"We're here."
As the small carriage came to a stop, Wu Yu, Tang San, and grandmaster each stepped out one at a time.
Grandmaster who stepped out last, paid the driver before leading his two disciples towards a huge gate at the edge of the small town they were in.
While they were walking, grandmaster explained to the two, "spirit forest is in control of spirit hall so whoever wants to enter needs to have met certain requirements to enter."
The two nodded before grandmaster flashed some sort of badge, most likely something representing his status.
Grandmaster explained the use of the badges and the many different types there are for different people of higher or lower status.
By the time he had finished explaining the uses of the badges, the three had finally arrived at the gate where the guards stopped them.
Not wasting anytime, grandmaster showed his badge and the guards immediately let him though respectfully.
When they stepped into the forest, Wu Yu and Tang San were extremely curious as their eyes darted around everywhere.
"Master, the forest dosn't really seem like anything special." Wu Yu said, feeling a down that the forest was as normal as any forest could be.
Tang San also silently agreed with what Wu Yu had said and expectantly looked at grandmaster for answers.
Grandmaster was silent for a while but answered them right after, "This is only the outskirts of the forest, there's nothing but weak 10 year spirits here."
Immediately after grandmaster said that a few dozen onion looking creature's rushed out of the brushes and attacked the three of them.
Wu Yu and Tang San was ready to fight but grandmaster stopped them while handing them masks.
The two of them were confused and looked at each other, both having no idea what their master was trying to do.
"Put the masks on." grandmaster said before summoning out Luo Pao.
Tang San seemed to have little stars in his eyes as he looked his master's spirit while thinking, 'masters going to fight! I can finally see how a spirit master fights!"
Wu Yu was also a little expectant to see his master fight but was still confused as to why his master would tell them to put on masks.
He didn't have to wait very long for his answer as grandmaster also put on his mask before he started chanting, "skill mantra: fart like thunder, thunder blow!"
After he chanted, a yellow spirit ring traveled from himself to Luo Pao and seemed to have been absorbed.
Luo Pao barked before running up to the many onion spirit beasts. Then turning itself around, it let out an explosive yellow gas from it's rear end that instantly knocked out all the spirit beasts.
Tang San, seeing how grandmaster attack seemed a little surprised but the sparkle in his eyes still remained as he thought, "this is a spirit attack? even just a simple fart can be so strong...!"
On the other hand, Wu Yu's face was twitching after he saw the attack and he started to feel really sorry for his master as he thought, 'master must be really be embarrassed by this... I must definitely find a way to help him in the future.'
'Perhaps there's a way with alchemy... I do remember there was an elixir that may be able to help but I'm not sure...' thought Wu Yu as he silently stared at his master.
When the trouble was gone, grandmaster suddenly spoke, "Wu Yu, bring me some of the radishes I gave to you before."
Taking out a few radishes from the essence tool grandmaster had given to him as a gift the day they became master and disciple, Wu Yu handed them to grandmaster.
Tang San was a little surprised by the essence tool and thought to himself, "that belt is perfect for hiding my hidden weapons..."
Although he thought that, he had no plans on stealing or taking it from Wu Yu as it went against his morals so he just kept it to himself.
Since Tang San didn't know about his spirit yet grandmaster started explaining, "Luo Pao is my spirit, it's a detrimental mutation of the lighting tyrant dragon, by feeding it radishes it can recover it's spirit power faster."
Tang San simply nodded while Wu Yu was looking around warily in case there was another ambush.
After feeding Luo Pao the radishes, grandmaster stood back up and said, "let's go further into the forest, these 10 year spirits won't do you two any good."
They both nodded before following closely behind grandmaster who continued speaking, "Tang San from my research I found that the most optimal spirit ring for you right now should be 400 years old, close to 500."
"As for what kind of spirit, I think you should go for one that will toughen your blue silver grass or give it some kind of poisoning attribute."
Tang San nodded and felt that grandmaster was right, his spirit ability was bind so focusing on the toughness of his grass is no doubt the best option.
Poison was also something that he felt could work very well with his spirit since he could weaken his opponents with it.
Grandmaster then changed his focus to Wu Yu, "little Yu, the same for you, we should look for a spirit beast nearing 500 years old, I don't want to overestimate you and cause my first disciple to die because of me."
Wu Yu nodded but then asked, "master, I don't understand, say we see a thousand year spirit ring that hasn't been absorbed, why can't we absorb it?"
Grandmaster put on a very serious face as he answered Wu Yu's question, "remember this well the two of you, even though a spirit beast is dead, it doesn't mean it can't fight back anymore."
"Once they turn into rings, a part of them stays with them in that ring and when spirit masters absorb them they must be able to overpower that last remaining part."
"This means your spirit power must be etiquette enough to absorb that ring otherwise you'll end up dying."
Both Wu Yu and Tang San took this warning to heart, after all, no one was dumb enough to throw away their lives for such a stupid reason.
Grandmaster continued, "from my research I found that 500 years is the cap for most spirit scholars so this is the bottom line I set for the two of you."
"Now, for your spirit... since you said you wanted to go for an attack system, I think going for a spirit beast that has powerful strength should be optimal."
"I do have a spirit beast in mind but I'm not sure if there's any in the forest right now, if there isn't we'll go for the second best option."
