Three months later, at the entrance to Sunset Forest.
Luo Chen stood on a broad road, gazing at the dense forest before him. He let out a long breath. "As expected of Sunset Forest, one of the three great Soul Beast forests on the Douluo Continent. It really is huge!"
As a transmigrator who had also read many books, Luo Chen naturally knew how important Sunset Forest was on the map of the Douluo Continent.
It lay within the Heaven Dou Empire. Though smaller than Star Dou Great Forest, it was still immensely vast. Every dusk, the setting sun's afterglow spilled over the forest, dyeing the entire woodland a beautiful golden red. This was also where the name "Sunset" came from.
But as the saying went, "The more beautiful something is, the more dangerous it is." Sunset Forest could be said to have brought that saying fully into reality.
Countless Soul Beasts lived in Sunset Forest, ranging from ten-year and hundred-year beasts to thousand-year and ten-thousand-year ones. Perhaps because they lived close to human settlements, the Soul Beasts here were far more vicious than those in other forests.
The forest was divided into three regions: the outer region, the middle region, and the core region.
The outer region housed ten-year to hundred-year Soul Beasts and was relatively safe; the middle region housed thousand-year to ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts, and the danger rose sharply.
As for the core region, most of its inhabitants were Soul Beasts over ten thousand years old. For ordinary Soul Masters, entering meant ten chances of death and none of survival.
That was not even the worst of it. More importantly, Sunset Forest's terrain was extremely complex, with rolling mountain ranges, crisscrossing ravines, swamps everywhere, and poisonous miasma filling the air. The slightest carelessness could mean dying inside.
Deep within the core region in particular, there was said to be a purple poisonous miasma that never dispersed all year round. A single breath of it would kill an ordinary Soul Master on the spot.
Luo Chen had his reasons for coming to this Sunset Forest, where danger lurked on every side.
The first was to find a Soul Ring. Luo Chen's Soul Power was currently at rank 30, and he urgently needed a poison-attribute Soul Ring. With poisonous miasma filling Sunset Forest, it could be called the most suitable habitat for poison-attribute Soul Beasts.
Following his Soul Ring plan, Luo Chen had long since chosen the Netherworld Poison Mist Spider as the target for the Netherworld Scorpion Emperor's third Soul Ring. Netherworld Poison Mist Spiders lived in Sunset Forest's middle region, so he had to come.
Of course, all those reasons were secondary. The main reason was that Sunset Forest contained the "Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well," one of the Douluo Continent's three great treasure lands.
According to the original story's description, the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well lay deep within Sunset Forest. It had formed when the origin power that seeped out over the long years after the Fire Dragon King and Water Dragon King died merged with the land. Because the spiritual Qi of heaven and earth was so dense, spiritual plants grew ten times faster there than outside, so several immortal-grade medicinal herbs grew within.
With that thought, Luo Chen immediately decided to look for the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well first. Once he had confirmed its approximate location, he would search for the Netherworld Poison Mist Spider.
Sunset Forest, middle region.
Luo Chen darted through the forest like a ghost flitting among the trees.
He fully extended the mental perception of his "Twin Emperor Soul Guidance," taking in every movement within fifty meters. Unfortunately, he found nothing he wanted.
"Damn it, I've been searching for so long. Why haven't I found it yet?" Luo Chen raised his head and looked into the distance, muttering to himself, "Do I have to head into the core region?"
A month later, Luo Chen stopped in a large tree in Sunset Forest's core region.
"Sigh, I've searched in here for an entire month and still found nothing," Luo Chen said, somewhat discouraged. "Is my luck really that bad? But it shouldn't be, should it?"
After all, Luo Chen possessed twin Martial Souls and innate full Soul Power. Every one of his Soul Rings genuinely exceeded the age limit, and he also had two external Soul Bones. If his luck was bad, then there was probably no one lucky in this Douluo World.
Yet during this month in Sunset Forest's core region, Luo Chen had indeed felt the sting of bad luck.
He had crossed ten great mountains alone, not to mention traversing more than twenty seemingly endless swamps and wading across seven rushing rivers. It could be said that he had covered almost the entire core region of Sunset Forest.
Sometimes, he even strayed into the territory of ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts and was hunted for dozens of li, escaping only by relying on the Netherworld Scorpion Claw's Soul Bone skill, Dark Concealment, and burrowing into the earth.
Everything he had done was for the sake of finding the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
"Heavens, please take away my bad luck and let me have good luck again!" Luo Chen shouted at the sky, then resumed his search for the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
Perhaps Luo Chen was simply too sincere, or perhaps it was for some other reason. At last, Heaven did not fail one who persevered, and the heavens granted his wish.
Early that morning, Luo Chen arrived before a secluded valley. He was just about to pick some fruit to fill his stomach before continuing his search for the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well when a gust of wind suddenly blew aside the branches and leaves blocking his view. Looking down through the gaps, he saw a valley surrounded by mountains.
The valley was small, only a few li across, but a kind of plant sealed it off. These plants were extremely unusual, green all over, with leaves divided into seven lobes that glittered beautifully in the sunlight.
Yet the more beautiful something was, the more dangerous it was. This plant was called the Jade Phosphor Seven Absolutes Flower, a famously rare and lethally poisonous plant on the Douluo Continent. An ordinary Soul Master exposed to its deadly poison would die within three days.
Yet now, these rare, lethally poisonous plants covered the valley
The valley-it could be said that anyone who wanted to enter it had to pass through this stretch of Jade Phosphor Seven Absolutes Flowers first, becoming infected with their deadly poison and dying here.
Unfortunately, Luo Chen was no ordinary person. His Martial Soul, the Netherworld Scorpion Emperor, was the strongest lethally poisonous Soul Beast on the Douluo Continent. To Luo Chen, the deadly poison of the Jade Phosphor Seven Absolutes Flower was not even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.
At that moment, Luo Chen's gaze pierced the barrier of Jade Phosphor Seven Absolutes Flowers and turned toward the valley's interior.
Two entirely different gases filled the valley: one was a murky purple poisonous miasma, while the other was mist as pure as snow. The two gases interwove and coiled around each other within the valley, yet always remained as distinct as the Jing and Wei Rivers, never merging.
With just one glance from outside, Luo Chen was certain that this was the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, one of the Douluo Continent's three great treasure lands.
"After a thousand hardships and ten thousand trials," a trace of fervor flashed through Luo Chen's eyes, "I've finally found the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well."
He wanted nothing more than to rush inside right then and consume these immortal herbs, but his remaining reason told him he could not, because a Titled Douluo-Dugu Bo-had claimed this place for himself.
In the original story, Dugu Bo was a Soul Master of volatile temper. He had occupied the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well for decades, using it to suppress the deadly poison inside himself and his granddaughter, Dugu Yan. If he discovered someone had trespassed into his Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, he would absolutely hack that person into eight pieces and use them as fertilizer for the Jade Phosphor Seven Absolutes Flowers.
"Dugu Bo..." Luo Chen narrowed his eyes, sensing the faint, terrifying presence within the valley, and muttered to himself, "With my current rank-30 strength, facing him head-on would mean certain death. I have to think of a way to enter the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well safely without being discovered by him."