Old Giant Head

Seeing that his origin energy was continuing to deplete, Deon removed the suffering for time spirit, which could survive on its own anywhere anyway. He dumped it in the cauldron and shut the lid shut, since it had a bad habit of shaking and rolling around when it was left unbound.

His origin energy was still declining. Without hesitating, he removed 2 more spirits.

After this, Deon began to refine drop spirits quickly. He had 5 spirits remaining within his soul space, but one of those was his core spirit, whilst the other 4 he wouldn't take out casually.

Even with just 5 spirits in his soul space, his origin energy was still decreasing. Thankfully, after he began to rapidly refine the drop spirits, the rate of his origin energy's decline slowed down…but didn't stop. As time passed by, the rate of reduction began to speed up once again.

Deon frowned and stared at this damned necklace. If his origin energy really hit absolute zero and then more was drained away, the energy would be extracted from his origin soul! If that happened, his soul would collapse and he would die!

The yin-yang symbol continued to glow with a bright light as more and more origin energy was devoured.

"Eh?" Deon narrowed his eyes and leaned further in. Now that he paid closer attention, it was actually just the black half that was glowing, the white half was only very faintly glowing with a red aura that could barely be seen reflected in the sun.

"Damnit, so obvious!" Deon almost smacked himself, then quickly turned towards the startled Remi.

"Quickly, inject your origin energy into the white half!"

"H-huh, what, but why?"

"Just do it!"

Deon was sweating slightly now, his origin energy was below 10%…8%…5%!

"Ok, fine." Remi placed her hand on the white half of the necklace and injected her origin energy. The moment her origin energy entered the necklace, everything changed.

Firstly, Deon's origin energy fully recovered. Overjoyed, he quickly retrieved his spirits, aside from the new suffering for time spirit, which he left alone to roll around in his cauldron.

The necklace seemed to be aware of their limits, it only devoured their origin energy at a rate that they could recover from.

"Refine some drop spirits to hurry this up." Deon passed the metal canteen to Remi, who nodded and did the same as Deon.

Indeed, as they began using the drop spirits to refine more origin energy, the rate at which the pendant devoured their energy increased.

"Maybe we should removed our spirits to speed this up…" Deon muttered, but just at this moment, another change occurred.

WHOOSH!

Their origin energy was suddenly depleted down to a third for Remi, a half for Deon.

Deon dropped the pendant on the table and stood back. He watched silently as it continued to glow, the black and white lights growing brighter and brighter by the second.

Wump!

Suddenly, the lights stopped.

But now, within the tent, an enormous, floating, translucent head, stared back at them.

"Ahhhh!" Remi screamed in fright, but Deon remained calm and prevented her from running away.

"It's just recording, relax."

"A recording…? What the hell is a recording?!" She stared at him, now realising that from start to finish, he hadn't found any of this the least bit strange!

"Well, is that your grandfather?" Deon nodded forwards towards the giant head that had suddenly materialised above the yin-yang symbol.

She turned back fearfully, but after examine the giant floating head…she realised that it really was her great grandfather!

"G-Great grandfather, what happened to you?! How did you turn into a giant head?!" She cried out sorrowfully, leaving Deon speechless.

"Hey, I just said it's a recording, it's like…a painting that moves and talks."

"Talks? So it's not my great grandfather, but it is alive?" She turned to Deon with wide eyes.

He felt a headache…technology in this world was just too terrible, there was simply no easy way to explain this to her.

"Look, whatever this head is about to say, it's just a message that your great grandfather left for you…eh, probably, I mean, it could be…"

"A real time communication?" The giant head spoke with a smile

"…"

"…"

"…"

'Why did you just sit there silently for so long instead of just explaining that this was actually a video call!' Deon couldn't help but feel irritated.

"So it really is you, great grandfather!" Remi exclaimed and stepped forwards in awe. Deon couldn't be bothered to explain anything to her any longer, so he just watched as she tried to touch the face, before recoiling in shock when her hand went straight through it.

"Oh my young great grand-daughter, worry not, just think of this image as a reflection, like you're looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of me from elsewhere." The giant old head chuckled.

