20 Spear & Shield

The duo arrived at glory shelter a week later.

It only was a few hours walk, originally, but they got sidetracked talking and hunting. They developed a budding friendship, although it was more of an admiration from Fen Xi.

Once he realized just the level of Ling Yun's beast souls and his strength using his spear, he begged for him to teach him. Fen Xi was more of a sword user, as Ling Yun pointed out, but he said he would happily switch to a spear if he could teach him.

When Ling Yun summoned the mantis reaper sword and started teaching him, he realized he was a master with not just the spear, but the sword as well. And from what he could see, he was incredibly proficient with the bow and arrow as well. He was practically idolizing him by this point.

He also got rather depressed at finding out his purpose for coming to the Glory Shelter.

"So, brother Yun, why did you come to the Glory Shelter? You have business here? Or maybe some friends?" He asked one day.

"Nah, no friends or anything like that. You could just say its business. At the Steel Armor Shelter there is a very strong guy with very good beast souls, and I don't think I could win against him in a fight. And with the martial competition coming close, I came to participate in this Shelter instead. Who knows, maybe I will get myself the representing spot." He smiled wistfully.

Fen Xi, on the other hand, wasn't as amused.

"So, you get here to try and steal our spot? Brother Yun, that's low. Very low." He admonished.

"Oh, yeah? Well, how about I return to my shelter and leave you to learn by yourself? That wouldn't be too low, would it?" He teased.

"Who said what would be too low? If you win the shelter championship, you deserve it. I'm not saying more. I mean, it would only be fair, right?"

He upped his training after that conversation. He wasn't above pretty words.

Ling Yun wanted to return to the alliance to see his family but chose to stay for a week more in order to train the fella a bit.

Once at the shelter, they exchanged information and went their separate ways.

The metal gorilla shapeshifting beast soul had already evolved to sacred-blood, and he had fed the flesh-eating cocoon with the black crystal. He needed two weeks and a half for it to become a sacred-blood shield, and only a week for it to reach the mutant grade.

The martial competition was starting in two weeks, but it would take four or five more days for the group stages to end, and about five more days for the shelter champion to be determined. After that, it would be ten days before main matches, which would take about a week. And once again after that, it would be ten days for the final rankings for the top ten to be settled. So, in total, he had 51 days left until the top ten matches, which was his goal. And just 34 days for the main matches.

So, according to the numbers, he would most likely be able to have a sacred-blood shield by the time he had his first fight in the group stages. Worst case scenario he would have it for his fights after the group stage, but definitely before the shelter championship. So, he started to plan which other beast-soul should he upgrade. With just enough luck, he would be able to get yet another sacred-blood beast soul in time for the top ten fights, which would help him a lot.

Yet, the question remained. Which beast soul to choose?

He took a look at his profile before making his choice.

Ling Yun: Not evolved.

Status: None.

Lifespan: 200 years.

Requirements for evolution: 100 geno points.

Geno points gained: 100 ordinary geno points; 99 primitive geno points; 65 mutant geno points; 10 sacred-blood geno points; 0 super geno points.

Beast souls gained: Super Bluefire Ripper Griffon; Sacred-blood Nightmare Centipede; Sacred-blood Onyx Panther; Sacred-blood Desert Scorpion; Sacred-blood Metal Gorilla; Mutant Flesh-Eating Cocoon(upgrading); Mutant Jet Lizard; Mutant Black-Feathered Hummingbird; Mutant Bloody Bee; Mutant Dagger-Clawed Bear; Primitive Mantis Reaper; Primitive Swift Mosquito; Primitive Blue Eagle; Primitive Winged Salamander; Primitive Horned Thunder Python; Primitive Black-Clawed Emerald Falcon; Primitive Tri-Horned Shark.

His three mounts were out, as they would be near useless in a fight. And it that vein, so would be his pet python; even if he upgraded it to sacred-blood, the possibility of it attaining battle mode before the competition started was close to zero. And even then, he had little ugly as a sacred-blood pet. His bow and arrows were out as well, since he would need to upgrade both to sacred-blood for him to use them fully. Especially in a competition such as this. The dagger-clawed bear was the beast soul he kept from killing Ye Lang. It was the dagger that belonged to the guy he fought first. And since he didn't have any technique for that weapon, it was out as well.

So, at this point, he was only left with two options. He either upgraded his mantis reaper sword or his winged salamander wings. And since he was planning on fighting with the spear and shield both in hand, having a sword would be useless unless he suddenly grew a third arm. Which wasn't going to happen.

His wings would be near useless in combat too, but they could be used in a decisive moment. And he really didn't want someone pulling a shameless Han Sen over him.

So, he decided his flying beast soul would be his best bet. Though he was left with a somewhat sour taste at his choice. If he was upgrading his wings, the bow and arrow would be excellent weapons to have. They would let him rain death from above towards his enemies.

Unfortunately, he just didn't have enough time.

He had almost maxed his primitive geno points, too, but was still one point short. And his mutant ones weren't seeing much progress after a few days. He found out that the higher the count got, he would have more trouble getting ten whole points from any given creature. The change was unnoticeable with ordinary geno points and negligible for primitive ones, but for mutant points it made quite the number.

