Douluo Continent: The Book of Witness and Peerless Tang Sect

"Beibei, come back! This tabby cat is unable to move. Let's hurry, the commotion was too loud."

Seeing the tabby cat with its broken spine snorting and its eyes red, Long You felt a sudden discomfort. In addition, he suddenly spotted two rapidly approaching red dots on his soul detection device. Long You immediately told Bei Bei and Tang Ya to run away.

After traveling through the woods for a while, Long You had already determined their location on the map he had bought beforehand. Now they needed to head towards a stream in the forest where soul beasts were kept.

It had been discussed before that Tang Ya wanted a soul skill with a binding effect as her first soul skill. In other words, when choosing a soul beast to acquire a soul ring, she needed to choose one that could bind enemies and enhance the resilience of Tang Ya's Blue Silver Grass martial soul.

The Mandragora Serpent is an option; it's resilient and venomous, and crucially, someone has paved the way, ensuring the effectiveness of its soul skills. However, no matter how good the Mandragora Serpent is, it's not the first choice for Tang Ya, or rather, for Bei Bei and Long You right now. The reason is simple: the two of them might not be able to defeat it.

The Mandragora Snake is a venomous snake, and a highly venomous one at that. If they were to encounter a 400-year-old Mandragora Snake, Bei Bei and Long You, with their current level as first-ring Soul Masters, would be utterly helpless. Not to mention anything else, the venomous mist released by the Mandragora Snake alone is something even a first-ring Soul Master couldn't withstand.

So, there was no other way but to change targets. Long You flipped through the information on various spirit beasts he had recorded in the Book of Martial Soul Witness, and finally chose a plant-type spirit beast called the Man-Beating Willow for Tang Ya.

This kind of soul beast inherits the characteristic of the willow tree growing by water, and naturally prefers to grow near water. Therefore, Tang Ya's soul hunting team, which has made the Man-Beating Willow their first target, naturally had to find a water source first.

There was no time to worry about cleaning up the traces; the two red dots behind were approaching very quickly, so they simply changed the person clearing the way to Long You.

Using the power of the exoskeleton armor, Long You lifted Tang Ya up, and the three of them quickly moved away from the location of the battle, using the blank area displayed on the soul-guided device.

The perspective shifts to Long Lei and his companion. These two, having detected something amiss with their soul-guided detectors from afar, rushed forward, preparing to act quickly should anything happen.

However, by the time these two arrived at the scene of the fight, only the tabby cat, barely clinging to life, remained. The figures of Long You and his companions were nowhere to be seen.

Although the three of them and the tiger-striped cat had been facing off for quite a while, they only lasted about half a minute before they actually started fighting.

Although Long Lei and his companion were strong and fast, they were already a bit too late when they reacted. Furthermore, to avoid being detected by Long You's soul-guided detection device, they had kept a considerable distance. This meant that the two elders, who had rushed over with great anxiety, only arrived late, after everyone had left.

"Hey, these guys are pretty good at fighting, they finished the job in such a short time. But why are they running away in such a hurry?"

This tabby cat isn't suitable, but since it's already like this, why not wait a little longer? It's still a trophy, after all!

Looking at the somewhat messy scene, Beibei's elders were a little confused.

Long's father was also puzzled, but when he suddenly noticed the soul-detecting device in his hand, he slapped his forehead and said, "Brother Yu, this is a misunderstanding. We've probably frightened those three children."

Seeing Long Lei raise the soul-detecting device in his hand, Bei Bei's elder thought for a moment and suddenly realized what was going on.

"Hey! I forgot! But Xiao You is really good. Even in the middle of a battle, he was able to check his surroundings and make the decisive move to retreat. It's not easy to have that kind of awareness!"

“I’ve realized that this kid isn’t joking when he says he wants to become a Soul Master. He’s quite skilled with Soul Tools, unlike those of us who are used to using Martial Souls.”

"There's still a lot of debate about soul tools here, but you have to admit that sometimes using a soul tool is more effective than using a martial soul. So, there's nothing wrong with the kids getting used to and learning to use soul tools in battle."

As long as they don't neglect their own martial soul cultivation because of soul tools, and don't waste their youth, there's no need to stop them; they can offer the support they need.

"That's what I thought too. Xiao You is an easy child to take care of. Over the past year, her soul power level has improved quite quickly. It seems that the balance between the two sides has been well maintained, so I haven't interfered."

"Alright, let's wait here, you two. The tabby cat is the kids' trophy, we'll collect it later. Besides, the fight was quite loud, we don't want any trouble. The kids did well, let's avoid unnecessary complications."

Returning to the main point, after walking through the forest for more than ten minutes and having exhausted most of his soul power, Long You waved his hand and stopped.

The detection device showed that the two red dots that had been rapidly approaching the trio had stopped in the clearing in the forest where the trio had fought the tabby cat. At this point, Long You realized that this was probably a false alarm.

"Tsk tsk, that's too impatient. And they didn't even bother to shield the detection fluctuations of the low-level soul tool. They scared me half to death."

Muttering to himself, Long You operated the soul-guided detector, marking the two red dots behind him as friendly green markers. At the same time, he put Tang Ya down from his shoulder.

What are you saying?

Because Long You's voice was indeed not loud and he spoke very vaguely, Tang Ya couldn't hear him clearly even though they were very close.

"It's nothing, the people following us have stopped. Beibei and I have both used up a lot of our soul power and need to replenish it, so please keep watch, Sister Xiaoya."

"Okay, you guys get back to normal quickly."

The surrounding environment wasn't exactly safe, so Long You and Bei Bei didn't follow the usual meditation to recover their soul power. Instead, they started absorbing the soul power stored in the baby bottle soul tool.

They walked carefully, stopping frequently, until the trio finally arrived at a stream before noon.

"It's almost noon, and most of the soul beasts are resting at this time, making it a relatively safe time in the Soul Beast Forest. Let's seize this opportunity, eat a quick bite of dry rations, and then hurry along the stream to search for Xiaoya's soul ring before the weather cools down."

"Okay, Xiaoyou and Xiaoya eat first, I'll keep watch."

In ten minutes, after finishing a meat-filled pancake and replenishing their soul power, the trio began to walk along the stream.

Not far along, Beibei, who was leading the way, found a grove of willows at a bend in the stream where it widened.