Chapter 9: Getting Stronger

Swissh a dagger flash! And the neck of the [gremlins] is cut, blood spurts everywhere, a few seconds later the body of the [gremlin] convulsed and then it stop moving...

([gremlin] a class 1 monster, a humanoid toad like monster, it fold its body like ball and lounge itself to its enemy using the spikes in its body to attack)

Looking around you can see several bodies of dead [gremlins] lying around the place...

Clap! Clap! Clap!

[lupa]: nicely done! I can't believe you really manage to clear the [gremlins] den! In just ten days!

[zion]: standing with both hands on my waist, chest out,chin up, *i said* of course! who do you think i am, hahahaha... Then i shouted! I am Heeeeero!!! Bwahahaha

[lupa]: the fuck! I shouldn't have praise him, did i follow the wrong person? "Said lupa as he turn around and walk back to the camp site"

[zion]: hey! Where are going? Aren't you going take a gremlins meat for our provision? Hey! Darn that stupid geote, he's ignoring me, well if he doesn't want it, i'll just absorbed it...

Closing my eyes suddenly a jet black rock, appeared in front of my chest, then it shoot directly into the dead gremlin, and the body of the [gremlin] was absorbed instantly, a moment's later all the dead [gremlins] are absorbed into the jet black rock, apparently according to Lupa, this jet black rock is called [skal] meaning earth mother's heart, and this one belong to [gaia] one of the greater goddess of earth, well that's what lupa said, and although he knows what it was, he didn't know what it can do. So over the past few days i've been experimenting on it..

And this is what i've learned so far:

First: it has the ability to absorb and storing the energy of any dead creature by absorbing its body.

Second: the stored energy can be use to heal and restore one physical body from any harm inflicted to it, "the greater the injury the greater the energy need to restore"

Third: it greatly increase my earth affinity. "Meaning any earth energy i absorbed is multiply by at least 2x"

Oh and my tattoo is apparently called [higop rass] or "great devourer" according to Lupa, every earth gods and goddess has their own blessings or "gift" that they bestowed to whoever lucky enough to acquired their legacy...

So in other word this [skal] or gaia's heart, is greater goddess earth legacy, and i just happened to pick it up!

There's more but i will tell them later on...

So back to reality, I Can't believe just a few weeks back, i was struggling to kill a single gremlins, now i can fight ten of them without problem, *i said to myself* as i was picking up the [gremlins] core, [gremlins] core is light brown in color, it's an earth element core, the main reason i was able to improve greatly and manage to fight several gremlins at a time, earth core increase my strength and defence, and although [gremlins] core is only lvl one, a lot weaker than the boars core i found before, but because of their number, it's more than enough to help me increase my str/deff. Several times, just absorbing one or two core does not increase my str/deff much but after hundreds of gremlins core the changes are significant...

Back in the camp.

[zion]: hey Lupa, looks like we're done here, where to next? Just how far are to the exit?

[lupa]: kid i told you, i didn't know! Just how many times are you going to ask me that question?

[zion]: right right! But you're not lying to me when you said, there's elf in this world, right?

[lupa]: why would i lie? And even though i haven't met one personally, other geote has, so there's no mistake about it, but forget about elves i'm more interested in winglies, according to the thoughts of my of the other geote's who manage to met them "winglies" they are the most beautiful creatures they have seen in their entire life...hihihi "perverted laugh"

[zion]: what a creepy laugh! Is that why you decided to come with me?

[lupa]: huh who are you calling creepy? I don't wanna hear that from someone who keep on thinking perverted things on the elves!

[zion]: what! I never said any perverted things about the elves, i just want to meet them, my intention are pure...

[Lupa]: pure my ass! Say that after you stop sleep talking you perverted brat!

[zion]: hnnnggg... "Surprise" darn am i really sleeptalking? Is my intention leaking out when i'm sleeping? Thats dangerous i need to keep it under control, otherwise if i manage to meet an elven sister, and happen to witness me sleeping talking my beautiful dreams of having and beautiful elven maiden as girlfriend will end even before it begins!

[lupa]: hey! What are you spacing about? Hehehe don't worry your secret is safe with me hehehehe! I won't expose you as long as you are nice to me!

[zion]: what! No i'm not thinking that that, wait am i not always nice to you? Anyways back to the problem at hand, where to next?

[lupa]: ehem! Right i manage to scout ahead of us while you're dealing with the [gremlins] there's two path, the right leads to a small pond that place is a dead end, but it's a good place to clean ourselves up, and restock our water supply before we venture forward, the left path leads deeper into the caves, i sense more monster that path so we better prepare ourselves, oh and let me see that dagger i gave you before, you been using it nonstop this past few days, i'll repair it for you..

