Steps To Survive
As the dull red light fades Yu opens his eyes and looks at the wolf before him, which is more than just different, the previous brown fur had taken a slightly red shade, with the red spots on its body intensifying and spreading to becoming noticeable red lines, the wolfs build seems to have taken a better turn after the lack of food provided.
"Grrr"
"Well I didn't expect you to forgive and forget just because you became my Soul Guardian anyway"
As it is to be expected the wolf, though accepting the bond, still harbours much hate for Yu, since to it, it is still the same person that had trapped and tortured it, in fact, it can be said that accepting the bond was solely because the Sacrifice gave the wolf the feeling that it would bring unprecedented power to itself, of course, Yu is still clueless about this fact.
As Yu stands up he takes in his surroundings once again. The mansion which seems to have been left untended for a long time, so much so that no one would like to live in this place more than a shack with all the rotten wood and creeping moss.
Turning his eyes to the book, Yu opens it and flips the first two pages but before he changes to the next page he notices the wolfs portrait and description had already occupied the place where the Python and Spider were.
"Since the Soul Guardians hold much importance I guess this makes more sense"
Moving his eyes to the description Yu reads it with hardly any anticipation.
Soul Guardian: Wailing Wolf Variant
A Wailing Wolf originally with slight Vermillion Wolf blood had its fire attribute intensified through Sacrifice.
"So the red spots were indeed not a colour variation but a blood one, hmm that's good but the slight variation won't open many chances anyway"
Looking at the frame of the picture which is bronze with 3 stars at its top Yu sighs thinking that expecting a rank up was wrong of him to do with the bad state the wolf was in, to begin with.
As the frame of the portrait refers to the rank of the creature, Bronze is the lowest rank there is, followed by Silver then Gold then Platinum and lastly Diamond.
The stars at the top refer to the stage at which the creature is at, every rank has five stages with the fifth being the lowest stage and the first being the closest to rank up.
The Grimoires are ranked similarly.
In other words, the wolf is at the lowest rank in the exact middle stage.
"Hmm? Wait, what about my Grimoires rank, did it reset after the owner change or did it remain unaffected like the Soul Beasts?"
Closing the Grimoire Yu looks at the cover wonderingly as there is no way to tell a Grimoires rank just by looking and he doesn't know of a way to ascertain it. It would have been easy to check otherwise if he wasn't in this Dimensional Battle Field.
Yes, the mansion Yu is in is part of a Dimensional Battle Field, the one he is in is for testing the younger generation of the Southern Paradise every five years, this Dimension is one that can't have forced entry and upon entering your rank shall be lowered to bronze rank and all the summons above bronze shall be sealed. Yu's Grimoire just like the rest was sealed to bronze and he can't tell its rank until he gets out of this Dimension.
"Well that will have to wait since I don't even know if I will survive this week"
Off course testing the younger generation doesn't mean putting them in a life and death situation but sadly that doesn't apply to Yu as when he was thrown in the dimension he was informed that the castle core he was protecting didn't have a life lock negation, implying that if anyone who has a life lock on him got fatally hit in the area of the construct core then the life lock will be termed useless and the person would end up actually dying. Off course all Yu had to do was leave the cores area of effect but then his own life lock would be the cause of his death since his family forbade him from leaving the core without fighting and to make sure he doesn't, they put a rune on his life lock that activates if 24 hours passed from the rune being in the vicinity of the core's aura, the 24 hours off course do not reset upon entering the vicinity of the core it just freezes.
Putting it in simple terms, Yu can't get away from the vicinity of the core for more than a total of 24 hours while staying can cause him to get killed.
"This is a tricky situation, but first before I think about it I need to get something to eat, and so do you"
Turning his head to the side Yu looks at the wolf who is also hungry and more so than Yu.
"There are a few wild Soul Beasts in the wild woods behind the mansion but as I can't leave here you must hunt on your own, remember when you fight go for something weaker or slightly close to your strength but don't attack anything as strong as you or stronger as we have enemies coming at us later"
The wolf looks at Yu for a little more than goes off to the exit of the mansion, as to whether it understood or not, that is all a mystery since even if it can understand through the connection between it and Yu it can understand only so much and the rest will have to depend on its instincts.
