The Yuhao Chronicles - Volume 1 Chapter 11

Four years later, Soutuo City

Yun Er let go of hugging her son goodbye as she whispered, “My boy, please take care of yourself. Be nice to the people you meet and the next time you come home; I hope you bring me a daughter-in-law to cherish.”

“Ha, Ha, Mum. I will see what I can do.” Yuhao replied, before storing the last food items his mother had made for him into his storage bracer and exiting the house. The storage bracer was an essence tool that his blacksmithing master, Mang Zeran, had gifted him. The gift was not only to wish him well on his journey towards Shrek Academy and beyond, but also to signify that he had learnt all he could teach him. It could not have come at a better time as Yuhao decided to leave the city two months prior to Shrek Academy’s outer academy acceptance exam in order to expand his spirit ring collection. To prepare for this, Yuhao had stored just under a months’ worth of food and drinks within the tool, with the plan to resupply once it had run out.

During these four years, there were several big changes for Yuhao and his family.

For starters, after two years since meeting the blacksmith, Yuhao’s mother had actually begun dating Zeran and eight months later married. Zeran, as he still liked to be called by Yuhao, in this time broke through to Spirit King and gained his fifth ring for his Fire-Hammer Tool Spirit. Both of these things provided Yuhao with a fair amount of comfort and ease as he knew his mother was protected when he had to leave and wouldn’t be lonely without his presence.

In Yuhao’s case, originally he was around 1.3 metres tall, but now had grown to just over 1.5 metres in height. He was already much taller than his other ten-year-old peers, due to his cultivation technique that fastened his growth to maturity. This technique in combination with his blacksmithing work and constant daily physical exercises, likewise, cleared all impurities and filled out his body, with Yuhao having a perfectly defined, olympian build, that expressed great strength without neglecting speed and dexterity. This combination also allowed Yuhao to release Amra’s second bloodline seal, which gave him his first bloodline ring. This ring, named the Three-Eyed Nemean Lion Body, causes Yuhao’s lion bloodline to cover his whole body with sleek, golden fur, that has very fine golden dragon scales peeking out from beneath it. With these visual effects, it also increases both his mental attack power and overall physical attributes considerably.

Regarding Yuhao’s cultivation, after one year he had hit rank twenty and while being classified as a Spirit Grandmaster by some, still only had the one spirit ring. The next three years for him consisted of increasing the purity and density of his spirit and mental energies, increasing the age of his Black-Gold Turtle spirit ring to 20,710 years.

Aside from the physical and cultivation-based changes of Yuhao, his relationship with Amra had strengthened immensely. After Amra had explained to him that he was permanently fused with Yuhao, with no means of leaving his body or possessing it in any way, shape or form, Yuhao decided to trust him with the knowledge of him being a reincarnated individual. While the lion emperor was shocked initially, he eventually calmed down as the knowledge allowed him to understand Yuhao’s actions over their years together. This sharing of knowledge by Yuhao, allowed the two beings to plan several possible strategies for attaining power and different spirit beasts that Yuhao should seek out due to their strength and significant skills.

During this time of planning, Amra told Yuhao a very important detail that brought a fair amount of anger into him. The lion told his host that due to his status as not only an emperor class beast, verging on god class, but as an alpha of his species, he passively gave out an aura of dominance to spirit beasts. In Amra’s physical form, this was very helpful as it allowed him to control spirit beasts around him and keep other males out of his pack, whether they were aggressive or not. In Yuhao’s case, while still affecting only spirit beasts as it is a bloodline-based power, Amra hypothesised that due to male spirit beasts carrying more aggressive and dominant genes and traits, this aura will cause issues with them being conscious-based spirit rings. This would be due to the male spirit beast effectively seeing itself as completely submissive and subservient to a human, which no matter how subdued or non-aggressive a male spirit beast is, will not allow to happen.

This ‘detail’ caused a fair amount of worry to Yuhao, as he made his way to the Star Dou Forest, hoping that Daydream would be alright, and his conscious spirit ring would somehow still work out.

