Book 1: Skydream Iceworm

Chapter 1.2: The Youth with the Spirit Eyes

People who were between the first and tenth rank of soulforce fell underneath the category of Soul Scholar. When someone’s martial soul was awakened, their innate soulforce would signify their talent towards becoming a soul master. As such, a person with greater talent would have a greater cultivation speed. If one had tenth-ranked soulforce after their martial soul had awakened, they would be a gifted person with ‘innate full soulforce’. That person would thus be referred to as a genius soul master. A genius soul master would have great accomplishments in his life as long as his martial soul wasn’t too bad.

Although Huo Yuhao was the son of the Duke, he hadn’t inherited a powerful martial soul from the Duke. If he had, the Duke’s wife would’ve had to report his martial soul to the Duke, regardless of whether or not she liked him. From then on, Huo Yuhao and his mother’s destiny would’ve also changed.

Unfortunately, an extremely rare mutation appeared in Huo Yuhao’s martial soul.

He possessed the ‘Spirit Eyes’.

Outside of the two main categories of martial souls, there was an extremely tiny subcategory that were known as ‘Body Souls’. The martial soul that they awakened would be a part of their body, such as an arm, or a leg.

Almost all Body Souls were extremely strong, but the probability of them appearing was extremely small. It could be said that they were existences above both Beast Souls and Tool Souls, and because of this, they were greatly valued whenever they appeared.

Unfortunately, Huo Yuhao’s martial soul was an exception to this.

His Spirit Eyes martial soul had naturally appeared in his eyes. Furthermore, it was also an extremely rare spiritual-type martial soul. Under normal circumstances, Huo Yuhao should’ve become greatly valued. Unfortunately, there were two points that had restricted his development. When he’d awakened his martial soul, his innate soulforce had only been at the first rank. Thus, it could be said that his talent was quite poor, which meant that his cultivation speed would definitely be extremely slow. The second point that had restricted his development was even more fatal; not only were spiritual-type martial souls rarely seen, spiritual-type soul beasts were also extremely rare.

Whenever a soul master’s cultivation reached the tenth soul rank’s bottleneck, they would need to kill a soul beast that was compatible with their martial soul, and then would need to use its soul ring to break through it.

Not only were soul rings required to breakthrough a bottleneck, but they would also give soul masters a skill. This was also one of the origins of a soul masters strength.

Combined, these two factors practically doomed Huo Yuhao to have no achievements during his lifetime.

However, he was still the Duke’s son in the end. Thus, he still managed to obtain a simple soulforce cultivation method.

Even the children of some servants within the Duke’s Mansion were capable of reaching the tenth soul rank, and could become soul masters within three years of awakening their martial soul.

However, Huo Yuhao had reached the age of eleven this year. He’d already cultivated for five years, yet his soulforce had only barely reached the tenth soul rank. Furthermore, he’d worked three times harder than his peers!

After his mother passed away, Huo Yuhao stayed in the Duke’s Mansion for another year. He was still young, so he didn’t have any source of income whatsoever after rashly leaving the Duke’s Mansion. Thus, he could only suppress all of his grievances and hate with his heart. And, due to the oppression that he’d had to suffer through, his mind had matured much more than his peers.

His mother had told him that the only way for him to be outstanding was to become a soul master. Even if he only became an ordinary soul master, his status would still be much higher than that of other ordinary people on the Douluo continent.

Yesterday, Huo Yuhao had finally managed to raise his soulforce to the tenth rank; this was with his extremely poor talent, and after five years of bitterly hard work. This was also the day that he’d planned to leave the Duke’s Mansion.

He needed a soul ring. Even a low-tier ten year soul ring would be fine! That way, he’d have the chance to become a true soul master that possessed his own personal skill.

On the Douluo Continent, soul beasts were ranked according to the number of years that they’d lived for. The strength of their soul rings was closely related to this, as well as their overall power.

Generally speaking, soul beasts were separated into ten year soul beasts, hundred year soul beasts, thousand year soul beasts, ten thousand year soul beasts, and hundred thousand year soul beasts.

Soul masters would have to personally kill a soul beast in order to obtain a soul ring from it when it died.

Huo Yuhao knew that, if he continued to stay in the Duke’s Mansion, he simply wouldn’t have a chance to obtain a soul ring. Practically no one there was willing to help him. Due to this, he rashly decided to leave the Duke’s Mansion, even though he knew that it was an extremely dangerous thing for him to look for a spiritual-type soul beast by himself. After all, a newborn calf wouldn’t be afraid of a tiger.

Huo Yuhao quickly arrived at the main road as he walked towards the north. Although he was young, he’d already made preparations for the sake of obtaining a soul ring. Besides a set of clean clothes, he’d also brought some dry rations in his bag, as well as some money that his mother had obtained via hard work. He also had a dagger in his bag. But most importantly, he had a simple map of the continent.

Both the Duke’s Mansion and Star Luo City were located in the north-central region of the Star Luo Empire, and the area that Huo Yuhao chose to hunt for a soul beast in was the Great Star Dou Forest that bordered the northern area of the Star Luo Empire and the Tian Hun Empire. Various types of soul beasts lived within the forest, which was almost as big as a province. Furthermore, there were no lack of supreme existences inside of the forest.

If anyone else knew that the eleven year old Huo Yuhao had dared to enter the Star Dou Forest by himself, without a teacher accompanying him, they would definitely be stunned speechless. He was overestimating his own capabilities! Since he didn’t have any skills at all, he might not even be able to win a fight against a ten year soul beast!

The main road was perfectly straight, thus Huo Yuhao quickly walked along it, following the roadside. Although he was young, he was still a tenth ranked Soul Scholar. His physical strength was much greater than a normal adult’s.

Huo Yuhao gazed far into the distance as he walked forward. If one were to carefully look at him, they would see that his deep blue eyes had instantly become much clearer, and that there faintly seemed to be light flashing inside of them.

Ever since he’d awakened his Spirit Eyes, Huo Yuhao had discovered that his vision exceeded that of an ordinary person’s. At a relatively close distance, he could see many minute details that ordinary people were unable to clearly see; at a longer distance, the range of his vision was over twice the distance of an ordinary person’s.

The strength of his vision had also unceasingly increased in combination with his soulforce level. The changes that had appeared as his cultivation increased made his trust in his mother’s words increase. A soul master, I must become a soul master.

“Mother once said that I would become a control system battle soul master if I was able to obtain a soul ring. It’s not that my martial soul is bad, but that my talent is poor. Thus, I’ll just work harder and cultivate longer than other people do.”

Huo Yuhao cultivated as he advanced forward, supported by this resolute conviction. When he was thirsty, he’d look for some spring water; when he was hungry, he’d eat some of the rough biscuits that he’d brought along with him. Other than hurrying forward on his journey, he would sit down and meditate. The fact that he could actually advance three hundred miles in a single day—at his age—was nothing short of a miracle.

However, he only had seven silver soul coins and five copper soul coins him, which caused him to be extremely frugal with his money.

Ever since the war between the Douluo Continent and the Sun Moon Continent had ended, the continent had undergone thousands of years of changes. The currency used was now completely unified: one gold soul coin was equal to ten silver soul coins, which was equal to one hundred copper soul coins.

When he was young, his mother had sometimes quietly taken him outside of the Duke’s Mansion to look for some fruits and wild herbs in the forest to eat, simply for the sake of giving him a better meal than normal. Thus, the amount of plants that Little Yuhao recognised was fairly high. Many times, he couldn’t even bear to buy some cheap biscuits, so he had to resort to looking for some food in the woods beside the road as he travelled along.