For this day, Huo Yuhao had trained diligently for more than five years.
He strode into the Star Dou Great Forest with firm steps.
Ancient trees towered into the sky, their shadows dappled, and the sweltering air gradually grew cool.
Huo Yuhao advanced cautiously.
He maintained his Spirit Eyes' early-warning ability, his six senses keenly surveying his surroundings as he remained on guard against any possible Soul Beast attack.
Soul hunting in the Star Dou Great Forest demanded constant vigilance.
He advanced slowly with the Heavenly Scale Ancient Halberd in hand. Suddenly, a strange, faint sting arose in his Spirit Eyes.
At that very instant, Huo Yuhao saw a dark figure pouncing toward him from the path not far ahead.
It was a baboon covered in yellowish-brown fur, with exceptionally long arms and a height of about one meter.
Huo Yuhao instinctively recalled a description from the miscellaneous section of the Martial Scripture.
A ten-year Wind Baboon.
This was a Soul Beast he could handle alone.
Huo Yuhao put away the Heavenly Scale Ancient Halberd, his whole body beginning to tremble slightly with excitement.
This was the first true battle of his life.
His heart thundered like a beating drum within his chest. Huo Yuhao assumed the opening stance of the Through-Back Fist and met the Wind Baboon's outstretched claws head-on.
The Wind Baboon's attack carried considerable force, but to Huo Yuhao's eyes, it was riddled with openings.
Snap! Snap!
Huo Yuhao's sleeves slapped against his arms, producing crisp, loud cracks that quickly spread through the surroundings.
Through-Back Fist, two resonances!
Within the Lin Family of Qingyang Town, the Through-Back Fist ranked among the best first-grade martial arts. It emphasized generating force as the palm brushed against one's clothing and consisted of nine forms, hence its other name, Nine Resonance Force.
Once all nine resonances of the Through-Back Fist were completed, its power rivaled that of a second-grade martial skill.
Beyond the nine resonances, coordination between muscles and bones could push the force of the ninth resonance, just as it was about to peak, to a new pinnacle: the tenth resonance.
Huo Yuhao's fist slammed into the Wind Baboon's claw.
Bang!
The instant the fist made contact, the Wind Baboon shuddered all over as an irresistible force surged through the point of impact.
It let out a roar of extreme pain.
To its horror, the Wind Baboon felt a series of piercing cracks come from its rough, hard bones.
With just one punch, Huo Yuhao had broken the Wind Baboon's bones.
Yet Huo Yuhao's gaze remained unchanged. His arm shook, and another crisp crack rang out.
Then his Through-Back Fist, its force growing heavier still, slammed straight into the Wind Baboon's abdomen.
Bang!
The Wind Baboon spat blood as it reeled backward, hurled six or seven meters away.
It struggled to prop itself up and coughed out several fragments of its internal organs, its eyes thick with fear.
The Wind Baboon had thought Huo Yuhao would make a tasty meal, never expecting him to be a tough customer it could not afford to provoke.
Facing Huo Yuhao as he leaped toward it, it quickly rolled aside, then sprang to its feet and opened its mouth with an angry howl. A dense ball of white light immediately shot from its mouth, flying straight toward Huo Yuhao.
The baboon itself fled swiftly toward a spot not far away.
"Trying to run? Not so easy!"
Ferocity blazed openly in Huo Yuhao's eyes as he summoned the Heavenly Scale Ancient Halberd into his hands once more.
He swung the great halberd without hesitation, and crimson light instantly gathered along its blade.
Huo Yuhao twisted at the waist and spun, tracing a circle with the halberd in both hands. One forceful chop split apart the white ball of light the Wind Baboon had spat out.
Immediately afterward, the sound of air being torn apart exploded above the Wind Baboon's head.
Huo Yuhao stepped forward like a mountain collapsing, swinging the Heavenly Scale Ancient Halberd like a mighty dragon plunging into the sea. Using the Through-Back Fist's clothing-brushing stance, he shook three phantom blooms from the halberd's edge and struck straight for the Wind Baboon's head.
Shhk!
Cold light flashed, and the beast's head fell to the ground.
A faint white glow emerged from the Wind Baboon's corpse, slowly condensing into a white ring of light above it.
A ten-year soul ring.
Looking at the lustrous white soul ring, Huo Yuhao felt no discomfort at having taken a life. Instead, his mind quickly grew calm.
On the Tianxuan Continent, Huo Yuhao had witnessed the Hundred Dynasties War, the Sect Competition, and the Heaven and Earth War, with their mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Killing a mere ten-year Wind Baboon truly could not stir the slightest emotion in him.
If not for the Martial Ancestor, Huo Yuhao could not help thinking, perhaps I would absorb this soul ring.
After all, the Martial Scripture says that the age of a soul ring a Soul Master can absorb is directly proportional to the Soul Master's physical fitness.
My physical fitness was so poor back then. Presumably, I could only have absorbed a ten-year soul ring.
At this thought, Huo Yuhao could not help feeling even more grateful to the Martial Ancestor.
Compared with the Tianxuan Continent's Yuan Power cultivation system, Soul Master cultivation relies far too heavily on external power. Without a soul ring, even a heaven-blessed genius can only fade into the crowd.
Huo Yuhao had already recognized the irregularities in the Soul Master cultivation system.
But compared with the Yuan Power system, the Soul Master system has its own advantage: immediacy.
Huo Yuhao carefully examined the Wind Baboon's soul ring. Simply by absorbing a soul ring, a Soul Master can immediately gain a skill. It is far more efficient than the arduous cultivation of the Tianxuan Continent.
However, because soul skills are powers obtained from outside, although their minimum strength is assured, their upper limit is constrained by the type of soul ring and its fusion with the martial soul. Ultimately, they cannot compare with power cultivated oneself through martial arts.
Huo Yuhao frowned. The Martial Ancestor clearly has the mighty power to let me cultivate directly without relying on the Soul Master system, yet he still had me cultivate within it. What considerations did he have?
Just as Huo Yuhao was lost in thought, the ground beneath his feet suddenly began to shake violently.
Huo Yuhao's expression changed.
His Spirit Eyes had actually given no warning. This was highly abnormal.
"I finally found a human with a mental attribute. It really wasn't easy!"
"If keeping up appearances weren't so important to me, I'd definitely have a good cry!"
A voice rang out abruptly in Huo Yuhao's mind.
As the voice sounded, the ground before Huo Yuhao slowly split with spiderweb-like cracks. He could vaguely see platinum light shining out through them.
Human?
This is bad! A hundred-thousand-year soul beast!
Huo Yuhao turned and ran.
A Soul Beast capable of speech had to be at least a hundred thousand years old!
A hundred-thousand-year soul beast was a formidable Soul Beast that could match a Titled Douluo. Every appearance of one could stir up bloody winds and rains of carnage. It was absolutely not an existence he could contend with now!
Run!
I have to hurry and run!
Huo Yuhao no longer had time to wonder why a powerful hundred-thousand-year soul beast would suddenly appear in the outer reaches of the Star Dou Great Forest.
"Hey, wait! What are you running for? I mean no harm!"
Seeing Huo Yuhao take to his heels, the owner of the voice could not help explaining urgently, "Stop running! I'm here to bring you a sky-high fortune!"
Huo Yuhao turned a deaf ear.
"Stop running! I have nothing but goodwill toward you! Why are you running?"
An immense surge of spiritual power abruptly descended, pinning Huo Yuhao to the spot and leaving him unable to move so much as a fraction.