The Boy with the Monocle

"It's been six days; I should be reaching the soul beast forest nearest to Shambhala Village soon."

He was a boy who looked to be about eleven or twelve years old. His build was somewhat thin, his appearance delicate, and his short black hair was clean and neat. His brown cloth clothes were covered in a light layer of dust, and he carried a medium-sized pack on his back.

Yang Fan looked at the map in his hand, then at the messy carriage tracks on the road, and estimated that he wasn't far from the soul beast forest.

Except for a few super-large soul beast habitats, the vast majority of soul beast forests were privately owned. Sixty to seventy percent were supervised by the Spirit Hall, while the rest were carved up by the two great empires of this continent.

This was done partly to prevent soul beast riots and partly for the sustainable development of the soul beasts. This could be seen from the fact that soul beasts were on the verge of extinction twenty thousand years after the Spirit Hall disappeared. Although, there was also the factor of a certain shameless god calculating against the auspicious beasts of the soul beasts, leading to a loss of fortune.

That's right, Yang Fan, who knew so much, was a transmigrator.

He had transmigrated here by accident after a gas explosion next door while arguing with Douluo white-fans about Tang San online.

Sorry for not letting the Great Luck take a shot at me, he thought.

Yang Fan smiled bitterly to himself. Perhaps because he hadn't been hit by the Great Luck, he didn't seem to have obtained the protagonist's fortune. His martial soul was a monocle, and his innate soul power was level 0.5. It could be said to be standard trash.

If it were a body martial soul, he could undergo a second awakening; if it were a beast or plant martial soul, he could optimize it through soul rings; if it were a weapon martial soul, he could refer to Douluo II and integrate rare metals into it. But it just had to be a monocle.

Apart from a miracle or the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well guarded by the Poison Douluo, there was probably nothing that could help him defy the heavens and change his fate.

But as a transmigrator, he still had some pride. If his talent wasn't enough, he would make up for it with hard work, plus he had the advantage of foresight. During his journey, when he passed through Nuoding City, he visited Su Yuntao, who had awakened his martial soul for him. Only then did he learn that Su Yuntao had just awakened Tang San's martial soul a week ago.

As for why he knew it was Tang San—innate full soul power Blue Silver Grass, who else could it be?

He was ten years old this year. Two years ago, he had used a century-old Whale Glue he'd obtained by chance to expand his meridians, raising his innate soul power to level three. With his hard work over the years, he had finally broken through to level ten and could obtain a soul ring.

Why was there no teacher or adult accompanying him? That was because his talent was poor at the time, and he hadn't joined an academy.

Because at the time of his martial soul awakening, there was another child who had awakened a sickle with level three innate soul power, naturally taking the only work-study student spot.

As Yang Fan, who grew up eating food from a hundred families, he had no capital to go to school with his 0.5 level soul power. In the words of the village chief, Old Liu, the right path was to honestly farm, get along well with Er Ya next door, and find a child bride to live off of.

But he thought of Douluo II and III, where so many people with innate deficiencies had become big shots. He felt he still had to give it a try; he would see the effect of his first soul ring before deciding whether to lie flat.

What if—and I mean, what if I obtain a special ability similar to Amon from Lord of the Mysteries? Then the entire Douluo world will be mine, Yang Fan.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation.

After walking for a while longer, he could already see the guards from the Spirit Hall. He walked up, honestly paid the fee, and listened to a list of hunting requirements, such as not killing soul beasts indiscriminately unless necessary, and the common knowledge that the deeper one went into the forest, the more dangerous it became.

Yang Fan knew that these Spirit Hall people were kind-hearted and didn't want a child like him to lose his life in vain.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Yang Fan chose to go to the shade of a tree by the road to cool off.

Hunting soul beasts was not a simple matter. One had to know that in the original work, even the two-ringed Grandmaster had walked a fine line before the King of Hell when hunting ten-year or hundred-year soul beasts. If it hadn't been for the cheat-king Tang San following him, he probably would have become nutrients for the forest.

Yang Fan's goal wasn't high; he planned to find a metal-attribute or light-attribute plant to make do. After all, a monocle with no attributes didn't have any particularly suitable soul beasts, except for the Evil Eye far away on another continent.

Therefore, a plant soul beast with low combat power, high age, and attributes that were slightly compatible was the best choice for a child like him.

