Cold Jade-Horned Rhino

Huo Yuhao's breath caught. He was going to become Sea God Tang San's junior disciple!

It was a status he had never dared imagine.

"I won't let you down, Master!"

"Hold on!"

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm poked his head out from the side, indignant. "I'm the one who prepared Little Yuhao's second Martial Soul for him. How did he end up becoming your disciple?"

Yu Xiaogang gave him a haughty glance.

"You can only give Yuhao power. I can teach him how to use it."

"Without proper guidance, even the strongest Martial Soul will go to waste."

"You—"

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm squirmed with rage.

Watching the man and the silkworm argue, Huo Yuhao smiled for the first time in a long while. Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had prepared a second Martial Soul for him, and Yu Xiaogang was willing to take him as a personal disciple. This was the care he had always longed for.

After this journey to the Far North, perhaps all the contempt and hurt he had endured would finally be made up for.

He lowered his head and packed the last bag of rations into his Storage Soul Tool.

Everything was ready.

Seven days later.

Frostfall City, on the northern frontier of the Heaven Dou Empire.

Wrapped in a black cloak, Gu Mingyuan had just left an inn beside the station when he spotted a familiar, slight figure.

Huo Yuhao emerged alone from a shop with a pack on his back. A map was tucked under his arm, and he had changed into sturdy fur boots. He headed north toward the city gate.

Gu Mingyuan did not go over to greet him. He merely watched until Huo Yuhao disappeared into the crowd. A moment later, he turned and entered the Black Feather Medicine Shop in the west of the city.

At the counter, Gu Mingyuan set the black iron token on the tabletop.

The shopkeeper saw the markings on it, and his manner immediately turned respectful.

"What can I do for you, young master?"

"Send a message up the chain for me."

Gu Mingyuan tapped the counter lightly. "Huo Yuhao has arrived in Frostfall City."

"He's alone and continuing north. He appears to be heading into the Far North to hunt for his second Soul Ring."

The shopkeeper wrote down the message and asked quietly,

"Should we send someone to follow him?"

Gu Mingyuan retrieved the token and turned toward the door.

"Follow him for now."

"Don't alert him."

Outside Frostfall City, the wind howled through the snow.

Three black-robed figures in windproof cloaks were already waiting before an abandoned stone cave at the edge of the wasteland.

Their leader was a sinister-looking old man who deliberately maintained the Soul Power fluctuations of a Soul Saint. The two attendants beside him were both five-ring Soul Kings. This elite team from the Far North Branch Altar had originally been tasked with tracking Huo Yuhao and capturing him alive.

Gu Mingyuan walked through the snowstorm into the cave. Without wasting words, he produced the faintly glowing black token.

"Under orders from above, you'll first help me kill two Soul Beasts." Gu Mingyuan then began making things up:

"I'll absorb a fifteen-hundred-year one. The horn of a rhino over seven thousand years old is a collectible the higher-ups promised me."

The Soul Saint glanced at the token, and his face darkened. "Kid, we have important business. Capturing that target with spiritual attributes is our priority. The branch altar can't take responsibility for delaying the mission for a junior who's only just passed level thirty."

"Here's the token. The order came from the higher-ups themselves." Gu Mingyuan put it away.

"And I don't need you to stay and guard me. Just cripple the Soul Beasts, and I'll finish them off. After that, you can go straight after Huo Yuhao. If another Soul Beast attacks me while you're gone, that's entirely my responsibility. Your branch altar won't be blamed."

The Soul Saint raised an eyebrow. If they did not have to spend time guarding him or risk being blamed for failing to protect him, killing two Soul Beasts under ten thousand years old would not take much effort.

"Deal," the Soul Saint said with a snort.

Before setting out, Gu Mingyuan had drawn one medicinal ingredient from the Far North Branch Altar's storehouse: a Cold Marrow Gall taken from a fifteen-hundred-year-old Cold Marrow Pangolin Beast.

Its bitter cold sank into the bones. It could greatly toughen them and suppress the restless blood and vital energy within his body. It was precisely the safeguard he had prepared for forcibly absorbing a Soul Ring beyond his level.

Half an hour later, in an icy valley deep in the frozen plains.

The team soon found its targets. A small herd of Cold Jade-Horned Rhinos lay beneath an ice wall sheltered from the wind. Gu Mingyuan immediately picked out a massive rhino among them and a smaller one at the edge.

"Move."

At the Soul Saint's low command, seven Soul Rings shot up beneath his feet. He launched himself across the ice, with the two Soul Kings close behind. They swept around from either side and quickly brought down the fifteen-hundred-year-old young rhino.

The adult Cold Jade-Horned Rhino, over six meters long, roared. Blue light flashed across the crystalline horn on its head. Cornered, it charged with no regard for its life and smashed the thick ice wall in its path to pieces.

But against such overwhelming strength, its desperate struggle meant nothing. The Soul Saint broke its front leg with a single heavy punch. A few blows later, the huge rhino crashed to the ground, barely breathing.

Gu Mingyuan stepped forward and finished off both Soul Beasts with swift strikes of his blade.

Two Soul Rings slowly rose from the corpses.

Gu Mingyuan did not sit down to absorb one immediately. Instead, he took a palm-sized silver disc from his clothes and handed it to the Soul Saint.

"Huo Yuhao has rare spiritual attributes and keen perception. Ordinary high-level tracking methods could easily alert him," Gu Mingyuan explained without a flicker of unease.

"This is a Level Two Mother-and-Child Tracking Soul Tool. Take the mother disc and track the target. Once you pick up Huo Yuhao's trail, your position will automatically be relayed to me. If anything goes wrong, I'll request help from the branch altar."

The Soul Saint looked down at the intricately constructed mother disc without suspicion. A newly promoted Soul Elder at a mere level thirty could hardly cause trouble for three high-level Evil Soul Masters.

"At least you thought this through, kid."

The Soul Saint put away the mother disc and beckoned to the two Soul Kings behind him. The three became dark blurs, vanishing swiftly into the depths of the Far North through the blizzard.

Watching them go, Gu Mingyuan closed his hand around the child disc he had kept hidden in his sleeve. As long as they carried the mother disc, he could track the hunting team's exact position.

Silence returned to the cave.

Gu Mingyuan sat cross-legged beside the seventy-five-hundred-year-old Cold Jade-Horned Rhino. He took out the Cold Marrow Gall and swallowed it.

Its bitter-cold medicinal power surged through him like a thread of ice. Drawing on that chill, Gu Mingyuan circulated the Mysterious Heaven Skill and raised a hand to draw in the Purple Soul Ring hovering above.

Boom!

The energy of a seventy-five-hundred-year Soul Ring far exceeded what a normal third ring could bear, but Gu Mingyuan's body was also far stronger than an ordinary soul master's.

Gu Mingyuan gritted his teeth and activated his Golden Jade Body. Golden patterns flickered across his jade-like skin.