Chapter 13

Amra took a moment to consider, "Well, I think it should be something that can be deadly, as any weapon should be, but also versatile with an external use. Maybe a hammer? You have just finished four years of almost daily blacksmithing and a hammer would let you complete this profession with your spirit rather than a forged tool."

Yuhao nodded at these suggestions, "That does like a really good idea. So an Ultimate Ice Hammer? It is a shame we can't integrate a cutting aspect to the weapon…"

"Well why not?" Daydream spoke up quickly, "A tool can have two sides right? And we know that tool spirits such as hammer axes exist so why can't we use that concept? If we have the hammer on one side and then a cutting blade on the other it would work well. What is the best cutting weapon?

Yuhao got to thinking of all the different weapons he has smithed over the last four years, "Well there are swords, daggers, axes, knives, spears, though they are more for piercing, halberd, scythes…."

Upon saying the last one and thinking of materialising a hammer-scythe into battle against his enemies brought a grin to his face. Being able to cut down everyone in his path and those he can't, crush under overwhelming force was definitely a nice image to have. "Yes definitely a scythe. A hammer-scythe would be a formidable weapon."

Daydream and Amra both nodded at this thought. Just as Daydream went to begin moulding the spirit essence into the desired weapon, Amra spoke up, "You, using your ultimate ice essence to create this spirit essence was a great idea Daydream, and has given me my own one. Even though I can't create a separate essence, it is possible for me to use some of my own ultimate fire essence to convert the formless essence into one of ultimate ice and ultimate fire. The benefits are that you will have a weapon that controls both fire and ice completely as the two opposing elements will be contained within the tool spirit. This means they will not rampage throughout your body, which would happen if you had a fire and ice beast spirit, as they are evenly matched and balance the other out. If, for example, my fire essence was only normal fire and not of the ultimate variant, your body would eventually tear itself apart after a year or so, regardless of your foundation and physique. The only present downside through this process is that by me using my fire essence, all but my strongest fire skill will be unusable for you. My strongest fire skill will probably be given to you as the last ring gained from completely absorbing my blood essence, and therefore, not for a while.

Yuhao only thought about this for a moment, "Yes that is a good idea Amra. It will create an even more formidable spirit essence for me. Even though I may lose those other fire-based spirit skills, I, as you said, will still receive the strongest one from you and can get fire skills on the hammer-scythe anyways. It seems like that is the best decision no matter what way you look at it."

Daydream nodded in agreement.

"Very well. Let's begin Daydream," Amra stated.

Following this statement, a massive cut, which looked small in comparison to the lion, appeared on Amra's body, as ultimate fire essence was being drained from it to match that supplied by Daydream. It began flowing into a condensed red orb, before merging into the already existing condensed blue orb. Once this was completed, both Daydream and Amra exerted their formidable mental powers to shape the formless fire and ice essence into that of a hammer-scythe. After several minutes, just before the weapon was fully formed and solidified, a small portion of grey essence flowed out of the 'sleeping' spirit in the mindscape, that both Yuhao and Amra know of as the Necromancer.

One minute later, the hammer-scythe's final form was created. The entire weapon was coloured a very deep purple, on the verge of black. It had a 1.7-metre-tall shaft made out of metal. On top of the shaft, on one side, there was a hammer, that was 10 centimetres in width, 15 centimetres tall and extended from the shaft by 20 centimetres. On the other side, there was a long scythe blade. It was 15 centimetres tall, 2 centimetres thick, but a massive 50 centimetres in length that had a slight curve to it. What the two conscious spirit beasts did not plan for, was a long, grey chain being attached to the bottom. While Yuhao did not know why it was added, he trusted that the Necromancer wouldn't have added it without reason, and he will just ask him once he heals.

"It looks good" Amra and Daydream exclaimed simultaneously, causing both of them to laugh.

"Yes it does. You, my friends, have done well. Thank you." Yuhao stated sincerely.

Daydream seeing that Yuhao was just admiring it yelled out frustratedly, "Well, what are you waiting for, materialise it already!"

Rather than replying, Yuhao did just that. As he materialised his new, third spirit essence, not including the Necromancer spirit essence as it doesn't follow the normal cultivation methods of this world, he felt the name enter his head.

"FrostFire" Yuhao murmured as he tried to process the innate abilities associated with it.

Hearing this Daydream let out a chuckle, "It sounds cool!"

Yuhao nodded, "Yes, yes it does. Well, prepared to be surprised with its abilities. It passively allows me to be immune to all fire and ice elements, including ultimate variants, as long as the attack is not stronger than two greater spirit ranks. Not only that the chain is able to wrap around my arm, allowing me to throw the weapon at enemies if I wish and is able to grow and shrink to an extent to allow for this. I'd say that is pretty impressive."

Amra seeking the lapse in conversation decided to speak up about what to do next, "Now that we have that sorted, I think we should try and get you a second spirit ring, possibly on both the spirit eyes and Steel Space Dragon spirits. We could also see if we can find a suitable one for the hammer-scythe as well."

