An Invisible Hand, Fortune Stolen

"Fifty li ahead, you will enter the Star Dou Great Forest. Soul Beasts roam there. Stay alert!"

A familiar sign came into view.

"Yuhao, you'll walk the next stretch alone. This is your test."

"Remember, fear is a creature's instinct. Courage is humanity's song of praise."

Huang Jinxu looked at his disciple. He had no intention of taking part in what came next. He would watch quietly from the sidelines.

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

Huo Yuhao repeated his promise, a new resolve in his eyes.

He did not know what test his teacher had set for him, but he would not give up.

Huo Yuhao went on alone, heading deeper into the Star Dou Great Forest.

The Wind Baboon, the Godslayer he had been fated to encounter, did not appear. Neither did the million-year Soul Beast, Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, nor Electrolux, the Undead Scourge.

It was as though, once he missed them, he would never have another chance.

Huo Yuhao still encountered a few Ten-Year Soul Beasts along the way. But with his current strength and the Zhou Tian Star Art and Illusory Moon Star Eyes he had cultivated, dealing with them was easy.

Has he already missed his chance?

Huang Jinxu frowned as he watched Huo Yuhao venture into territory inhabited by Hundred-Year Soul Beasts. The opportunities meant for him still had not appeared.

That was not quite what Huang Jinxu had expected.

Still, he could make out part of the reason.

His fortune was linked to Huo Yuhao's, diminishing the boy's own. Testing the techniques for hidden dangers had also drained the Plane Will's power. Under all these constraints, Huo Yuhao's status as a Child of Fortune had been temporarily suppressed.

This also confirmed another of Huang Jinxu's suspicions.

Neither Sky Dream Ice Silkworm nor Electrolux was an opportunity Tang San had given Huo Yuhao. The Plane Will had prepared them for him.

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was meant to improve his talent, firm up his foundations, and raise his floor. Electrolux was meant to protect him, broaden his horizons, and raise his ceiling.

Tang San had merely gone with the flow.

Tang San's contingency plans and preparations were centered more on Wang Dong.

Even after reaching that conclusion, Huang Jinxu did not intervene immediately.

He needed to test it again.

After all, time flowed differently in the Divine Realm and the Douluo Plane, at a ratio of one to 365. Even if Tang San noticed something, he would need time to make a move.

"Go thirty li south. You'll find the First Soul Ring you need there. That Soul Beast is badly wounded. If you handle it right, you can kill it."

With that thought, Huang Jinxu's voice sounded in Huo Yuhao's mind.

Thirty li south?

Huo Yuhao heard his teacher's guidance and headed that way without hesitation.

He had already killed two Ten-Year Soul Beasts that had tried to take his life. An air of savage, murderous intensity now clung to him.

"This is..."

As Huo Yuhao headed in the direction Huang Jinxu had indicated, Huang Jinxu turned his attention elsewhere.

With his powerful spiritual perception, he sensed two people.

Two familiar people.

Tang Ya and Bei Bei.

They had entered the Star Dou Great Forest to hunt Soul Beasts seven days earlier. Only now, after seven full days, had they found suitable Soul Beasts and obtained the Soul Rings they wanted.

The sorry state they were in made it clear the process had not been easy.

Now that was interesting.

In the original timeline, soon after the two met Huo Yuhao, they encountered Soul Beasts suited to them. Both the species and the ages of the Soul Rings were an excellent match.

The whole process had been remarkably easy.

Yet this time, it had taken them a full seven days to obtain the Soul Rings they needed.

In other words, Huo Yuhao had been the reason they obtained the Soul Beasts they needed so easily before.

More precisely, it was because Huo Yuhao had joined the Tang Sect.

What state was the Tang Sect's fortune in now?

If Bei Bei had not joined, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say the Tang Sect's fortune had been all but extinguished.

Huang Jinxu had sensed as much when he first met Tang Ya.

At the time, the Tang Sect had not only lost what fortune it once had, but was also entangled in misfortune.

A faction that sold weapons and profited from war was bound to accumulate no small amount of misfortune from the killing it enabled and the ecological balance it disrupted.

Only when Bei Bei joined did a sliver of the Tang Sect's fortune remain.

The price was that Bei Bei bore its misfortune.

As Dragon God Douluo Mu En's only living descendant, Bei Bei was a top-tier genius. His Martial Soul also had the potential to evolve into the Radiant Sacred Dragon. He was a prodigy of his generation, with fortune bright as a rainbow.

He should have shone far more brightly. Given his age, talent, and background, he should have achieved far more, yet his accomplishments thus far had been anything but dazzling.

Worse, many others later obtained hundred-thousand-year Soul Spirits. Even those who did not still obtained Soul Spirits at least seventy or eighty thousand years old.

Bei Bei alone obtained just one twenty-thousand-year Heavenly Dragon Horse Soul Spirit.

With a twenty-thousand-year ninth Soul Ring, how much power could he wield even after his Martial Soul evolved into the Radiant Sacred Dragon?

Across the entire Douluo series, was there another Titled Douluo with Soul Rings of lower ages?

Even Dugu Bo, derided ten thousand years ago as the gatekeeper of the Titled Douluo, was beyond Bei Bei's reach.

Even Snake Lance Douluo, mocked as a pseudo-Titled Douluo, had Soul Rings far older than Bei Bei's.

Looking back now, the signs had been there all along.

After joining the Tang Sect, Bei Bei had used his own fortune to steady the sect's fading fortune while taking on its misfortune.

That had doomed him never to reach the pinnacle.

In the original timeline, Huo Yuhao's arrival had immediately strengthened the Tang Sect's fortune. Only then did Bei Bei's run of bad luck end, and those who joined the sect afterward were spared the misfortune they should never have had to bear.

As the Tang Sect's current leader, Tang Ya was naturally the first to benefit when Huo Yuhao joined. The Soul Ring she needed was delivered right before her eyes.

The Mandala Snake had not happened to appear there. It had appeared because Huo Yuhao needed it and Tang Ya needed it.

This time, Huo Yuhao had not joined the Tang Sect, so Tang Ya received none of that blessing.

That was why it had taken her seven full days and a brush with death to obtain the Soul Ring she needed.

It really was tragic.

Huang Jinxu would never believe there was no invisible hand pushing events along behind the scenes.

So Bei Bei had been the first unlucky soul all along.