章 27: Tables Have Turned

Arogancia, a Young Tree that was currently fighting against Aurus. To be honest, Arogancia wasn't really an arrogant branch. It was always fearful and cowardly. Ever since it was a small twig of the C-grade, it had a small inkling of a soul that allowed it to avoid strong enemies while gaining strength to turn these strong enemies into enemies it could beat.

Along the way, that fearful personality gradually became filled with pride and confidence as it gained the ability to fight those at a higher level. But as its win streak continued, that pride and confidence was soon turned to arrogance.

Yet at this moment, knowing that the branch in front of it had the ability to kill it at any time made it feel the emotions that the ones it killed felt. An intense emotion of rebellion and denial, it didn't want to accept its current fate. It knew it was going to die, but it didn't want to die without inflicting damage on the enemy.

As Aurus was creating his Spirit spell core, Arogancia decided to deny its current fate and try to bend it to its advantages. With that decision, it started to burn off a resource which many A, S, and X-grades would never burn unless they were desparate.

"Since I'm bound to die, why not try aiming for that chance of survival with the burning of this thing. I can accumulate more of it anyway." Arogancia didn't notice it, but it grew fearless as it wanted to escape the reaper of death named Aurus.

Within its body, a red flame started to spread all over the insides of Arogancia and even extend outside. Arogancia didn't feel any pain at all since its origin was a plant, but it did feel a surge of power that it could currently wield. A power insurmountable to the power it held before.

Not long after, the red flame around Arogancia intensified as it said a few words, filled with an unyielding will to survive.

"[Call of Nature]."

...

"Spell Core, form."

In an instant, some of the floating Animas that held SP converged towards one part of Aurus' body as a tendril made out of Anima also extended out of Aurus' body. The two of them connected together as the SP with Aurus' SP Vessel and the floating Anima gathered toward the connection. The converged Anima then transformed into a crystal-like core as powerful waves of SP could be tangibly felt.

Aurus looked at this and nodded inwardly. "It definitely feels like the Spell Core I used back then in my Mage account," Aurus said as he was assured that he could use it to the best of its abilities. "Although the difference is that it is imbued with the Wind element and it can be controlled, it's still a Spell Core."

Rather than dilly-dallying, Aurus started to arrange his thoughts as a spell was being casted through the Spell Core with the use of a crude magic circle within it that was formed out of SP.

If humans had to chant an incantation before conjuring magic circles to form a spell, sticks only needed thoughts to conjure magic circles for spells, thus giving them an advantage over humans.

As Aurus was feeling his SP being sapped away, he could also feel the terrifying aura that was being birthed within the core.

"Truly befitting of the Spell Core. Although it is the Lowest grade, it still holds insurmountable power when compared to skills."

________

[Lowest Spirit Spell Core (Wind Variant)] (Level 1/3)

Grade: C (Mortal)

Experience: 0/3

A Spiritas is a master of energy manipulation, this ability is magnified thanks to Spell Cores. With a Spell Core and innate ability of Spiritas to wield spells like swords, spells that could be controlled are casted, giving it the apt name of the Spirit spells, spells akin to having a spirit. With the Spiritas' affinity to the Wind element, all spells are imbued with the Wind element.

> Spell repertoire increases as the Spell Core gains experience

> Magic spells deal 1% more damage

Spell Repertoire: [Spirit Wind Bolt]

________

As the Spell Core's aura finally reached a climax, Aurus casted the spell and shot it towards Arogancia as a green bolt of energy started to head towards Arogancia's injured trunk.

"[Spirit Wind Bolt]!"

Whoosh!

Imbued with the Wind element, the energy bolt darted towards Arogancia's injured trunk in an instant...yet it suddenly disappeared without a trace.

"Eh?" Aurus didn't expect this situation at all. He thought that he used up all of the Young Tree's trump cards, but it seemed that there was still one more he missed.

Arogancia started to emit a terrifying aura that didn't lose to the [Spirit Wind Bolt] Aurus sent as red flames enveloped its body. Aurus looked at this and easily understood what the Young Tree in front of him was doing.

"It's going to use up its accumulated Vitality points as a way to gain temporary power to fight against me."

Vitality points, points that were needed in order for the Sapling path of branches to evolve to higher grades. As for those who followed the Branch Formosus path of branches, it was Spirit points (not to be confused with Aurus' Spirit Points).

Although both of them were polar opposites in terms of effect, there was something the two point types had in common.

They could be used to gain temporary power.

"Grahhh!!!" Arogancia started to scream as it gained temporary control over its roots. The [Spirit Wind Bolt] dissipating in an instant was because Arogancia swiped it away with its roots covered in red flames.

Once the current threat was removed, Arogancia focused its gaze towards Aurus, the one that made it realize that there were branches like him who could fight against branches of a higher level.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Dozens of roots started to head towards Aurus at a speed that was beyond his limit. Naturally, he received quite a bit of damage.

Ding! Ding!

'You received 16 HP damage from [Arogancia].'

He tried to dodge all of the roots that came for him, but he wasn't able to dodge all of them, leading to three roots inflicting a considerable amount of damage to him. With this, Aurus only had around 16 HP left.

16/88 HP. To anyone who played RPG games, having critically low HP would mean that the player has to drink a healing potion as soon as possible. As for ISE, there was no healing potion at all, all players relied on natural recovery. Some gained skills to boost this recovery while some found ways to dodge the attacks they received as they recovered health.

Of course, Aurus fell into the former.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

In an instant, the 5 Anima that was currently restoring SP, turned into Anima that recovered his HP at a rate that was incomparable to before.

As he changed the purposes of the Anima, Aurus also activated another skill.

"[Tempest Burst]."

Fwoosh!

The weak green aura currently surrounding Aurus turned into a solid and intense neon green as the skill was activated. If one looked pretty closely, it was quite close to looking like green flames.

Aurus didn't panic at all as he dodged the next few dozen roots with his boosted movement speed. Arogancia saw this and shot out a few more dozen roots in a fit of rage, only to be dodged once more by Aurus.

After three seconds or so of dodging, Aurus' HP was halfway recovered thanks to the boosted HP recovery rate. He didn't change back to recovering his SP as a skill came to mind.

He looked at the raging Arogancia with a calm and serious gaze as he said...

"[Spirit Energy Sacrifice]."