"Warning!"
"The spiritual Qi here is thin. Fleeing..."
At the entrance to Bluestone Village, on the outskirts of Nuoding City in the Heaven Dou Empire,
a five-year-old boy named Luo Chen stood disheveled in the wind, his head throbbing.
One second, he had been a corporate slave on Earth who had just finished working overtime and dropped dead in his rented room. The next, the so-called "Long Aotian System" had elbowed him into the Douluo Continent.
The Long Aotian System had been "so very kind," giving him peerless looks, but also the identity of a five-year-old orphan who survived by doing odd jobs for food.
And that wasn't even the most outrageous part. The most outrageous part was that this damned system was now about to run away.
"Man, what can I say?"
Standing at the village entrance, Luo Chen surveyed his unfamiliar surroundings and entered that state of life described by the verse: ask me how much sorrow I can bear-it flows like a river of spring water eastward.
At that moment, even if Li Yu, the master of melancholy, had stood before him, he could only have said, "Before such melancholy, I concede defeat!"
Just then, that obnoxious electronic voice rang out in his mind again:
"Host, the roads of the martial world stretch far. If fate allows, we'll meet again!"
"If you're leaving, at least give me a beginner's gift pack as compensation first, will you?" Luo Chen grumbled inwardly.
"Don't worry. As the Long Aotian System, how could I not have a beginner's gift pack? It was already inside you when I brought you into this world. It'll open automatically when you awaken your Martial Soul at six."
"That's that. I can barely breathe anymore. I'm off!"
"Wait!"
Before he could finish speaking, the voice in his mind vanished completely.
Luo Chen: "..."
If this system had a physical body, he would absolutely have used the long-established Kobe elbow strike to smash it into a heap of scrap metal.
A year later.
In the old village chief's courtyard in Bluestone Village.
"Luo Chen! The awakening ceremony is about to begin!" the old village chief urged from the doorway. "Hurry up!"
"Coming!"
Luo Chen gulped down the thin rice porridge in his bowl, wiped his mouth, and followed the old village chief toward the village ancestral hall.
A year earlier, after the Long Aotian System had fled, the old village chief had returned from the fields and found Luo Chen standing all alone at the village entrance. After asking where he had come from and learning that he was an orphan with neither father nor mother, the chief had taken pity on the forlorn child and taken him in.
Over the past year, Luo Chen had helped the old village chief with odd jobs in exchange for food. Life had been meager, but reasonably peaceful.
The only thing that stayed on his mind was the "beginner's gift pack" the system had mentioned.
Will this gift pack let me become a Soul Master?
Luo Chen knew full well that in this world where Martial Souls determined everything, someone without a Martial Soul could only remain an ordinary person for life.
"Stop daydreaming. We're here." Just then, the old village chief's voice interrupted his thoughts.
Luo Chen looked up and saw a dozen or so six-year-old children lined up in the clearing before Bluestone Village's ancestral hall.
The awakening deacon from Spirit Hall had long since finished his preparations.
He took out the awakening roster and said solemnly:
"Next, Zhang Xiaohu!"
A sturdy, round-headed child stepped forward and stood in the center of the formation.
The deacon raised his hand, and six rays of golden light flared from the formation and poured into the child's body.
A moment later, the phantom image of a hoe emerged.
"A hoe. A trash Martial Soul." The deacon remained expressionless. "Next."
At those words, the child burst into loud sobs and was led away by his parents.
Luo Chen stood at the back of the line, watching the children ahead of him laugh or cry, growing increasingly nervous.
On the Douluo Continent, the quality of one's Martial Soul determined whether one could become a Soul Master, while innate Soul Power determined how far one could go.
No matter how powerful a Martial Soul was, without innate Soul Power, it was merely a trash Martial Soul.
For example, even a Martial Soul as powerful as the Golden Sacred Dragon could only become Luo Sanpao, whose farts thundered like storms, in the hands of that good-for-nothing Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang, leaving him unable to break past level 30 for his entire life. That showed just how important innate Soul Power was.
Even with the system's beginner's gift pack, Luo Chen didn't dare guarantee that he could become a Soul Master.
What if this body was a piece of trash?
"Next, Luo Chen!"
The deacon's voice rang out like a summons to his death.
