The Endless Battle [4] - Metamorphosis

{Bonus Chapter: For reaching the first powerstone goal last week.}

"Crap." Silas cursed. He couldn't think of anything. He could throw himself into the air like last time, but that would only make him a better target.

'No… I am Seth Evergreen. I've destroyed entire countries in just a few days. I can do this!

Looking to his side, Silas saw a dead snakebunny that seemed to have been decapitated when he created the earth spikes.

'I don't have a staff, but what if I absorb the mana core's energy?' Silas thought to himself, but he didn't have time to think of the consequences or dangers. He was certain that he was running out of mana, but he still needed to keep the monsters away from him for as long as possible while blocking the attacks of the earth bear.

Silas would have loved to kill the earth bear, but he had seen how easily it had blocked his fire bolt spell, which was technically one of his strongest spells since it had an enormous density of flames packed into it.

Of course, he had one other trick in his sleeve, but that one was for life and death situations since it had the power to kill even him.

He didn't want to use it before reaching the topaz core, so he quickly threw it out of his mind and focused on the mana crystal inside the bunny.

Absorbing mana crystals was just a theory. He didn't even know how he was going to do it. Did he need to consume the crystal or just grab it and absorb the mana out of it that way? According to the information fed to him by his parents and grandmother, there was no such thing as absorbing mana out of mana crystals.

However, his grandmother did tell him of a story of an adventurer who tried to consume the mana crystals, but exploded right after due to the torrent of energy rampaging within him.

Making his decision, Silas ripped out the mana crystal and clutched it in his hand before closing his eyes. He could feel the tremors coming closer by the second, but he needed to focus.

Slowly, the mana within the mana crystal began to flow through the mana veins in his arms and moved torward his solar plexus.

His outstretched hand tensed as he gritted his teeth. As the mana flowed into his mana core, he simply added his own mana signature onto it and quickly forced it out of his body through the other hand.

Silas wasn't using the conventional method of spell casting with a magic crystal—usually, mages with staffs sent mana into the crystal while chanting an incantation. The crystal usually did all the rest, making the spell cost less mana, concentration, and control to the point where a good staff could allow someone in the garnet core to create a tier 3 spell.

Every tier of spell had a limitation. Garnet cores couldn't create tier 3 spells and above, while topaz cores couldn't create spells above the 4th tier.

Of course, as usual, Silas found a way around it by limiting the amount of mana needed for a tier 3 spell. The only reason tier 3 spells took so much mana was that people chose to use chants and magic circles. Yet, despite still being limited by the laws of the magic circles, Silas found a way to reduce the mana needed by reducing the mana wasted every time he made a spell.

Since he controlled the flow of mana instead of letting an incantation do it, it meant that he could allow the mana to flow in a direct form while also using the minimal amount of mana needed to create the magic circle.

'It's close.' Silas thought, his eyes shining bright green before brown mana left his palm and fingertips to create an earthy-colored magic circle.

The magic circle was a pentagram, yet unlike the tier 2 magic circles, it had an extra circle encapsulating it. That circle had five runes inside it, each rune placed above a point of the pentagram's star.

"EARTH FORTRESS!" Suddenly, several layers of thick earth and stone emerged from the ground, encapsulating Silas.

There had to have been over 30 layers of Earth covering him. It cut his oxygen supply, but that wouldn't matter for too long.

*BOOOOOOOOOM*

The brain-rattling sound of the earth cannon impacting onto the earth fortress spell shook Silas to his very bones, but he held on.

*BOOM BOOOM BOOM*

The tremors continued, yet by some miracle, the fortress was still standing.

Circulating life fusion through his body in order to purge the poison, Silas gritted his teeth and sighed. He knew that it was a long shot since life fusion hadn't purged the poison before, but he still did it anyway.

With another sigh, Silas looked down at the crystal in his hand.

The snakebunny had only been in the solid-onyx core. Silas had no idea why they were attacking him, but now he knew that there must have been a reason since no animal in its right mind would attack him while being so weak.

Animals had better senses than humans. The moment he killed his first beast in this life, every beast around him somehow knew how dangerous he was, as if killing a beast had triggered his bloody aura enough to make most beasts steer away from him.

Yet, here he was, being attacked by hundreds of beasts and monsters simultaneously without a single sign of fear in their eyes.

Even when he stopped suppressing his killing intent and naturally bloody aura, they still attacked him for some reason.

'There's something I don't understand, but I have time to think about it. I'm running out of oxygen, my mana has depleted, and my energy levels are low.

