Sword is equal to Wand, Chapter 20

With my wand resting in my wrist holster, and another large spearsword resting against my shoulder partly. I walked through the Spirit Beast King Forest.

'The fuck am I supposed to be doing exactly... I have a cheat, so although I can probably elevate any spirit beasts bloodline through the bullshit methods of the Library of Heavens Path. I need that spirit beast to at least follow my alignment in having an Astral alignment.'

And finding a spirit beast with a stellar/astral alignment... Was going to be a pain in the ass I could tell. As other than moon and sun aligned creatures, bloodlines that already had such alignment typically came from eldritch and immortal creatures who woudn't so easily form such a bond.

But even more oddly was how even as I walked into the forest with a dozen others. The forest was filled with a thick fog that drowned out nearby noises and without even realizing it.

I had gotten separated from my own housemates. But it didn't take me more than a few seconds to realize that it was clearly be designed that it happen. After all it would be very awkward if multiple people found a spirit beast and we came into conflict over it.

"Still... This fog is stupidly dense." I muttered as I gripped my swordspear tighter in preparation. As I could feel a 'test' was going to be coming for me soon.

As Mavuika was all too clear that unless I came across a 'garbage' spirit beast with a weak bloodline. Any decent spirit beast would test me. Almost certainly, with violence being the test as well.

I kept moving deeper into the fog until the fog began to quickly clear, but it still blocked my view via the thick, large trees of the forest and fog for anything more than a couple of dozen meters away.

But as I passed by a tree, a loud hiss rang out and my eyes snapped upwards to see a large emerald snake with gleaming crimson eyes encircled around the tree.

And after our gaze met. The serpent tilted its head to the side before snapping forward at me at high speed.

I twisted my spear along with a scream of shredding winds as I fell into my five-element martial art style using the Swordspear. And the serpent hissed ,almost seeming in joy as it's own form was engulfed in wind and shot through the wind blades I threw at it.

'Wait... Is this serpent trying to force a contract on me already at seeing me talent with wind martial arts?' I though before I gripped my weapon tighter and the snake hissed again with fury this time as I switched around to using the Sweeping Prairie Fire style to send waves of billowing fire that fed on it's wind.

The snake pulled back after the flat side of my spear hit it's head and it gave me a long searching look before it shook it's head and slithered away through the thick grass.

As it could also clearly realize that I didn't want to sign a contract with it.

Still, I exhaled thoughtfully as my arms shook painfully from the rebounded force of the lunging snakes head hitting the flat of my spear.

"Spirit Beasts... Truly are so much stronger physically than humans. It's not even funny." I muttered as I stretched my fingers with a wince.

And that was another thing. If spirit beasts were so physically powerful and resistant to magic due to their strong bodies. Along with having their own innate magic according to their bloodlines.

It was no wonder that monsters were so feared. When said monsters born of a spirit beast race and getting twisted and mutated would be even stronger than their parent race.

-

"Hmm, this year has some strong kids at least. They aren't screaming for help at the sight of a giant snake or spider at the very least." Mavuika mused as she leisurely flew upon a massive draconic serpent with feathered wings.

Her gleaming sun pattern-filled eye's seeing well beyond the fog that surrounded the Spirit Beast King Forest and allowed her to directly monitor the students. Along with the two other older teaching aides that were also in the forest watching the students.

So even if the spirit beasts that tested the students, ended up hurting them. Or the spirit beasts themselves getting hurt somehow. They could all be healed without any major issues cropping up.

But even as Mavuika was watching the students, she couldn't help a frown at seeing the 'darker' side of the Spirit Beast King Forest was much darker then it should be normally.

Which made sense partially. As for herself, Snape, and several other teachers and teacher aid went on a several-day genocide in dealing with the invading Drider population. This allowed the Spirit Beast Kings to deal with the tribe of Lamia who had also invaded the lakes and rivers that ran through the forest.

Then Mavuika's gaze snapped to the side to look through the fog as a loud rumble of lightning rang out.

She watched with a frown as one of the teacher's aides fought off, and then in a couple exchanges. Fried a young Drider whose humanoid half hadn't yet broken through it's frontal half of it's spider body.

'Drider's don't leave their birth caves with their brood unless their parents come back to force them out early. Or, they run out of food and find nearby targets of food next to their cave entrances.' Mavuika thought with annoyance.

As, through the warnings the teachers gave to the spirit beasts to leave their dens. In order to quickly and easily deal with the driders and their hidey-holes. They just tossed dozens of poison bombs made by Snape through the caves which due to the mixed nature of the poison bombs.

They would sink into all the different levels of the cave system making sure to get into the depths.

"Tsk, so where are they hiding now to breed their broods then?" Mavuika tsked as she flared her spiritual senses far and wide to look for more of the terrible monsters.

As she couldn't allow any of her students to face the fate worse than death in being used as an incubator for the Drider to inject its thousands of eggs into said students' bodies.

-

There was one... Decently large issue with having such long classes as I did. I was stuck here in Spirit Beast King Forest for god knows how long. Dealing with the spirit beasts who were willing to test me, without my consent, mind yo,u for a soul bond I didn't want with them!

So I was getting rather exhausted as the spirit beasts were out in force in testing the new students to see how if any of us were any good.

Of which, with my pure bloodline untainted by a bloodline that had overused elixers and rituals was obviously a strong early initial draw to them.

