章節 23: Beastcore Absorption
Inside Arias’ room, a lamp was emitting soft glowing light, just bright enough to allow one to see inside the room clearly. The light fell on the form of a young man who was sitting, inspecting the beastcore in his hand with curiosity. There was a strange sensation that he had felt since when he was inside the forest. When he touched the beastcore, it felt as if the core of magic inside his body was trying to devour it.
Beastcores were more often used to forge weapons than absorbed to nurture power. The energy that beastcores contained was not pure energy. There was indeed magical power inside of beast cores, but this power was tainted by a bestial aura which was the kind of energy that should not be inside a human body. There were side effects on the body if one was to consume too much energy from beastcores. Overall, there were more cons than pros that came with absorbing beast core energy. In contrast, other resources such as quartz and magical energy contained pure energy. Thus, there was no harm in absorbing their power.
“Wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.”
After a long moment of hesitation, Arias finally made up his mind. If something went wrong, he just had to fix it. As Arias started to absorb the energy from the beastcore, the lightning inside his core of magic began to move. It was like a hungry beast, rabidly devouring power from the beastcore. A moment later, the beastcore in his hand became dull. Pain spread all over his body at the moment that the power was absorbed from the beastcore. Black blood veins popped up all over his body. Within the core of magic, black beastcore energy was darting all over the place, but it was soon absorbed by the lightning until there was no trace of it left. The pain slowly subsided. Finally, the size of the lightning increased by more than two-thirds of its original size. Arias watched over the process in astonishment. It did not take long, but now he had become a seventh-level neophyte already.
“Not a trace of bestial aura left…the lightning absorbed it and transformed it into the energy of Thunder element.”
Although he was stunned, Arias also felt delighted. There was another thing he realized as well. The lightning inside his core of magic required quite a lot of power to ascend to another level. The amount of energy from a mid-level beastcore was quite plentiful, absorbing all of that should have been enough to make a neophyte move up three or four levels at the very least. However, Arias had only moved up two levels. It seemed like as he became stronger, he would need more resources as well.
“With this power, I should be able to fight against lower-level acolytes now.”
Arias looked at the spark of lightning dancing across his palm with confidence in his own power. The origin of his power was the lightning inside his core of magic, and the power of this lightning was quite strange and mysterious. Sometimes, it seemed to have a mind of its own, but other times, it would remain strangely docile. An ordinary neophyte’s core of magic would be filled with the mist of faint magical power. However, that small thunder was the only thing inside Arias’ core of magic. If a normal neophyte’s power was the mist of magical power, then Arias’ would be the water that condensed from the said mist.
“I should go out and get some exercise.”
Arias quietly sneaked out of his room. A few moments later, he could be found standing among trees that spread their branches and casting a dark shadow under the moonlight. This area was a forest not too far from the Scarcia’s manor.
“Cloud Stride.”
Sparks of lightning appeared under Arias’ feet, his body moving quickly among the trees. His speed was superior to even lower-level acolytes. Arias continued to move until he saw something.
In front of Arias was a serpent about three meters long. Its whole body was covered in pure black scales except for the head where the color turned pale red. The serpent was raising its head and hissing at Arias in a threatening way. Its forked tongue was flicking around to pick up signs of movement from the enemy standing in front of it.
The serpent in front of Arias was a red crown serpent, a type of low-level beast known for its quick attack. Although red crown serpents’ venom was not lethal, it could paralyze the victim for a while, and getting bitten twice could leave you in pretty bad shape.
“This one will be a suitable opponent for me.”
Without using the Shadow Demon Sword, Arias approached the red crown snake. His action seemed to have provoked the serpent as it made a threatening hiss and raised its head up almost a meter high in the air. Seeing that the other still would not back down, the red crown serpent struck at its enemy quickly. Arias’ form quickly vanished before he appeared again beside the red crown snake.
The serpent glared at its enemy in anger. It struck Arias again with more speed, but Arias did the same thing: he dodged and made no attempt at attacking it. The situation went on like this for several minutes after, and the red crown serpent still could not strike the young man, not even once. This fueled its anger further. The serpent started to feel as if it was just being provoked for fun.
The reason that Arias came out was to practice his combat skills. He was just looking for a beast that could be an opponent to him and although the red crown serpent was just a low-level beast, its speed was on par with a mid-level beast, making it a perfect fighting partner for Arias.
Actually, Arias still had a large amount of quartz left that he could use to nurture his power. But he chose to come here and practice his combat skills instead of doing that. In other words, he chose to balance the magical power inside his body first before continuing to nurture it further. Although the power he absorbed from the beastcore and quartz was not harmful to Arias, it was still an external power that came from outside of his body. If he were to absorb it hastily, it would create a disbalance of power inside him. That would be similar to rushing the construction of a building without waiting for the cement to harden. The building might turn out unstable or collapse. Naturally, building a tall grand building would take time and it also required a strong and sturdy base. The nurturing of power was a similar case where haste may result in nothing but waste.
