Duke White Tiger's Mansion
The colossal estate stretched across more than 200 hectares. Every brick and tile shimmered faintly gold beneath the sunlight, and ripples of light danced across the ground where the glazed roof tiles refracted the sun like water.
Any random piece of stone here was worth more than what an ordinary Douluo Continent commoner could earn in half a lifetime.
After all, this was the territory of the Duke of the White Tiger. Just the thought of the Star Luo War God who guarded the Ming Dou Mountain Range—and the ancestor Dai Mubai who ascended to godhood ten thousand years ago—was enough to make even the lowest serf puff out his chest with pride.
Of course, not every corner of such a vast estate basked in the sun's blessing.
In a simple shack near the rear gate of the duke's mansion, a slightly thin, black-haired boy of about ten sat on a stool, gazing gloomily out the window.
Servants bustled back and forth outside like the sprawling roots of a great tree, tirelessly drawing nutrients from the earth to sustain the giant known as Duke White Tiger's Mansion.
Watching their busy movements, the dazed storm of information inside Huo Yuhao's mind finally settled, and clarity returned to his eyes.
"Douluo Continent? And the era of Unrivaled Tang Sect? Damn… that's the worst one."
If netizens in his previous life were asked which Douluo era would be the best to transmigrate into, they would argue endlessly.
But if asked which era was the worst?
There would be no debate at all—
Unrivaled Tang Sect.
Because every transmigrator in this era lived under the shadow of one being: Tang San, the Buddha of the Tang Sect.
That icy, aloof man peeped on the entire continent whenever he felt like it, treating Douluo as nothing more than his private garden.
And for every prodigy who dared dream of becoming a god, Tang San's so-called "peerless wisdom" was a hurdle they were forced to taste whether they liked it or not.
Everyone knew: the key part of peerless wisdom wasn't the wisdom—
but the peerless.
"I'm ten years old now, and my Spirit Power is Rank 9… which means the plot starts in about a year."
"All I know for certain is that the original Huo Yuhao left the mansion at age eleven after reaching Rank 10."
"Then he entered the Star Dou Forest and met the Ice Jade Scorpion Emperor Sky Ice Worm and Electrolux—the two biggest hacks of his life."
Now that his head had recovered, Huo Yuhao immediately began reviewing the canon storyline, mapping out the route to claim those cheats for himself.
Yes—he was a transmigrator.
Strictly speaking, he didn't possess the original Huo Yuhao's body.
In his past life, he was also named Huo Yuhao, and he even had a closed friend named Wang Dong.
As for why he transmigrated… well, Earth hadn't been peaceful either. Their sun entered a helium-flash crisis and began rapidly aging.
The world launched Project Wandering Earth, but during the Jupiter slingshot, Earth was captured by Jupiter's gravity.
A large number of planetary engines failed. His assignment was to assist in the rescue of the Singapore-1 turning engine.
Unfortunately, when they were still a hundred kilometers away, their rescue team encountered a massive geological collapse induced by Jupiter's gravity.
Huo Yuhao used the last of his strength to push Wang Dong and the remaining team members to safety, while he himself fell into the chasm.
Stones crashed down beside him. Freezing winds tore through the cracks in his damaged protective suit, draining the last bits of warmth from his body like a vampire sucking blood.
Before darkness fully swallowed his vision, he saw a pillar of brilliant blue light shooting skyward—the planetary engine reigniting.
Someone must have restarted Singapore-1 before them.
Amid faint cries and the thunderous roar of nuclear fusion tearing through Jupiter's atmosphere, he forced his stiff facial muscles into an ugly smile—
and lost consciousness.
After his death, guided by an unknown voice, his soul drifted to this world and was reborn within the body of Huo Yun'er's unborn child.
Perhaps the transmigration damaged his soul somehow, because he only recovered his memories yesterday—
after Huo Yun'er died.
After fully processing his situation, Huo Yuhao looked away from the servants outside and down at the item lying on the table in front of him—an exquisite dagger of dark jade-green.
The White Tiger Dagger.
A Class 5 melee Spirit Tool—
The token of affection Dai Hao once gave to Huo Yun'er, and the most valuable possession Huo Yuhao currently owned.
He drew the blade. Strange inscriptions could be faintly seen along the thin edge—likely Spirit Tool circuit engravings.
He injected a trace of Spirit Power.
A hazy blue glow rose from the dagger, and a faint, nearly transparent white blade-light extended along the edge.
It looked fragile enough that a gust of wind might disperse it, yet Huo Yuhao could clearly sense the lethal danger compressed within that blade-light.
As a spiritual-type Spirit Master with the Spirit Eyes Martial Soul—and with the strengthened soul of a transmigrator—his spiritual power, measured using the standards of Dragon King's Legend, was likely already at the Spirit Domain Realm.
At that level, his spiritual perception could detect danger within his surroundings—
a budget version of spider-sense.
And in that perception, the weak-looking blade-light on the dagger radiated a terrifying oppression, as if an industrial chainsaw running at full power were being held upright before him.
For a Class 5 melee Soul Spirit, the White Tiger Dagger could easily pierce the defenses of most thousand-year Spirit Beasts.
As an early-stage weapon, it was absurdly overpowered.
It was just that the original Huo Yuhao's cheat buffs were too enormous, so this dagger barely appeared in the story.
Looking at his reflection on the blade—half a face twisted by the blade-light—Huo Yuhao realized he had two possible paths.
Path One:
Do nothing unusual.
Follow the original protagonist's route.
Train three times harder, reach Rank 10 at age eleven, leave the Duke's Mansion, enter the Star Dou Forest, and acquire his two greatest fortunes.
Path Two:
Leave now.
Venture outside for a year first.
Then go to the Star Dou Forest to obtain Skydream Ice Worm and Electrolux.
With the White Tiger Dagger, Spirit Domain Realm spiritual power, and the combat instincts forged in life-or-death conditions, he was confident he could escape safely from anyone below Spirit Power Rank 30.
As long as he avoided the Sun Moon Empire, Shrek City, and other major canon locations—and stuck to remote areas not mentioned in the original novel—his safety could be guaranteed.
The reflection on the dagger showed a smile warped by the blade-light—half clown, half madman.
In his previous life, Huo Yuhao lived in Hefei Underground City No. 1.
He entered the underground city at age three and grew up in an orphanage.
He had no memory of his father—likely a casualty of the lunar crisis.
His mother, Huo Yun'er, died of Type-II Radiation Sickness.
Blue sky, white clouds, warm sunlight, endless grasslands and forests, real animals instead of preserved specimens—
For his generation, such things existed only in virtual reality.
But data was still only data.
It could never reproduce the warmth of the real world or the heartbeat of nature.
Remove the VR helmet, and all that awaited was a cramped room…
and dried worms in assorted flavors.
Endurance. Survival. Continuation of the species—
These were the main themes of that world.
Most entertainment had been abolished; people could only look at pre-Brake Era web novels and movies for comfort.
Now, given a second life in a world with a stable sun, where he no longer had to sacrifice his humanity for the sake of tomorrow—
Huo Yuhao wanted to live differently.
"So the answer's obvious. The original plot is just a reference. I'll carve my own path!"
The blade-light slowly faded.
Huo Yuhao sheathed the White Tiger Dagger.
He had chosen the second path.