"Weakness itself is the original sin!"
"In Heavenly Spirit Village, my word is law!"
"You little bastard, did you think you could turn your life around just because you stumbled into the dog-shit luck of awakening level-one Innate Soul Power? A salted fish is still a salted fish. Even if it flips over, it's still a salted fish!"
Shangguan Hong lay on the ground, his face utterly calm as he felt the pain of a cudgel striking his body. The man swinging it was big and burly. The villagers passing him seemed long accustomed to the sight, their eyes filled with indifference.
"Level-one Innate Soul Power-so what if you qualify to become a Soul Master? With that scrawny little body, you couldn't even handle an ordinary Ten-Year Soul Beast!"
The man was named Wang Lun, the only Soul Master in Heavenly Spirit Village. His Martial Soul was the cudgel in his hand, and his Soul Power was level 19. However, because of his innate deficiencies, he would never be able to break through to level 20. Even so, in a little place like Heavenly Spirit Village, a Soul Master carried far too much weight. No one in the entire village dared provoke him.
Heavenly Spirit Village, located on the outskirts of Nuoding City, was terribly poor, even worse off than Holy Soul Village. With barely a hundred residents, a Soul Master was an absolute big shot to them! Of the eleven children of eligible age this year, the only one with Innate Soul Power was Shangguan Hong, who lay on the ground. His Martial Soul was a shovel, and his Innate Soul Power was level one.
That qualified him to become a Soul Master, and it was precisely why Wang Lun targeted him. After all, Shangguan Hong was an orphan whom nobody liked to begin with. If he became a Soul Master, Wang Lun would no longer have the final say in Heavenly Spirit Village.
The sun rose in the east and set in the west, and the world gradually returned to darkness.
There were hardly any passersby left on the street, only Shangguan Hong, covered in wounds. He rose to his feet with ice-cold eyes, then fell again-his left leg had been broken.
With a broken leg, he naturally could not obtain the village's work-study student placement or enter Nuoding Junior Soul Master Academy. Wang Lun's move was truly vicious and underhanded, completely severing his path as a Soul Master.
"What a fine Heavenly Spirit Village! Working at sunrise and resting at sunset, without great wealth or status, yet all enjoying happiness!"
Shangguan Hong forced himself toward a dilapidated little wooden hut in the distance. It was his shelter.
There was little inside the hut, and Shangguan Hong did not care. He lifted his left leg and stamped a rat to death, splattering blood everywhere. In a daze, he recalled what he had been like when he first came to this world...
"It's been a year since I transmigrated to the Douluo Continent. Spirit Hall, Su Yuntao... heh. This legendary figure awakened my Martial Soul, and all I got was a lousy shovel with level-one Innate Soul Power!"
Shangguan Hong laughed at himself and extended his right hand. With a flash of black-iron light, an enormous but otherwise unremarkable-looking shovel appeared in his grasp. It was a full meter long, with a huge, sharp head that could easily serve as an axe.
"But..."
Shangguan Hong sneered.
A pale-blue screen suddenly appeared before him, visible to him alone.
[Hextech Excavation System] [Host: Shangguan Hong] [Martial Soul: Iron Shovel (evolving)] [Soul Power: Innate level one (evolving)] [Soul Rings: None] [Soul Bones: None] [Items: None] [Hextech: Recombobulator] [Quest: Reach level 10 (reward: one 423-year Soul Ring)]
As a transmigrator, how could he not have a system?
Shangguan Hong had transmigrated here a year ago. When he learned that he had arrived in the world of the Douluo Continent, during the timeline of Douluo I, he had been thrilled. After all, in this world, he could wield supernatural power and enjoy an extraordinary life.
Unfortunately, the dream was beautiful, but reality was all skin and bones. As an orphan, simply staying alive had consumed all his strength. This body was terribly frail, its foundation as poor as could be, and Heavenly Spirit Village was comparable to Konoha: everyone treated him, an orphan, with malice. Shangguan Hong did not understand what was wrong with them, but he did not care!
"The Recombobulator... one Hextech excavation at every Soul Master realm, and one item excavation every year! This is my capital for defying the heavens and changing my fate!"
What did a little humiliation matter? It was merely a little wind and frost on the road to godhood!
The Hextech Recombobulator was enough to transform Shangguan Hong completely. In just twenty-four hours, his Martial Soul would finish evolving, and his talent would rise to Innate Full Soul Power. Not only that, but his physique, spiritual power... the Recombobulator provided improvements in every aspect! From trash to genius, this was a complete transformation!
"After enduring an entire year, it's finally about to end!"
A year mired in the mud was enough to change an ordinary person. Three hundred and sixty-five days and nights of humiliation had drastically changed the once-cheerful Shangguan Hong's disposition.
He suddenly began laughing inside his shabby little wooden hut.
"Hahahaha... this is absolutely the happiest day since I came to this world! Sleep, all of you. Good night, Heavenly Spirit Village, a place destined to go down in history!"
