However, his destination for this trip was the Star Dou Great Forest. In that land of subjugated demons where countless Beasts resided, century-old and millennia-old Soul Beasts were merely ordinary existences, and Ten-Thousand-Level Soul Beasts could easily become food for even more terrifying entities within the forest. Although Huo Yuhao considered himself consistently cautious, accidents could happen in any endeavor. If he truly perished in that demon-subjugated land, he could only blame his own ill fortune.
The primary reason Huo Yuhao chose the Star Dou Great Forest was that he practically had no other options. Although he had heard from certain Soul Masters that the Douluo Continent once possessed Soul Hunting Forests containing only ten-year and hundred-year Soul Beasts, specifically established for low-tier Soul Masters to acquire Soul Rings, those forests seemed to have vanished into the river of history at the same time as an organization called Spirit Hall thousands of years ago.
Aside from the Star Dou Great Forest, Huo Yuhao could choose to head to the Frozen Forest in the Extreme North or the Sunset Forest to hunt Soul Beasts. The average strength and level of Soul Beasts in these two regions were ultimately inferior to those in the Star Dou Great Forest; however, one of these two Soul Beast forests was located in the Extreme North, requiring a journey all the way across the Heavenly Soul Empire, while the other, the Sunset Forest, was situated in the northeastern part of the Heavenly Soul Empire and necessitated passing through Tiandou City to reach it. As a native of the Xingluo Empire, the difficulty of heading to these two places to hunt Soul Beasts was truly considerable.
After walking north for a short while, Huo Yuhao caught sight of a vast expanse of contiguous buildings—a magnificent, palace-like structure whose golden-glazed tiles gleamed dazzlingly in the sunlight. With its golden palace roofs and red doors, this antique style naturally inspired a sense of solemnity.
Viewed from afar, shrouded in mist and featuring four-eaved kiln tiles, it looked as though it had been carved from a single brick. Its sprawling footprint gave an impression of endless expanse. The towering, five-zhang-high main gateway bore three large characters: "Duke's Mansion."
This massive estate, covering an area of over three thousand mu, did not belong to any city; instead, it was built independently fifty li to the northwest of Xingluo City, the capital of the Xingluo Empire. From this, one could perceive the exalted status held by the owner of this mansion within the Xingluo Empire.
At that moment, the sun was directly overhead, and its bright rays spilled over the glistening glazed tiles, casting a dazzling golden hue over the entire Duke's Mansion, which was faintly visible even from the ramparts of Xingluo City.
Gazing at this majestic and grandiose Duke's Mansion, Huo Yuhao merely sneered, a hint of hatred flashing within his deep blue eyes.
"Once I find a way to cure Mother's illness, your good days will come to an end. That day won't be too far off—enjoy yourselves while you can."
Huo Yuhao took one more deep look at the Duke's Mansion, wishing to engrave everything that had happened within its walls deep into his mind. The disappearance of a certain Dai Yuhao had not even caused a ripple within the Duke's Mansion, but it did not matter. Before long, Huo Yuhao would return and turn this place upside down.
Heading all the way north, Huo Yuhao soon stepped onto the official highway. Although Huo Yuhao was still young, back when he was six years old, in order to rapidly improve the quality of life for himself and his mother, he had resolutely used his sickly body to complete an underground commission that could not see the light of day, thereby earning his first pot of gold.
Once he successfully secured his first pot of gold, Huo Yuhao's path of development gradually became smoother. A child who could eat his fill and a child who could not had vastly different amounts of strength to draw upon, and the physical disparity between a child who ate meat every day and one who barely had enough to fill his stomach was similarly immense.
From initially exerting his utmost strength to throw just a few blade fragments in the manner of shuriken, to being able to barely wield a wakizashi, and now to the point where he could almost effortlessly use a katana, although he still did not possess a single Soul Ring, the strength Huo Yuhao could unleash was steadily rising, and naturally, he began to steadily increase the difficulty of the commissions he accepted.
As the rhythm of his life entered a virtuous cycle, Huo Yuhao was amazed to find that it had taken him only three years to cultivate from rank one Innate Soul Power to rank ten, a feat that was indebted to the intake of large quantities of high-nutrient food over the past three years.
Without sufficient and nutrient-rich food as a supplement, Huo Yuhao felt that, judging by his cultivation speed right after awakening his Martial Soul at age six, achieving rank ten soul power before the age of twelve would already be an exceptionally good outcome.
Therefore, compared to his past self at that time, Huo Yuhao's current cultivation speed had nearly doubled, which also allowed him to vaguely comprehend a certain principle in his heart.
The better a person's physical condition, the greater the cultivation progress they could typically gain during meditation.
His own innate cultivation aptitude should not be poor; the reason his innate soul power level was only rank one was most likely due to the fact that simply getting enough to eat before the age of six had been a problem. As his meals had grown progressively better over the past three years, his cultivation aptitude was gradually recovering.
With this thought, Huo Yuhao's desire to join Shrek Academy for his studies grew even stronger. Although he had spent the past three years inquiring about common knowledge concerning the Soul Master world, the information he obtained was often scattered fragments. While he could piece together some basic Soul Master knowledge after accumulating enough of it, how could doing that ever compare to systematic learning?
To put it into perspective, just figuring out the ranking order of Soul Master levels—from Soul Scholar, Soul Master, and Great Soul Master all the way to Title Douluo—had taken Huo Yuhao nearly three months.
A Soul Elder, revered as a master among Soul Masters, was merely at the level of a thirty-ranked Soul Master, while a Douluo titled as an emperor of Soul Masters was only at rank sixty. The most formidable Soul Masters in the world were powerhouses at the level of Soul Douluo and Title Douluo. Such matters were common knowledge to young Soul Masters from major families and large sects, but to Huo Yuhao, they were extraordinarily precious knowledge.
Both the Duke's Mansion and Xingluo City were located in the north-central part of the Xingluo Empire, while the place Huo Yuhao had chosen to hunt Soul Beasts was the Star Dou Great Forest in the northern part of the empire, bordering the Heavenly Soul Empire. In this forest, which occupied an area roughly the size of a province, a wide variety of Soul Beasts lived, among which supreme existences were by no means lacking.
The highway was straight. Huo Yuhao walked forward rapidly along the roadside. Although he was only nine years old at this moment, he was, after all, a rank-ten Soul Scholar. Moreover, apart from when he was executing commissions over the past three years, he had basically never mistreated his stomach, making his physical stamina much better than that of an average adult. As he walked forward, Huo Yuhao gazed far into the distance. If one looked closely, they would notice that his deep blue eyes instantly became even clearer, with faint halos of light seemingly flowing within them.
Ever since his Spirit Eye awakened, Huo Yuhao had discovered that his eyesight far exceeded that of ordinary people.
At close range, he could see many details that others could not clearly perceive.
At long range, he could see more than twice the distance of a normal person.
Upon discovering that he possessed such a talent, even Huo Yuhao, whose temperament had already been tempered, could not help but exclaim in excitement.
One had to know that within ninja circles, his Spirit Eye was simply one of top-tier talents. Although there were many fellows referred to as ninjas, most of them were ugly-looking, short-statured dwarves akin to the Luanbo crowd; they were merely dubbed ninjas because their slender and diminutive builds suited them for being sent out to gather intelligence.
In the eyes of true ninjas, anyone worthy of being called a ninja by their peers needed, at the very minimum, a pair of well-cultivated ninja eyes. Only thus could they easily scout intelligence from an extreme distance without alerting the enemy. Even in the dead of night, ninja eyes could devour every sliver of ambient light like the pupils of a civet cat, spying upon the entities lurking within the shadows.