Douluo Continent was a novel Zeng Tian had read in his previous life. When the soul beasts in it died, they dropped soul rings of different colors depending on their age.
"If that's the case, I'll have to change my earlier plans."
At that thought, Zeng Tian's large blue eyes grew more solemn.
At its core, the Pokémon World was a rather utopian world. Although it had food chains and competition, both were kept within very limited bounds.
In particular, Pokémon and humans got along quite harmoniously. Unless one's luck was truly abysmal, seeking help from humans after getting injured or running into trouble was not a bad choice.
With enough luck, one could meet an excellent trainer and become their Pokémon, escaping the precarious life in the wild, where surviving today offered no guarantee of tomorrow.
Not only would food and survival cease to be concerns, but a trainer's ample resources and sensible training plans could also help one grow stronger rapidly.
That was why many Pokémon made limited progress despite training for years in the wild, yet improved by leaps and bounds shortly after being caught by humans, even reaching the league stage.
But what about the Douluo Continent?
Whether in Douluo I, Douluo II, or Douluo Dalu III: The Legend of the Dragon King, soul beasts could hardly be said to live well.
The fierce competition and mutual predation among soul beasts were bad enough, but their relationship with humans was also as incompatible as fire and water.
Human soul masters needed to hunt soul beasts and absorb soul rings to break through to the next realm. That alone made peaceful coexistence between humans and soul beasts impossible.
Even when soul spirits appeared later on, the situation barely improved. In fact, that compromise made the soul beasts' circumstances even worse.
After all, where were they supposed to find so many suitable soul beasts on the verge of death? The methods humans would ultimately use in pursuit of stronger soul spirits went without saying.
Soul beasts had extraordinarily long lifespans. Even Great Emperors in Shrouding the Heavens lived for only a little over ten thousand years, while any soul beast on the Douluo Continent could reach that age as long as it was not killed.
After becoming soul spirits, soul beasts generally had only a few decades left to live. Compared to lifespans that easily stretched into tens of thousands of years, that was hardly worth mentioning.
The thought that he might be hunted as a soul beast stirred a sense of urgency in Zeng Tian's heart. He had to grow stronger quickly.
"Luckily, my Charmander body isn't a soul beast. I don't need that much time to grow."
Under the right conditions, Pokémon grew very quickly. Most of Ash's Pokémon in the anime trained with him for only about a year before entering tournaments.
Of course, the stronger they became, the harder further improvement was. Ash's Charizard had trained in Charizard Valley for so long that he had become the strongest Charizard there, yet he still could not overwhelm truly powerful opponents. His greatest achievement was merely defeating an Articuno.
If Zeng Tian wanted to reach the level of Groudon, Kyogre, or Rayquaza, he still had a heavy burden to shoulder and a long road ahead.
As Zeng Tian pondered his future, a rumble from his stomach pulled him back to reality.
Zeng Tian rubbed his cream-colored belly with his little orange claws. His gaze drifted down to the dead Mandala Snake on the ground, and he swallowed, thinking, That snake should be edible, right?
He had only just hatched and needed a great deal of energy to fuel his body's development. The eggshell had helped, but it was nowhere near enough.
His fierce battle with the Mandala Snake had depleted his already meager energy reserves, leaving him with barely any stamina.
He quickly climbed down the cliff and soon reached the Mandala Snake's corpse.
Looking at the scorch marks covering the Mandala Snake's corpse, a flicker of hesitation crossed Zeng Tian's large eyes. Can I really eat this thing?
It isn't poisonous, is it?
But the next moment, Zeng Tian shook his head vigorously.
Even venomous snakes did not have poisonous bodies. Their venom was concentrated in their venom glands.
Even if this venomous snake was a soul beast, the difference presumably would not be too great.
Although Zeng Tian told himself that, caution still led him to use his claws to cut only a small piece of snake meat from the edge of a wound.
At the same time, his throat shifted slightly, and he breathed a small stream of flame from his mouth, roasting the snake meat held between his claw tips.
Soon, the aroma of roasting meat spread through the air.
The flame vanished. Zeng Tian looked at the thoroughly cooked, fragrant, slightly charred snake meat in his claws and, after a brief hesitation, put it into his mouth.
It was Zeng Tian's first time roasting meat with his own flames, and he had yet to get the hang of it. The meat did not taste particularly good, but delight still lit up his eyes.
That was because the energy contained in the roasted meat was tremendously beneficial to his body's growth.
Moreover, his body showed no signs of discomfort.
Clearly, either the Mandala Snake's meat was not poisonous, or cooking it had reduced its toxicity to a level Zeng Tian's draconic body could tolerate.
After discovering this, Zeng Tian hesitated no longer. A white glow immediately appeared around the claws of his right forelimb, and he began carving up the Mandala Snake's corpse.
He cut out piece after piece of snake meat while once again breathing flames from his mouth to cook them.
The prolonged roasting, combined with his earlier battle against the Mandala Snake, made his control over fire increasingly effortless.
Some time later, the flames coming from Zeng Tian's mouth suddenly grew stronger, startling him into immediately withdrawing them.
Even so, the sudden surge of flame overcooked the nearly finished snake meat. Some portions were reduced outright to black charcoal and were clearly inedible.
[Ember lv1 → Ember lv2]
"Did it level up?"
Only then did Zeng Tian notice the change on the panel.
He immediately mobilized the energy inside his body, opened his mouth, and blew. Seven or eight orange flames shot out like arrows, leaving seven or eight blackened craters in the ground.
"There are more flames now, and each one is a little stronger, but the energy consumption has actually dropped slightly."
As he looked at the scene before him, Zeng Tian's tail kept slapping the ground, its flame burning more vigorously. He was clearly delighted.
Charmander truly lived up to being a Fire-type Pokémon. His grasp and mastery of fire moves improved so quickly.
He had only been in this world for such a short time, yet Ember had already risen from lv1 to lv2.
At this rate, it probably would not be long before he learned Flamethrower.
Yet just as Zeng Tian was rejoicing, a blue-green figure swooped down from the sky and soon reached a spot not far above him.
"Danger!"
His Pokémon battle instincts screamed a warning. Without the slightest hesitation, Zeng Tian quickly rolled to the side.
When Zeng Tian got back to his feet and looked toward his original position, he was dumbfounded.
The nearly two-meter-long Mandala Snake's corpse was no longer there. A large blue-gray eagle had seized its remains and was rapidly flying away with beating wings.
A few breaths later, the blue-gray eagle vanished from Zeng Tian's sight.