Zhen Len watched from high up on a branch, his presence blended with the shadows of the forest. Below, the scouts stopped in their tracks as they saw Zhou Linlin emerge from the bushes. Her clothes were torn, her hair dirty and full of twigs, and her skin marked with minor cuts. But her stride was steady.
A moment of silence was enough for everyone to be left speechless. And then, her mother let out a choked cry.
"Linlin!"
She ran toward her, and Zhou Linlin barely had time to stretch out her arms before being enveloped in her mother's desperate embrace. The woman held her tightly, trembling."You're alive… heavens, you're alive…"
Linlin took a deep breath. Her voice came out low, controlled.
"I'm fine, mom. I swear. There's no more danger."
"What happened?" asked the bearded man, approaching with a frown. "Where have you been all this time?"
He didn't believe she had survived a soul beast over 100 years old on her own, so it was most likely that she had been helped by other soul masters. But seeing no one with her, he became immediately alert, thinking she might have been used to set a trap. That's why he began discreetly scanning the surroundings.
Linlin swallowed hard. She already had her words prepared.
"After the fox took me, it was attacked by another soul beast that appeared. A large feline, I don't know what species it was. It also wanted to hunt me, and they started fighting each other."
She paused for a second, feigning a slight tremor in her voice.
"They began to fight over me. It was horrible. They roared, tore each other apart… eventually, the feline won, but it was badly wounded. It could barely move."
"And you…?" asked one of the men in the group, impressed.
Linlin lowered her gaze.
"I was paralyzed, terrified, I couldn't move. But when I saw it faint soon after, I was afraid it would recover, so… so… I did it. I used my knife and killed it."
Silence fell over the group. "You killed a four-hundred-year-old soul beast… with a knife?" asked the bearded man, incredulous at the girl's supposed luck. Although he partly believed her, he kept watching the surroundings for any suspicious movement.
"It was at the brink of death. And it wasn't easy, I had to stab its throat again and again to pierce its skin," Linlin replied gravely. "But I was lucky. And when it died, its body shone and a 100-year soul ring emerged. Although I didn't know its age, I focused, just like mom taught me… and I absorbed its ring."
She raised her arm, and the yellow ring appeared alongside her wooden bow, which looked slightly different than before. No one spoke for several seconds. "That ring…" murmured one of the men. "It can't be less than 200 years old. Are you sure you absorbed it on your own?"
He couldn't believe someone had gotten a soul ring older than his boss's second ring. Even though he didn't know much about soul beasts, he knew the darker the ring, the older it was.
"Yes," she answered, without hesitation.
The bearded man was curious, since only high-born nobles or those with connections to soul masters with three or more rings could get soul rings over 200 years as a first ring.
"And how do you feel now? Does anything hurt? Have you changed?"
Linlin nodded with a slight smile.
"I feel much stronger. With more energy, but the most important thing is my new skill."
With a gesture, she created a wooden arrow made of soul power that materialized between her fingers. When she drew her bow and fired it into the air toward a tree, three more similar arrows, just more transparent, appeared, surrounding the original arrow and following different trajectories. All struck a nearby tree precisely, and the replicas vanished shortly after impact, while the original lasted just a few seconds longer.
"It's called Multiple Shot. For one minute, each time I shoot an arrow, I summon three replicas with the same power and speed, which disappear a few seconds after hitting. But it's demanding… I won't be able to use it many times in a row."
The other man, who hadn't spoken, crossed his arms.
"Sounds a bit too convenient."
He felt jealous that the girl they were supposed to find a soul ring for from a random soul beast ended up striking great fortune, something he never had, ending up a mediocre soul master.
Linlin's mother gave him a stern look.
"Are you saying she's lying?"
"No… just that… it sounds too much like a story or something made up," the man muttered, looking at Linlin with skepticism.
She held his gaze firmly. "I don't care if you don't believe me. I survived. Not just thanks to luck, but because of what I learned."
Her mother held her hand tightly and spoke with a reassuring, emotional, and joyful tone. Her daughter had a great future ahead because she'd have the chance to get a scholarship at an intermediate soul master academy, and even if she didn't, she would do whatever it took to get her in when she turned twelve."That's enough. Let's take you back; what matters is that you returned."
As the group began to gather around her, Linlin cast one last glance toward the forest. She said nothing. But in her eyes was a silent gleam of gratitude, although she didn't know exactly where Zhen Len was. Her gaze lingered in empty space, because Zhen Len was in another direction. But he, watching the gesture and hidden among the leaves, nodded to himself.