[zion]: oh right, here, thanks, "handing the dagger back to lupa" but man i didn't think this cave is so vast, i'm starting to missed the sun and the trees, but Lupa what's that dagger made off, when you handed it to me i thought it's just a normal old dagger that you forge out of the materials you found in this cave, but as i stated to use it, darn that dagger can cut through bones like cheese, without it the fight with [gremlins] will be ten times harder!

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[lupa]: hmmm, well as much as i want to take credit for it i can't, because i didn't forge the dagger myself, but i did enhance it using bending, but the dagger is already excellent even before i used bending on it, i found this dagger stuck on some wall when i just gained consciousness as an elemental spirit, because of the knowledge i gained through linking my thought to rest of my race, i know that this dagger is not ordinary..

[zion]: hmm yeah that's what you said to me the first time, but speaking of bending i never asked before hows that different from forging?

[lupa]: it's very different bending is close to enchanting than forging, in bending u bend the element and fusing it to any materials you wish, increasing its attribute in the process, in my case i can only bend earth element for now! But later on as i gain proficiencies on bending i'll be able to bend other elements, of course as a geote my affinity to earth is greater than any elements.. Oh and don't bother asking about bending it is a racial skill, so you can't learn it, but there are other skill similar to it that you can learn, but unfortunately i can't teach it to you, so you have to learn it yourself through other means in the future...

[zion]: i see that's too bad, well i can't do anything about it, so ill just do what you said and wait for someone else to teach it to me, in a meantime i'll just absorbed the gremlins core while you fix the dagger...

[lupa]: sure no problem! And we'll go to the pond after! Let's rest there for now and continue our travel after we made preparations...

[zion]: ok.

So i walk to the right side of our camp, this is my side of the camp this is where i sleep, immediately i sit crossed leg and started to absorbed the gremlins core, the gremlins core is only a size of thumbnail, giving a pale light brown glow, in the last 5 days i've been saving all the gremlins core i've found, i wanna know just how much changes itll make by absorbing them in rapid succession, right now i have 106 gremlins core in my bag, i put the cores in the ground in front of me, and started absorbing them one after the other, in less than five minutes i was able to absorbed them all...

Nice! as i checked the flows of energy in my body, after absorbing all the lvl1 core my physical str. And deff. Has more than doubled, i imagine my earth resistance is off the roof after absorbing all the lvl 1 earth cores.

I meditated for a awhile trying circulate my energy into all parts of my body, i've been doing this practice the moment i gain the power to absorbed the monster cores, at first i can only move my energy slowly, but as time move on my proficiency has increased a lot, what took hours to do i can now to in ten minutes or so, after practising for a awhile i heard Lupa calling me..

[Lupa]: hey zion, are im done repairing the dagger, i've also gathered our things let's move to the ponds so we can start cooking, and start planning for our next move...

[zion]: sure give me a moment to collect my things first. Wow lupa this is quite nice, when you said pond, i'm imagining just a small pond, this is bigger than i thought, the water is so clear you can see the bottom too bad there's no fish here, well let's collect our water reserves first before we start contaminating this beautiful pond...

[lupa]: what are talking about! Are planning to swim here or something?

[zion]: yeah! Of course is that a problem?

[Lupa]: are you an idiot? Of course it's a problem! We won't know if we're ever gonna need a clean water from this pond again, what if we venture forth and not find a water source, are planning on drinking the water that we use to wash our stinking body?

[zion]: tsk.. Darn it and i'm so looking forward on dipping my body on this pond the moment i saw it! Sigh... Fine i got it well just dig a small hole in the ground to use as our bathtub, that's fine right?

[lupa]: yeah as long as we're careful to not mixed the used water with the pond,

It took a awhile to complete the bathtub and the cooking, but after a few hours we manage to clean ourselves and eat our fill...

[lupa]: whew burp! Kid let's rest first, we'll plan our next move when where both rested...

[zion]: yeah sure no problem!

Awooooooooooooooooooooosssskkk.....

[zion]: what the hell is that? Sounds like a beast howl, i've never heard of anything like that before, Lupa? What's wrong?

[lupa]: that's that's no way! Why is that here?

[zion]: hey Lupa what's wrong, what was that? You know what is that?

[lupa]: i i i'm not sure! But it's like the fear is ingrained in my soul, it must be because of my link to the other geote. But if i'm not mistaken it's a [basilisk hound]!

[zion]: huh what's that? What kind of beast is that?

[lupa]: according to the memory of my race it's a creature fond of hot places, it's an offspring of [hellhound] and [death basilisk] both monster is class 4 beast, and the [basilisk hound] is considered a class 5 monster!

[zion]: did you just said class 5 monster? Are you fucking kidding me? No way......