Chapter 44: Volcanic Region 2

Chapter 44: Volcanic Region 2

(this is probably my second longest chapter as I get more used to indepth combat situations)

I shall be putting in another status sheet at the end of this chapter just like last time as we are getting plenty of new skills and it will overall just be better. I could set up an auxiliary page but I'm always bored of those pages once I begin reading a book (not like I forget details unless I leave the book alone for a while so it can update). Which is why I don't bother with them.

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Xue Tie finishes his planning and spends the next few days scouting around the inner regions. Getting to know what type of beasts and at what age they are so that he may find a proper target. The only region he avoids is the core where the true evanescent flame is. He narrows his options down to 3 for his next ring

1: The option he wants least to go for is the 87k year old Evanescent Shift wolf. A 30ft tall creature completely made up of fire that it's developed its own blue fire capable of burning even the lava around him. It's luckily unharmed by it's own flame as otherwise it would be another suicidal beast and Xue Tie has little interest in fighting beasts with such mental states.

2: The weakest of his options is a 69k year old Evanescent Glazed Python. A 70ft long snake that coats itself in it's own flaming acidic spit to serve as protection. Against what, he has no clue as he hasnt found any bird type creatures that could potentially feed on the snake. Humans are also unlikely unless they fly like Xue Tie. As normal spirit masters are forced to constantly jump around to limit their exposure to lava. Damn it Darwin, what did you do to this asshole that he decided to go take a dip in a vat of acid for protection?

3: The third option is a 76k Evanescent Gale Drake.a 20ft tall half dragon with a 35 ft wingspan. As a wind and fire affinity beasts, it's the perfect match for Xue Tie but it's also the most troubling as his advantage of flight is reduced to dust just like anything under the shift wolf's flames. From what Xue Tie has observed, the drake has a variety of powerful attacks and a flight speed that surpasses Xue Tie's.

As such his only advantages are his small size for better maneuvering as well as the combination of blood trace and Nihil to quickly take down his foes.A battle of endurance would typically be his strong suit but the location is pretty deep within Mt. QiXiao. As such, he is constantly spending spirit power to reduce the heat so it doesnt affect his combat power.

Even with Clause (energy recovering necklace), he is only in a suitable combat form but won't be able to properly recover energy mid combat. Yet, he doesnt want to give up on the drake as it is the most compatible with him, Age and affinity-wise.

Xue Tie begins his plan on stalking the drake. He hopes to ambush the drake within it's den where it's movements will be a bit more restricted except vertically. It's an area that is not totally covered in lava and as such is compatible with his plan since it lightly reduces his energy expenditure to cool down.

Waiting in ambush, The drake makes its way into the cave.

Boom

A Resounding thud is heard as the drake lands. The drake has a strange expression as it sniffs around and looks for any disturbances. It senses a strange scent but Xue Tie's ring-Cy (aura & energy hiding ring) hides his immediate location, so the drake only knows where he has been based on minor details. Luckily Xue Tie had anticipated some paranoia from the beast and had walked around the whole den to confuse it. Which works but also doesnt as the Drake roars and releases a whirlwind of fire and wind around it. It breaks apart a good amount of rock around it. Opening rifts in the wall that let in lava, giving Xue Tie a headache as he has developed a hatred for lava over the course of the past few days.

Xue Tie continues to lie low and the drake finally calms down after dissipating his presence in it's home. It lies down but not asleep as it's still wary. A beast this old has a bit of human-like intellect. Yet his opponent is a former expert procrastinator, Xue Tie is fine resting more as he ascertains his own physique and possible battle situations that may arise.

Once he sees The giant Drake finally go to sleep. He jumps out with his trident and unleashes his signature skill early on to provide a strong injury.

"NIHIL" The drake shutters away at the yell before violently coughing up blood due to it's own vigorous vitality working against it.

