"Teacher, is everyone all right?" Wu Ling said as he handed two more bottles of potion to each person.
The others accepted them while gasping for breath. They were too exhausted to say much.
Yes, it had been five against two, but those two opponents were the Titan Giant Ape with the Titan God bloodline and the Sky Azure Bull Python with dragon blood. They were powerful Soul Beasts capable of fighting ten-thousand-year beasts while still at the hundred-year level, and capable of wrestling with hundred-thousand-year beasts while still at the ten-thousand-year level.
Even among ordinary hundred-thousand-year Soul Beasts, the two of them counted as top-class existences, at least if one did not include the future ferocious beasts.
"Ling'er, do not worry about us for now. Spirit Rings only exist for a limited time. Go absorb the Titan Giant Ape's Spirit Ring first," Bibi Dong said after drinking her potion and letting out a breath.
Wu Ling looked around at the five of them. After confirming that no one had any serious problems, he nodded and walked toward the Titan Giant Ape's corpse.
Standing before that mountain-like body, Wu Ling silently took out two bottles of potion. One was pale red, and the other was pale blue. One strengthened the body, while the other strengthened the spirit.
"Without these two, Tang San loses two sacrifices, does he not? Well, what does that have to do with me?"
With no fluctuation in his heart, Wu Ling downed both bottles in one go.
"Strawberry and grape. Rose really understands me. Next time, we can try mango."
After saying that, Wu Ling summoned Rose and the others, gave them instructions, then sat down on the grass and began drawing over the vivid crimson hundred-thousand-year Spirit Ring.
Once Wu Ling began, Bibi Dong said to the other four, "Elder Yue and Elder Ghost, please guard Ling'er. Elder Bear and Elder Leopard, please guard me. I will recover for a while before absorbing the Spirit Ring."
The four answered and spread out, guarding the surroundings while recovering from their injuries.
On Wu Ling's side, perhaps because his preparations were sufficient, he only felt his body swell slightly and his mind suffer a mild impact. Other than that, there was not much sensation.
As for which Heroic Spirit he would summon this time, it would be a lie to say Wu Ling was not looking forward to it.
Because of Rose's earlier analysis, Wu Ling had decided to summon another Heroic Spirit with a survival ability.
He could already switch positions with his clones. But if some existence could directly kill all of his clones, or kill him so fast that he could not even react in time to switch places, then he would truly die.
It was precisely because Rose had considered this point that, after learning about the Titan Giant Ape's Titan God bloodline, she would rather abandon the Sky Azure Bull Python and its dragon bloodline and insist that Wu Ling choose the Titan Giant Ape.
The Titans were an ancient race of gods who once ruled the world in Greek mythology. They were the children of Uranus, god of the sky, and Gaia, goddess of the earth. The Titans once ruled the world, but because they castrated their father Uranus, they were cursed by him and were eventually overthrown and replaced by the Olympian gods led by Zeus.
Therefore, summoning through the Titan Giant Ape, which possessed the Titan God bloodline, had a very high chance of producing a Heroic Spirit from Greek mythology.
As one of the world's most famous mythological systems, Greek mythology had countless Heroic Spirits. There were more than ten that had appeared in FGO alone.
As for how to summon the one he wanted from among those Heroic Spirits, Wu Ling still placed the key emphasis on the Titan bloodline.
Because of the original Titan myths, many games, fictional works, and anime treated people or things bearing the Titan name as power-focused. The equation of Titan equals strength was almost established.
A Heroic Spirit with the Titan God bloodline would naturally be easier to summon the closer that spirit was to the Titans. If the generation of Zeus was excluded, then there was only one Heroic Spirit who best fit both of those requirements.
That was Heracles, the great hero of strength.
Heracles, also known as Hercules, was one of the two great heroes of Greek mythology. Born between the chief god Zeus and a human woman, he was a half-god, half-human hero. Because of his conflict with the goddess Hera, he embarked on many adventures and ultimately overcame them all.
He was the hero who received twelve labors in myth and completed every one of them. For ordinary heroes, completing any one of those labors would already have been extraordinarily difficult. As reward for his achievements, after Heracles died, he was permitted to become a constellation and join the ranks of the gods.
His divine position was that of the god of strength.
As the grandson of a Titan, with a divine seat named for strength, he perfectly met both requirements.
As for using a hundred-thousand-year Spirit Ring to summon a four-star Heroic Spirit, when had Wu Ling ever been bound by that logic? Maybe he would even get the five-star Archer-class Heracles. Though, since he could only summon characters that had appeared in the game, that probability was basically zero.
As for Artemis, the moon goddess who appeared in FGO, she used Orion's Spirit Origin, so the Soul Beast required to summon her would lean more toward Orion. For example, the bear hidden deep inside Star Soul Forest would be a good match.
After only ten or so minutes, Wu Ling finished absorbing the hundred-thousand-year Spirit Ring from the Titan Giant Ape.
When the absorption ended, he felt several new passives settle inside him. Wu Ling knew this pull was stable.
He summoned his Unregistered Spirit Origin. After his four Spirit Rings of purple, purple, black, and black, the crimson hundred-thousand-year Spirit Ring stood out like a crane among chickens. Aside from Bibi Dong, who was absorbing a Spirit Ring, every Titled Sage present was amazed.
A hundred-thousand-year Spirit Ring. In their entire lives, they had only seen the one on Bibi Dong. Now a hundred-thousand-year fifth Spirit Ring had raised their horizons by several layers in a single moment.
As the red Spirit Ring settled around the Unregistered Spirit Origin in Wu Ling's hand, a phantom condensed from energy gradually appeared.
He stood more than two meters tall, with black, seaweed-like hair that fell past his shoulders. His right pupil was crimson with black sclera, while his left eye was golden with white sclera. His skin was dark, his upper body bare, his wrists wrapped in bracers, and his knotted muscles were terrifyingly powerful. He wore a battle skirt around his waist, stood barefoot, and held a Nameless Axe-Sword in his hand.
"He looks like a powerful character who fits the Titan Giant Ape's Spirit Ring," the four Titled Sages thought at the same time. Just from the phantom alone, that figure gave them an immense sense of pressure.
"Well, well. You really summoned him." Rose stepped forward with a smile and asked, "So, main body, is this the game version or the anime version?"
As for the difference between game and anime, it came down to that absurd Noble Phantasm: God Hand.
Wu Ling smiled faintly.
"Look at the color of this Spirit Ring. Game version? Anime version? Kids using black Spirit Rings have to choose. I want both."