"Hmm, class is about halfway over. I assume Mavuika is going to pick us up near the last ten minutes of class so I still have more than an hour stuck in the forest." I mused to myself as I checked my wrist watch.

But then a crack of a branch broken in the nearby bushes rang out, and I looked aside ready to see another spirit beast that was going to test me.

However... I looked up and my gaze widened as I saw with my two eyes my first true Monster.

Eight large legs all but silently, had been making their way closer to me. Ten eyes, eight spider eyes twisted and randomly scattered across the spider head, and two upon the human chest that was atop the front 'chest' area of the horse-sized giant spide.

"Drider." I spat as I held my spearsword as the ready and the humanoid head atop the drider tilted it's head slightly at me in a questioning manner.

As though... Confused for some reason.

But then I saw it's legs tense, and with a shout I stabbed the spear sword forward sending a blazing pillar of flames forward towards the monster.

The drider however, leapt from the ground it was carefully traveling upon. It's leap took it to a nearby try and then it leapt from that tree to another one that was closer but past me.

I whirled around, and a loud crash of the tree rang out as I smashed the Drider that leapt down at me with an invisible wall of wind that I conjured with the sweeping motion of the spearsword.

'This isn't a test... They wouldn't allow First years who hadn't even reached the Manifestation Stage with martial arts to even see a monster. At least I hope!' I thought, and all the while I shot a large fireball that exploded in the air above me to signal hopefully for some help.

Then, before I could react my feet were ripped out from under me and my head smashed into the ground as I was jerked up into the air.

Idly I noticed that the reason the Drider had been traveling across the ground before the attack was to lay web ropes behind it as it was jumping around and using the tree's as pivots for the web ropes.

But even with my feet bound, I wasn't helpless as I whipped out my wand and with a quick slashing motion I drew the Rune of fire in the air with... Far more mana then I should have.

The rune shot forward, and the Drider swung around and hit its large back abdomen into the glowing rune like an armor-covered paddle. But my rune wasn't something that could... Volleyed back at me.

Instead, the rune exploded powerfully in a blaze of azure flames that made the Drider scream as its exoskeleton popped and broiled with the fluids running underneath it, popping the armor with the massive heat change.

Meanwhile, after throwing the rune, I had cut my bonds holding up my feet to let me down, and as I came down, I hit the floor. I flipped myself around to slam my swordspear into the ground to summon a swirling sphere of water around me to absorb the heat and force of the explosion!

"Fuck you, and I would rather die than be used to breed more of your kind." I spat with a shudder at the thought of having the Drider rip open my chest after sticking me with its special venom that could make my body into a form of suspended animation so its young could eat me down to the final bits.

A loud crack was followed by an angry hiss was my answer as the obviously very young Drider pushed through the smoke from the explosion of my rune. And I could see how it was heavily burned in places.

But before I could react, an ear-popping snap rang out and the Drider was literally cut in half with a dark chain whip pulled back into the air. "Jeez, if I didn't know better. I would say Professor Snape and Mavuika were messing around. You good there?" A male voice spoke out.

I looked over and standing in the air with the bottoms of his boots glowing golden with magic that was clearly keeping him in the air. It was clearly one of the Teacher Aids we were supposed to meet later in the week.

"Yeah. I am fine." I said after stretching a bit.

The guy above me nodded and then said firmly. "Good! Head that way back to the edge of the forest. We thought we all but wiped out all their nests, but there are some stragglers hiding in the trees, so head on out while I keep looking for the other students."

'So they did know there was monsters here in the forest. But hadn't managed to clean them out, or they thought that, they had gotten enough of them so it wouldn't be an issue.' I thought with some annoyance.

Still, I moved back towards the castle grounds according to the direction I was pointed at... Not only for my safety, but the corpse of that Drider was making me feel ill with its vile green blood's horrid scent that carried on the wind.

Making my way back, I was carefully taking in my surroundings. Making sure that no other oversized horrible monster was going to stick a bunch of eggs up my cheeks or some other horror.

And then it happened. I realized that how Drider's prefer to hunt via snatching prey close to their cave systems. They were rather close in behavior to trap door spiders honestly.

I made that realization as my body fell through such a trap whole as my first step was on a thicker branch that was suspended on the web netting that was covered by dirt and leaves.

So with a loud crash, I screamed out. "Fuuuu!" Befor,e with a dull thud, I slammed into the ground of the bottom of the cave like five meters below me, with the air... Thoroughly knocked out of my lungs, and my back was hurting like hell.

"Ughhh." I grumbled as I quickly sat up with my weapon in hand in case the trap's owner. Was home at this very moment.

But no giant half-spider and half-human looking monster rushed me with the intent to murder fuck me to death.

Then I looked up... And my face darkened as while the bottom of the trap was clear of the webbing. The top was a sticky, horrid mess of thick cables of web that would be damn near impossible to get through by hand.

And I was a good ten meters below the surface. If I decided to just start blasting, and sending fireballs and wind blades up into the broken trap surface. It was perfectly likely I would just get smashed and buried by the loose soil that was held back by the web netting and other debris.

Leaving only one other path... Going into the tunnel that led deeper into the Drider's lair. As I had a suspicion that I wouldn't be found any time soon, as the class only had a single teacher and at best, like two or three teacher's aids to cover thirty-odd students.