Trope World

Shadows held me down as he swaggered up to me. His forelegs rested on my shoulders. Then I felt something hard and impossibly large press… I forced the skill to shut down. My powers were becoming my own special h.e.l.l. I had to find a way out of this situation.

WSC lv10; +50 INT/WIS

Intelligence has surpa.s.sed milestone 1000

Next milestone 500,000

Dao Skill Discovered: Deep Talisman lv1; active cost 1,000,000MP; +100INT

I had no idea what a deep talisman is or how to make one. There was no secret knowledge that poured into me. All I gained from the skill was a little more intelligence and knowledge that the skill existed. I knew nothing of talisman crafting by itself much less deep talisman crafting. I needed a more direct method to raise my station.

My feet trudged across the room without end as my mind began to work over the situation. The goal was simple defeat Gan Chu or make the fight too costly. What resources did I have at my disposal? My mind, a spirit bow, wyrmling, compression, and quake. I hadn"t come up with those skills and item at random. An idea had come to me, but it was questionable. Would it damage someone at the core formation level?

It was an idea that I"d played with for some time. There was little else to do after a centaur claimed that he was going to kidnap and **** me. Atlan was little help. She had told me to be careful returning to Od"s room. The look in her eyes were of pity.

I couldn"t practice my skill here in Od"s room, but I could make a potion. The children"s book I read held the recipe. It was hardly a potion; it was more a concoction. Heat wasn"t used in the making of the item. From my bag of holding, I took out three different spirit plants. I diced the leaves from the uncommon seven color vita stalk, squeezed the juice from the rare dizzy sky fig, and mixed it in the hull of a black moon coconut. When the ingredients mixed together a drunken aroma filled the air. This was once drunk by centaur cultivators throughout their early childhood. It allowed them to quickly advance to the foundation stage or palace building stage if they were able. It soothed the mind and prepared them to cultivate for long hours. I would use it to further my base.

I drained the bowl and felt my head fill with cotton. My legs collapsed and I fell on the cushion behind me. Even centaurs sipped at the potion. I drunk it all in one sitting. I swapped out the filters in over my cultivation base. Even drunk it was second nature. Qi precious and thick rushed into my body just as I used the black moon breathing technique to acquire more. I added a second wider filter to avoid splashing qi. All thought left me as I focused only on cultivating and refining my base.

My puddle of qi quickly expanded transforming into a much larger puddle. I couldn"t quite call it a river or a pond, it was larger than a normal puddle, but still not as large as a creek. Still I reached the 3rd level of qi condensation. My body shook as new qi flooded my body and my cultivation base rotated condensing the qi into a denser base.

In my drunken haze, I mixed another potion and drank it down. I let out a hiccup and continued to cultivate feeling more qi gather. I was closing in on stage 4 but no matter how much I gathered, it wouldn"t condense to the fourth stage. I pulled in more qi and let my filters remove the impurities from my base, but it wasn"t enough. Sometimes, you had to take a risk to move forward. The object of refinement was to remove impurities right. Well what better way than to boil it right? What better fire than dragon fire?

Below my qi base, I gathered a small spark of dragon fire from the dragon in my mana well. I"d truly become adept at moving mana into my body and avoiding my qi. With my latest break through, my qi pa.s.sageways had grown making it easier. I placed a fire under my cultivation base and began to boil it even as it filtered from above.

In a flash my entire cultivation base boiled away only to go back through the filter. I poured, gathered more spirit energy, and changed out the filters. My qi base went into flux and I coughed up mouthfuls of blood. Each time a spat one out another would rise until something happened.

A single drop of qi fell, and it was unaffected by the heat of dragon flame. After that drop it was joined by another and then more. Soon one drop fell every few minutes and I changed out the filters again. Wyrmling consumed the old filters and I continued to cultivate. Soon the sun rose, and I woke up.

My cultivation base was stronger than ever and teetering on the edge of reaching stage 4.

Refinement lv25; +500INT

Qi condensation stage 3 multiplier 4.5

I looked around me to see peeled off faces, clumps of hair, and blood. When I looked at my new flesh, I was shinier. My skin practically glowed in the sunlight. My muscles moved more smoothly than ever before, and they exploded with unending power. When I took a step, it was a struggle not to leap through the ceiling. If I leapt, it could be a while before I returned to earth.

