Night is the best cover. Yu Yuanchen—or rather, the man who had renamed himself "Chen Yuan"—moved away from Dragon City as silently as a shadow merging into the darkness. He chose not to use any form of transportation, relying purely on his formidable physique and precise control over his soul power to speed through the wilderness and mountains. His pace was no slower than a galloping horse, and it allowed him to avoid the prying eyes on the main roads.
The first destination he chose was the Star Luo Empire.
The southeast of the Heaven Dou Empire was territory that the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Family and the Black Flame Demonic Dragon Family had managed for years, with eyes and ears everywhere. Even if he were careful, the risk of exposure would only grow with each passing day he remained. The Star Luo Empire, however, had long been a rival to Heaven Dou, and the Dragon family's influence there was faint, making it an ideal place to hide and train.
He did not head straight for the heart of the Star Luo Empire. Instead, he planned a circuitous route, traveling along the buffer zone between the two empires. He would occasionally slip into Heaven Dou territory to gather information, then enter Star Luo to familiarize himself with the environment, acting like a true traveling soul master to avoid suspicion.
He had swapped his blue martial attire, which symbolized his family, for a nondescript gray cloth garment, covered by a worn cloak with a wide hood that obscured most of his face. He stabilized his soul power fluctuations at around level fifty-one; this was enough to intimidate most petty troublemakers with his status as a Soul King, yet not so high as to attract undue attention. As for the potential sensation his soul rings might cause, he decided that unless it was a matter of life and death, he would never easily manifest his martial soul. To the outside world, his disguised martial soul was the "Thunder Armor Dragon Lizard," a sub-dragon species soul beast. It possessed decent lightning attributes and defensive capabilities, which perfectly explained his robust physique and the occasional leakage of lightning-attribute soul power, while being far less eye-catching than the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon.
"Chen Yuan..." he whispered this temporary name, his gaze calm and ripple-free. From this moment on, the continent had one less brilliant genius of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Family named Yu Yuanchen, and one more obscure traveling soul master named Chen Yuan.
The journey was not always smooth sailing. The continent was vast, with soul masters and mortals intermingled, containing both light and shadow.
One day, he passed through a small town on the border of the Heaven Dou Empire called "Gray Stone Town." The town was somewhat prosperous due to its production of a hard, gray stone, but this also attracted the covetous eyes of many factions. Chen Yuan had intended to rest in the town for a while to replenish his dry rations and water, but he inadvertently witnessed a scene that made his brows knit together.
In the small square at the center of town, a young soul master dressed in luxurious silk robes and wearing an arrogant expression was leading several guards, haughtily berating a pair of commoners who appeared to be father and daughter. The girl was about fifteen or sixteen years old with delicate features, but she was currently pale with fear, clutching her father's arm tightly. The old father was hunched over, bowing repeatedly to apologize, while several shards of a broken jade bottle lay scattered at his feet.
"Old thing! Where are your eyes? Didn't you see this young master coming? You smashed the jade bottle I just bought, what do you have to say for yourself?" The young soul master's voice was shrill. The soul power fluctuations faintly radiating from him were around level thirty, and one of his guards was a Soul Ancestor.
"Lord Soul Master, please forgive me, this old man truly didn't mean it... it... it was you who turned suddenly..." the old father stammered in defense.
"You dare talk back?!" The young soul master's eyes turned sharp. He raised his hand, ready to strike, with soul power manifesting. If that blow landed, an ordinary person would likely lose half their life.
Many townspeople were gathered around, but no one dared to step forward to intervene; their eyes held only fear and numbness. Clearly, this was not the first time such a thing had happened.
The gaze hidden beneath Chen Yuan's hood turned slightly cold. He was not a pure idealist, and he understood the law of the jungle that governed this world. But seeing someone use their status as a soul master to wantonly bully defenseless commoners, the sense of justice belonging to a young man—one not yet fully extinguished—was still stirred within him.
He did not appear immediately. Instead, he moved like a ghost into a quiet alley behind the young soul master. Just as the soul master's palm was about to fall, a faint, almost imperceptible streak of purple lightning shot out from the shadows of the alley like a viper, precisely striking the back of the young soul master's neck.
The young soul master's movements stiffened abruptly. His raised palm froze in mid-air, the malice in his eyes instantly replaced by confusion and an indescribable sense of numbness. His body went limp, and he collapsed directly to the ground, foaming at the mouth and losing consciousness.
"Young Master!"
"What happened?!"
The guards were greatly alarmed. They rushed forward to support and examine him, but they could find no external injuries. They only felt that the soul power within their young master was in chaos, as if he had suffered some kind of intense mental shock and lightning paralysis. They looked around in terror, but saw only the watching commoners and the empty street; they could not find the person who had struck.
"There... there is an expert!" The Soul Ancestor guard's complexion turned pale. Realizing they had kicked an iron plate, he dared not linger. He quickly hoisted the unconscious young master onto his back and fled the town with the other guards, not even bothering to clean up the shards of the "jade bottle" on the ground.
The townspeople in the square looked at each other, unsure of what had happened, but with the oppressor gone, they finally breathed a sigh of relief. The father and daughter, as if having returned from the gates of hell, wept in each other's arms and bowed repeatedly toward the empty space, thanking their unknown benefactor.