As he was walking, he had something that was constantly on his mind, “Amra, how come you were able to fuse with me then? You said all-male spirit beasts would not allow them to be seen as submissive and subservient to a human. Could it be to do with the seals you created for your power?”

“I am not one-hundred per cent sure, but I believe it is because I am effectively changing your own bloodline to that of my own. In this way, you can be seen as my own successor and therefore in that regard, I am not subservient to you. And yes, your idea that sealing my power could have some merit to the cause, but do remember, even though I sealed my power, my consciousness was untouched.”

Yuhao hearing this scrunched up his face in annoyance seeing his theory and hope behind Daydream’s plan working like it did in the original timeline, diminish once again. Even if the evidence stacked against it working, he still had to carry out the plan in the small hope that it did.

After just under a day of walking around the forest, covering a distance that he and his mother took three days to cover four years ago, he began venturing deeper, releasing his mental power slightly as he went. This was a technique Amra suggested he use to attract only those highly tuned to mental energy, as a being such as Daydream would be extremely sensitive to mental energy usage.

After another three hours of searching, with him taking two breaks in between to regain his lost energy, Yuhao began to feel like something was watching him. Whenever he tried to observe what it was, it would just disappear from his eyes back into the forest’s shadows.

“Amra, do you sense what the beast is?” Yuhao asked, as he continued walking, while keeping his senses focused around him for any movements and sounds.

Amra briefly released some of his own mental energy, in an extremely profound way that while in the past Yuhao had tried, failed in replicating, to scan for the beast, “Haha, don’t worry about it Yuhao, it seems we have managed to attract the attention of a little vixen. She won’t cause you any harm, just provide you with a little fun.” Following this statement, Amra stopped talking, however, a now frowning Yuhao, noticed that he showed interest in his surroundings.

Over the next hour, Yuhao made several attempts at trying to see and catch this ‘little vixen’ that was following him. As he made another quick movement in the direction it was in, he suddenly ended up looking into the eyes of an armoured Rhino. The rhino, before Yuhao could even get out of his shock of a fairly dangerous spirit beast appearing out of nowhere in front of him, ran towards him. What shocked him, even more, was that the rhino, when contacting his chest, simply went straight through him, causing no damage and disappearing behind him. Yuhao, not knowing what was happening, quickly created distance from where he last saw the rhino and watched extremely in case it appeared again.

After ten minutes of no movement and with the sun just moving past its peak in the sky, he decided to backtrack a little bit from the forest’s depths and have some lunch. Yuhao also saw this as an opportunity to assess what just happened.

After eating a sandwich his mother had made earlier in the day and chewing on some beef jerky, he began questioning the event inside his head after Amra took over monitoring his surroundings. ‘I didn’t sense any spirit beasts in my vicinity, aside from seeing the shadow of the one following me beforehand. Then all of a sudden it was there and had a strong presence. I have never heard of a rhino being able to hide its presence beforehand, not to mention it moving through me?’

As Yuhao was thinking, Amra observed the spirit beast that Yuhao had been chasing and being played around with sneak up to him and grab the second beef jerky that he had been set out to eat from in front of him. After grabbing its target, the beast quickly disappeared back behind some trees.

Several minutes later, Yuhao went to grab the second piece of jerky only to realise that it wasn’t there. He quickly looked around for it to come up empty.

“Amra, where did it go?” Yuhao asked.

Amra replied amusedly, “Our little friend seemed to be a little hungry.”

“Little friend? Who is this little friend?” Yuhao replied back, beginning to get annoyed at not being told all the details.

Sensing this, Amra stated, “If you want to find out, set another jerky on the floor in front of you. Don’t harm it though. It means no harm to you.”

Yuhao now even more curious set out the jerky as told and waited. After only thirty seconds he noticed the spirit beast he had been trying to catch only thirty minutes ago, walk out from behind a close group of trees. It was quite small for a spirit beast, only around the size of a medium-sized dog back from home. It was had red-brown fur completing covering its body and paws.

‘Well hello, little fox’ he thought.