The Sun Moon Empire.
The Moro Mountain Range was one of the largest mountain ranges in the Sun Moon Empire. Although it held no particularly powerful ten-thousand-year soul beasts, hundred-year and thousand-year soul beasts were plentiful.
Plant-type soul beasts were especially abundant here, meeting the needs of all kinds of plant-type soul masters, as well as food-type soul masters with plant-based martial souls.
At that moment, a party of five stood in the central region of the mountain range: three men and two women.
The oldest man looked to be only in his twenties. He had short black hair and wore a well-fitting, casual outfit. Handsome and bespectacled, he looked highly learned.
The other four appeared to be only fifteen or sixteen, two boys and two girls. Both boys were handsome. One girl had orange hair and an exquisitely beautiful face, and wore a pale yellow combat outfit. The other girl was relatively thin and reasonably pretty.
Xuan Ziwen looked at his four students, explaining soul tool theory to them as they ventured deeper into the Moro Forest.
They had come to the Moro Forest to obtain a fourth soul ring for Ju Zi, whose cultivation had broken through rank forty. Originally, Xuan Ziwen had only needed to bring Ju Zi, since the other three had already reached the Soul Ancestor level and were not lacking soul rings.
However, for the sake of practical instruction, Xuan Ziwen had dragged the other three along as well, treating it as a chance to unwind.
Ju Zi's martial soul was an orange, a food-type martial soul. She could absorb a soul ring of any attribute, but a plant-type soul ring was still the best choice.
Thus, Xuan Ziwen had brought them to the Great Moro Forest, which had the most plant-type soul beasts in the Sun Moon Empire. A terrifying beast king was said to slumber within the forest, but that was only a legend. In tens of thousands of years, no one had ever discovered a soul beast older than fifty thousand years in the Moro Forest.
And so, talk of a beast king had become a joke.
Over tens of thousands of years of development, soul masters had continually pushed the age limits of the soul rings they could absorb. By now, some could even absorb a thousand-year soul ring as their second soul ring, a soul ring approaching the ten-thousand-year limit as their third, and a ten-thousand-year soul ring as their fourth.
Geniuses were already accustomed to such feats, so almost every academy now had machines that assessed aptitude and overall capabilities to determine the age of the soul ring someone could withstand.
The age Ju Zi could withstand for her fourth soul ring was between five thousand and seven thousand years. Since she was a food-type soul master and rarely trained her physique, that was essentially her limit.
However, even a mere seven-thousand-year soul beast was no easy opponent, especially a plant-type soul beast. The higher its cultivation, the stranger and more troublesome it became.
After all, plant-type soul beasts generally lived in colonies. Attacking one could bring an entire group of plant-type soul beasts down upon you.
Xuan Ziwen had specially prepared plenty of Fixed Soul Cannon Shells and fire-attribute offensive soul tools to handle precisely that situation.
The party of five had already spent seven or eight days in the Moro Forest without finding a suitable soul beast. Even Ju Zi was becoming discouraged. "Teacher, why don't we lower the age requirement for the soul ring a little? Otherwise, searching like this will waste quite a bit more time."
After hearing that, Xuan Ziwen fell silent for a while before slowly nodding. His own schedule was very tight, after all. If his students had not all been mere Soul Ancestors, he would not even have come out to lead the party.
Compared with hunting soul beasts in a great forest, he much preferred staying in his laboratory and researching soul tools.
"That's our only option."
Just then, however, the sharp-eyed Ju Zi spotted a soul beast ahead laden with fruit. Unless she was mistaken, those things growing on it should indeed be fruit.
Judging by this plant-type soul beast's cultivation, it was not particularly weak either. It should have several thousand years of cultivation.
"Teacher, what do you think of that soul beast?"
Following the direction Ju Zi pointed, Xuan Ziwen narrowed his eyes and looked at the plant-type soul beast. He was immediately overjoyed. "A six-thousand-year Moro Fruit Tree. That's quite suitable."
