One year later.
"...Okay. Food and water that'll last me for a couple days," Dai Yuhao, looking a bit older but still a child of eleven years of age, was hurriedly going through some stuff with a scowl. "durable sleeping bag, clothes, some fake documents, blah, blah...."
He was in his small house, bent over his bed with a backpack on it as he meticulously put essential stuff after stuff into it.
After his mother passed away, Dai 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.
If there's anything he was great at, it was being patient.
He was just dearly waiting the day he'll become strong enough to trample the entire mansion and its inhabitants into paste.
"Hahaha. Just wait, you vile bitch," Dai Yuhao clenched his hands, a wicked wide grin on his face.
His eyes had instantly changed tremendously from its once deep blue eyes into a pair of evil red eyes, and a strange comma-like pattern in each of them spun lazily.
"I will destroy you all. I. Will. Let. You. Know. PAIN!!" Strong invisible soul power undulations slowly seeped out of his body, like some kind of illusion.
Although he was greatly disliked by the duchess and her posse, he was still the Duke's son in the end. Thus, he still managed to obtain a simple soul power 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, Dai Yuhao had reached the age of eleven this year. He'd already cultivated for five years, yet his soul power had only barely reached the tenth soul rank. Furthermore, he'd worked three times harder than his peers!
But he wasn't discouraged.
Even if it takes ten years, twenty years, even fifty years!! He will get revenge for him and his mother.
The duchess, her children, the servants, and his most hated enemy in this world...
The Duke, his bastard father. They will all face his wrath one day.
But to achieve vengeance, he had to get stronger.
Which is why, after packing every essential he needs for his trip of getting stronger, he cleaned up his house one last time and locked up as quickly as he left.
Being eleven years old, wearing simple and clean grey tunic and brown trousers. With his pale white skin, delicate handsome features and well-proportioned figure, Huo Yuhao was a simple description of a handsome young boy.
The sun had barely risen from the horizon when Dai Yuhao walked a familiar path, with his chilled breath showing every step he takes, he then came to a stop in front of a wooden door with decorative designs of all kinds of soul beasts engraved.
"..."
He took a brief moment to aimlessly think of the years he stayed in this place.
The good, the bad. But he mostly reminisced about the times he spent with his mother.
Remembering her smiles, her laughs, the warmth of her embrace. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he quickly wiped them away with a fierce determination on his face.
"This is my oath, my promise to you mother and those bastards who shamed us. I will no longer be a Dai, but I will a Huo, taking after my mother's surname. I will be, Huo Yuhao! That will be the name that will one day be recorded in the Dai family records as their greatest enemy."
With a determined look on his face, Huo Yuhao opened the back door of the Duke's Mansion northern area and walked out with his head held high and backpack on his shoulders.
He didn't look back, it wasn't because he was sad or reluctant to leave the place he'd lived for his entire life, but because he was afraid he would throw all caution to the wind and charged towards the mansion and start a slug fest.
No, with newfound resolve and determination, he walked his journey towards vengeance with cold calmness.
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.
.....
Four thousand years ago, the Douluo Continent collided with the Sun Moon Continent, which had drifted over due to the Western Ocean. This resulted in the Douluo Continent's landmass being greatly expanded, but also caused the frequency of wars on the Douluo Continent to increase.
The Douluo Continent had originally been divided into two countries ten thousand years ago—the Heaven Dou Country, and the Star Luo Country. However, the Douluo Continent had now been split into three countries. Of the two, the Star Luo Empire still existed, but the royal family had changed. They had fortunately pacified all of their kingdoms at that time, allowing the entire Star Luo Empire to remain united, and thus resulting in them becoming the strongest force of the three.
However, the Heaven Dou Empire was split due to the discord amongst its strong kingdoms. In the end, it was split up into the Heavenly Soul Empire and the Spirit Dou Empire.
The Sun Moon Continent that had drifted over from the west had both a vast surface area and plentiful resources. It was slightly smaller than the Douluo Continent, but it only had a single country, which was the Sun Moon Empire.
War broke out between the two continents almost as soon as they collided. The three countries of the Douluo Continent all dispatched allied armies to fight against their common enemy. After nearly twenty years of war, they finally managed to defeat the Sun Moon Empire. From that point on, they unified the two continents under the Douluo name. The Sun Moon Continent no longer existed, only the Sun Moon Empire within the Douluo Continent was left.
