Chapter 392 - Contractors
As much as Hao Xuan hated to admit it, Contractors really were the best option for now.
The summoners were considered to be living on the fringes of modern society. Their methods were unorthodox, their tempers explosive, and were mostly unliked.
The Beast Masters, well there was too big a difference between their cultivation method and Hao Xuan's.
The contractors fell somewhere in between these two and the best part was that no one knew much about them so it gave Hao Xuan a lot of leeway to do as he pleased.
"Alright, tell me everything you know about Contractors," Hao Xuan gave in and finally asked.
*Beep*
Baracus was waiting for that and even his beeping noise sounded a bit excited, if that was even possible.
"As you already know, Contractors fall somewhere in the middle of Beast Masters and Summoners, and that's true for their abilities as well. Where a Summoner can call down any creature, living or dead, to this realm without its consent, a contractor can do the same but through a much lengthier process."
"Contractors aren't born with the innate ability to Summon these things so they have to employ other methods. This includes using the blood of certain monsters and use their bloodline, for example, to trace back their lineage and find more powerful ancestors. But they can't force them to make contracts with them so it usually involves a trade of some kind."
"But unlike Summoners and like Beast Masters, Contractors can merge with their contracted beasts and use their abilities, so its best of both worlds. But Contractors need both strong bodies and souls to be able to withstand the pressure so that usually stops most people from even trying."
"Hmm..."
Hao Xuan let out a deep breath and opened his eyes to look at the starry sky above through the leaves.
To better understand Hao Xuan's situation, Baracus had adopted a standard of measurement for his abilities. The base measurement was the average strength of a cultivator at the same realm as him which was widely used in the beast world already.
So 'One' soul power would be the average soul power of someone at Spirit Realm Fourth stage.
When Hao Xuan first got Poriverse's inheritance and knowledge so to speak, his soul power was about 7. But after cultivating to his current realm and with the Old King's help it had reached 13.5.
Hao Xuan's physical strength was also vastly superior to his peers at 8.7. This included every factor, including the two hearts which he still hadn't utilized properly.
So currently, his profile looked something like this.
Name: Hao Xuan
Cultivation Realm: 4th Stage, Spirit Realm
Soul Power: 13.5
Physical Power: 8.7
Number of Severs: 212
Cultivation Manual: Glaive Manual
The only problem, that Guo Yang also pointed after just one sparring session, was that Hao Xuan did not have any good techniques he could use in normal combat.
He obviously didn't know about some of the more profound moves like the 'Last Strike of Samsara' which Hao Xuan had only used twice or 'Sunder the Heavens' which was his ultimate move.
Although Hao Xuan did have a few different versions of Demonic Steps, they weren't that flushed out to be called their own techniques.
He also didn't have any defensive techniques and his attacking capability was also severely limited.
Guo Yang told him to start cultivating his Glaive Dao as well. This was the first time Hao Xuan was hearing about so it took him by surprise but apparently, weapon cultivation Manuals were different from Weapon Dao. Although the two were connected, they were their own separate paths.
In Guo Yang's words:
"Weapon Dao is your mastery with the weapon whereas weapon cultivation is simply cultivating with the traits of that weapon. The weapon cultivation could enhance the Dao but not the other way around."
"To develop your Dao you need to learn the profundities behind your blade and understand and show your results from it. This can be done by master different glaive techniques, scriptures, doctrines, and sacred texts."
Unfortunately, Hao Xuan wasn't able to find any Glaive related techniques or scriptures in the Wu clan archives. After asking around he found the one place that would have them without a shadow of a doubt, The Hall Of Bellator!
So with Baracus's help, he put a few things in place that might help him get the things he wanted. But right now his goal was different. If he was going to pretend to be a Contractor, he would need an accompanying beast to go with it.
"Have you narrowed it down to what's the most suitable beast for me here?"
*Beep*
"Currently these are the three best options you have. One, The Blood Aquila, a Griffin variant Ether Beast living at the top of the highest peak. Two, the Sunburned Titanasour, a beast with an ancient bloodline of the Sun-Eating Mammoth. It moves all over the place so will take some time to track down. Three, the Boneless Panther, a shadow type feline beast. Not enough data on it as its sightings are rare."
This was the actual reason Hao Xuan chose this exact place. With the Wu Clan's permission that Wu Jin got, he was able to hunt one of these precious beasts for himself.. One of them was supposed to be his first Contracted beast.