"Oh, I see, that makes sense!"

"…"

The head smiled at Remi, before turning slightly and glancing at Deon.

"Hmm…"

Before the head could say anything, Deon directly explained their current situation. He didn't want to waste anymore time and got straight to the most important point.

The old man's eyes widened, but before saying anything, he turned to Remi for confirmation. She nodded miserably, and the old man's face flashed with cold light instantly.

"Trash descendent!" He spat out after hearing about Remi's uncle, then muttered:

"I see, so that's how it is. Hmm…"

After a minute of silence, Deon was growing impatient. If this old guy wasn't going to help out, then he really needed to be preparing himself!

"So are you going to help or not? If not, we need to go prepare."

The old man glanced at them both and sighed before shaking his head.

"I'm currently unable to return in a short while. Hmm, what to do…"

"Great grand father, you, you really can't-"

"Well how about giving us some spirit refining recipes then? Something useful that will help us."

After seeing Deon immediately change his tactic, the old man sized him up curiously.

"That's an interesting ring you have on your finger, child. You said that you wanted to prepare before the coming battle…what preparations do you intend to make?"

Deon's expression changed slightly. The old grandpa had clearly seen through the true nature of his ring!

Deon hesitated, but in the end, he told the giant floating head about his plans to temper his body with the assistance of the suffering for time spirit.

"Prove to me that you can do this." The floating head replied.

Deon frowned, but it seemed like Remi's great grandfather would not provide them with any help until he 'proved himself'.

Clearly, the old man had not yet decided on how to deal with this situation. In the end, Deon sat down and started training.

He activated the first stage of the spirit. The suffering for time spirit gained an additional stage for every extra class evolution. This spirit was at the silver class, so there were three stages. Also, since it was 1-Star silver class, it could only be used properly with 1-Star ordinary, bronze and silver class body tempering spirits.

The first stage increased the rate of progress with a body tempering spirit by 10 fold, in exchange for enduring 100 times as much pain.

Was this a fair exchange? If you had bountiful free time, then no. But if you were pressed for time and trying to improve as quickly as possible…

Deon took a deep breath, then activated the bronze bones spirit. Since he had reached 90% completion, the pain he had to endure would continue to increase until he reached 100% completion and the spirit was absorbed into his bones. It was possible to stop at 90%, but the effect of reaching 100% was 5 times greater than the effect of reaching 90%!

Activating steel bones beyond 90% was already too painful for most people to bother with. As for bronze bones, it was even more painful, whilst the improvement wasn't even as good.

Deon calmly felt the pain, the aching, the burning, the itching…

'100 times worse than this should still be tolerable enough.' He thought.

As soon as he activated the suffering for time spirit, its effect combined not only with the bronze bones spirit, but also with the hardened organs spirit!

However, in the first place, the hardened organs spirit didn't even cause the user any pain.

Actually, when he activated the suffering for time spirit previously, it didn't even affect the hardened organs spirit. The suffering for time spirit only affect the organ tempering spirits if it was being used alongside one of the other active use body tempering spirits.

'100 times pain…this really is…a bit painful.' For a few seconds, Deon furrowed his brows. His breathing was slightly heavy, but under his careful control, he gradually returned his breathing to normal.

Within a single minute, he adjusted to the 100 fold increase in pain without so much as breaking a sweat.

"Incredible, for a mere 1-Star shaman to possess such mental fortitude, I've never seen anything like it!" The old man's giant eyes shone. However, the shock created by Deon was only just beginning.

"He increased it again!" The old man was now stunned. Deon was visibly trembling and he gritted his teeth. He started sweating and it took 3 full minutes just for his body to stop trembling. Not once did he consider giving up though. In fact, as soon as he stopped sweating…

Deon started trembling so much that he was almost convulsing, he clearly increased the usage of the suffering for time spirit by another stage!

"10 times the progress and 100 times the pain for the first stage. 20 times the progress and 333 times the pain for the second stage. 30 times the rate of progress and 1000 times the pain for the third stage!" The old man spoke seriously after recovering from his surprise.

