12 Armored Elephant

By the fourth week into their spirit beast hunting trip, Durand was beginning to get frustrated. Though he was normally very patient, he knew that he had spent several million karma points to increase his luck in finding suitable spirit beasts. However, these four weeks had been fruitless. Even though Durand knew that his cultivation was not halted by the lack of a second spirit ring, this ring would instantly increase his combat ability and physical power. Moreover, his talent 'Increased Soul Ring Age Absorption' increased the age of a ring that he could absorb by 200 years. If he simply used Tang San, who had the ideal soul ring configuration, as a comparison, Durand should be able to get a 1000 year old ring for his second spirit ring. Tang San's first ring was 400 years and his second was 700. Since Durand's first ring was 600 years then his second ring without his talent should be 900. With the talent, his second spirit ring could potentially be at 1100 years.

Just as Durand wondered when they would see a 1000 year Armored Elephant, a thundering trumpet rang out in the distance. This was immediately followed by the sounds of trees being trampled over: snapping branches, uprooting trees, crashing leaves.

As these sounds grew increasingly louder, the Nuoding Academy dean yelled out, "Careful!"

Almost instantly, Durand and the Academy dean moved to stand between Tang San and the crashing sound. At the same time all three of them summoned their spirits: Durand instantly clad in his armor and shield, Tang San's poisonous blue silver grass grew a few feet and swayed around him, and the Academy Dean transformed into a half man, half panther being.

The Armored Elephant's legs thundered as they crushed everything in its way. It seemed that Durand, Tang San, and the dean must have angered the spirit beast. It was likely that they had encroached upon its territory and it was now determined to chase away the intruders.

Suddenly, a massive elephant, nearly 5 meters tall, broke through the tree line of the small clearing Durand, Tang San and the dean were in, sending small trees flying toward them. Its hide was incredibly thick. Certain sections, guarding the elephant's vitals were clearly thicker like an armor, thus its namesake. Turning slightly, the Armored Elephant charged with a lowered head, ready to smash into the three interlopers and fling them into the air.

Durand's first ring flashed several times. Very rapidly, a large shield blocked the flying trees in their tracks before appearing instantly in front of the elephant to impede its charge. Like in his fight against the Datura snake, Durand again positioned is right arm to face toward the ground behind him. The Armored Elephant helplessly crashed into the shield; very few beings, spirit masters or spirit beasts, could dodge an object that only appeared a fraction of a second before they collide with it.

At that moment, three things happened at the same time. First, the massive elephant tumbled forward, having smashed into a shield less than a third of its size and its body flipping into the air. Second, Durand's body launched up and forward into the air rapidly like a missile, the incredible force from the elephant had felt like a hammer smashing into his side. Third, the Academy dean's fourth spirit ring flashed. His body seemed to slip into the shadows, swiftly and quietly appearing before the Armored Elephant. His third spirit ring flashed as his two arms struck upward; his fingers transformed into fearsomely sharp claws. These claws seemed even sharper than before, the dean's fourth spirit ring clearly had an overall enhancing function on this ability. Far above him, Durand had also drawn out Hornet's Sting with his left hand, stabbing downward at the elephant's body.

Unfortunately, the Armored Elephant's hide was incredibly dense with incredible defensive capabilities. The Academy dean cried out in pain as his claws seemed to bounce off the elephant, unable to slice through the skin like it had against the Ghost Vine. Durand dagger fared slightly better against the elephant's thick skin. It penetrated merely an inch into the elephant's body before creating a meter long scratch. Durand tumbled hard as the sudden impact of stabbing at the elephant functioned as a fulcrum, turning Durand sharply toward the ground.

From the results of the initial clash between the giant spirit beast and the three humans, the humans had clearly suffered greatly. There were two points of concern. First, the results showed that the Academy dean, even with his 42nd rank cultivation, was unable to damage the elephant at all. Having studied under Grandmaster, Tang San and Durand could identify that the Armored Elephant was very close but had yet to surpass the 1000 year cultivation mark. However, its ability to ignore a thousand year empowered claw strike showed how close it was to reaching that cultivation milestone. Second and most worryingly, Durand seemed to have shattered his arm. The immense force of the Armored Elephant smashing into his shield at full charge had been completely transferred to Durand's arm. This was another detrimental aspect of Durand's first spirit ring ability: his arm must bear the incredible stress of each and every strike at his shield.

