Chapter 47: leaving the Volcanic Region

Chapter 47: leaving the Volcanic Region

Xue Tie follows the frog beast for roughly an hour and travels far from the core region of the volcanic region, all the way to the outer region where any low level spirit master or beast can travel to.. Xue Tie is very skeptical of the frog and that it might be buying time to do ... .something ….what that is, Xue Tie has no clue.

They finally arrive at a cave that, while it is part of a cliff, is still fairly accessible for anyone above level 30 but it makes a bit more sense as level 30 and above spirit masters would avoid the outer region and try to hunt a bit deeper for their spirit ring. It was the case for Xue Tie after all.

"This is the location. Both herbs are stored inside" The frog beast in fat human form says

"I see. Well, go on then." Xue tie simply replies but the frog has a confused expression

"The deal was that you give me the two herbs. So go on. Lead the way, What if I get lost. What will a poor, defenseless maiden like myself ever do?" Multiple tics appear on the frogman's head at Xue Tie's blatant sarcasm. And with a huff. They jump over to the entrance of the cave and begin heading in. Xue Tie follows with a light flap of his wings. Bits of lava marr the cave walls, providing light for them both. Granted 100k year old beasts don't need it and Xue Tie is strong enough to be able to sense his surroundings so he is barely affected by the darkness unless it's a spirit skill which this is not.

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The cave is surprisingly straightforward and ends in a location that is slightly similar to the drake's nest (the drake that gave him the external skull bone). The 14k year old cockscomb Phoenix sunflower is here as well as what looks like a bush that has 2 peach like fruit on it. It's watermelon sized but still an orangish red color like a peach.

"Here they are as promised. May I leave now?" The frogman asks

"Pick the fruit and flowers for me and then we can finish our arrangement" Xue Tie says, his paranoia on high. Especially after hearing before how the fruit was made from the evanescent flame. Which means that it's likely that fox beauty who did it. Who is to say that there is no trap assigned to ensure that the "good boys and girls who obeyed her requests" aren't stolen from.

The frog can only relent or die as such, it goes and picks the fruits and flower.it has to coat the watermelon fruits in it's energy before it could even detach which seems to support the notion of it's mystical protection. The frog holds out the flower and 2 fruits to Xue Tie, who stores them away immediately.

Xue Tie then stabs his trident in the middle of the path. The frogman frowns and asks.

"We had a deal. Is human honor so pathetic?"

"Oh, I never agreed to anything. I simply let you live to lead me to some nice treasure."

"Granted I am in a good mood, so i shall fight you but without my trident. It is after all the medium for my nihil ability. If you win then you may leave, if not then you can only blame your lack of strength for losing to a spirit master who only have 7 rings instead of 11 like it was before. Is that satisfactory?" He states a middleground scenario.

The frogman clenches his fist in anger at the initial comment and throws out a punch covered in flames once the proposition is made. Xue Tie dodges the fist and kicks the frogman away. They shift back into their beast state.

It is Xue Tie's turn to charge forward, he does this while activating his 4th ring to reactive the 3 charges on it's body as they never disappeared. It's just the tracing effect for his skills that ended as the frog had been within his range this whole time. Once within range, he activates his 6th spirit skill to summon up a tornado that begins buffering the frog with minor cuts that can still greatly build up if not careful. The frog vomits acidic fire at Xue Tie who jumps back but not before unleashing his first skill, the bloodflame claws in front of him. The projectile vomit is blown up mid air and a small bit is knocked back at the frog who is lighty burnt by it but not much since it's able to resist it's own acid. It's body is also far tougher than a normal 100k beast as it's a 200k beast.

While the frog is being casually itched by the tornado. Xue Tie gathers up power into his external bone. He also uses the regular Dominion state of his domain to weaken the frog while also strengthening himself. It's not as high a buff as either Slaughter Assault or Armament state. But the debuff is the primary function Xue Tie is going for. WIth it so strong, the domain, which is supported by his soul core. It able to provide the full 30% debuff which is huge for Xue Tie as it's body and defenses along with it's attacks are weakened.

Not to mention the fact that Xue Tie has gotten multiple massive improvements which mean the buff and debuff rate has increased by 10% for both. Meaning Xue Tie gets stronger by 40% and the frog gets weaker by 40%.There is little difference now between it and the drake. And a frogs hide is not as thick as a drakes since it's a minor dragon regardless.

Xue Tie then activates his Primal burst 6th ring to buff himself further by 36% (20% buff from Vim the boost ring) and then a second time to 72%.

With the preparations complete, he activates his newest 7th ring. The Martial Spirit Avatar.