Remi was dumbfounded and turned to stare at Deon with a disbelieving expression.

She had used the steel bone spirit herself, she knew that after reaching 90%, the pain became too much to tolerate, even for her. The bronze bone spirit was said to be even more torturous.

How could he endure 1000 times more than that?!

Deon only stopped convulsing after 15 minutes.

Honestly, this sort of rapid progress, despite its torturous nature, was actually somewhat to his liking.

Since he had reached 90% and had just 10% remaining until he reached full completion, this last 10% should require 15 hours of active use to get through. However, with the suffering for time spirit activated at the third stage, this previously 15 hour task had been reduced to 30 minutes!

30 minutes later, Deon reached the absolute peak of 99% completion. The bone tempering spirit was slightly strange in that on reaching 99%, the final percentage could only be achieved by devouring the spirit into the bones.

Just as Deon was preparing to go on, the old man called out:

"Are you trying to die? If you use any stage of the suffering for time spirit to complete this absorption, all of your bones will be turned to dust in an instant, then your body will explode."

Deon paused, shivered slightly, then nodded towards the giant head before closing his eyes and continuing.

Last time, he needed to strap himself down to prevent his skeleton from violently shaking. Now however, Deon's overall physique was strong enough that with some effort, he was able to more or less sit still.

A few minutes later, the bronze bone spirit in his soul space suddenly shattered into ash, then the ash immediately spread out through his bones. Not long after, Deon was panting for breath, but he recovered within a few minutes.

He stood up and faced the giant face, confident that this was sufficient to 'prove himself'.

"Are you willing to provide use with your help now?" Deon asked directly.

The old man sighed.

"You are indeed quite good, but in the end, the only way I can see you defeating that boy is if you become a 2-Star shaman."

"I see." Deon nodded. "Then I suppose I'll just have to do that."

"Oh, you seem to have a reason for your confidence, does your core spirit possess unique ascension criteria that you're able to fulfil?"

"Only if I get stronger first. The stronger I get, the easier and faster I'll be able to reach 2-Star…so, how about helping me to become stronger?"

He was yet to give up on trying to extort some worth out of this old man. Deon knew that this person must know many valuable things, for one simple reason.

This person had created the yin-yang treasure pendant…only 4-Star shamans were able to create treasures!

Shockingly, Remi's great grandfather was at least a 4-Star shaman!

"Remi, would you mind letting this kid and myself have a little chat?"

After convincing Remi to leave, Deon and the old man were left alone together in the tent.

They did not have long, and the two of them immediately got down to business.

Perhaps it was the instinct of a demon, but Deon had already realised that Remi's great grand father was a demonic path shaman.

The old man had realised the same about Deon.

Despite the two of them being a pair of self serving individuals, they were able to cooperate extremely efficiently. They didn't bother with any other superfluous words, knowing that they had limited time.

The old man wanted Deon to protect Remi, and since he could not convince the two of them to flee from the kingdom, his only option was to help Deon become strong enough to protect her, whilst also tempting him with the promise of future benefits in exchange for keeping her safe.

Deon extorted all that he could from this powerhouse in these few minutes…

World knowledge, spirit recipes, shaman secrets…

And finally, he learned some details regarding the languages of those books left behind by Blood God.

After the yin-yang treasure pendant ran dry of energy and entered an inactive state, the old man's final words lingered in Deon's mind.

'Be wary of allies, trust only her father. As for the rest, kill as many as you see fit…but if you harm that girl, I'll definitely hunt you down and kill you. Also, no matter what, if she dies in the next 3 years, I'll just blame it on you and kill you anyway.'

In the end, the old man was a demon and directly threatened Deon.

Deon laughed and shook his head…so what, now he was supposed to protect Remi?

He would keep her safe if he could, but he wouldn't trouble himself with this matter too much. That old man sounded like he wouldn't be coming this way anytime soon, and Deon didn't intend to stay in this kingdom forever.

"Old man, you should know well…for us demons, there is no such thing as 'I would never kill', only, 'right now, killing this person is not suitable'."