Trail

Su Hao's life was very simple. During the day, he wandered around the corners of the small town, and at night, when it got dark, he would return to the kitchen through a dog hole and bury himself in a pile of firewood.

In just five days, Su Hao got what he wanted.

He had a decent set of clothes, a pair of homemade straw shoes, a short spear made from a piece of sharp iron bound to a hardwood stick for self-defense, and a small amount of savings in his pocket. He no longer had to worry about food every day.

His body began to grow stronger and gradually regained its color.

The time was ripe. Su Hao began spending two hours a day refining blood energy.

Before refining the blood energy, Su Hao scanned his body and discovered the differences between this body and his previous one.

Firstly, the humanoid beings in this world referred to themselves as Vermilion Reapers.

In appearance, they were taller and stronger than standard humans. Even though he was just over three years old, he had the strength of a human child of seven or eight.

His skin was a darker shade of yellow, and his hair was mostly brown-black. The hair had an oval cross-section, making most of them appear to have messy curly hair. There was a tuft of white fuzz on the tips of their ears, and their hearing was extremely sharp.

During the day, their eyes were like those of humans, seeing things clearly at varying distances. At night, their eyes were like those of cats, and with Su Hao's proper nutritional supplements, he gradually began to see at night.

His nails were very hard and sharp, and with some attention to sharpening, they could be used as weapons.

His teeth hadn't fully regressed, with his upper and lower canines slightly longer than normal.

His skeleton was larger and harder but exceptionally flexible, allowing him to perform movements that normal members of the human race could not.

He had all his internal organs, but there was an additional organ next to his stomach. This organ, about the size of an egg, was attached to the outside of the stomach and connected to it, with numerous ducts spreading out from its surface and connecting to various parts of the body.

The discovery of this organ greatly intrigued Su Hao. He observed it for a long time using Little Light but couldn't figure out its purpose. It seemed like a lump of flesh that the Creator forgot to pinch off.

On a deeper cellular level, there wasn't much difference, except that the genes recording life information were somewhat different from those of previous generations, seemingly more perfect.

Su Hao thought this was normal. Since the world had changed, genetic differences were to be expected.

But this information wasn't the most important to Su Hao.

He was more concerned about whether this Vermilion Reaper's body could successfully refine blood energy. If it could, everything would be fine. If not, it would be like starting all over again.

The good news was that this body could still refine blood energy, and it could refine even more than his previous life as a martial artist! This made Su Hao realize that blood energy, as a form of life energy, objectively existed.

So, Su Hao began to focus on refining blood energy.

Two months later.

Su Hao reached the level of a high-rank ordinary martial artist. His body gradually adapted to the presence of blood energy, and the amount of blood energy he could refine reached his body's limit.

At the same time, Su Hao successfully learned the language of this world. He could understand what others were saying and could express his own thoughts, albeit awkwardly.

Through the information from his previous body, he also figured out the identity of this little boy.

The boy was an orphan in the small town named Duo Wei. His parents had disappeared one after another a year ago, and he had to survive by scavenging for food and was often bullied by other older orphans. These groups of orphans found him too young to be useful and didn't take him in, leaving him to fend for himself.

Just as he was about to die, Su Hao took over his body.

From the time he arrived until now, Su Hao had successfully survived. Everything went very smoothly.

The most exciting thing was that he already had the blood energy of a high-rank ordinary martial artist,

giving him some self-protection ability. With the centrifugal method, he could quickly accumulate a large amount of elite blood energy.

The only problem was that his current body was not yet four years old. Although it was much stronger than a human child, it was still very fragile.

Having a large amount of elite blood energy in such a fragile body wasn't necessarily a good thing; it could easily harm him.

But Su Hao had no other choice. He needed to quickly gain stronger self-protection abilities. Although elite blood energy couldn't be used for close combat with enemies, it could strengthen weapons and be used to draw runes for special enhancements.

With elite blood energy, his survival ability would greatly increase.

Otherwise, a simple accident could make him wander the universe again.

He wasn't afraid of death, but he wanted his death to be meaningful.

"So next, I'll advance to the elite level!" Su Hao was filled with hope for the future. As long as he could survive until he reached the level of a grandmaster, he could start exploring this world.