Moro Trees were the most common soul beasts in the Moro Forest, without exception, but nearly all had only a hundred years of cultivation. Three-quarters of the plant-type soul beasts throughout the Great Moro Forest were Moro Trees, yet these trees remained stuck at the hundred-year level for a very long time.
Ordinary soul beasts could break through to the thousand-year level after cultivating for a hundred years, and even those with poor aptitude could reach it after a thousand years of cultivation. A Moro Tree, however, had to grow for four or five thousand years before it could break through to the thousand-year level.
Some people therefore suspected that something was draining the soul power of these Moro Trees. Yet there truly were no powerful soul beasts in the Moro Forest, so this had become one of the Sun Moon Empire's unsolved mysteries.
Encountering a five-thousand-year Moro Fruit Tree was even rarer than discovering a hundred-thousand-year soul beast. Sure enough, the quality of the soul beasts was far higher in this core region.
"Moro Trees have Moro Vines growing on them. The vines are highly poisonous, immensely strong, and covered in barbs, making them extremely troublesome. Ordinary soul masters would probably be helpless against one, but we're soul engineers."
Xuan Ziwen stopped three hundred meters from the five-thousand-year Moro Tree, at the outermost limit of the Moro Vines' attack range. As he spoke, he began assembling the fixed-shell soul launcher in his hands.
Then he fired countless soul cannon shells, unleashing a furious barrage upon the Moro Fruit Tree. Countless Moro Vines shot into the sky, blocking the bombardment while reaching toward the source of the cannon fire, seemingly intent on tearing these enemies to shreds.
Unfortunately, these enemies were too far away.
Soul engineers might lack other things, but they never lacked money. Moreover, when an instructor helped students hunt soul beasts, the academy reimbursed all expenses. With nothing to worry about, Xuan Ziwen poured cannon fire onto the immobile plant-type soul beast without restraint.
Only after blasting it down to a single withered root did he stop. He then took out a massive Hurricane Soul Tool to disperse the smoke and flames. Finally, he put everything away and left the stage to Ju Zi.
To obtain a soul ring, the person who wanted it still had to kill the soul beast themselves.
Ju Zi drew a dagger and slowly approached the dying Moro Tree. Without the slightest hesitation, she plunged the dagger into its body.
The next instant, a ring shimmering with purple light coalesced. Overjoyed, Ju Zi sat down cross-legged, ready to absorb the soul ring.
But at that very moment, the ground beneath the five of them split open. A particularly enormous fissure opened directly beneath Ju Zi.
In an instant, the earth shook and the mountains trembled. Ju Zi, Xuan Ziwen, and the others were swept into the sky. Just as they were about to use their Flying Soul Tools to steady themselves, vines burst from underground, blotting out the sky. Each vine was hundreds of meters thick and tens of thousands of meters long.
A mere light lash knocked them all unconscious. One enormous vine carefully coiled around Ju Zi, then yanked her violently into the depths of the earth. Afterward, everything returned to silence.
Tens of thousands of meters beneath the surface, deep within the earth, there was no soil here, only an ancient, weathered tree of terrifying size. Eighty-one enormous vines, each tens of thousands of meters long, hung around it like willow branches.
This was a Moro Tree.
Even a hundred-thousand-year Moro Tree stood only a few thousand meters tall, but this Moro Tree towered a full hundred thousand meters. A hundred-thousand-year Moro Tree bore only a single blood-red marking, yet this one had no fewer than ten.
It was actually a million-year Moro Tree.
Two pairs of dim yellow eyes rested upon the weathered Moro Tree, looking utterly eerie and chilling.
"Hahahaha! At last, someone bound to me by fate has arrived. For this day, I drained the lives of my descendants to keep myself alive for another ten thousand years.
"At last, before my lifespan ran dry, the person bound to me by fate arrived. My God-Making Plan can finally begin."