Something’s Fishy

Within the underground cave a very small hexagram came into existence above the lake, it instantly dropped something into the water and disappeared, the whole process was overly simple, making it look anticlimactic for the first guardian's appearance

Plop

The creature that plopped into the water was a small deep blue fish, two green round iris's rest in a silver sclera, a stubby back fin, and two small side fins rest at the side, the fish's size wasn't long or slim, nor was it short or fat, it had a medium attribute in all aspects, seemingly an ordinary fish that you could lose sight of pretty quickly once others fish were around

Yu stared at the normal looking fish for a few seconds, if he didn't know this was his guardian he would have thought it wasn't even a beast

"Erm, Hello, I think I'm terribly late for introduction but I'm Yu" Yu introduced himself to the silent fish, while it might not understand he was sure he could convey a thing or two through the connection

But the fish surprisingly nodded at him, it was like the 'Continue on' type of nod, perplexing Yu a little

"Well, I have neglected you by not calling you out sooner so I thought I'd apologize, I also happened to have found something that would be useful to you, here you go, eat this and you might grow really strong, if it isn't enough there is more down the lake, just make sure you leave two for the others"

Yu put the dying plant into the water as he spoke, he was really excited to see how it would affect the unblemished fish who was in its infancy of a beast, if he purified its element early on that could make its advancement smooth sailing

The fish didn't look too anxious though as it stared at the dying peony, it didn't move toward it but instead looked around the cave with its green eyes, it seemed to be searching around, but after seeing nothing of what it had in mind it looked back at the peony before swimming toward it and swallowing it with one bite

After the fish ate the flower nothing happened it just stopped moving and did nothing

"If one isn't enough you can get more from down there you know; I'm sure it would have an affect soon" Yu tried to convince the fish to go eat more but it didn't seem head his words as it stared at him silently

'Does it want me to go get them myself? Maybe it can't swim too far down in this density of elemental water? No that would make no sense'

Yu didn't have to ponder too much though as soon a blinding light erupted from the fish, lighting up the entire cave around it

The light continued to shine for a few more short seconds before receding

'What was that'

Yu stared in surprise at the emerged fish, it looked nothing like its previous dull appearance, in fact there was almost nothing related between them if the eyes weren't taken into consideration

What appeared when the light receded was a sleek white fish, its whole body radiated a white light on its own, the fin on its back and tail were connected peculiarly closing and opening like a flower blooming, while the ones on its side took a long and thin shape adding to the appeal of the fish, its eyes remained the same though not affected by the drastic change whatsoever

"Holy…just one Pure Peony is enough to do that?" Yu now understood why those from the olden days hunted it down to extension, with a huge change like this how could they leave such a treasure alone

Thinking about all the things he could do with the remaining five Yu started getting giddy, he wanted to summon the others right away and empower them, but he first looked toward the fish, and asked it if it wanted more, after all it really deserved more after his neglecting

Seeing as it just awkwardly stared at him in silence he smiled and bid farewell to it before unsummoning it and summoning the spider

"Hey little fella how are you doing"

"Xu Xu!"

The little spider seemed a lot less timid than before, at least it knew now that Yu would not hurt it, thus it didn't bother with bantering to Yu and berated him instead for squeezing it dry in the war with the bees

"Ahaha, well that was a necessary trap, plus didn't we get the core of the queen bee just for you? I'm sure you'll thank me once you see the benefit"

"Xuuuu!"

The spider hit Yu's foot with its small spider feet, it didn't really understand the benefit Yu was talking about, all it knew was that the bully owner needed to reward it for its hard work or else it would go on strike

Seeing the cute spider Yu smiled, it was really cute in his perspective as although others might feel like the tapping of four legs on your foot would feel creepy he didn't mind it too much

"I got something for your hard work, hold up for a sec"

He jumped into the water again and came back a few seconds later with another Pure Peony, he then presented it to the spider

The spider looked at the shining plant and poked it a few times, but after examining it a few times over it still didn't eat it, it only turned to Yu perplexed