Best of all, I could use quake over 22 times. That alone might have made my new attack feasible.

I pa.s.sed through the hall of the sect quiet as a mouse. The guards looked at my slave collar and let me through, it didn"t take long before I was outside. From there I avoided the congested streets by taking back alleyways until I arrived at the wall. Once again none of the centaurs atop the wall seemed to care that a slave was on their wall.

The wall itself was used by many of the centaurs as a means of travel. They used it cut around the busy streets and markets. They made me nervous. Many of them gave me odd looks when I took out my spirit bow.

I fired an arrow at a boulder on one of the far off mountains and many of the centaurs lost interest after a while. "You know boulders aren"t good practice." A familiar voice said. I turned to see Lazarus there with an odd bag in his hands. "I"ve been waiting for a chance to talk to you. Here it"s a gift from Hertha and me." I held the bag in hand and used discover, a.n.a.lyze, and focus. Before he could say a word, I knew what it was.

This was a spirit beast bag. Within the bag were 9 habitats where spirit beasts could be stored. They were both rare and expensive. Some legendary bags could hold up to 1000 different habitats. This bag held the standard 9. Zarina was within the gra.s.sland eating spirit gra.s.s. "Just add spirit stones to the bag to keep the habitats in top shape. That"s spirit gra.s.s from the farm in Zarina"s habitat. I bet she misses you." Lazarus said.

I tied the bag to my side and looked at the bull conspiratorially. "Do you want to see what I"m really doing?" Lazarus looked around and nodded when he saw n.o.body was eavesdropping.

"What do you have in mind? Will it help the siege somehow?" Lazarus asked. His whisper was more of a bellow and some of the centaurs heard it. Their ears all turned towards us and I let out a sigh.

"Maybe, let me show you. Every shot had a purpose. I"ve been studying the stability of the arrows. And I"ve discovered, I can add magic on to them." Lazarus didn"t look impressed at all.

"That"s basic, most spirit bows have that function." Many of the onlookers turned away at Lazarus"s words. A smile split my grin ear to ear.

"Have you ever heard of a volcano eruption?" He blinked at me for a moment.

"I"ve read about them but never seen one in person." Lazarus said.

"Well if my technique works, you will see one in arrow form." I said. He looked at me then at the rock. He turned and stepped back behind the centaur audience.

"I"m prepared to watch." The centaurs in the crowd looked at me nervously.

"He"s just a slave how could he have such power? What"s a volcano? Why does it erupt." The centaurs went on whispering to one another.

I pulled back my bow and the spirit arrow appeared. Quake was the first ingredient to this recipe it was the equivalent to gunpowder. Then I compressed the quake and held it under a thick layer of mana. I channeled a great deal of dragon fire to the arrow and compressed it. My eyes were closed but I could feel the intense heat from the spirit arrow. In moments quake would break through the mana holding it back and dragon fire would explode around up. Once the fire was settled, I compressed another layer of mana around the payload. Once everything was in place, I released the arrow. I heard a crack. My spirit bow cracked in half and the string lashed my face drawing blood.

The arrow broke the sound barrier before smashing through the rock. Less than a second went by before the ground shook. The first barrier preventing the quake had broken. The dragon fire fed off the broken barrier keeping quake at bay and shot into the next barrier pushed by the quake. The last barrier survived shattered the rock it hit and was so thick it was too much for the spirit bow. Well over 100 kilometers from the wall it began to shake the mountain it was lodged in. Then all at once it exploded upward and outward. Rock was thrown up melting midair before tumbling down. The heat was so intense it melted the rock around it and that molten lava crept down the mountain. Trees around it began to burn and the fire collected the ash for wyrmling.

"An impressive technique it might be able to hurt me if I was unguarded. I"m impressed it would be a crime not to have you on the wall. I"ll speak with the Chu clan Patriarch on the matter." Lazarus said before flying off towards the Chu mansion.

I trudged away with a broken bow in hand. The attack worked but it had a cost.

Battle Magic skill discovered: Eruption Arrow lv1: active cost 1,000,000MP/25,000SP; +25INT/WIS