However, the Sun Moon Empire wasn't fully invaded even though it was defeated. They relied on their natural advantages, as well as the conflicting views of the three empires of the Douluo Continent, to gradually form a stable, deadlocked situation between the four parties. However, wars still occur every year.
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!
...
After almost a week of arduous journey, Huo Yuhao was wearing a pair of new clean clothes and was expressionlessly sharpening a long tree branch into a makeshift spear with a dagger.
The dagger was roughly 40 centimetres long, and its scabbard was dark green in colour. The scabbard was made of tough leather, though he didn't know whether it was leather from an animal, or from a spirit beast. The handle of the dagger was about 17 centimetres long, and didn't have any gorgeous decorations on it at all—it gave people a simple and unadorned feeling. Not only did it feel natural to hold, it also felt exceptionally comfortable.
The "White Tiger", the dagger's name. A gift that his father gave to his mother.
It had always been treasured by his mother, so much so that his mother had only given it to him the moment before she passed away.
Every time he held the dagger, looked at it, Huo Yuhao would always feel cold fury.
As much as he wanted to simply throw that deadbeat's gift away, he couldn't.
For one, it was simply far too useful for him right now and the only means for him to effectively hunt down a soul beast. Secondly, his mother dearly treasured it. At the very least for her, he wouldn't destroy it.
After two or three cuts, the front of the tree branch had been sharpened.
He sheathed the White Tiger Dagger at his waist, and walked back towards the stream next to him with the wooden spear in hand.
After taking a deep breath, his eyes immediately changed and the strange comma-like patterns in them lazily spun.
Staring at his red evil looking eyes, almost resembling the pupils of the Dai family bloodline martial soul, complicated emotions flashed in them.
Huo Yuhao didn't know when it occurred, but his martial soul had experienced some sort of mutation that changes his eye color and the pupils. Making him look kinda fiendish.
He never heard of this kind of mutation before, and he didn't ask anyone what it could mean in fear of the duchess coming after him if his mutation would lead to him awakening the Dai family bloodline martial soul, White Tiger.
It didn't. Instead, the mutation had strengthened his eye powers by almost three times than before!
All of the minute details in the clear water were magnified within his eyes. He was now able to see the minute changes in the water's ripples—even the small shrimps that lay in-between the cracks in the ground at the bottom of the river couldn't escape the notice of his Spirit Eyes. Furthermore, everything seemed to slow down as he looked at it.
'Good. If I catch them all, it can last me for at least three-four days.' Nodding in confirmation to himself, Huo Yuhao moved as fast as lightning and stabbed the wooden spear into the water.
A few minutes later and he got himself twenty mackerels of various sizes. After setting aside the wooden spear, he then started gutting the fish with his dagger.
"I should roast a couple of them right now and leave the rest for later."
After a few long procedures to clean them up and properly secure his fishes under forty minutes. Huo Yuhao was putting together some twigs and started a fire and started roasting two fishes.
Blankly staring at the fire as he adjusted the fishes on a makeshift grill he made out of branches, Huo Yuhao felt a strange urge inside of him just like every time he would look at a fire.
It was instinctive and unnatural. Like something inside of him was telling him something.
'...Hmm. What if I...'
He raised his hands together, blankly staring at them, he was about to follow his instincts when–
"How fragrant!"
A happy and delicate cry echoed out at that moment, startling Huo Yuhao.
He looked towards the source of the sound, and saw two people walking along the side of the stream. The person walking in front was a girl who looked to be around fifteen or sixteen, and had long black hair that was tied into a ponytail behind her. She wore a set of light blue, form-fitting robes, which seemed to outline her budding and delicate body that was filled with youth.
She had phoenix-like eyes, which were both big and bright. She also had a raised nose, an almost perfect oval face, and a pretty and delicate face that was slightly happy as she fixed her gaze on Huo Yuhao's roasted fish.
The person following behind her was a youth that seemed to be of the same age as her. His slender body was tall and straight, whilst his short, deep blue hair shone with a jade-like luster under the sunlight. Although he wasn't old, he gave people a sort of scholarly feeling.
His handsome face had a lazy yet warm smile on it, and his hands were rested on the back of his head. He also gazed in Huo Yuhao's direction with an interested look. However, he wasn't looking at the roasted fish, but at Huo Yuhao himself.
Immediately, Huo Yuhao was wary of them and instantly unsheathed the White Tiger and its blade towards them.
"Who are you?!"
...
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