Shangguan Hong could not sleep. He stroked his left leg, already restored to perfect condition. The Recombobulator had brought his physique to its peak, and all his hidden injuries had vanished under the system's mighty power. He simply waited quietly, staring at the system panel with the not-yet-fully-evolved Golden Spatula in his hand, until the sun rose the next day.
[Ding! Congratulations to the host on reaching level 10. Quest complete! Reward: one 423-year Soul Ring! Drawing Soul Ring attribute...] [Congratulations to the host on obtaining one 423-year evil-attribute Soul Ring!]
There was not a trace of fatigue on Shangguan Hong's face, only excitement! Not a hint of black iron remained on the shovel in his hand; brilliant gold had taken its place!
Soul Power filled his body with warmth. Shangguan Hong examined his arm. It was firm and held strength greater than that of an adult man!
"So this is what Innate Full Soul Power feels like..."
Shangguan Hong remained excited for quite a while before taking the quest's Soul Ring reward out of his system storage. Four hundred and twenty-three years was the theoretical limit for a First Soul Ring. He had no complaints. Given his present circumstances, a Hundred-Year Soul Ring was already excellent. As for the evil attribute...
His Martial Soul had no attribute whatsoever. In other words, whatever attribute his absorbed Soul Ring possessed would give rise to a corresponding Soul Skill! So what if it was an evil attribute? It would merely be a Soul Skill that looked a little evil.
It was only a first Soul Skill. How evil could it possibly be?
With that thought, Shangguan Hong took his First Soul Ring out of his system storage. He controlled the Golden Spatula in his hand, and the bright-yellow Hundred-Year Soul Ring slipped over his Martial Soul. A tremendous surge of Soul Power poured into his body, but he felt no discomfort. The Soul Ring the system provided suited him perfectly, and it also seemed to have some sort of absorption assistance function.
At this rate, absorption would probably be finished in an hour!
Eight in the morning.
Wang Lun opened his eyes groggily and looked outside in displeasure.
"What's all that racket so early in the morning? Can't a man get some sleep?"
Irritable from waking up, Wang Lun shoved open the window, his level-19 Soul Power carrying his voice. He was just about to unleash a torrent of curses when...
Roar-
A terrifying roar, impossible to describe in words, came from outside the window. Merely hearing it made his legs go weak. Wang Lun wanted to scream out his terror, but to his surprise, extreme fear briefly robbed him of speech. Reflected in his eyes was nothing but a strange, mountain-sized beast nearby, purple from head to tail, with six eyes and three mouths!
"What... is that thing..."
Wang Lun muttered, then dropped to the floor with a thud. That faint sound seemed to draw the enormous beast's attention. It turned toward him, its spiral mouth, packed with sharp teeth, opening and closing. The next instant, it burrowed straight into the ground!
"Damn it, where did that thing go? Such an evil presence..."
Wang Lun gritted his teeth. A cudgel carved with a few patterns appeared in his hand, and a white Soul Ring pulsed beneath his feet. His Martial Soul gave him a little courage-until he felt the ground beneath him sinking, as though a magnitude-ten earthquake had struck. Panicking, he scrambled under the bed and trembled. After roughly two minutes, the shaking stopped, and only then did he cautiously poke his head out.
"Has that monster left?"
Having survived the disaster, Wang Lun gasped for breath. He wiped the sweat from his head, only for his gaze to suddenly fall on the floor before him.
An enormous shadow surged over him like a tide until it swallowed his figure! The floor beneath Wang Lun suddenly secreted copious purple liquid. Its rank stench assaulted his nose, yet it did not stick to him. Bubbles popped incessantly. Suddenly, a mass of strange liquid dripped onto his head. Trembling, Wang Lun raised a hand to touch it. First came a sticky sensation, then excruciating pain!
"Aaaaargh!!!"
Who knew where Wang Lun found the strength? Clawing at the floor with both hands, he howled as he crawled away. Only then did he see his right hand, which had just touched the top of his head-great swaths of flesh had disappeared, leaving only stark white bone.
The pain suppressed by terror erupted in an instant. He collapsed wretchedly to the floor and turned to look at the monster.
It was a monster over twenty meters long, its body covered in purple scales! Its hideous mouthparts were packed with dagger-sharp teeth, and a pool of purple liquid lay beneath it. Half of the monster's body remained concealed, yet even so, the pressure it gave off far exceeded that of any Soul Beast Wang Lun had ever seen!
Six eerie green eyes stared fixedly at him, clearly treating him as prey. And when he looked higher...
Wang Lun froze.
He even forgot his terror and his pain, staring only at the figure atop the monster's head.
"It's you?! Shangguan Hong!!!"
Those coarse hemp clothes still bore the footprints Wang Lun had left yesterday. There was no way he could mistake him. The difference was that the boy's complexion was much better now, and not a single wound was visible on him.
What horrified Wang Lun even more was the golden shovel in Shangguan Hong's hand and the bright-yellow Soul Ring beneath him!
This brat had broken through to become a Soul Master!
No, that was impossible!
Wang Lun's brain completely short-circuited.