After completing my preparations, I came to the Spirit Hall branch to obtain a pass the required permit to enter Notting City Forest, where spirit beasts roamed like domestic animals that had never forgotten their wildness.
After studying in school, I had come to realize that Spirit Hall had designed this system with remarkable cleverness. Any powerful person wishing to slaughter beasts for spirit bones had to register here first. This way, Spirit Hall could monitor everything identify strong hunters, track first-ring spirit masters, count their numbers, and study the ages of their soul rings.
Like a great net stretched across the land, everything was connected.
The branch near the forest entrance was no coincidence. It was a collection point for the information of persons, for records of spirit skills, for the last remains of hunted spirit beasts. Through those remains, they could calculate how many new spirit masters emerged each year, and at what age they awakened. A quiet, invisible census written in bones and blood.
Truly a grand organization, I thought. Nothing escapes their notice.
"Child, why are you here?"
Master Su's voice cut through my thoughts. He was an young man with sharp eyes that missed nothing, seated behind a worn wooden desk stacked with registration scrolls.
"Sir," I said, stepping forward with a respectful bow. "I wish to borrow a hall pass to hunt spirit beasts in the forest."
His eyes swept over me —my age, my build, the bag on my shoulder, the long metal rod strapped across my back.
"Why are you alone?" he asked slowly. "Where is your family? Your academy teacher? Someone should be accompanying you on a hunt."
"Master Su, please don't worry," I said, keeping my voice calm and steady. "My teacher a four-ring spirit expert has already arrived at the forest entrance. He sent me ahead to collect the pass while he waited."
Master Su studied me for a long moment, his gaze heavy with suspicion. Something moved behind his eyes a calculation, a weighing of possibilities. Then, slowly, he exhaled and stamped the pass.
I took it with both hands and bowed deeply.
After leaving the branch, I rented a carriage and began the three-hour journey to the forest entrance. Along the road, I sat quietly in the back, running through my plan one more time.
When I finally arrived, several hunters noticed me immediately a young boy traveling alone. Some kind souls approached and offered to let me join their teams for protection.
I declined each one politely but firmly.
Presenting my Spirit Hall pass to the soldiers at the entrance, I was waved through without further questions.
And then I stopped.
The forest stretched before me, vast and breathing, alive in a way that the city never was. Rich, layered emotions moved through my chest as I stared into the deep canopy something between excitement and reverence and the sharp edge of fear.
I adjusted the bag on my shoulder. Inside were carefully packed metal balls and black powder components for explosive traps I had designed myself. Each bomb, once ignited, would scatter the balls outward with lethal force.
Across my back, the long rod of mixed metal caught the light. It was more than a weapon it was a directional guide, designed to help me aim and control the spread of the blasts from a safe distance.
I was not a spirit master yet.
But I had never planned to hunt like one.
I stepped into the trees.