Chapter 43: Volcanic Region 1
Chapter 43: Volcanic Region 1
"I accept" Ning Fengzhi says as he signs the contract. He stores it away after
Xue Tie simply nods and says, "then ill rely on you for this matter. I have other business to attend to and must take my leave"
"Ill pay for your food. You may go on ahead sir" Ning Fengzhi says and Xue Tie nods. Storing his dumplings away and heads out.
Xue Tie leaves Heaven Dou City and once out of sight. He spreads his wings and begins the trek back to his base.
He sets up some procedures and instructions to his people along with providing the leftover resources for storage as he plans to stay in the Volcanic region for a while. He also left behind instructions for his students should they come by at all. The other teams of his group are mostly out managing cities or cultivating. Only the team under Adam and Eve remains at the base to manage things such as paperwork.
Though he did spend a few hours elevating the rings of some people who have made contributions already before heading out.
Taking flight once more, he travels for a week, flying across the country to reach the Western Mountains and then looking for Mt. Xiqiao and beginning the hunt.
"Hmmm. my last ring was 23k, my next ring should be 40-50 thousand-year-old. Then after that should be 70 to 80 thousand year old. If I follow this logic then I should have 10 red rings in total. Maybe 11 if my third ring can be converted to 100k after being corrupted. Heh, even Tang San could only have 7 or 8 red rings in total. Not counting his other rings which later evolved to be red and then gold when he got divinity. " Xue Tie murmurs to himself mid flight on his goals
Once the week-long travel ends, Xue Tie is exposed to a puff of black and red cloud of smoke that was released from a nearby lava stream as he arrives at Mt. Qixiao.
Xue Tie is strong enough to use a small layer of energy to protect himself from the heat but that is only for the inner layer of the volcanic region. The outskirts here are no problem, as such, Xue Tie begins heading inward. He encounters various beasts. A few hundred year old lava fish. A fire snake, It's only when he reaches the border between outer and middle regions that the beasts reach a thousand year old. Xue Tie moves onward, uninterested in any of these weaklings.
Once he reaches the end of the mid region and enters the outskirts of the inner region does a massive change occur. Xue Tie experiences severe heat waves as he is practically swimming in lava as the Volcanic regions inner section is composed of purely 10k year old beasts and higher as well as endless streams of lava that Xue Tie only avoids by hovering a few feet above the air as the ground is already covered in lava. Most beasts that live this far in the Volcanic region are no longer limited to simply being called fire or lava beasts.
They share the evanescence flame that is the core of the volcano. Xue Tie is unlucky enough to end up at the Evanescent fire bee hive. With each worker bee being 10 thousand years old and the queen being 50 thousand years old. Unfortunately the queen has no true combat abilities except a stinger ability and commanding swarms of worker bees. As such, Xue Tie rapidly flies away to avoid the 10k year old kamikaze bees as the evanescent fire makes these bees quite volatile.
After flying for an hour he stumbles upon the next beast's territory. Luck is with his time as it's a 49k year old Evanescent Flame Salamander. The absolute limit of his absorption rate, if his assumption about the final age of the ring will reach after being corrupted is true. Then even he may struggle but it's a risk he is willing to take as he has the healing medicine to handle the strain.
The salamander roars out at the Xue Tie as he is intruding in it's territory. Xue Tie ignores it to unleash his 4th ring, Blood Trace. Spawning a red ring on the salamander. It roars again and unleashes a vat of lava at Xue Tie, who dodges into the air. Keeping his distance, he sets the rings down until there are 3. He decides to do an experiment and sends out both his 1st and 2nd ring to test how they hold up against other fire type spirit beasts.
The results are a bit surprising, his first spirit skill the claws are able to harm the salamander but the followup explosion does not. A similar result with his 2nd ring. The fire does nothing but the bleed proc builds up quite quickly as the salamander vomits out blood uncontrollably as well as bleeding through it's ears and eyes as it's skin is too hard for it's blood to burst through which makes it quite the interesting pinata. Xue Tie also tried out the power of Vim (spirit skill strengthening ring) for a drastic shift in power. With the ring, both the claws and explosion injure it while bloodboon doesnt give as much of an indicator that it does much due to it's scales being fireproof. But a second bleed proc is still useful. Xue Tie assumes that he needs the Armament state of his domain to be able to properly injure the salamander with his lower level spirit skills now due to its heat resistance.
Xue Tie simply uses one Nihil to finish it off as he has every superiority needed in this fight. Range, flight, and strong enough defenses to block out the heat. It helps that his martial spirit cant actually burn unless it's supported by a heavy spirit power presence even though it's technically cloth. As such, he quickly collects his 6th ring for his armor.
Increasing his spirit level to 61 and providing him with Primal burst. A self buffing ability that makes Xue Tie think of the Elden Ring incantation 'Flame Grant Me Strength' or its Dark souls counterpart Power Within. A 30% buff ability at the cost of constant self immolation. The damage can be easily healed through his vampirism.
It can be applied a second time for double the boost but 4 times the immolation effect. Technically, Xue Tie can keep applying this buff yet with a 4x boost in self harm. Even 2 usages would make Xue Tie afraid unless he can empower his vampirism further which is unlikely unless he can somehow stab something that rests within his own mindscape as well as heart without killing himself.
The strain of the ring was torturous and Xue Tie had to drink a total of 6 bottles of his own enhanced healing blood. Even when he helps others to strengthen their rings he has only used 3 at most of them.
Xue Tie has to rest for a few hours as the cracks all over his body slowly mend. The healing effect is suppressed by the extreme heat as it boils the blood as he takes it out. It's only because his blood has already been refined and then modified to be full of vitality that Xue Tie could even drink it at all. But even then it's like the freshest boiled coffee ever as it burns his throat on the way down. He had to dig out a quick cave and have it arranged in a way that no lava would seep in. but going indoors did not protect against the heat as he was surrounded by igneous rock everywhere, emitting heat.
Luckily Xue Tie had prepared to stay here for a few days and had packed plenty of resources from Heaven Dou City, as such, he has plenty of water. And for an experiment, he tries to see how quickly he can cook some chicken noodle soup with the heat around him. He has to regularly apply the water as it rapidly evaporated but he succeeded while spending his time recovering. The water was eventually saturated with the chicken spirit beast's essence which allowed it to partially withstand the heat. He stores the extra away while he eats his dinner within the raging volcanic area.
Xue Tie then begins to ponder if he will have to go deeper to meet a 70 to 80 thousand year old beast for his 2nd trident ring. He is willing to go for a slightly lower age as he didn't expect that the 49k year old salamanders spirit ring would rise 6 thousand years after being corrupted. He at most expected a 2 or 3k increase. Which is how he ended up so injured. If he follows the new trend then a 70 to 80k year old ring becomes close to 10k years old. A minimum of 8k older which is just headache inducing for Xue Tie as he begins his preparations for his next goal.
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I decided to set up a discord
https://discord.gg/rmKNqvRm7r