Chen Yuan had long since quietly left the town, as if he had never appeared. To him, this was just a small interlude in his journey. As for whether the young soul master would retaliate against the father and daughter, well, after suffering such a blow, if they weren't fools, they would leave their home and flee far away. Even if they didn't run, it had nothing to do with him; he wasn't a babysitter. Saving their lives was already the extent of his benevolence; he couldn't consider everything for them. He had no intention of seeking fame, but he also didn't want to get involved in unnecessary trouble. Solving it in secret allowed him to punish evil while protecting himself—it was the best choice. As for the young soul master, he had struck with restraint, using only a sliver of highly condensed lightning soul power to shock his mind, causing him to faint and leaving behind some aftereffects (such as occasional restlessness during cultivation for the next few months). It was a small punishment to serve as a warning.
Similar incidents occurred several more times during the rest of his journey. When he encountered noble soul masters trampling crops with their horses or bullying merchants for protection money, if it was within his ability and wouldn't expose his identity, he would choose to intervene from the shadows. Sometimes he would silently break a horse's leg with a pebble, sometimes he would use electric field perception to create chaos and help people escape, and sometimes, just as in Gray Stone Town, he would use precise soul power control to temporarily incapacitate the evildoers.
He consistently adhered to the principle of "hiding in the crowd." Like a calm observer, he only plucked the threads of fate from the shadows, never placing himself under the spotlight.
As for conflicts between soul masters—whether they were sect feuds, struggles for profit, or simple disputes of pride—his choices were completely different.
Once, while passing through a mountain forest, he happened to witness two groups of soul masters fighting fiercely over a spiritual herb they had discovered. Both sides had five or six people, ranging in strength from Soul Elders to Soul Ancestors. The battle was intense, with soul skills flashing and trees snapping.
Chen Yuan only took one look from afar and then bypassed them without hesitation, having no intention of getting involved. He even deliberately suppressed his aura to avoid being detected by either side.
Another time, in a tavern in a small border town, two groups of mercenaries escalated a verbal argument into a physical brawl. The tavern instantly descended into chaos, with tables and chairs flying and low-level soul skills firing wildly. The other patrons either fled in panic or huddled in corners, trembling.
Chen Yuan had been sitting by the window, eating quietly. When the battle spilled over to his side, he didn't intervene to stop either party. Instead, his figure moved like a fish, dodging skillfully through the chaotic crowd, and he was "naturally" pushed by the surging tide of people toward the tavern entrance. He then stepped out, leaving the scene of trouble behind. The entire process was as smooth as flowing water, as if he were just a lucky and quick-reacting passerby, drawing no attention from either side of the fight.
He carried the philosophy of "silently protecting everyone in front of him while hiding in the crowd" to the extreme. The grievances between soul masters were hard to judge; intervening rashly could easily invite trouble and expose his tracks. His primary mission was to train safely and improve himself, not to act as an arbiter of justice.
In this way, he traveled westward, crossing the vast border provinces of the Heaven Dou Empire, and finally, after more than a month, officially stepped onto the territory of the Star Luo Empire.
The style of the Star Luo Empire was vastly different from Heaven Dou. The local customs seemed more fierce and martial, and the architectural style of the cities was more rugged and grand. The imperial Dai family and the Zhu family intermarried to rule together, and the power structure was stable, with a stronger grip on the country than the Heaven Dou Empire.
After entering the Star Luo Empire, Chen Yuan clearly felt a different atmosphere. The threat of the Dragon family was almost non-existent here, which allowed his mind to relax significantly. He began to pay more attention to the local customs and traditions of the Star Luo Empire, the distribution of power, and even tried to contact some local soul masters to gather information and understand this unfamiliar land.
He remained low-key. In taverns or trading houses where soul masters gathered, he would often choose a corner, order some simple food and wine, and listen silently to the conversations around him, collecting useful information—about the major sects of Star Luo, about dangerous places and secret realms, and about recent hot topics.
He heard that the younger generation of the Star Luo Empire's royal family seemed to have produced a few extraordinary geniuses; he heard that the Fasno Province, which bordered the empire, had been somewhat unstable recently, with rumors of evil soul masters appearing; he also heard that the "Thunder Desert" in the west of the Star Luo Empire had recently shown strange phenomena, attracting many lightning-attribute soul masters to explore...
He silently committed all this information to memory, using it as a reference for planning his next move.
On this day, he arrived at a medium-sized city in the northeastern part of the Star Luo Empire—"Gengxin City." This city was famous for its mining and forging industries. There were many soul masters in the city, and all major chambers of commerce and sects had strongholds here, making it a place with well-informed news.
Chen Yuan paid the entrance fee and followed the flow of people into this hard, gray-black city. He intended to stay here for a few days, partly to purchase supplies and partly to see if he could find more detailed information about places that might be suitable for his training.
He did not know that in this seemingly ordinary city, an unexpected storm was quietly approaching him. A hidden dragon might conceal itself in the marketplace, but the trajectories of fate often intersect when one least expects it. His journey through Star Luo was destined not to remain calm for long.
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Translated by: randomtranslator.com
Proofread by: GodKun-Chan