Daydream spoke quickly, "I know of one we must get for the tool spirit. It is a 'friend' I have up in the Extreme North. She is the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion and is quite hesitant to break through the 400,000 bottleneck as she doesn't want to risk death. I am sure I can convince her to also become a conscious spirit ring like myself."

"That is a good idea," Yuhao commented. He then questioned them about the Illusion Fox that was still sticking around where Yuhao's body was sitting.

"Hmm, it may be a little tough to preserve her consciousness with her only being over five thousand years, but her skill is definitely worthwhile using one of my ten hundred-thousand-year-old age boosters. That would allow her to develop a consciousness in its entirety and significantly boost not only the illusion skill her species is famous for but also boost the second skill that all one-hundred-thousand-year-old spirit rings give."

Hearing this confirmation, Yuhao brought his consciousness out of his mindscape to look for the illusion fox. Upon catching the sight of it, he brought another piece of jerky out from his storage bracer, causing the fox to quickly dash over. Once she finished the treat and calmed down from the commotion of seeing Daydream enter into his body, Daydream created a mental link with her. This link allowed Daydream to carry her thoughts about what was about to happen to the fox. Even if the fox can't form her own mental link and words, she is able to understand the language. Once she understood that they wanted to increase her age and preserve her consciousness as one of Yuhao's spirit eyes, spirit rings, she yelped happily and assisted Daydream with the process.

This process lasted for over two hours, with the illusion fox mutating due to Amra's bloodline into a 5-tailed illusion fox, before once again evolving, this time into a 9-tailed illusion fox when Daydream released the age booster essence and allowing her to reach one-hundred-thousand years. Following this process as the fusion died down, a new, vibrant red ring appeared alongside Daydream's own white-gold spirit ring. As it completely materialised, Yuhao gained the knowledge on what skills the spirit ring gave him. Being a 100,000-year spirit ring Yuhao would usually receive two spirit skills, however, in special cases, such as this one, only one skill would be given. This is because this one skill would, in comparison be much more powerful than a normal skill.

His second spirit eyes ring gave him the skill Spiritual Deception, which allows the user to create illusions that trick all possible senses. These illusions, Yuhao realised, can allow him to not only allow him and his spirit rings to appear as something or someone else in both form and aura, but he can also hide his attacks or create illusion attacks similar to what the fox did prior to trick his opponents. Overall, this spirit ring has an extremely versatile skill in the illusion department.

Simultaneously to Yuhao gaining the knowledge of the ring's skill, his spirit rank underwent its breakthrough, quickly moving from rank 20 all the way to rank 26. This rapid increase was all due to his constant cultivation efforts over the past four years, as his energy was finally able to expand its total reserves, rather than be restricted to solely purifying and increasing in density.

A new, unknown voice echoed in Yuhao's head, causing him to once again enter his mindscape.

"Thank you" The voice said. The voice had a childish ring to it.

"You are very welcome, little fox" Yuhao replied, chuckling at the cuteness.

"Name" She stated.

Confused, he replied, "My name is Huo Yuhao."

The fox shook her head before stating, "No, name"

Seeing the confusion, Daydream decided to speak up, "Yuhao I think she is asking for you to name her. While she is a one-hundred-thousand-year-old beast in strength, her mentality is still that of a young girl so will rely on us for some things until she can mature."

"Ah, thanks for clarifying that. Well you remind me of a little 9-tailed fox I once heard about called Kunou. How about that then? Kunou?" Yuhao asked.

"Mhm" Kunou, replied back happily, with her tails swishing side to side behind her. She looked into his eyes, paused as if to think of what to say before stating, "Bone."

"Bone? Like spirit bone?" Yuhao replied curiously.

Kunou shook her head in agreement quickly, "Mhm!"

Yuhao quickly exited his mindscape and noticed that the sun was beginning to set.

"Better hurry this up," Yuhao thought.

As he looked on the floor in front of him, where Kunou's body used to be, as she stated, there was a spirit bone lying there. It, by the looks of it, was an extremely rare spirit bone, even in terms of spirit bones as it was an external spirit bone. The bone was 12 centimetres long, and while not standing out to be for a clear location, it being an external bone for a fox species, meant that the most plausible location would be as a sacral bone.

Deciding to absorb it there and then, he pushed his spirit energy throughout it, before bringing it into his body. As he did so, he felt extremely thick, warm energy flow through his body, down his spine and gather just above his own human tail bone, otherwise known as the coccyx on Earth. As the energy stopped gathering and somewhat solidified into the same shape as the bone he held, the name for it appeared in his mind. It was called the 9-Tailed Fox Tails. As he began to understand the knowledge on how to use the bone he realised that these tails were not only prehensile, meaning he could grab things with them, but they also held massive power within them that could be used to stab or slash their surroundings through his thoughts.

"Thank you very much for this gift Kunou. They will be very helpful" Yuhao said to his new conscious spirit beast.