Star Luo City

The midday sun was always so dazzling. Beside the road, a white-haired girl stood barefoot in a stream, holding a wooden fork and staring intently down at the water.

A blue carp swam past her. She thrust both hands forward with all her strength and caught it. Then she carried it ashore, started a fire, removed its gills and innards, and pulled out the bloodline to get rid of the fishy smell. She stuffed perilla into its belly, skewered it with a wooden stick, and set it beside the fire to roast. When oil began to glisten on the fish's skin, she sprinkled it with salt. Together with the dry rations she had brought, that made up Huo Yuhao's meal.

Huo Yuhao had been traveling for four days. She had followed the road all the way without encountering any danger-or even a single person. Huo Yuhao often chatted with Evil Lord. She had discovered that even though she could now enter her Sea of Consciousness, she was still unable to practice the Tang Sect Secret Arts. Because of her spiritual power, she could not use Necromancy either. These past few days, Huo Yuhao had only been able to discuss solutions with Evil Lord.

"I think the Chaos Energy in your Sea of Consciousness must be the reason for all this. Such vast, impure energy-you can't use it right now, so it must be clogging the flow of energy through your body. The most important thing now is to guide this Chaos Energy and make it your own..." Evil Lord expounded at length on his opinion.

"I understand all that, but what matters most right now is that I can't use the cultivation method I practiced before." Huo Yuhao ate as she spoke to Evil Lord telepathically.

"Don't be so anxious. Your Martial Soul hasn't even awakened yet. With the capacity of your Sea of Consciousness, once you consolidate and absorb that Chaos Energy, you won't need to worry about any of this. Besides, with your insights from becoming a god, would you really care about those techniques?"

"All right~_~ I was rushing things. I should focus on what's in front of me. By the way, how's Little Evil?"

"Ah, I haven't created him yet."

Huh? Huo Yuhao listened with a puzzled look on her face. She couldn't understand what Evil Lord meant.

"Haha, I forgot you've been single from your past life up to now. I mean he hasn't been born yet. Who would've thought that even though you were once the mighty God of Emotion, you'd still end up a virgin?" Evil Lord explained, teasing Huo Yuhao as he spoke.

Huo Yuhao listened, her face darkening. "Evil Lord, you'd better hurry back and cultivate. Don't waste your time."

"Don't be so stingy."

Before Evil Lord could finish speaking, Huo Yuhao cut off her connection to the Eye of Destiny.

"You're getting more and more improper," Huo Yuhao said with a smile to herself.

After eating, Huo Yuhao went to the stream to wash her hands. Looking at her reflection in the water, she could only sigh helplessly. She had undergone Ultimate Soldier training and was highly adaptable to her surroundings. She had also adjusted to being reborn as a girl, but it still felt strange to her. Why did she have to be a girl, of all things?

Huo Yuhao packed up her things and continued on her way.

Four days later, she reached Qinglin Town, the nearest town to Fu'an Village. It wasn't large, but it was a supply stop for those traveling from the west toward Star Luo City. Most people in town were passing through on their way to Star Luo City to restock. This left everyone in town in a constant hurry.

Huo Yuhao was also headed for Star Luo City. She planned to ask around here and learn the route. This was Douluo Continent ten thousand years in the past. Although Huo Yuhao had read historical records and knew how Douluo Continent would change in the future, she knew history bore the will and biases of those who recorded it. She wanted to see with her own eyes what things had really been like ten thousand years ago. After all, even becoming a god hadn't let Huo Yuhao turn back time.

Huo Yuhao found a caravan in town that was heading to Star Luo City.

"Hello, how much does it cost to go to Star Luo City?"

"Five Silver Soul Coins." The caravan leader answered automatically, then turned to look at the white-haired girl in front of him and asked in confusion, "Little girl, where are your parents?"

"I'm going alone. I'm going to Star Luo City. Will you take me?" Huo Yuhao asked, looking at him.

The leader replied, "All right. As long as you pay, I'll take you there." Seeing that Huo Yuhao didn't look like a commoner, the caravan leader agreed.

"How do I pay?"

"Pay on delivery. We take honesty seriously in this line of work."

"When are you leaving?"

"In half an hour."

"All right." After hearing this, Huo Yuhao waited nearby.

The caravan traveled along the road. Huo Yuhao sat with the cargo at the back of a wagon. Watching the town recede into the distance, she set off for Star Luo City.

Ten days later, Huo Yuhao got off the wagon and handed five Silver Soul Coins to the caravan leader. After ten days of jolting along, she had finally arrived in Star Luo City. Looking at the towering city walls before her, which were just like the ones ten thousand years later, Huo Yuhao couldn't help thinking of Mingdu, the city without walls ten thousand years in the future.

Huo Yuhao entered Star Luo City with the crowd. In this era, the Star Luo Empire was still ruled by the White Tiger Dai Family. Looking at the bustling streets of this city, second only to Heaven Dou City and Spirit Hall, Huo Yuhao found herself in the city as it had been ten thousand years ago. She had come to the place where "he" had once competed in the Soul Master Tournament, and couldn't help feeling that everything had changed while everything stayed the same. Huo Yuhao followed a small alley to a modest inn near the slums and rented a single room.

As soon as she reached her room, Huo Yuhao began using Evil Lord's method to cultivate her spiritual power. On the road, Huo Yuhao had asked Evil Lord for the Evil Eye Clan's cultivation method. At first, she had only taken it to pass the time, wondering if she might find anything she could improve. But after trying it once, Huo Yuhao discovered that although she couldn't practice the Tang Sect Secret Arts, she could cultivate using the Evil Eye Clan's method. This brought Huo Yuhao back to her old routine of seizing every day to cultivate.

At night, after finishing her cultivation, Huo Yuhao went downstairs to eat, then bathed and returned to her room. As moonlight spilled into the room, she didn't choose to sleep. Instead, she continued cultivating.

Time passed just like that. Huo Yuhao had been in Star Luo City for five months now. With Evil Lord's cultivation method, she could use her spiritual power to cast some low-level Necromancy spells and employ it in other ways.

Besides cultivating her spiritual power every day, she also carefully observed Star Luo City. Nobles and Soul Masters moved through the streets, just like ten thousand years later. Huo Yuhao also noticed that the nobles and Soul Masters had Storage Soul Tools in their hands, but from her perspective, those so-called Soul Tools looked more like artifacts dug out of the ground. Although the collision with the Sun Moon Continent was still thousands of years away, even setting Soul Tool Technology aside, Douluo Continent ten thousand years in the future wasn't all that different from how it was now.

Spirit Hall, the two great empires, and the Upper Three Sects-the power structure of this era wasn't hard for Huo Yuhao to understand. But seeing the subsidies for Soul Masters and Spirit Hall's free Martial Soul awakenings left her deep in thought. Expecting the two great empires and all the sects to voluntarily adopt such policies was like a fool's dream. Some policies on Douluo Continent ten thousand years later were even worse than they were now. It was true that sometimes, only by seeing something for yourself could you know what it was really like, no matter what the books said. During her time in Star Luo City, Huo Yuhao often felt as if she were still living in her previous life.