What terrifying things were hidden in this world's night? Su Hao was very curious about this.

However, the kitchen in the small courtyard was no longer a place he could stay in. The firewood was almost burned out. If he continued hiding there, he might end up being thrown into the stove as firewood someday.

He needed to find another hiding place. His money was only enough for food, not enough to rent a room. Moreover, renting a room as such a small child could lead to unpredictable dangers.

With some self-protection ability, Su Hao no longer acted timidly. He decided to act.

He wrapped the sharp iron piece of his short spear in a cloth, held the short spear as a walking stick, and began to explore the unexplored areas.

Su Hao's ideal hiding place was somewhere unexpected, chosen by intuition.

Soon, Su Hao found the hiding place he wanted.

A half-collapsed mud wall formed a triangular space. With some cleaning of weeds and rubble, laying some dry grass and rags, and sealing both ends, leaving a small entrance just big enough for him, it would make a simple hideout.

When he went out, he could seal the small entrance with a piece of earth, making it impossible for anyone to discover the place.

Su Hao quickly got to work.

In no time, he completed the construction of his hideout. He had done this many times in his previous life, living alone in the wild, so he was skilled.

Su Hao rolled into the hideout and blocked the entrance with a stone from the inside, leaving only two small air holes. The entire hideout blended seamlessly with the surroundings, making it impossible to tell that someone could be hiding inside.

He took a long breath, relaxed, and then sat up cross-legged to start converting elite blood energy.

...

Three days later, Su Hao left his hideout and headed to the market.

He needed to buy some food and find someone to get some money from to buy cloth and clothes. Winter was approaching, and he needed to get enough warm clothes and blankets before winter arrived.

He figured out the name of this small town: Temple Forest City.

This city was made up of many low-rise houses, with the buildings getting better the closer to the city center. The basic unit of currency used was called "Zhu," small coins made of mixed metals. Ten thousand Zhu could be exchanged for one gold.

Indeed, gold was still a universal currency in this world.

Su Hao bought some food and habitually lowered his presence, choosing to walk through alleys, but he was blocked by six bigger kids at the front and back.

Su Hao was nearly four years old, about 1.2 meters tall, while these six kids were all bigger than him. The average age was about six, with an average height of 1.5 meters.

In terms of both size and numbers, they overwhelmed Su Hao.

The tallest kid had a noticeable scar on his brow, clearly the leader of the group. He walked up to Su Hao, glanced at the food in Su Hao's hand, and said frivolously, "New here?"

Su Hao looked around and stammered, "What do you want?"

The scarred kid grinned and said, "Of course, to survive here, you need to pay protection fees to our 'Little Flying Dragon Gang.'"

With that, he reached out to grab the food from Su Hao's hand.

Su Hao avoided the scarred kid's hand and said lightly, "No, I don't."

The scarred kid's face turned a bit ugly as he couldn't grab the food. He was about to fight Su Hao.

Su Hao moved forward and stomped hard on the kid's foot.

"Ow!" The scarred kid immediately grabbed his foot and cried out in pain.

The other five kids rushed forward to surround Su Hao, ready to gang up on him.

Suddenly, screams of pain echoed in the alley as the six kids sat on the ground, clutching their feet and wailing.

The look in their eyes as they stared at Su Hao became extremely fearful.

"Mon..." The scarred kid instinctively said a word but then forcibly stopped, his face even more frightened.

Su Hao frowned and asked, "Mon what?"

But the scarred kid was even more terrified. Despite his foot injury, he scrambled up and limped away, followed by his five companions who hurriedly fled.

Su Hao grabbed the last kid trying to run away, wanting to ask what was going on, but the kid's eyes rolled back, and he fainted, wetting himself in fear.

"...," Su Hao let go and quickly left the area.

...

By the end of the day, Su Hao had gained

 a lot, buying a set of thick clothes and a small blanket. He thought he would have a good night's sleep.

As night fell, Su Hao prepared to sneak back to his hideout.

However, the stillness of the air alerted him to something unusual.

It seemed like something was watching him.

He looked back but saw nothing.

Keeping his pace steady, Su Hao silently called, "Little Light..."