He was slightly nervous about whether he would have to kill them all if she said anything more than she should. After all, a soul beast that could speak was very rare, something only those over 100,000 years could usually do.
Judging by how weak the nearby soul beasts were, he must still be in the outer layer. So if rumors spread that a 100,000-year soul beast was in the outer layer, his peaceful days of strengthening without worry would end, and he'd have to move to deeper forest areas, where 1,000 or even 10,000-year-old soul beasts roamed and could interrupt his forging, something dangerous if it happened at the wrong time.
But once he confirmed she hadn't said anything unnecessary and they were moving away, he relaxed a little and returned to his den.
He was in a good mood, so he wanted to continue practicing fire elemental meditation. It seemed he was reaching a new threshold. He felt that, if he kept this pace, within a few years he would once again comprehend the heart of the fire element with his new body, and that would be a major advancement in both his spiritual and elemental power. It would also help him become a Fire Spirit Fox Emperor at 1,000 years old, which made him wonder. Could he keep improving his lineage after 1,000 years?
For some reason, he couldn't concentrate and decided to plan and overthink his next steps. Many soul beast lineages maxed out at emperor level at 100,000 years, but he was sure he would reach emperor status at 1,000 years just like he became king at 100. However, if he wanted to keep evolving and take advantage of every threshold, it would be much harder. After a moment, he realized something.
He could train a new attribute, physical, spiritual, or elemental, and try to mutate his lineage into a superior and different one. Once he comprehended the heart of fire, it would be very difficult to keep advancing without having developed ultimate fire. So he needed to lay the foundation for another element to aim for its ultimate level. With his knowledge from reading Soul Land in his first life and his past-life experience, he knew that controlling all elements was useless if he didn't master at least one completely.
He thought about the six remaining elements he had access to.
Water would be very difficult to develop, since his species was innately related to fire, making it ten times harder to gain affinity with water. That left five elements, but he immediately discarded two. Darkness and space. The first was similar to water, not as extreme, but still difficult and it would make him seem like an evil soul master. Space, on the other hand, wasn't as hard to learn, but mastering it was another story. He was sure he couldn't reach its ultimate level without sacrificing too many other things he couldn't afford to give up.
That left wind, earth, and light. After considering, he ruled out earth, it wasn't incompatible with fire, but not the best choice. Wind was also ruled out, since he wasn't a flying soul beast nor did he have innate affinity with wind, making it harder to comprehend its heart.
That left only the light element, which was quite compatible with fire. And if he managed to reach both ultimate fire and ultimate light, he could also try to master the lightning attribute, which had similar properties to fire and light.
Having the lightning element would help him not only better withstand the tribulations he would face when forging a four-word battle armor or red-grade mecha, but instead of just getting hurt and consuming his life force, he could use the 4 or 7-element tribulation to develop the final stage of the Body Sect technique.
After thinking about that, he remembered he could try to acquire another attribute to reinforce his spiritual power, one that wasn't elemental. The Charm attribute.
The Charm attribute was often in tune with fox species. The only way he thought of learning it was by finding a charming fox and experiencing its charm. He was sure he could resist it due to his high spiritual power, but above all, because he had the Eye of Truth. Maybe he should wander the forest looking for one. And not because he was bored of cultivating all the time… or because he wanted to see if he could seduce a powerful soul master lineage, like a Nine-Heart Begonia… or some other attractive woman who came to the forest seeking a soul ring.
Suddenly, Zhen Len realized something, why his thoughts were drifting, preventing him from concentrating on fire elemental meditation. It seemed he was going into heat.
No matter how hard he tried, he had never been attracted to the soul beasts he saw, and since he was reborn, he had never seen a female of any fox species, except his sisters and mother. So he had subconsciously repressed himself because he was always focused on meditating and getting stronger, never developing those urges since he hadn't felt attracted to anyone.
But now he knew there were human women, and he might run into one in the forest. Besides, in his past life he had always repressed himself to reach the final stage of the Body Sect technique, which required virginity. That requirement was broken by Tang Wulin because he had one of the strongest bloodlines. But Zhen Len, back then, didn't dare break it because he aspired to become a god and lacked a strong lineage, so the Body Sect technique was his best chance of pushing the limits of soul masters.
But now he was a soul beast, and not just any soul beast. He had already evolved into a Fire Spirit Fox King, and was sure that upon reaching 1,000 years, his lineage would evolve into Fire Spirit Fox Emperor. He was certain there wouldn't be extreme consequences, like being unable to reach the final stage of the Body Sect technique, if he stopped being a virgin.