Of course, the results were not entirely horrible. As the Armored Elephant also crashed heavily onto the ground, Tang San's first and second spirit rings flashed at the same time. The spirit beast instantly found itself wrapped by many thick blue silver grass. The Ghost Vine seemed to have transformed Tang San's blue silver grass. It now had become as thick as an arm. Holding the Armored Elephant down for a brief moment, smaller blue silver grass tendrils rushed at the elephant's small wound inflicted by Durand. Once it entered the Armored Elephant's body, it immediately released the parasitic seeds.

However, it seemed as though the seeds had no effect. Having recovered from the fall, the Armored Elephant immediately began struggling against the blue silver grass binding it to stand up. Easily tearing apart the grass shackles, the elephant rose back up to its full height. Tang San paled and coughed up blood. Breaking so many blue silver grass had caused injury to Tang San. As it did so, it turned to glare at Tang San, the last person to attack. Throwing its enormous trunk up into the air, the Armored Elephant reared its front legs as it let out another thunderous trumpeting sound. They glowed a deep brown color, increasing in intensity as the elephant raised its front legs higher into the air. The Armored Elephant had activated its Quake Blast ability. A massive shockwave blast outward in a circular manner nearly 20 meters from the impact. In a flash, Tang San had activated Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, easily avoiding the shockwave as it rippled out. The Academy dean's fourth ring flashed once again and he slipped away in the shadows. With the rough landing onto the forest floor and the inhibiting injury to his right arm, Durand had been slow to recover onto his feet. Even then, he had been able to make it to the periphery of the seismic wave. Durand had nearly avoided the quake blast but nearly was not enough.

As the shockwave vibrated through his body, Durand could feel his muscles tighten uncontrollably. At the same time, his spirit power became sluggish; he could not summon his spirit or use his rings. This was the second part of the Quake Blast; contact with any targets would cause a stunning effect. As the duration of the stun depended heavily on the target's proximity to the shockwave epicenter, Durand was lucky to have only been at the periphery when he was hit. He would only be stunned for a short 5 seconds. Seeing that Durand was affected by the blast, the Armored Elephant charged once again. This time, there was no shield to stop it. Even if Durand wasn't stunned, his arm was in no state to use his first spirit ring. Worse still, both Tang San and the Academy dean were out of range to reach Durand.

As Durand watched the massive elephant in front of him rush closer and closer, unable to do a thing, he resigned himself to the tragedy of critical injuries, if not death. Just as his fear reached a peak, the Armored Elephant stumbled. It seemed as if its legs had simply stopped moving. Durand's eyes brightened. Looking at Tang San, he could see the other boy smiling in relief. It seemed that the parasite seeds that had been injected into the elephant had finally activated and was paralyzing the spirit beast.

This event gave Durand just enough time to escape from the stun effect from the Quake Blast and avoid being hit by the tumbling monstrosity moving his way. With Hornet's Sting still in his left hand, Durand dashed toward the Armored Elephant. In the novel canon, Tang San's Parasite ability was not seen as much as his other abilities. Though Tang San had killed an older Ghost Vine due to his interference, the difference in only 100 years was likely not as significant as Durand would like against the nearly 1000 year spirit beast in front of him. Assuming Tang San's lack of using his second ring as that his other rings were more useful, Durand wasn't sure whether Parasite would be able to keep the Armored Elephant immobilized for long.

Therefore, Durand absolutely had to take advantage of the situation in front of him. Even if the elephant was able to break free from the parasites within its body, Durand was already close enough that he could pretty accurately aim Hornet's Sting for a probable kill. The only reason why he continued forward was to change that 'pretty accurately' to 'accurately' and 'probable' to 'sure'. He knew that it was unlikely for the three of them to kill this spirit beast if he wasn't able to kill it now. Once it broke free from Tang San's parasites, they would have to inject more parasites into the elephant. However, the wound that Durand had initially inflicted on the spirit beast was already healed; this was a testament to the amazing vitality that the Armored Elephant had.

Raising his arm and aiming his dagger, Durand was only a meter away from the elephant when he activated his spirit weapon to fire. At that moment, Durand could see that the spirit beast could just slightly move its legs. His heart dropped in fear that the Armored Elephant had already recovered from the parasites. Fortunately, the spiral dagger drilled through the elephant's eye and through its brain. A small sigh escaped from the spirit beast, like a dying breath. Slowly, a light purple ring coalesced above the Armored Elephant. It seemed that the spirit beast had just barely broken through to the 1000 year cultivation level when it emerged to attack the three humans invading its territory. Perhaps if it had consolidated its cultivation and finish the complete evolution process, it would not have died in such a manner. Likely, the situation would be completely different with Durand letting out his dying breath and Tang San and the Academy dean running away.

