Douluo Continent: Dragon's Journey Across the World

Chapter 16 First Entry into the Soul Hunter Forest

After Yang Ping'an loaded a bunch of things onto the carriage, he prepared to set off.

Among the many items, Yang Ping'an prepared two daggers, a longsword, wire mesh, a small folding crossbow, a small entrenching shovel, a large crossbow, and various kinds of arrows.

These items were specially prepared by Yang Ping'an, and were mostly designed and crafted by him personally. When they were first made, even the other people in the blacksmith department were amazed.

To create these things, Yang Ping'an specially bought a bunch of good iron ore, and he also spent a long time thinking about the design drawings.

The most important items were the two crossbows, one large and one small. The smaller folding crossbow was kept close to the body, placed directly on the waist, and could be used for surprise attacks, but its weakness was that it was relatively weak.

The large crossbow was rather exaggerated. The bowstring alone was 1.5 meters long, almost as long as Yang Ping'an himself. Moreover, it was a pure iron bow, with the entire bow body made of steel, the bowstring made of steel wire, and even the arrows made of high-quality iron.

Moreover, everything was just for the sake of power. According to Yang Ping'an's estimate, this crossbow's attack power could at least reach the level of a Soul King, or even be stronger. It should at least be stronger than the Zhuge Repeating Crossbow.

According to Yang Ping'an's own estimation, soul beasts below the thousand-year level are simply unable to evade crossbow attacks, and such attacks are likely to be fatal.

Yang Ping'an traveled with the carriage for about a full day, and only arrived at Hunter's Town on the morning of the second day. After all, Hunter's Town was a full four hundred kilometers away from Notting City.

Upon entering the Soul Hunter Town, one is immediately surrounded by a cacophony of noise, including shouts and calls from various vendors.

Carrying a heavy bundle, Yang Ping'an headed directly towards the Soul Hunter Forest.

Since entering the Soul Hunter Town, Yang Ping'an has kept his face covered with a black towel the entire time, except for carrying a heavy bundle, so that his slightly immature face is not revealed.

Yang Ping'an is now eleven years old and has reached a height of 1.6 meters. Judging from his height and build, he can no longer be considered a child. The Soul Hunter Forest is full of dangers, especially for those so-called mercenaries and ordinary people, who may be in even greater danger. He must not show the slightest weakness.

Before Yang Ping'an could even enter the Soul Hunting Forest, a rather thin-looking middle-aged man stopped him and said, "Young man, judging from your appearance, you need to enter the Soul Hunting Forest. Our mercenary group specializes in hiring people to hunt for Soul Rings. We have an excellent reputation in this area and can definitely help you obtain a satisfactory Soul Ring."

A fierce glint appeared in Yang Ping'an's eyes, and he deliberately lowered his voice, saying, "Get out, I don't need it."

After speaking, he walked past the middle-aged man and headed towards the entrance of the Soul Hunter Forest. After verifying the warrant, he entered the Soul Hunter Forest alone.

The middle-aged man behind him seemed to have a cold glint in his eyes, and then he walked into the town.

After entering the Soul Hunter Forest, Yang Ping'an made a point of looking around to make sure no one was nearby, and then quickly summoned the Purple-Gold Mastiff.

Once inside the forest, the golden mastiff seemed particularly cheerful, almost as if it had returned to nature.

"Golden Mastiff, lead the way quickly. We need to reach the center of the Soul Hunter Forest as soon as possible, or we might run into trouble."

The golden mastiff seemed to understand Yang Ping'an's words, and with a howl, it quickly ran towards the center of the Soul Hunting Forest.

Yang Ping'an then quickly ran alongside the golden mastiff.

The Purple-Gold Mastiff has a keen sense of smell and can transmit what it smells to Yang Ping'an through the connection between its martial soul and the person. This ability is absolutely like a cheat code in the Inner Soul Beast Forest.

Although Soul Masters possess a certain level of perception, their perception range is extremely limited, especially for low-level Soul Masters, whose perception range is very short. Furthermore, some Soul Beasts can evade perception.

However, the Purple-Gold Mastiff's sense of smell is unavoidable. Both humans and soul beasts emit certain scents, and the Purple-Gold Mastiff's sense of smell is even more sensitive than a dog's, reaching distances of hundreds of meters, which is very helpful for living in the Soul Hunting Forest in the early stages.

Yang Ping'an followed the golden mastiff at full speed for two hours before stopping, leaving him breathless with exhaustion.

"Golden Mastiff, sniff carefully to see if anyone is following us."

Upon hearing this, the golden mastiff ran back alone for a while, but finally returned to its original spot and shook its head at Yang Ping'an.

Yang Ping'an finally relaxed a little. Entering the Soul Beast Forest alone made him an easy target for many people, and he might even be targeted for money or murder.

What Yang Ping'an didn't know was that after he entered the Soul Hunting Forest, five people followed him, including the thin middle-aged man who had initially stopped him.

However, after searching the Soul Hunter Forest for a while, they couldn't find a single person, let alone sense any soul power.

The group looked at each other in disbelief, never expecting that a living person would disappear so quickly.

In their eyes, anyone entering the Soul Hunter Forest would be extremely cautious, even walking very slowly. But after only a few minutes of slowing down, they couldn't find any information about Yang Ping'an, as if he had vanished into thin air.

After resting for about ten minutes, Yang Ping'an took Luo Shanpao to search for soul beasts in the Soul Hunting Forest. The first two hours of fast running were mainly to prevent anyone from following behind. The Purple Gold Mastiff used its keen sense of smell to quickly avoid all dangers and soul beasts.

There are indeed many soul beasts in the Soul Hunting Forest, but they are generally low-level soul beasts, especially soul beasts like the Thousand-Pound Ant and the Soft-Boned Rabbit. You can basically catch one every few minutes, or even a group of them, but unfortunately they are too weak.

Yang Ping'an's goal was very simple: to find metal-attribute soul beasts, especially gold-attribute soul beasts, which were the ones that could possibly appear in the Soul Hunting Forest.

The main objective is to find creatures like the Golden Armor Wolf, Crimson Gold Bear, Vajra Ape, Gold-Eating Rat, and Gold-Eating Insect, avoiding overly ferocious spirit beasts as much as possible. Of course, encountering gold-type or sub-dragon-type spirit beasts would be even better.

Of course, there is an even more important point: the Golden Mastiff must like it. If the Golden Mastiff has a particular desire for a certain soul beast, then it will be a perfect match.

After searching for half a day, and it was almost dark, they still hadn't found a suitable soul beast. They did encounter some Mandragora Snakes and an Iron-skinned Bull, but the Mandragora Snakes were simply unsuitable, and the Iron-skinned Bull was only about a hundred years old.

Of course, he would occasionally encounter people who were hunting for spirit rings, but Yang Ping'an would always quickly dodge them and try his best not to meet other spirit masters.

When night fell, Yang Ping'an dug a hole in the root of a giant tree and hid inside. Outside, he decorated the area with stones and weeds, sprinkled some powdered dung from powerful soul beasts, and even set up a small trap.

The Soul Beast Forest is countless times more dangerous at night than during the day, so Yang Ping'an dared not run around at this time.

(End of this chapter)