"ROAR" "TRES" The false dragon roars out as it gathers up fire in it's mouth. Xue Tie instead releases a quick blood trace for the future, and then gets to dodging as he doesnt feel like tanking a beast that likely would have required a team to take down which he is doing by himself.

Xue Tie soars around the drakes home while a beam of fire follows behind him. It tries to cut him off by aiming ahead of it's target but like any smooth brained idiot, it didn't consider that Xue Tie could simply lower or raise himself to avoid the confrontation.

"DUO" It roars again after the beam ends and Xue Tie releases another Blood trace and continues dodging. The drake initiates it's wind attacks by spawning tornadoes in his pathway instead of fire. Granted the tornadoes are picking up lava so they still have the fire attribute. Xue Tie can only dodge but he is eventually cornered.

Stuck between 4 tornadoes that are closing in on him. He decides that he can only break through. He casts his 6th spirit ring on his armor. A fire spawns in his hand which he slaps on his chest. Coating his armor in fire and boosting his attributes by 30%. The self immolation is a small factor when he is already under pressure by the heat and lava. Granted he is using Vim (spirit skill strengthening ring for more energy cost). It boosts the 30% to 36% in exchange for more energy cost. Luckily he doesnt feel more pain than the base version

Using his trident as a spear point, he turns into a missile and breaks through 2 of the tornadoes to reduce their number before charging at the Drake and stabbing it head-on. Unfortunately, it had released some sort of buffing ability as well. As its body is quite literally, on fire.

If it was a real dragon, it would have likely swiped at him with it's claws but that would imply to make it's wings vulnerable and a drake would never do that. As such, it attempts to bite him when he comes close. Xue Tie had slowed down to a stop just before it and they had a small stare down. Before Xue Tie slaps it with his trident before retreating again and casting the last link

"UNOS"

The beast is smart enough to know the danger and releases the full combination of fire and wind against Xue Tie. The cave begins breaking apart under it's power a giant whirlwind of fire is formed.

'Damn, I wish I had a camera to take a pic of this since it's so cool' he thinks to himself but for a brief moment as he continues to escape it. It's to a point that he has to escape the lair and the drake gives chase.

A dogfight ensues as the two attempt to both keep their distance as well as get close. Xue Tie wants to get close to release his Nihil but Drake leases a wind blast from it's body that knocks him back. As it then escapes or gets closer itself to further rain on his attempt since he cant knock it away and gets instead blasted with fire to his face.

The drake seems quite pleased with itself at every successful attempt to block Xue Tie.

It has reached a point that Xue Tie uses his 6th ring a second time and uses the Augmentation state of his Blood Gods Domain. With the 72% buff from the double stacked Primal burst skill (flame Grant Me Strength) and the additional 40% boost he rapidly collides with the drake. Bringing it down into the lava. He smacks the drake a few times

"Was it fun smacking me around like. Huh Bitch" He smacks the drakes face multiple times to vent his anger. The lava around him and the fire coating the dragon does little to Xue Tie as the 70% boost to his defense empowers him enough to not care about it.

"Nihil. NIHIL" Xue Tie uses Nihil twice in a row to weaken the dragon. He then rips apart it's wings and drags it back to it's den before finishing it off. He stabs the ring and he sees that the 77k year old ring gets a light shade of red which effectively quells his frustration in exchange for a rise in a bit of fear and anticipation. He spends a bit of time to recover his energy and condense more potions that he then takes before absorbing the ring.

He had drunk 10 potions this time around to reduce the damage he took as well as to help him recover from the fight. The energy spreads to his trident before being returned to his body. It gathers into a condensed orb, no more than the size of a fist inside his chest's heart. The orb then sends out waves of energy that increase his cultivation. After absorbing his ring, he was raised from 61 to 63 but this orb further pushed him to 64. Yet strangely his spirit power stabilizes at 65.

Xue quickly realizes that what had happened was that he acquired a Soul Core. something he should first obtain when he reaches level 70 but he got it ahead of time.