And the worst part of this all, I've been poisoned.' Silas coughed out a little bit of blood before wiping it onto his hand.

His clothes were ruined. Not only were they covered in blood, but all the attacks and injuries had torn them to pieces, leaving him a tiny bit of garment that conveniently covered all his private areas quite well.

Now that he had no clothes over most of his body, anyone who looked at him would have been shocked to see his physique, especially for someone his age who has only been working out for 9 months at most.

He probably had a fat percentage of 6-8%, making his abs look surprisingly toned despite his smaller physique. His body was not only agile and strong, it was flexible too. It was formed through not only Silas' workouts, but also the training he did every day.

Of course, working out was good. However, a better workout is weapon and martial art training. By using the muscles repeatedly, Silas can slowly increase all the correct muscle groups needed for his particular martial art, weapon, or even strategy.

Looking at his left arm, which had been previously shattered due to the shockwave created by the stone cannon, Silas narrowed his eyes slightly.

It was a lot stronger than before… No, that was an understatement. It was like it had gone through a week's worth of exercise.

Now if he thought back to it, he did feel something about his arms change when that evolution blessing took action.

Activating mana eyes, Silas saw that the skin and arm muscles on his left arm were filled with much more mana than all the other organs and muscles in his body. Hell, the very cells seemed to have changed, being filled with an invigorating amount of mana, making his left arm feel like it was exploding in strength compared to all his other limbs.

'Oh no…' A theory entered his mind and made his stomach drop. He really didn't want to do that. Sure, it was a thing that he would do if he somehow survived this hellscape, but it was something he really, really, really didn't want to do.

"Oh god, please no." Silas cursed.

*BOOM, BOOM, BOOM*

The sound of impact was getting closer and stronger. He could see the earth above him beginning to crack slightly. His earth fortress was beginning to crumble, but there was something more urgent he had to tend to.

Touching his chest, Silas created a green tier 2 magic circle. He didn't have enough magic for a tier 3 magic circle, and he didn't have a corpse laying around with a mana crystal inside it.

However, there was something distinct about his healing spell…

Emerald and golden late shone from the magic circle as runes this planet had never seen before appeared inside the pentagram.

"Purg-" However, before he could finish his sentence, a green and golden green appeared before him, making him widen his eyes briefly before narrowing them when he read the words on the screen. They were written in English.

Despite his vision having slowly faded over the last few minutes, for some reason, the screen before his was as bright as day and as vivid as a lucid dream.

[You have consumed a harmful substance]

Suddenly, his magic circle shattered before green energy suddenly appeared out of thin air and entered his body.

'This is like the first time I learned how to cultivate.' Silas widened his eyes before closing them and following the green energy's lead.

He saw everything as if his body had been drawn onto a blueprint. The green energy almost illuminated his body and gave him a correct vision of exactly how his body looked. He could see all his organs, muscles, veins, and arteries. However, one thing was highlighted in a different color, and he assumed it was the poison.

The green energy seemed to move through his hands, feet, nose, and mouth, but instead of going to his core like last time, it was moving right toward the poison in his bloodstream for some reason.

*BOOM, BOOM, BOOM*

The sounds of impact continued, yet Silas did his best to concentrate on the thing he had at hand.

The green energy seamlessly illuminated all the poison in his bloodstream, but instead of destroying it like Silas had expected, he was forced to widen his eyes when he saw the green energy enter it.

Due to the magical nature of the poison, this was the equivalent of powering it to do more damage. However, Silas trusted his evolution blessing. No. It wasn't the evolution blessing that he trusted. He trusted the life equation branded onto his soul and mind.

Sure, it destroyed Earth and its human population while turning all animals and humans into mutated monsters, but that was his mistake, not the life equations.

The life equation had done nothing but help him from the very start. It essentially gave him limitless youth in his previous life despite it not having done the same for others. It branded itself into his soul and gave him another chance at life. Despite many tries, it gave him a family, so no matter what happened, he was going to trust it with his life.

Closing his eyes, Silas assisted the green energy with his own mana and did the exact same thing it did, but he quickly realized he was in for another surprise.

Suddenly, the poison stopped spreading throughout his bloodstream and was instead illuminated green and broken down into its main components.

That's when Silas saw the green screen one more time, and it said-

[The Evolution blessing is taking effect]

[You have evolved]

[You have become resistant to all basic mana poisons]

[You have become you built a tolerance to all poisons]

------------------

{If you have enjoyed this chapter and would like to support the author, please vote using your power stones or golden tickets. Also, you can join my discord server today to see illustrations or to converse about the latest chapters.}