Hiss…!
The threatening sound came from behind Arias. He quickly turned to take a look and found that there was another red crown serpent raising its head behind him. The appearance of another red crown serpent added a bit of a struggle for Arias. The snake darted at Arias with quick speed and he quickly dodged to the side. But before he could ready himself, the other serpent had already charged toward the same spot. Arias had almost no time for a break, he quickly leaped away from that spot.
With two red crown serpents making a cooperative attack, Arias found himself in a slightly more difficult situation. However, he still chose to dodge, not going for any attack. Several minutes later, he was finally able to see through their attacking pattern. Sweat had begun to trickle down his face due to exhaustion. The two beasts, as well, were reaching their limit, but the amount of their anger had been growing too. They were only lowly creatures without much intelligence and thought that this young man could only manage to dodge and was unable to attack. Because of this, they were not fearful and did not retreat.
“That’s enough fun for now. Flaming Thunder Fury!”
Furious lightning flashed on Arias’ palms before striking at the first red crown serpent with high speed. The serpent could not even prepare itself when the numb sensation spread throughout its body before it was killed by the lighting’s attack. The other red crown snake saw what happened; alarmed, it retreated quickly. But Arias did not let it go easily. With the use of the Cloud Stride technique, he appeared in front of the serpent. Using Flaming Thunder Fury once more, Arias’ hand delivered a precise blow at its head. The snake was killed before it could make any countermove.
Flaming Thunder Fury was a terrestrial-level offensive skill that attacked with fast and brutal lightning. What Arias could use was just its primary level. At a high level, the skill could summon even a bolt of lightning so huge it could turn a huge rock into dust in the blink of an eye or even penetrate through a strong shield of an enemy. Unfortunately, Arias’ power was not strong enough to do that just yet.
Arias cut the bodies of the red crown serpents and kept their beastcores inside his dimensional ring. He did not leave right after and continued to practice using the Flaming Thunder Fury skill. A tree with a trunk the size of a human thigh was knocked down by Flaming Thunder Fury’s power, leaving branches scattering all over the place.
Two days later, Arias continued to practice Cloud Stride and Flaming Thunder Fury techniques. He had killed three more low-level beasts but surprisingly, he did not come across any more mid-level beasts.
However, what was more surprising was that it did not take long for Arias’ magical power to regain its balance. The lightning inside of him truly was a mysterious thing. He actually noticed its peculiarity back when he successfully learned the Thunder God’s Path grimoire but he still could not fully understand it.
“With the resources I have, it shouldn’t be hard to reach the acolyte level.”
Low-level magical quartzes were taken out and piled next to Arias. He grabbed one from the pile and quickly absorbed it. Slowly, a flow of pure and warm energy entered Arias’ body. But as soon as the thunder inside the core of magic could sense a magical power, it quickly absorbed that power, and the quartz instantly turned dull.
“This speed…”
Arias stared at the quartz in astonishment. However, he did not have much time to remain shocked. He immediately grabbed two more quartzes to absorb. The flow of power rushing into his body was much different from the beastcore’s power. There was no pain in his body. Rather, it felt warm and refreshing. Once the two quartzes had turned dull, Arias reached for another one.
“How many quartzes will I have to waste?”
Upon seeing the twenty-sixth quartz turning dull while the power in his body remained at the same level, Arias felt a little bitter. In reality, he should have already reached the eighth level of a neophyte. It seemed like when it came to the amount of resource usage, a normal mage’s standard could not be applied to him. The thunder inside the core of magic was still devouring power from quartzes without showing a sign of stopping. It was like a little hungry monster.
It was several minutes when Arias finally smiled. It seemed like he had reached the most difficult phase of the seventh level, and he was not far from becoming an eighth-level neophyte. He was quite bitter, however, as he looked to the forty-six dull quartzes. He was only a neophyte and he had consumed this many resources already.
Small sparkles of lightning danced around Arias’ body. A smile appeared on his face which was drenched in sweat. Arias put down low-level quartz which had no power left in it. That was the fiftieth one. Nobody had ever gone out of their mind and continuously absorbed power from magical quartzes like this before. However, the thunder inside of Arias’ body was a very curious thing. Its power did not shatter on a bit even as it had been absorbing power from the quartzes nonstop. It took in every drop of magical power like a hungry beast.
“Becoming an acolyte is not too far from reach now.”
Arias raised a delightful smile. He was finally an eighth-level neophyte. Arias paused the nurturing process to rest for a while. He sneaked out of the room once again, going out and following the same routine.
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