer Huo Si... is about to hand over Soul Beasts. Please prepare the special iron cages at headquarters for their containment!"

Those words sent the entire research institute into a frenzy.

"Soul Beasts! Soul Beasts! They've already reached the Soul Hunting Forest. The Pioneer may have completed his Soul Ring absorption!"

"Maybe his Martial Soul has already undergone its first evolution! Hurry, get the Pioneer back so we can examine him and fill in the research institute's Soul Master physical data!"

"Soul Beasts! The Pioneer and his team are moving so fast! They can already fill in Dragon Kingdom's shortage of Soul Beasts and add to the gaps in our Soul Beast data!"

Elder Long was also a little shocked. He hadn't expected Huo Si and the others to have come this far in just one day.

Once he recovered, he immediately gave the order.

"Get ready. Prepare iron cages made from top-grade steel to contain the Soul Beasts!"

"Command Center has received the instructions and is preparing the top-grade steel. How does the Pioneer plan to capture the Soul Beasts?"

Half an hour later, the Command Center had prepared a huge iron cage. They finally learned how Huo Si planned to send the Soul Beasts back to Dragon Kingdom.

At the center of the Soul Hunting Forest.

Hundred-Year Soul Beasts stampeded and fled in panic...

A gigantic White Snake, about three meters long, was driving a large number of Hundred-Year Soul Beasts before it.

Huo Si stood on the White Snake with an assault rifle in hand, while Long Weiguo stood beside him, holding a sniper rifle and keeping watch.

"Make way, make way... Chu Youwei, move! Get behind the gate!"

Standing in front of the Plane Star Gate, Chu Youwei saw more than twenty Hundred-Year Soul Beasts being driven toward her, and her scalp instantly prickled.

She hurried behind the Plane Star Gate.

Hiss, hiss, hiss~!!!

The White Snake was incredibly excited. Back when it was tiny, it definitely couldn't beat those Soul Beasts with their enormous bodies. But now it had a huge body of its own.

The other Soul Beasts fled at the sight of it. If they didn't, a strange iron lump that appeared out of nowhere would punch a hole in them.

The Soul Beasts felt wronged, too. There were so many Hundred-Year Soul Beasts; they certainly weren't afraid of the White Snake.

But two people were standing on the White Snake. If they dared not run or tried to fight back, they would feel a sharp pain as their flesh vanished into thin air, leaving huge holes in their bodies.

After two five-hundred-year Soul Beasts had been shot in the head by the sniper rifle's caliber of over ten centimeters, their heads blown apart from their bodies, the rest abandoned all resistance and fled on instinct alone.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh~!!!

As one Hundred-Year Soul Beast after another entered the Plane Star Gate and was transported back to Dragon Kingdom, Huo Si's face suddenly turned pale.

The deep yellow Soul Ring floating above him was abruptly drawn back into his body, and the three-meter-long White Snake instantly shrank to one meter.

When all seventeen Hundred-Year Soul Beasts had entered the Plane Star Gate, it quickly shut...

"Damn, my Soul Power's drained."

"Kill the rest!"