Hearing his name, Luo Chen quietly swallowed and stepped onto the formation.
"Child, relax your body." Seeing Luo Chen's beautiful features, the deacon unconsciously softened his voice. "I'm going to awaken your Martial Soul."
Six rays of golden light flared and poured into Luo Chen's body. In an instant, he felt warm all over, as though he were basking in the sun.
Just as Luo Chen was enjoying that warmth, a voice suddenly rang out in his mind:
[Beginner's gift pack opened. Fusing...]
The next second, the surrounding temperature plummeted to freezing!
A cold, sinister presence surged from Luo Chen's body. The surrounding plants withered the instant it touched them.
At the same time, a pillar of black-green light shot into the sky!
Within the pillar, the phantom image of a giant scorpion slowly solidified, its entire body pitch-black, its carapace like black jade, its twin pincers raised high, and the tip of its tail glinting with a chilling gleam.
This was an emperor among Demon Scorpions—the Netherworld Scorpion Emperor.
Legend said it lived in the Nine Nether Poison Marsh, with the Nether God Bloodline flowing through its body, and innately possessed three attributes: deadly poison, netherworld, and water. It was immune to all deadly poisons and could greatly reduce physical damage. Moreover, because it possessed the Nether God Bloodline, the vulnerability it originally had to sacred and light attributes no longer existed.
Because its lesser form, the Nether Devil Scorpion, was exceedingly rare and lived in lands steeped in deadly poison, records of this kind of Demon Scorpion on the Douluo Continent were few and far between.
At the same time, Luo Chen felt another scorching power stirring deep within his left hand.
This was his second Martial Soul-the Karmic Fire Scorpion Emperor.
Legend said it had formed from heavenly fire and earthly soil, two of the four great elements of creation, and was born bearing the continent's fortune. It governed four ultimate attributes: heavenly fire, earthly soil, strength, and fate.
I actually have twin Martial Souls?!
Luo Chen instantly snapped back to his senses. Focusing his mind, he clamped his right hand tightly around his left and exerted every ounce of strength to suppress the Karmic Fire Scorpion Emperor's urge to emerge.
"Th-this is..."
The deacon sprang to his feet, his eyes fixed on the giant scorpion phantom behind Luo Chen, filled with shock and disbelief.
Once the black light dispersed and the giant scorpion phantom merged into Luo Chen's body, dark-green carapace patterns appeared across the skin exposed outside his clothes. At the same time, a scorpion tail giving off a faint, cold gleam extended from behind him and curved over his head.
"A Nether Devil Scorpion?!" the deacon murmured in disbelief.
"A Nether Devil Scorpion?" Luo Chen sounded somewhat puzzled.
"Yes! It has to be!" The deacon was so excited that he waved his arms and stamped his feet. "When I was young, I went to the Far North with my teacher and saw a Nether Devil Scorpion devouring an Ice Jade Scorpion with my own eyes. My teacher specifically recorded that scene with an image-recording stone. Later, we learned from a learned scholar that it was called a Nether Devil Scorpion, an extremely rare, top-tier Soul Beast!"
He strode up to Luo Chen, his eyes filled with fervor. "Child, your Martial Soul is of exceptionally high quality. Join Spirit Hall! Only we can nurture your talent to its fullest extent."
"Uh... isn't it a little early to talk about that?" Luo Chen said, clicking his tongue. "What if I don't have any innate Soul Power?"
"..."
"You're right." The deacon calmed down a little and held the crystal ball out before Luo Chen. "Come, let's test your Soul Power!"
Understanding what to do, Luo Chen raised his right hand and pressed it against the crystal ball.
The next instant, blood-red light burst from the crystal ball.
The red light was extraordinarily powerful, filling the entire ancestral hall in an instant, so bright that no one could keep their eyes open.
"In... innate full Soul Power!"
The deacon was so excited that he could barely get the words out.
Full Soul Power alone has scared you this badly? If you knew I had another Scorpion Emperor Martial Soul, wouldn't you ascend on the spot?
Luo Chen silently grumbled inwardly, while his face still wore just the right amount of bewilderment for a six-year-old.
"Child!" The deacon excitedly gripped his shoulders. "You must join Spirit Hall! With your astonishing talent, the higher-ups will definitely entrust you with important responsibilities!"