Wu Yu and Tang San both nodded as they knew that their master knew best and leaving it up to him to choose their first spirit rings is the best choice since they were both new to this world.
Traveling deeper into the forest they had seen plant and animal type spirit beasts along the way but none of them of them were good enough according to grandmaster.
Eventually the three had gone pretty deep into the forest when something finally caught grandmasters attention.
On a huge tree there two big and green snakes curled up along the trunk of the tree at least that's how Wu Yu and Tang San saw it.
Touching the body of the snake, grandmaster spoke, "devil vine, it's a very weak plant type spirit beast so it disguises itself as a powerful poison sword, romanti snake."
Wu Yu and Tang San were a little doubtful since it looked exactly like a snake but knew better than to doubt their master.
While the three were busy admiring the devil vine, they had failed to notice the numerous pair of eyes stalking them from the shadows.
Without and warning the pack of wolves jumped out of the bushes while baring their sharp fangs.
All three were suddenly alerted and immediately jumped back to create some distance between them and the wolves.
"Hurry put on your masks again!" grandmaster shouted as he began to use his spirit attack again causing a wide spread gas bomb to erupt.
Wu Yu wanted to do something but he suddenly noticed movement behind them. Feeling a sense of danger where he was standing, he immediately rolled to the side next to Tang San.
Where he had been standing before, a huge green snake very quickly passed through and caught a nearby wolf in it's maw.
Wu Yu felt some cold sweat running down his back as he realized how close to death he was.
Grandmaster realizing the severity of the situation looked back at the huge tree and noticed that one of the snakes was missing.
He then looked at the snake that had almost caught Wu Yu and thought to himself, 'that! a second evolution, 422 year old poison sword romanti snake? it used the devil vine to hide itself?"
When the wolves saw the sudden appearance of the romanti snake, they all immediately started running away.
Immediately grandmaster shouted, "little Yu hurry, summon out Wu Ji, that's a 422 year old romanti snake!"
Wu Yu was already prepared to fight and had already started to summon out Wu Ji while Tang San also looked ready to fight as he touched his left arm.
As soon as Wu Ji appeared, it quickly lowered itself so that Wu Yu cold get on. Wu Yu didn't stop there though as he also summoned out his zanpakuto.
Tang San who saw all of this was surprised that Wu Yu also had twin spirits like him. He looked back at grandmaster for an explanation.
Grandmaster seeing Tang San's look smiled then explained, "little Yu also has twin spirits like you, his first spirit, the Qilin has a mutation much like mine however he didn't have it bad like me."
"As for his second spirit, you'll have to ask him yourself, just like you he has his secrets." grandmaster said clearly.
Tang San nodded as he understood best that secrets are called secrets for a reason, even he himself had a secret he found hard to tell his master.
Looking back to the battle field Tang San had his hands ready to assist at any given moment while grandmaster warned Wu Yu of the abilities of the romanti snake.
Wu Yu had Wu Ji running in circles around the romanti snake at a moderately fast speed while he was looking around for any weakness the snake might have that he could exploit.
He found that the snakes exterior was exceptionally hard but nothing his sword couldn't cut through. The cuts he gave the snake were pretty deep but not enough to bring it down.
What he needed to figure out was how to get the head of the snake to get near him so he could do some more serious damage but that wasn't very easy as the snake was smart and kept it's head high up while trying to hit Wu Yu with it's tail.
Unfortunately the fight would go on for a while if nothing changed but what could they do about it? Wu Yu had no long ranged attacks, nor could he fly.
The only way to do this was to slowly bleed out the darned snake. Fortunately, Wu Yu didn't have a hard time doing this as the snake wasn't as agile or fast as Wu Ji and it also couldn't use it's poison.
Grandmaster who was watching the fight knew that Wu Yu wouldn't have any problems defeating it to he turned to Tang San.
"Tang San what do you think about the romanti snake as your first spirit ring?" grandmaster suddenly asked Tang San.
Tang San thought for a bit then asked, "but master won't the spirits contradict each other since it's an an animal type spirit while mines a plant?"
Grandmaster just shook his head and answered, "actually, in my research I found it otherwise, only, I have no way to prove it... plus since your spirit is so versatile it might work."
Tang San just nodded as grandmaster continued, "also the romanti snake has everything we're looking for, flexibility, toughness and potent poison."
What grandmaster said was reasonable and most of all, Tang San believed in his master so he said, "alright master, I believe in you, I'll take the romanti snake as my first spirit ring."
Grandmaster nodded then yelled out so that Wu Yu could hear him, "little Yu! don't kill the romanti snake, make sure to leave it barley alive, Tang San will take it as his first ring!"
Wu Yu who had finally managed to get the snakes head to the ground was about to give the it the finishing blow but suddenly came to a halt when he heard what grandmaster said.
His sword was barely touching the head of the snake where he stopped. Turning around he saw that grandmaster and Tang San were rushing over.
"That was close master, any later and I might've already killed that snake." Wu Yu joked as he jumped off of Wu Ji, he didn't bother sending Wu Ji away as they would be guarding this area while Tang San absorb the ring anyway.
Grandmaster just smiled then said to Tang San, "okay, Tang San, finish off the romanti snake then you can absorb it's ring."
Tang San simply nodded then went up to the snake to finish it off.