Lightning Falcon Eyes!

On the mountainside, in a cave within a fissure.

Huang Yun sat cross-legged on the dry ground, his eyes shut tight as the purple glow beneath his eyelids slowly receded.

The intense burning and itching sensations had mostly faded, replaced by an unprecedented clarity, as though his entire brain had been scrubbed clean. His thoughts turned far faster than before.

He slowly opened his eyes.

The cave was dimly lit, with only a few strands of daylight filtering through the crack.

Yet at that moment, he could see everything with perfect clarity—the texture of every rock wall, the patterns on the wing cases of beetles crawling in the corners, and the tiny dust motes floating in the air all appeared vividly before his eyes.

He lowered his head to look at his hands. Even the lines on his palms seemed magnified several times over.

"So this is Lightning Falcon Eyes. It's only at the beginner stage, yet it's already this powerful."

Huang Yun moved his eyes slightly and felt a mass of purple light slowly flowing deep within his pupils, gentle and steady.

The inheritance information had already been completely imprinted into his consciousness, displaying each ability of his newly awakened eye technique one by one.

At the beginner stage, it had three abilities.

The first was extreme long-distance vision.

He focused his gaze beyond the crack at the cave entrance. The outline of a mountain ridge several miles away was perfectly clear, and he could even distinguish the branches and leaves of several lone trees atop it.

Before this, he would have seen nothing more than a vague blur of green.

The second was dynamic tracking.

He tried fixing his eyes on a bird flying through the distant sky. In his vision, every motion of its wings was incomparably clear, as though each flap had been slowed down.

Objects moving at ordinary speeds were practically no different from stationary objects in his eyes.

The third was basic x-ray vision.

He looked at the pile of stones near the cave entrance. His gaze passed through the outermost layer of rocks, allowing him to vaguely make out the shape of the light shining in from behind the pile. Though it was not clear enough, he could already distinguish the outlines behind obstructions.

"My Mental Power has increased by a great deal too."

He closed his eyes and sensed it. The range of his Mental Power had expanded from roughly one mile to over two miles, while the precision of his perception had improved drastically.

He could even clearly sense the breathing rhythms and heartbeat frequencies of several wild rabbits at the foot of the mountain two miles away.

Huang Yun rose to his feet, walked to the cave entrance, pushed aside the stones, and stepped onto the rocky ledge on the mountainside.

The mountain wind blew into his face. He narrowed his eyes at the distant view, and the corners of his mouth slowly curled upward.

The feeling of seeing everything so clearly was simply incredible.

He tried activating his eye technique by concentrating his Mental Power. The purple light deep in his pupils abruptly brightened, and pale purple lightning patterns appeared in both pupils at once. The patterns spread outward like lotus flowers, while tiny arcs of electricity flickered across the surface of his eyes for an instant.

The entire world became even clearer in his vision.

Every leaf in the forest at the foot of the mountain trembled faintly in the wind, and he could even see the fuzz on the undersides of the leaves with complete clarity.

Farther away, in the grass by a stream, a snake was quietly approaching a small animal drinking water. Even the patterns on the snake's scales were visible in every detail.

"Good stuff."

Huang Yun withdrew his eye technique. The purple patterns in his pupils slowly faded, returning them to their normal blue-black color.

He had gained far too much from this trip.

The Thunder Shadow Eagle had given him a fifth Spirit Ring of over twenty thousand years and Thunder Shadow Instant Kill, while the Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew had awakened his Martial Soul's innate eye technique.

In just a few days, his overall combat strength had more than doubled.

He stood on the mountainside and gazed into the distance for a while, beginning to plan his next destination.

The Nether Wasteland.

It was a place never mentioned in the original work, but it was a real location he had learned of during his travels over the years.

It was a vast wilderness on the western border of the Heaven Dou Empire, said to be one of the most active regions for bounty hunters on the entire continent.

It was not governed by any empire. There was neither a royal family nor an army, making it a lawless land where the strong devoured the weak.

High-level Soul Masters accepted missions there, murdered and robbed, and fought for resources. Every day saw new factions rise and old ones perish.

It was chaotic, but chaos also meant opportunity.

More importantly, rumors said that ancient ruins and rare ores could be found deep within the Nether Wasteland. Many powerful figures unwilling to be restrained by major factions had gathered there.

With his current strength, he was more than qualified to venture into the Nether Wasteland.

Huang Yun rolled his neck, spread his wings behind him, and leaped into the sky, flying westward.

The Nether Wasteland lay roughly two thousand miles from the border of the Heaven Dou Empire. At his current flight speed, it would take him more than half a day to get there if he flew without stopping.

However, he was in no rush. He planned to stop in a town along the way to buy supplies and ask around about the Nether Wasteland's recent situation.

Half a day later, he arrived at a small border town.

The town was not large, but its streets bustled with people. Soul Masters clad in robes of all kinds could be seen everywhere, while mercenaries with weapons at their waists gathered in groups of three or five outside taverns. The scents of baked flatbread and meat soup drifted through the streets.

Huang Yun found a restaurant that looked reasonably clean and went inside. He ordered a bowl of hot noodle soup, then sat by the window and ate while listening to the activity around him.

Several burly men dressed as mercenaries at the next table were chatting loudly without any attempt to conceal their voices.

"Have you heard? The black market in the Nether Wasteland recently got a batch of good stuff. They say it's a Soul Tool dug out of some ruins. Someone offered five hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins for it, and they still wouldn't sell."

"Five hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins? What could possibly be worth that much?"

"No idea. It's never been shown publicly. They say it's a flying Soul Tool, the kind that can accelerate in the air, but it's damaged. Its flight speed, altitude, and durability are all limited."

"A flying Soul Tool? That's rare. No wonder they won't sell it. Even damaged, it's worth five hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins. If it were intact, wouldn't it cost over a million Gold Soul Coins? That's terrifying!"

"There's something even more explosive. They say the Crimson Flame Mercenary Group and the Iron Wolf Gang had a clash west of the wasteland. More than a dozen high-level Soul Masters died fighting over a newly discovered mineral vein."

"A mineral vein? What kind of ore?"

"They say it's the kind of rare ore used to forge Soul Tools. Nobody knows the specific type, but neither side came out ahead. Several Soul Kings died, and they say even Soul Emperors got involved."

Huang Yun slurped up a mouthful of noodles, his ears perked as he absorbed every piece of information.

The Nether Wasteland truly was a lively place.

Black markets, ruins, Soul Tools, rare mineral veins, mercenary groups fighting each other...

Elsewhere, such information would be closely guarded secrets, yet here, several mercenaries casually discussed it as tavern talk.

He set down his chopsticks, having formed a rough understanding.

The Nether Wasteland did not lack opportunities, but it did not lack danger either.

Soul Kings could only be considered above average there. Above them were Soul Emperors, Soul Saints, and even Soul Douluo-level figures commanding the various factions.