(the soul core is a bit weird as some sources say at titled douluo but certain geniuses like Hao YuHao got it early and as such, the earliest limit was changed to level 70, supposedly)

"This must be possible because my body is already so strong and my mind had been strengthened by living through the beast's memories. I don't believe that it's because my spirit power met the requirements since that I likely need to reach titled douluo to meet those requirements."

"Though i'm not sure yet if I can replicate Hao Yuhao's yin yang dual core method" he mumbles to himself and then focuses on the scene before him once more as he isn't done with this place just yet

(I had read something when looking up soul cores and it mentioned some sort of technique that let hao Yuhao at level 91 to beat level 95 hyper douluos thanks to this technique but it requires a super strong body due to strain being potentially fatal otherwise)

"Whoo. That was rough. Almost lost my cool there" he says as he looks at the drakes corpse and stores it away. He then begins to wipe his face when he stops as he feels something foreign on his face.

He feels around and even takes out a shiny skillet to use as a mirror so that he may see that he has an external spirit bone. A proper one this time around, except it's a skull bone. He uses the reflection of the pan to get a better understanding of it. It seems to be of a red and gray draconic skull

(here)

Xue Tie has two unexpected surprises from the current absorption process. A soul core earlier than known fandom limits and an external spirit bone in the form of a skull.

"Damn. gotta figure how to put this away" He begins focusing on the bone and remembering the instructions that Tang San received on how to retract his spirit bones. The Skull slowly splits into 8 pieces and begins retracting to the top of his spine

Xue Tie spends a moment to wipe his sweat and then leaves the core area to the cave he handmade to cool down a tiny bit and rest for the rest of the day. He goes over his gains of the day. He got his 2nd spirit ring for his trident which turned out to be another buff ability but one he is slightly familiar with. It's what happens to the original Mohg's trident after he reaches halfway. Burning in bloodfire. So while not super impressive, the fire itself is based on the drakes' evanescent flame which makes it much hotter than even lava.

He rests for 2 days before returning to the hunt

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Status:

Name: Xue Tie

Race: Human (transmigrator)

Age 18 (33 if counting previous life's 15 years of age) (it has only been a bit more than a month since last status sheet)

Bloodline: Mohg, Lord of Blood.

Martial Spirits: Blood Trident-mutated, Robes of Blood (used to be gloves of blood, gained wings)-mutated by contact with Blood Trident)

Level: 65 Spirit Emperor

Cores: 1 Soul Core

Robes of Blood Spirit Ring composition: Dark-purple, Dark-Purple, Dark-purple, Dark-Purple. Black, Black

Blood Trident Ring Composition: Black, black-red,

Robes of Blood Spirit Ring Ability names: BloodFlame Talons, BloodBoon, Immutable, Blood Trace, Blood Vortex

Blood Trident Spirit Ring Ability Names: Refinement, Evanescent Path

,

Robes of Blood Spirit Ring Abilities effect:

1.BloodFlame Talons: The user's claws are covered in a red aura. Users can claw out to enable a 'scratch' on whatever surface they find (air, rocks, people, etc). That scratch will explode in a flurry of blood flame 1 second later

a.Divergent applications: Xue Tie has trained to be able to suppress the activation of the follow-up explosion up to 5 seconds later.

2.BloodBoon: Users' hands manifest blood flame which they may throw at a target. As long as Spirit Energy is provided, more blood flame will be created. Thus creating a flamethrower of sorts for reference.

3. Immutable: a defensive ability where the Robes of Blood cover more of the body and provide a 5x defensive boost as well as a .5x boost for every ring possessed by the user. Current Bonus = 8x. The negative is that the user's total weight increases by the same amount as the total bonus.