Before the Academy dean could stop Durand, he instantly sat down in front of the Armored Elephant to absorb the spirit ring. The dean could only watch helplessly as a genius student under his care was 'dangerously risking his life to absorb a ring beyond his limits.' The moment the purple ring touched his forehead, Durand felt as if his body was being crushed in every place. At the same time, if felt as if he had fallen into a raging fire and his entire body turned red as if he was being boiled alive. This especially caused an incredible magnitude of pain to his right arm. As it was still shattered and sensitive, the additional force rocketed the pain levels sky high. Still, Durand endured the pain, integrating the limit breaking spirit ring to his Moonlight Guardian spirit.

Even though he had a spirit with incredible defensive ability and a talent that increased the ring age he could absorb, spirit rings from Armored Elephants were much more difficult to absorb than their similarly aged spirit beasts. They had an incredibly domineering aura and great resisting capabilities. Durand had previously spent very little time absorbing his first spirit ring; he only needed an hour before completely absorbing the first ring. This was very short compared to the several hours that Tang San took to absorb his first. However, as the first hour passed, Durand was still bright red and still absorbing the spirit ring. As the third hour ticked by, even Tang San was growing worried. Even though Grandmaster had impressed upon him that Durand was fortunate enough to have greatly increased his endurance and willpower, the amount of time it was taking Durand to absorb the ring was just much longer than before. Moreover, this was a 1000 year beast, even if just barely. The second spirit ring limit was usually at around 600 to 700 years for most spirit masters that had gotten a 400 year spirit ring previously. Therefore, according to Grandmaster, Durand should have been looking for an 800-900 year spirit ring.

Night quickly approached and Durand was still absorbing his second spirit ring. Though they were extremely worried, Tang San and the dean quickly set up a camp. However, Durand knew nothing of how much time was passing and of everything that was happening around him. Instead, he was only focused on enduring the pressure and throbbing pain from his right arm. Internally, Durand was watching as the purple ring merged with his Moonlight Guardian spirit. Though in pain, he watched in fascination as his original armor grew thicker and denser, his shield grew slightly larger and most delightfully, his spirit armor increased to cover his lower arms and feet and his hands and feet. Previously his all his extremities like his head, arms, and legs were missing armor. Now, just his head was armor less. Even so, the increased defensive coverage was enough to allow Durand to celebrate in glee. Especially since his right arm was now covered in armor, a lot of the transferred force from his shield could be resisted by the armor over his right arm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, as dawn broke upon the camp, Durand finished absorbing his second spirit ring. When he opened his eyes, both Tang San and the Academy dean let out sighs of relief.

The Academy dean gave Durand a heavy glare and began reprimanding Durand, "You had the both of us worried there. How could you so foolishly try to absorb a spirit ring so far above your limits?! How was I to explain to Grandmaster if you were to die from this? How could you disregard Grandmaster's teachings about the limits on spirit ring age for each cultivation tier?!"

Durand blushed in shame. Even if he was perfectly aware of his actual limits, everyone else had no clue. All that they saw was a child recklessly absorbing powerful rings with no regard for his actual absorbing limits and the mortal danger of absorbing beyond them. (At this rate, I'm going to have to hunt for my own spirit beast for my third and fourth spirit rings,) thought Durand. He had already planned to skip certain age restrictions. Especially since he knew that Tang San would be able to jump to a 10,000 year spirit ring for the fourth spirit ring, Durand was also determined to do the same.

"Sorry, sir. I was reckless," apologized Durand.

The Academy dean huffed. "Let's go, we should get back to the academy as fast as possible so that we can get your arm looked at by a medical professional."

Tang San quickly packed up the camp as the Academy dean was too angry and Durand was injured. Of course, Durand helped to pick up certain things but with only one hand, his contribution was limited. As they packed though, Durand, who happened to be near the Armored Elephant corpse, noticed something gleaming near the left leg of the Elephant. When he picked it up, his heart suddenly sped up. His entire being yearned to absorb it and this attraction allowed Durand to recognize it for what it was. It was a spirit bone, the left leg bone from an Armored Elephant.

Spirit bones were incredibly rare. Only when a spirit beast had matured to 100,000 years of cultivation would the death of a spirit beast guarantee a spirit bone. But in front of Durand, the spirit beast corpse was barely 1000 years old. Durand was torn. The spirit bone belonged to a 1000 year old spirit beast. This meant that even though he had a corresponding spirit ring that would be improved by it, the spirit bone would certainly not be as powerful as those that came from far more mature spirit beasts. With two spirits, Durand was slated to kill two 100,000 year spirit beasts which would guarantee two spirit bones. If at that time one of the spirit bones was for the left leg, he would certainly regret absorbing this one today. However, he would only know what those spirit bones were when he reached rank 90, a very long time from now. This spirit bone could benefit him by being able to beat other people for better resources and find better spirit beasts for better spirit rings.