After the wolf leaves, Yu turns to the inner mansion staring at the old wooden door that looks to be in a little better state than the rest of the house, then starts walking to the door and opening it, what greats he is a shining blue crystal the size of fist floating on a small pillar in the middle of an empty room.
"Castle Core"
That is indeed the castle core that Yu is supposed to be protected for the next week.
'If what they said is true and this core negates the life lock then they must have told the others, which means they won't go for the core directly and instead they will hope to kill me first'
After staring at the core for a while Yu turns around and goes to the front of the mansion, opening the doors of the mansion Yu sees withered trees with hardly any vegetation and some muddy pathway that stretches from the mansion through the trees to a slightly less withered forest further away from the mansion.
"A week huh, sigh"
'If I have to hold on for a week I can't last through it all as I won't be able to take the fatigue and the injuries, not to mention that even if it isn't thier main Soul Beats that there using they would still be powerful, thus I need to make use of home advantage to take them out, today would probably have no one coming here since even if they want easy prey they would still prioritize mapping out their area and preparing themselves.'
Yu proceeds to take a walk around the road and examine the trees and places that can be used to hide traps. After doing so for half an hour Yu goes back into the mansion and proceeds to organize his equipment and items. Another half an hour passes by when the wolf comes back to the mansion holding a spotted dear in its mouth that is triple its own size. Yu, after staring at it for a while, brings out a knife and cuts a portion to cook for himself leaving the rest for the hungry wolf.
"This dear is probably a peak rank bronze Beast you shouldn't have fought it, if it wasn't that it a non-combat Beast then you wouldn't have gotten out unscathed if you had gotten out at all"
The wolf, understanding the meaning implied as it being underestimated grabs the dear and head out the mansion to eat.
"Sigh, it will be problematic if I don't make amends with it since this might affect our teamwork later on, which is indeed fatal"
Starting the old chimney and putting in some dry wood, Yu starts cooking the meat as his stomach rumbles with anticipation.
An hour later, with a full stomach, Yu grabs his knife that was merely supposed to be for decoration purpose and walks out to the mansion.
"An ambush is required on this mud road, and with only a day and not many items to use, the only thing I can do is set up the simplest ones I can think of from whatever books I had read"
Shifting his gaze Yu tells the wolf to dig a two-meter hole, which the wolf does with reluctance and only after Yu helps with the digging himself.
"Now that this is done Il call you later since I can only have one summon out you will have to wait"
Chanting another string of unheard syllables, the same hexagram appears at the feet if the wolf then taking it in and disappearing entirely.
'Well with two meters down and no equipment how was I supposed to get it out anyway'
After taking a breath Yu chants again but this time a different hexagram appears in-front of Yu, a much smaller one at that, which a small fist-sized spider comes out of.
The spider looks around a bit and after spotting Yu starts trembling.
"Don't worry I won't hurt you, but well you wouldn't believe me anyway so what I need you to do is string a web above this hole, one strong enough to have a layer of dirt placed upon it but week enough that if a person steps on it, it will break apart and the person would fall"
The spider trembles some more but turns around to make the web, thinking that it would get punished if it didn't, but after it looks meter square hole, despair fills its eyes as it looks back at Yu.
"Don't worry i don't need you to cover it in one go, you have the whole day to do it so take rests and eat something when you want, the food is the neat behind the mansion"
Yu walks away after that and enters the mansion, the spider then turns its head to the hole and although it thinks that Yu is just punishing it for no good reason it, the spider complies and starts weaving the web as to evade any more punishment.
Inside the mansion, Yu writes all the available items he had already sorted and after finishing that he stares at it with a complicated gaze.
'I would get the crystals and gold since he thought he would be getting out of this before he was told that the core had its negation ability but... why the large basket of wine why not food or clothes or other necessities? did he think he's going for a picnic? This guy .....'
Yu looks at the large basket of wine that he couldn't finish even after a month of drinking wine like water and a feeling of powerlessness washed over him.
"Well I might as well make the most of it"
Grabbing a bottle, he pops it open and starts formulating plans to deal with his soon to come visitors, as to whether or not he would be able to survive that would just depend on his luck.