If he remembered correctly, Han Sen had a fitness index of around ten by the time he participated in the competition. And right now, he had only around eight and a half. Those sacred-blood geno points really make a difference, he thought. Still, with his skills and beast souls, he should be fully capable of reaching top 10. Especially once his trump card came into play. Once he used "that" his fitness could temporarily rise by 25% without much side effects, even though he could only use it sparingly.

His next hurdle would be without a doubt the admission to military school, as he would need a greater fitness index than that he held currently. He also needed to settle on a school, a major, and a club. He was heavily leaning towards Blackhawk, but that was only because of the familiarity factor. The department was still up in the air, though he had a few good prospects, and he had almost definitely settled on a club.

The "Hand of God" club would be perfect for him. He could beat Han Sen's control over his body with the effortless body, which far outshined the basic version of Jadeskin Han Sen was using and could even have a better response time with "accelerated cognition". He could even use his heavenly eye to react even quicker. All things considered, he would be able to obtain renown and have it easy. Not many responsibilities, and a big exposure.

He really needed to download the game and see what the game was about in real life, though. He only had the novel's description to go along with.

He had spent three weeks inside the sanctuary this time, which was a long time to go without a shower. He quickly arrived at his home and got one. Once he got out, he opened the Skynet and searched for a video he always wanted to watch. And lo and behold, it was the most trending one in the alliance.

"I've got to say, watching a golden hero rescuing kids and killing a shura sure is inspiring. Especially with this edition work. I now see why Dollar became so popular." He mused out loud while eating.

"Anne, how go our finances?" He asked chirpily.

Just three weeks ago she left her with thirty million dollars, and he was hoping for a substantial increase in this time.

"Master, the profit generated in this time amounts to 174,216,487.67 levo dollars. The prediction for the end of the month puts profits at around 650 million."

Ling Yun grinned from ear to ear. At one point he swore his face was going to shatter from his expression.

'I need to get a good result in the competition. If I reach the top ten, I can finally have a plausible excuse for my finances and start giving stronger sums of money to mum. Even if I don't reach the top 10 but manage a good result it should be possible. Not ideal, but doable. After all, it is only my first year in the sanctuary. As for my already existing high-grade beast souls, I've already got it covered.' Ling Yun thought and nodded to himself.

After that, he opened the store in search for a shield form.

He knew the basics of it, as it was for most weapons. He had to thank the compulsory education for it. While the standards where not exactly high, they served perfectly fine as a template for future upgrades and self-styles developments.

He set the filters for shield forms but didn't set a top price. He had four universal techniques vouchers left, and there was just no way he was going to master the other technique he bought anytime soon, even with the system's time-bending training room. So, he might as well practice something else to up his chances.

There were a lot of possible techniques to choose from, but few were compatible with him.

The biggest problem in Ling Yun's eyes, was that he already had a spear form technique, and he relied heavily on it. The Venomous Rattlesnake was godly on what it did, which was fast, nimble attacks that targeted opponent's vitals. The problem was, he wouldn't be agile enough to perform the form correctly with a shield. His speed would also decrease, but not by much. The problem was agility.

In the end, he settled for a form technique called "Spear and Shield Form Perfection". This was quite similar to the weapon mastery techniques he had bought previously, but obviously emphasized in combinations and strategies he could perform while using both a spear and a shield simultaneously.

Although there was apparently not much difference between a mastery technique and a perfection technique, the difference was quite high. Just look at the price, for example.

The mastery techniques would've been ridiculously expensive had he paid for them, each one standing at one billion levo dollars. And the price was just right, considering it granted a mastery over the basics of any given weapon, letting you learn techniques far faster and easier. But that was just mastery over a weapon.

With the perfection techniques, you would be as close to perfect as you could. If you made a mistake in a form, there was always a way you could use it to slip into another one and use it to your advantage. Also, these techniques had different levels, instead of just the completion percentage. They were student, apprentice, and novice for the early stage; experienced, proficient, and adept, for the middle stage; expert, master, and grandmaster for the late stage; and finally, the perfection level as the peak stage. But this alone wasn't what was so convenient for each of these techniques. No, what made them stand out from the others was the derived techniques.

Derived techniques were techniques that could be learnt while studying something else, they were a by-product of the other technique. In the case of Spear and Shield Perfection, you would learn a new technique at every stage. So, there were four techniques in total.

Of course, with something as useful as this form technique, the price would never be low.

The complete price for the Spear and Shield Perfection form technique was thirty billion levo dollars, but he didn't have to pay for it. Since he had his universal technique vouchers, he just used one of them for that technique, leaving him with only three.

Still, for him it was a good move. He needed something more to solidify his fighting style and his venomous rattlesnake combined with a shield just wasn't going to cut it. Maybe when he had reached a high enough level, he would be able to combine that with the new spear and shield perfection.

So now, with only three universal technique vouchers left, and most of his preparations complete, he was starting to think about the future of his family. Even Han Sen gave the best geno art he could buy to his family, so why wouldn't Ling Yun be able to do the same, or even better?

He had the system that sold a monstrous amount of cultivation techniques and three remaining universal technique vouchers, after all…

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