Finally resisting the urge, Durand quietly put the spirit bone into his space ring. At the very least, he should decide after consulting with Grandmaster about the issue. It was most important to hide the spirit bone in case that the Academy dean saw it. After all, the two of them did not have a close relationship and spirit bones were so rare that if the dean were to become greedy, it could be very dangerous for both Durand and Tang San. Turning around to make sure that the Academy dean was still angrily walking toward the forest exit, Durand heaved a sigh of relief.

"What's that?" a voiced asked behind Durand which caused him to jump.

"Ahh!" Durand let out a small shriek. As he turned around he was about to release his Moonlight Guardian spirit until he realized that the voice had come from Tang San.

Embarrassed by his reaction, Durand avoided Tang San's gaze and coughed a few times.

"Well, err, I'm not sure. Let's ask Teacher about it when we get back," replied Durand awkwardly.

Tang San chuckled, "Sure whatever you say. Let's go ask Teacher what 'Ahh' is."

Durand snorted, "Humph! Just you wait, I've decided I need more pillows. I think those pillows that you and Xiao Wu should work perfectly!"

Tang San responded quickly, "No problem! I don't have any problem with it. Those pillows are going to cost you though. One gold spirit coin each."

"Oh? It seems that you and Xiao Wu have already combined your properties together. I didn't know that the two of you had progressed so quickly!" mocked Durand.

At this time, Tang San and Xiao Wu had yet to realize their feeling for each other. So Durand's question caused Tang San to blush. As the two of them rushed quickly to catch up with the Academy dean, they continued to banter with each other, each laughing at the expense of the other's embarrassments.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the three of them finally reached their carriage and began the long trip back to the academy, Durand took the chance to quickly peek at his status. Even though he knew what his second spirit ring could do, he wasn't sure how his attributes had increased.

(Status!)

[Status]

Name: Durand Emrys

Age: 8

Title: Spirit Grandmaster

Soul Power Rank: 22

Martial Spirits:

- Glowing Blue Tree of Life [Number of Rings: 0]

- Moonlight Guardian [Number of Rings: 2]

Class: Defense

Stats:

- Strength: 30 -> 50

- Agility: 9 -> 15

- Endurance: 50 -> 100

- Intelligence: 30 -> 35

Soul Rings:

[Shield Teleport] – 600 year Spike Plated Tortoise

[Spirit Ring Effect: Shield can teleport anywhere within 100 meters (+31,250m) to block attacks]

…

[Quake Blast] – 1000 year Armored Elephant

[Spirit Ring Effect: Charge and strike a single opponent. Successful strike stuns the initial target for 10 seconds and results in a concussive shock wave that emanates in a half circle shape from the point of impact. The shock wave has a radius of 10 meters. Successive targets within the shock wave are stunned for 5 seconds.]

- Enhancements: Moonlight Guardian spirit gains: lower leg, lower arm, hand and feet armor. (decreases final force transferred to Durand's arm when shield is struck. Significant increase to strength. Massive increase to endurance. Minor increases to Agility and Intelligence.

Talents: …

Skills: …

Equipment/Items:

…

- 1000 year Left Leg Spirit Bone from Armored Elephant – Effect: Unknown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looking at the massive changes to his Stats, Durand was very happy. The higher his endurance was, the older the spirit ring he would be able to absorb. Most importantly, the Status page had confirmed the incredible nature of his second spirit ring. Though it contradicted with the path that Durand wished to fulfill, a ranged defensive spirit master, Quake Blast could be considered an offensive, defensive, and control type spirit ring ability. Clearly, the charge and the concussive blast were offensive. However, the shield bashing was obviously a defensive counter measure. Finally, the stunning portion of the shock wave was very control system-like.

Finally, the most glaring weakness of his had been temporarily resolved. Against powerful impacts on his shield, the full force was transferred to his bare right arm. Now, with some armor on it, his right arm no longer had to bear as much pressure. With the new armor, Durand would be able to fight the Armored Elephant again without shattering his forearm on the first impact.

This beast spirit hunting trip had been very fruitful. Tang San had improved from a 600 year spirit ring to a 700 year spirit ring with the help of Durand. Clearly, the Parasite ability was much stronger as it had been able to paralyze a 1000 year spirit beast long enough for Durand to kill. Durand had been able to break the spirit ring age limit and had a purple spirit ring for his second ring.