Returning to the Soul Hunting Forest

"Is our target a fox this time?"

"If we can't find a rabbit."

Hearing the conversation between Nuoding Dean and Jiang Jiu, Xiao Wu blinked.

If Little Jiu wanted a Charm Soul Skill, then of course she'd enthusiastically recommend all kinds of foxes.

Leopards weren't the only ones that ate rabbits. Foxes did, too.

Hmm, thinking about it carefully, there sure were a lot of creatures that could eat Soft Bone Rabbits like them!

Still, if there were enough to fill all of Little Jiu's Soul Rings, that was a good thing.

Once they entered the Soul Hunting Forest, the group's relaxed mood shifted. They began keeping a serious, wary lookout.

But since they'd come here several times already, they were still much more at ease than before.

On his third visit to the Soul Hunting Forest, Jiang Jiu was no longer completely in the dark. Since entering, he'd been able to name every Soul Beast he encountered and identify its cultivation.

Teacher Xiao Wu was great. No need to say more.

So, when it came to choosing a Soul Skill, Jiang Jiu openly copied Xiao Wu's approach.

Charm was already an excellent control-type Soul Skill. The brief daze it caused in an opponent gave Xiao Wu and Jiang Jiu enough time to unleash a burst of attacks and finish them off. Though, with their physiques as they were now, they could also simply batter an opponent of the same rank to pieces.

Another reason Jiang Jiu valued Charm was its Mental Attribute.

He got hit by Xiao Wu's Charm every day. He'd been thinking that if he trained his mental strength, and Xiao Wu kept using Charm every day, perhaps he could figure out how to wield mental strength.

If one day he could use the technique of "Charm" through his own mental strength alone, without relying on a Soul Ring, then he'd have made it.

In a sense, Charm was a shortcut to exploring how mental strength could be used.

If he couldn't figure it out at the second or third ring, he could study it later, when his Soul Power and mental strength were higher. With a Charm Soul Skill that he used often, he'd be better able to understand mental strength and how it worked than other people.

Jiang Nannan's gravity control was good, but mental strength was the foundation of one's attributes. Soul Power, mental strength, and physique working as one—that was the right approach.

As for whether using Charm felt awkward, it was actually fine.

Charm was just a name. Judging from how the Soul Skill affected him, Jiang Jiu simply froze for a moment. It didn't make him leer like a fool, let alone conjure up strange illusions or thoughts.

And as for his eyes turning pink, that was the same color of light that appeared when he used Martial Soul Possession. A macho color, that was all.

"That's enough for today."

Jiang Jiu was looking for a fox-type Soul Beast between four and seven hundred years old. His options were much narrower than when he'd chosen his First Soul Ring. There was no doubt that this Soul Hunt would turn into a drawn-out battle.

So this time, Jiang Jiu and the others had brought tents, and Tang San had packed plenty of food in his Storage Soul Tool.

Once again marveling at how convenient Storage Soul Tools were, Jiang Jiu started helping set up the tents.

Tang San once again took care of spreading the snake-repellent powder. After three years of refining his recipe, the powder Tang San made himself worked far better than the one Yu Xiaogang used.

At night, the two adults, Nuoding Dean and Yu Xiaogang, took turns standing watch, while Jiang Jiu and the others slept in the tents.

"It hasn't been long, and we're about to have three Soul Grandmasters. They're all genuine Little Monsters." Nuoding Dean felt as if Jiang Jiu, that little rascal, had blocked his way only yesterday. Now, in the blink of an eye, he'd already reached level twenty. What would he be like by graduation?

"They really are all exceptionally talented, and so mature, too."

Yu Xiaogang wasn't in a hurry to rest, so he chatted with Nuoding Dean for a while.

"Mature... Yes. Xiaogang, did you notice the drawing in Jiang Jiu's hand? Those characters were obviously written by that little girl. Each of the three has their own strengths."

"Sometimes I wonder what I was doing when I was nine. Their talent is downright despair-inducing, and they work so hard, too. They're only nine."

Yu Xiaogang fell silent, his heart a tangle of emotions—darkness and struggle he couldn't put into words.

"Xiaogang, what do you expect from them?" Nuoding Dean suddenly turned and looked Yu Xiaogang straight in the eye.

"Of course I hope they do well."

"Is that so? I've taken quite a liking to that kid Jiang Jiu."

"He's Tang San's sworn elder brother now."

"Is that so? Sigh."

With a sigh, everything fell silent again.

They spent several more days searching. By now, they'd spent longer in the Soul Hunting Forest than during their first two trips combined.

They did encounter fox-type Soul Beasts during that time, but either they were too young, or they were already a thousand years old.

What should you do if you ran into a thousand-year-old fox?

Run, obviously. What else, fight it?

Never mind whether Nuoding Dean, a Tool Soul Ancestor, could beat a thousand-year-old Soul Beast. Even if the group could defeat it together, Jiang Jiu wouldn't dare risk absorbing its Soul Ring.

Who knew what kind of bodily strength was needed to absorb a Soul Ring? What if it depended on the strength of one's meridians? That would be a miserable way to die.

Jiang Jiu couldn't be sure whether the increase in his strength had also strengthened his meridians.

Until he could quantify the age of the Soul Rings his body could absorb, he wouldn't mess around. The optimal Soul Ring configuration, apart from the Ninth Black Ring, was already more than good enough.

"We actually ran into such a rare thousand-year-old Soul Beast..." Yu Xiaogang panted.

"There can't be many thousand-year-old Soul Beasts in the entire Soul Hunting Forest. Looks like we've already gone pretty deep."

Nuoding Dean's attention, however, was on Jiang Jiu and the other two.

Not one of them is ordinary.

They'd all run away, yet the three of them weren't even out of breath. They made Yu Xiaogang, a level-twenty-nine Soul Grandmaster, look bad by comparison.

Jiang Jiu's legendary morning runs were no exaggeration. Judging by how he'd looked just now, he hadn't even exerted himself much. Nuoding Dean had the feeling he couldn't outrun him himself.

"Little Jiu, I think your Soul Ring might be within reach." Xiao Wu spoke up. She'd seemed to be deep in thought.

"You noticed something?" Teacher Xiao Wu had been keeping this to herself.

"Little Jiu, did you recognize what kind of thousand-year-old fox that was?"

"A Three-Eyed Fox, just over a thousand years old." The Three-Eyed Fox was on Jiang Jiu's list of targets, too. If he absorbed its Soul Ring, there was a good chance he'd gain a Charm Soul Skill.

"Right, but that wasn't an ordinary Three-Eyed Fox. Or rather, there's something extraordinary behind it."

"Something extraordinary?"

Yu Xiaogang and the others looked over, too.

"Mm. I don't think it's the ruler of this territory. There's someone else at the top." Xiao Wu explained her theory.

She called it a theory, but she was becoming more and more certain.

"You mean the Soul Beast I need to find—the one whose Soul Ring I'm after—is the ruler of that thousand-year-old Soul Beast?" Jiang Jiu pieced together Xiao Wu's reasoning.

"Exactly!"

Jiang Jiu thought about it, and something came back to him.

"Three-Eyed Demon Fox?"

"Right. It's the most suitable Soul Beast for you, Little Jiu. It has a Mental Attribute, and because of the unique ecology of the Three-Eyed Demon Fox and Three-Eyed Fox, there's a very good chance it'll meet your age requirements."