Chapter 55: The Two of Them Team Up in the Soul Hunting Forest
3 days later, on the outskirts of the Soul Hunting Forest north of Heaven Dou City.
Ye Lingling watched her grandfather leave after tossing out a single casual remark, and could not help lightly stomping her foot. A rare trace of helplessness appeared on her usually calm face.
"He said he was bringing us to the Soul Hunting Forest, but the moment he got us here, he ran off first."
She muttered softly as she looked in the direction where Ye Linyuan had disappeared.
Just now, Ye Linyuan had successfully brought the two of them into this Soul Hunting Forest. Before Lin Mo could even ask about the specific plan, the old man had simply waved his hand and announced that the rest of the search and hunt would be handled by the two of them working together.
He would only protect them from the shadows, and unless they encountered a Spirit Beast they absolutely could not handle, he would not interfere easily.
After saying that, he did not wait for any reaction. His figure flashed, and he vanished into some unknown hidden spot, clearly determined to remain a spectator.
Lin Mo, standing nearby, adapted very quickly.
With a thought, a flash of red light appeared, and Charmander materialized at his feet in the open clearing.
The moment the little fellow appeared, it sensed the completely different, primitive aura of its surroundings. It immediately lifted its head in vigilance, its eyes sharply sweeping the area. A low growl rose from its throat, and the flame on its tail flared up with a whoosh.
"Sister Lingling, we just need to follow Charmander," Lin Mo said, reassuring the slightly helpless Ye Lingling.
"It is very sensitive to auras. Having Charmander help us search for a suitable Spirit Beast is much safer than wandering around blindly."
Hearing this, Ye Lingling's gaze fell on Charmander, who was wagging its tail and looking eager to fight, but her eyes carried a very obvious trace of doubt.
She had spent a considerable amount of time with Charmander, but most of what she had seen from it was circling around dried meat. In her eyes, it usually looked greedy and... a little slow.
As for the little fellow's true combat power, she really had no clear understanding.
Charmander seemed to notice the suspicion in Ye Lingling's gaze. It turned its head away unhappily, then suddenly opened its mouth at an empty patch nearby.
Whoosh!
A scorching blast of flame erupted instantly. Even though it was not aimed at any target, the high temperature and explosive force immediately distorted the surrounding air.
Where the flames swept past, the weeds on the ground withered and turned black at once. Several 10 year Spirit Beasts hiding in the nearby grass were so frightened that they fled in squealing panic, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
This sudden display startled Ye Lingling enough to make her take half a step back.
Lin Mo quickly crouched down and rubbed Charmander's head, calming it down.
"There, there. I know you're strong. No need to scare Sister Lingling."
After soothing the slightly temperamental Charmander, Lin Mo also gathered his own thoughts.
He scanned the surroundings, which had instantly grown much quieter, and could not help becoming fully alert.
This part of the Soul Hunting Forest had been deliberately chosen by Elder Ye for him.
According to Ye Linyuan, the Spirit Beasts in this Soul Hunting Forest were mostly centered around 100 year cultivation, while only a small number of thousand year Spirit Beasts might appear in the deeper core area.
Even those thousand year Spirit Beasts would not have especially high cultivation. Spirit Beasts exceeding 2,000 years were quite rare.
Otherwise, Ye Linyuan would never have dared let Lin Mo and his own granddaughter team up to hunt Spirit Beasts here.
Most importantly, however, this forest contained many Earth Dragon type Spirit Beasts, and some lucky people had even encountered Sub Dragon type Spirit Beasts with slightly stronger bloodlines here.
The Spirit Beasts in this place fit Lin Mo's requirements for his second Spirit Ring almost perfectly.
As for true dragon type Spirit Beasts, there was no need to even think about them.
Creatures of that level simply could not appear in this kind of artificially managed Soul Hunting Forest.
If one truly wanted to find them, there would only be a faint possibility in a Spirit Beast gathering place like the Star Dou Great Forest.
Incidentally, this Soul Hunting Forest was also one of the places most frequently visited by disciples of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.
Because of the inherent characteristics of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Martial Soul, the Spirit Rings they needed were mostly locked onto various Earth Dragon type Spirit Beasts.
It was not that they did not want Sub Dragons or true dragons, but those were simply too rare and too difficult to hunt.
So they could only settle for the next best thing and choose Spirit Rings produced by Earth Dragon type Spirit Beasts of decent quality.
As for the choice of his own second Spirit Ring, Lin Mo had already given Elder Ye a very clear answer 3 days ago.
He hoped to obtain a Spirit Ring from either an Earth Dragon type Spirit Beast with a slightly stronger bloodline, or a somewhat weaker Sub Dragon type Spirit Beast.
He did not choose to continue strengthening Charmander's flames.
Lin Mo had made this decision with long term considerations in mind.
Because he knew very well that when Charmander's spirit power reached rank 30, it would usher in its first evolution, evolving from Charmander into Charmeleon.
At that time, he would need a sufficiently reasonable excuse, one capable of convincing most people.
While Charmander's evolution could indeed be forcibly explained as a Martial Soul Mutation, Martial Soul Mutations still needed some kind of catalyst.
Under those circumstances, a Spirit Ring obtained from a powerful Earth Dragon type Spirit Beast, or from a somewhat weaker Sub Dragon type Spirit Beast, would become the perfect excuse.
The explanation that his Martial Soul underwent a beneficial variation after absorbing dragon type bloodline from the Spirit Ring would be entirely reasonable on the Douluo Continent.
The root of why he had thought in this direction still lay in Charmander's final evolution, Charizard.
If compared with the Spirit bloodline system of the Douluo Continent, the inheritance process of Spirit bloodlines bore some resemblance to the concept of Pokémon egg groups from his previous life.
For example, Charizard was often mocked for "not being a dragon and not breathing dragon fire," but from the perspective of its egg group classification, namely the Monster group and the Dragon group, it undeniably had a connection to dragons.
This could also be seen from Mega Charizard X, one of Charizard's 2 Mega Evolution forms. Its attributes changed directly from Fire and Flying to Fire and Dragon.
Because of this, Charmander, which had been forcibly manifested into Martial Soul form by the local rules of the Douluo Continent, could from a certain perspective barely be categorized as a "dragon type Martial Soul," though in private many people would still mock it as nothing more than a "fire lizard."
It was for these reasons that Lin Mo had finally decided his second Spirit Ring had to come from either an Earth Dragon type or a Sub Dragon type Spirit Beast.
He needed to pave the way for Charmander's future evolution and prepare a perfect, airtight explanation that would leave others with nothing to question.
.....
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