He took a bow and a quiver of arrows from his pack. These had been commissioned from the best craftsman in Shambhala Town. Although his martial soul couldn't provide him with any combat power, it could improve his eyesight. In the stage without soul skills, a bow and arrow were the most suitable weapons for him.

For this, he had practiced with the hunters in the village for many years. He had hunted many ordinary animals, but this was his first time hunting a soul beast.

In addition to the bow and arrows, there was also a dagger, which was for quickly finishing off soul beasts after they were severely injured.

As a modern person coming here, although he had gotten used to killing, he felt he should abide by the bottom line of not torturing the living, even if he knew that the deeper the resentment of a soul beast, the higher the explosion rate of soul bones... After ten thousand years, there were even methods of artificially creating soul bones by torturing soul beasts of the same type.

After drinking a few sips of water, Yang Fan reorganized his pack and continued to look for a suitable soul beast, summoning his martial soul.

A monocle floated in front of his right eye. The lens appeared as a deep, dark purple, and the frame was made of an unknown dark gold metal, with mysterious patterns faintly appearing on it.

When the martial soul was possessed, circles of faint purple ripples, invisible to the naked eye, naturally rippled around the lens. Through this thin layer of purple crystal, Yang Fan's pupils seemed to turn into a bottomless starry sky.

Yang Fan walked to a small stream and saw a peculiar plant.

Its petals were not of a fixed shape, but like flowing water, with the edges constantly changing subtly. One second it might look like a graceful peony, the next it would transform into an elegant orchid, or even turn into a strange flower he had never seen before.

Is this a plant soul beast with illusion characteristics?

Without systematic training, and having never peeked at the classics of the Spirit Hall or the Upper Three Sects, Yang Fan had no impression of this plant at all.

But from his martial soul's observation, this should be a soul beast that met his needs.

In his view, there were basically three possibilities for plant-based illusions: first, using optics to create visual errors; second, using toxins to produce hallucinations; and third, mental interference.

Because of his martial soul, his eyesight was excellent. At this moment, he was some distance away from this strange flower, so the possibility of being poisoned was not high. Whether it was an optical illusion or a rare mental attribute, both were good choices for him.

Moreover, soul beasts with illusion abilities were generally not too dangerous. They often relied on "the fox borrowing the tiger's might" to survive. The most classic example was the Ice Silkworm clan in Douluo II; because they were too weak, some Ice Silkworms evolved mimicry soul skills.

But since this was his first time obtaining a soul ring, Yang Fan was still quite cautious. He carefully observed the surroundings and found no traces of other soul beasts, especially the Mandala Snake, that tragic "sixth-man" soul beast of the Douluo series.

In his impression, the vast majority of protagonists in the Douluo series seemed to have confronted this classic poisonous snake soul beast in the early stages and successfully killed it or helped others kill it.

His position was still far from the depths, and he hadn't seen any bamboo forests along the way, so theoretically, it was unlikely there would be any overly powerful soul beasts.

The age of this plant shouldn't be too high, the soul skills it evolved wouldn't be many, and it wouldn't run away like a beast soul beast. It was a soul beast suitable for a novice. Yang Fan felt his luck was really good.

He slowly pulled a feathered arrow from the quiver on his back, his fingertips skillfully resting on the bowstring, firmly gripping the notch at the end of the arrow. As he took a deep breath, the originally slack bowstring was pulled taut bit by bit, the bow limbs bending and emitting a faint, tense "creak," as if storing power about to erupt. His feet were set apart, his center of gravity lowered, and his whole body was like a compressed spring, full of tension ready to be released.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, his right eye locking onto the bullseye in the distance through the arrowhead. The wind seemed to stop at this moment, his breathing became extremely long and light, and the whole world seemed to be left with only him and that distant target. As the bowstring was pulled to his cheek, the muscle lines under his sleeves bulged slightly, his arms as steady as a rock, without the slightest tremor.

"Whoosh—"

At the moment his breath shifted, his fingers suddenly released. The bowstring vibrated violently, emitting a crisp sound. The feathered arrow turned into a sharp stream of light, tearing through the air and shooting out with a shrill whistling sound. In the blink of an eye, the arrow had accurately nailed into the heart of the flower, the feathers at the end of the arrow still vibrating violently, emitting a humming echo.