Chapter 66 - The first battle
If it was 10,000 years ago or many eras ago, the most important lessons that every Spirit Master must take was related to spirit beasts. At that time, only by understanding spirit beasts could one better decide on one’s direction of his/her Spirit Ring.
With the Spirit Soul system’s improvement in the recent 10,000 years, and the fact that humans and spirit beasts were living harmoniously, most of the classes that involved spirit beasts were only taken by researchers. For example, Lan Xiao.
Ever since Lan Xuanyu was little, Lan Xiao would often bring him to look at some images of spirit beasts and tell him information about spirit beasts through stories. Hence, compared to children his age, he would definitely know more about spirit beasts. After all, his father researched ancient spirit beasts.
Therefore, when he hid beside the rock and saw who the voice belonged to, he heaved a sigh of relief.
That was merely a spirit beast with a massive body; it was over 5 meters wide and 1.8 meters tall. It was plump, It had a huge head and had a tiny tail. Its eyes were on both sides of his head which shook as it walked slowly towards the river water.
‘Hippo!’
A gigantic and shockingly strong spirit beast which was also particularly gentle; it wouldn’t lose its temper even if a few smaller spirit beasts played around it. Also, it was a herbivore and liked water the most; it could swim faster in water than run on land and its favorite thing to do was to sleep…
Due to its large size, extraordinary strength and exceptionally thick skin, it didn’t have any enemy. Among the spirit beasts, it was just like a typical person who tries not to offend anyone. Even those spirit beasts that were way stronger than them wouldn’t find trouble with them. There were many parasites on the Hippo’s body and carnivores didn’t like that — it would cause them stomach aches easily…
‘This Hippo’s body is very plump and firm, even if it isn’t a thousand-year-old, it should be at least 800 years, huh?’ Lan Xuanyu estimated in his heart.
This was also his first time seeing a spirit beast; although it was in the virtual world, it still made him very excited.
That plump Hippo slowly walked to the riverside. It first opened its mouth to drink some water before it went in and soaked itself in the river.
He was simply too plump that after he immersed his entire body into the river, this little river was about to be cut off as it continued making, “huff, huff” sounds.
Lan Xuanyu squatted by the big rock with a wide smile as he observed the Hippo. Spirit beasts are so interesting. His daddy said before that the vacation of the highest class would be to visit those two spirit beasts planets to look at spirit beasts but it would cost a lot of Federal dollars. When he grows up and starts earning some money, he must visit the spirit beasts planet — it must be extremely interesting.
It was said that one of those planets was called Dragon Emperor Planet and the other was called Dragon King Planet. ‘I wonder what they look like. Are there really giant dragons there?’
With that thought, Lan Xuanyu suddenly got slightly excited.
Just at this moment, he felt an inexplicable warm sensation in his body which woke him up from his excitement. Following that, there was a strong gust of wind that came from behind him.
The teachers who were observing the students from the gymnasium furrowed their brows at this moment. ‘I’m afraid this little handsome boy who stood there to watch the Hippo would be eliminated soon!’
But at this moment, Lan Xuanyu, who was on the screen with his back facing danger, did something which shocked them.
His whole body pounced forward and he appeared like he was going to fall but he propped himself up with his right palm on the floor, and his body that was almost out of balance turned sideways. He tiptoed on his right leg and relied completely on the strength of his ankle. He actually escaped death by a hair’s breadth and leaped across to dodge that attack.
A black shadow pounced on where he was initially and left a dozen deep marks on the ground.
Lan Xuanyu dived, rolled forward and stood up smoothly as he turned around to look at the same time.
He did everything out of instincts; when he was with Nana previously, he would practice his footwork for chasing and catching people.
Nana once said that his footwork could be considered a small success. If he wanted to be better, he must practice continuously and increase his Spirit Power.
After Nana left, Lan Xuanyu didn’t slack at all, not even for a day. After experiencing those incidents, he knew he had to work hard right now, especially since he really wanted to reach rank 20 to be able to find his Teacher Nana.
Nana left her Soul Guidance communication device’s number and Nan Cheng checked that one needed to be at Heaven Dou Planet in order to get through, which meant that he must go to Heaven Dou Planet.
Nan Cheng already promised him that when he is almost rank 20, she would send him to Heaven Dou Planet to find Nana.
How could Lan Xuanyu not work hard after receiving this promise and guarantee? He could not wait to find his Teacher Nana!
Hence, his footwork was much more refined compared to before. Of course, he was able to dodge this attack also because of that warmth he felt in his body. He roughly knew that that should be related to his golden patterned Blue Silver Grass; the golden patterned Blue Silver Grass was particularly good at protecting him.
At this point, he finally saw clearly that the thing that attacked him silently from behind was a wolf.
Its fur was dull and was filled with deep green color but its body had a distorted glow around it which made it look slightly illusory.
Its body was about two meters long, quite slender and wasn’t particularly large but it had a pair of dark green eyes that seemed extremely horrifying. Its tail hung low as it pressed on towards Lan Xuanyu slowly without a sound.
This…
Lan Xuanyu immediately thought of a type of spirit beast.
Nether Wolf!
In addition to fear, he also felt fortunate. Thankfully, he imparted some knowledge about spirit beasts from his father and the information about Nether Wolves appeared in his heart.
Nether Wolf! Wait a minute! Nether Wolves live in groups!
He quickly turned around and looked.
Sure enough, not too far away from him, two Nether Wolves appeared from the edge of the forest as they made their way towards him quietly.
Nether Wolves weren’t very strong spirit beasts but they were fast and had a natural ability called the Light of the Netherworld. Other than helping them to increase their speed as well as reduce the damage taken from physical attacks. They were quite ordinary among the spirit beasts.
But this “ordinary” was quite relative. For a seven-year-old child-like Lan Xuanyu, this wasn’t ordinary at all!
What should I do? Lan Xuanyu thought to himself. With three Nether Wolves before him that he could tell that was hundred years old based on the light that they emit, this definitely wasn’t something a rank 14 could handle, only a Spirit Master of rank 30 and above could face them calmly.
‘Run? But I am small and have short legs, how could I outrun them?’
‘What would Teacher Nana say to me if she knew that I was in this predicament?’ Lan Xuanyu scraped on the impression left by Nana.
‘Don’t panic. Right, Teacher Nana would definitely tell me not to panic when I encounter a problem. Then, what’s next?’