Yu who had been expectantly gazing at the interaction felt puzzled as well, why wouldn't the spider eat the flower? It didn't have any opposing element to what he thought the plant had

"Xu Xu" The spider continued to poke the plant, which was now shining a lot less, so Yu told it he would treat it to some tasty food later and unsummoned it

"Hmm weird, after summoning and summoning so many in a short while I should feel dizzy but I feel just fine"

Using the chants took a toll on the mind, only by strengthening your mind would you be able to handle the power of the mysterious words

Setting aside the thought for now he presents the dying plant to the emerged snake, he hoped it wasn't only the fish that could benefit from this miraculous plant

Before he even had the chance to say anything he felt the weight lift off his hand as a white shadow past by him, it didn't stop until it had dived deep into the lake

Yu was left with his hand stretched awkwardly in front of him, he didn't know if he should berate the snake for its impatient attitude or be happy that someone else could make use of the treasure

'Come to think of it this one has been doing what it liked ever since we exited the battlefield, maybe I should take on a tougher attitude?'

Yu contemplated his options as he waited for the snake to emerge, which actually took it a surprising three minutes, he had almost jumped down several times already but seeing it move about energetically he decided to be more patient

Hiss Hiss

When the snake was out it only nodded toward Yu and then proceeded to curl itself up and surround a blob of light it took out of all the plants

"Umm, I'll sit over there, I guess?"

Yu felt weird about the whole situation, he had a lot of questions by now, why did only the fish and snake want the plant, how could the snake extract the light out of the plants, what even was that light anyway

But as the snake just curled up and ignored him he could only awkwardly wait for it by the side while trying to piece together theories

'It could be the elemental affinity of the beasts, with the plants being in water and them giving off light it could be that it has water and light attribute, but then again just because something lives in water doesn't mean it's aquatic nor would something giving off a light would mean it has light attribute, furthermore the books insisted that the Pure Peony would be usable by any and all beasts as its only ability would be purification, and there was no element to the plant itself'

The more he pondered the more he felt something was out of place, while he had evidence that the plants had the ability to push the beast to the next level he was also sure it didn't work on every beast, the contradictions made him doubt what he was taught

'Right I forgot to check on the fish's discerption, I wonder what evolutionary line it took'

Each beast had a set evolution line based on its genetics, it can branch out when it encountered extreme danger, or fortunes treasure, but usually they adhered to one of the main evolutions they could take

Guardians on the other hand had a lot more freedom in choice, with their susceptibility to change being rather high end one it became much easier for them to emerge with a new evolution. That being said it was still only easier compared to the broad subject of evolution as normally one would take decades to gain an inkling to a new evolutionary line

Yu pulled out the Grimoire and opened it to his first Guardian's page

Soul Guardian: World Purifying Fish

Special Ability: Devour: by devouring materials and living beings, Fish can Grow and has a chance to gain special characteristics of the devoured materials.

Purify (World): Can Purify any and all energy into the purest form the occupants' World Tier could hold

"...."

Gawking was the only thing Yu could do, he didn't even know where to start on this ridicules discerption, but what set him off more than anything were the two words World Tier

"Does this mean each world can hold certain types of energy? Wait, that's not right the question should be are there more worlds?"

It could be said that Yu had an answer to the last question already as he himself originated form another world, but he felt that the description had more to it than that

"There is also that (World) next to Purify, I've never heard of abilities having anything other than a description next to it, could this be the tier of the skill? I have certainly heard of other purifying abilities but this is the first one with such a ridicules level of power"

He shifted his eye's to the Devour skill next

'Then there is this, I forgot about it but could it be that the reason for the evolution wasn't the Peony but this skill?'

Eating a Pure Peony and then suddenly gaining a purifying ability, this couldn't be a coincidence, then didn't that mean that the evidence he had about the plant's ability were thus null?

"But then what are you doing?" He pointed his question to the curled snake, he was getting more and more suspicious of the books description on the plants power, while it did indeed have a similar ability to what they stated it didn't mean eating it would give on a jump in power, otherwise his beasts would have eaten it themselves, only the snake's actions might give him some clue to the truth

And so he waited…