A second suit of robes manifests. It has 7 rings around it but the 7th is dulled out. The clone activates it's own 6th ring twice and with it receiving the domains boost. Both it and the main body are equal and begin wailing on the frog.

(A/N: imagine the iron man vs bucky & Captain America fight in marvel's Cold War but the shield is replaced by 1st spirit skill claw attacks)

(alternative is the jojo beatdown meme)

The frog gets barraged by two tornados and tries to use its abilities to manifest explosions but both xue tie and the include simply use immutable to tank the attack and then continue attacking to recover. Creating an endless cycle as the two robed figures have perfect unison for whenever they are focused.

"Im sorry, I repent. We shouldn't have ambushed you like that before. Please let me live" The frog begs for mercy but only finds a boot to the face. The mention of the ambush only provides a source of annoyance for Xue Tie to instead put more effort into attacking.

In truth, their attacks aren't doing much damage to the frog. It's mostly through relying on the consistent bleed proc that the Frog is defeated. After the initial Nihil. It had some time to recover during the travels but a total of 19 bleed procs along with the double digit damage done by the robed figures combined efforts that it finally knocked unconscious and on the verge of death.

The reason for this is naturally because Xue Tie isn't capable of absorbing the 200k year old ring just yet. He has to refine his body once more and maybe his older rings too if he has time before the frog wakes up.

Xue Tie dismisses the clone and collapses on his back. He is exhausted. His fists and feet even have bruises on them from beating the frog so much. After resting for an hour to recover his energy and heal. He gets started on his body again. Spending a few hours that the frog luckily spend unconscious as otherwise it would have been tormented again until Xue Tie was ready.

The end result is this.

1: His first ring for the armor which was already at this black at 13k years old is increased to 40k years

2: his 2nd ring which at this point was already 15k was increased to 48k

3: his third, which was already 23k was increased to 57k years.

4: His 4th was 29k already as he focused on it much less than other abilities since the trace wasnt showing any difference in power or utility. But he still raised to up to 65k years cause why not. Make all his rings nice and spiffy. He found that the damage percentile for all skills had increased by 5% from the initial 30% boosts.

The only thing He saw that didn't really change in that aspect was the nihil boost. It's still 150% for 3 rings. He saw that the seeking effect of his blood trace was extended by a few seconds. He learned this by slow roasting the frog.

5: his tornado which was at 40k years thus far had been raised to 85k and gained a few traces of red but not fully.

6: His primal burst, aka the 6th ring which was by default a 120+k years old ring was raised to 150k years. It was very difficult to raise it any higher with his current limits. The growth of a 100k year old ring is much more difficult due to it being related to the beasts it's connected to. The power greatly rises as it has to meet or die to the tribulation at every 100k years of age. Does this mean he will have to face the tribulations instead of the ring/beast? Ah, a problem for future Xue Tie.

7: Xue transitioned over to his tridents rings since there was little to do with his newest 200k year old ring that was acquired from the bulls body after being corrupted. So he moved on his the refinement ring itself. He had already increased it to roughly 30k years before and now the current limit is 65k.

8: his other rings for his trident were all over 100k so he only increased them by a few years except his 4th ring. Which means, it's time to get his 5th ring from the frog at least.

STAB.

Xue Tie's trident stabs deep into the head of the frog. Effectively killing it. A lovely orange ring rises up once more. It's a real, natural one this time around instead of one he had already corrupted. He stabs it and it's increases to 250k years old. It seems to have been already 220k or so before. Honestly this is above Xue Tie's limit. But with the rise of his 1st tridents ring. The effectiveness of his healing blood, especially after his body was also strengthened. Is absurdly strong now that is can only regenerate limbs. At least as long as the limb is firmly placed against it.

(like ethan from ReVillage and 7 can heal his limbs as long as they are attached [includes if they are completely cut off and disconnected for a few minutes])

This gives Xue Tie some idea of how to test out his bones abilities. Absorb the spider leg bone and if he likes it then he will keep it. Otherwise he will rip out the bone and heal it up a bit before absorbing a new bone. It will be painful as Fuck but likely less so than the mutations he had already been putting onto his body with the refinement.

On another note, his spirit power directly rose to 75 and he is fine with that. He has grown too much too fast for his own liking and needs to settle down for a bit. Maybe a year or two for his organization to muster up some more power. Especially if Ning Fengzhi did correctly then Xia Wei should have arrived at his base along with the rest of his team

Xue Tie had been gone for almost 2 weeks and it's another weeks travel back to the lair and he has one more stop before he actually returns.

He promised to meet Bibi Dong in his letter he had delivered.

Bringing out his wings, he begins the trek over to Spirit CIty while incognito since he is technically a traitor now. Even if they are not fully aware of it yet.