4.Blood Trace: As long as the user is either within 20 ft of a target or as long as the user has obtained enough blood, a trace can be established. The trace comes in the form of a red circle around the target. The ring can not be dispelled by anti-status abilities. Can be applied 3 times for better effect.

a.Application: the trace assists in both Bloodflame talons or Bloodboon to gain the 'Seeking' property. The seeking property lasts for 1 second after activation of mentioned spirit skills. Additional traces extend it up to 5 seconds

B. App2: trace increases the effectiveness of spirit skill the more traces there are. 2 traces = 25% damage boost. 3 traces = 50% boost.

5. Blood Vortex: A Wind based technique that summons a tornado that revolves around the user that can be directed with the casters hands to produce shredding attacks into the distance. (imagine Godrick the grafted when he shoots out wind blasts)

6. Primal Burst: Based on Flame Grant Me Strength. Users receive a 30% boost while suffering from self harm via immolation. This can be applied multiple times for a 30% boost each time but a 4x multiplier for self harm(stacks)

Blood Trident Martial Skills

1. Refinement: Anything stabbed by the martial spirit begins a cycle of refinement via compression and evolution.

A. The refinement can be applied to anything that can be physically interacted with. ie : Blood, bones, muscles, spirit rings (spirit rings can normally not be interacted with but this ability changes that fact)

2. Evanescent Path: Coats the trident in Special flames hotter than lava. Lasts for 5 minutes before having to be reapplied

Self-made Spirit Skills

Nihil: a 40 ft radius circle of red smog that anyone within loses 30% of their total life force with each usage.

Divergent: With Blood Trace, Nihil's effect is limited to traced targets only but each trace increases Nihil damage by 50%. 3 traces = 150% damage aka 45% of total life each usage. The range is also doubled (80 ft).

Negative: High energy drain that has been reduced after a long study of bloodline

New abilities (self made or otherwise)

1st Spear Technique: Blood Drain- a powerful spear technique that focuses on two aspects. Piercing and then liquid manipulation (specifically blood). Useful to weaken foes by draining them of blood.

Only recently discovered and as such not at full potential aka high energy cost as well as concentration to utilize.

Blood Gods Domain: 3 states - Domination, Slaughter Assault, Armament.

Domination: 60 ft range killing intent domain that debuffs enemies by 30% while buffing self 30%

Slaughter Assault, A single target activation of the Domination domain that increases users speed by 150% and a power boost of 50%.

Augmentation: a self buff by condensing the domain into a type of shadowy armor. Provides a 70% boost in defense and 40% boost in other aspects

Blood Touch: a mental attack that can only be used in the Augmentation state.It stuns the target for 2 seconds

Temporarily deactivates the domain to focus on attack, leaving one vulnerable.

Vampirism: An effect gained from the Domain seed that first appeared when the blood trident corrupted the seed. It provided a minor healing boost to self when living things come into contact with the trident. Was later boosted when the domain was fully unleashed for a proper vampirism state on both martial spirits and even the regular body.

Equipment

1. Ring of Opening-Vin: 20% increase in spirit skill power in exchange for 25% spirit power usage.

2. Amulet of Nature-Cruise: 2x Energy regen

3. Band of HIding-Cy: masks/suppresses one's energy signature

4. Armband of Storage-unnamed: 8 crystals that each hold up to 15 cubic feet inside (Xue Tie owns a second storage item that he got from the Food God Envoys in recent chapters)

Spirit Bones

1. Drake's skull (77k years old): External spirit bone received after killing the Evanescent Gale Drake at Mt. QiXiao. Effects: mental protection and access to Evanescent Beam. A fire breath attack in the form of a condensed beam

2. Flaying Blood Scorpion Left Leg bone (Currently 30k years old after refinement, originally 20k years old):unknown effects, obtained in chapter 33. Unabsorbed

3. Sheer Wind Harpy Right Arm bone(pterodactyl)(23k years old originally, currently 29k years old after multiple refinements): Acquired from Spirit hall and later refined multiple times. Unabsorbed

(End Character Sheet)

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