Steel Bones Spirit

Just 2 days following Deon's return from the upper region, the Kingdom of Restari closed off entry to its military personnel. Even generals were no exception to this, showing that the kingdom clearly expected the area to become an all out battleground soon enough.

It was already a battleground to many though….thousands of elites had lost their lives in this place, 206 of them died at Deon's hands in fact. His kill count was definitely the highest of any individual 1-Star shaman on either side, which was probably worth another award, but at this point, Deon was earning so much merit and achievements that he could barely keep up with it all.

He didn't find any more gold class spirits in natural areas, but he did loot one from the corpse of a fallen Fan captain. Aside from this, he also secured 7 natural silver class spirits, 2 silver class spirits from his enemies, 12 natural bronze class spirits and 34 bronze class spirits from his felled foes.

None of these spirits were more useful to him than the spirits he already possessed. Even a gold class spirit might not be as useful as an ordinary class spirit to an individual, it depended entirely on their needs and the spirit's suitability.

The natural spirits were generally more valuable on account of their scarcity. Even some of the ordinary class 1-Star spirits were now being sold for thousands of merit points in the catalogue, simply because their numbers were limited; these spirits could only be found on mountains, they couldn't be reproduced.

Deon had accumulated a vast sum of merit points. Even after spending many merit points on the remaining resources needed to create the body tempering spirits multiple times over, he now possessed 82,000 merit points!

Although he wasn't informed of the exact breakdown regarding how much he earned for each achievement, Deon believed that most of these points were his payment for the spirits and resources he handed over without complaint.

Well, he knew for a fact that the moon river reed spirit earned him 40,000 points. It was most definitely worth more than this, the merit system was something of a scam. Deon guessed that they only really paid half the value for the spirits that were turned over, but he supposed that the kingdom needed to make a profit somehow to keep things running.

Anyway, his main goal wasn't to amass countless points, but to prove his 'loyalty' and thus earn some sweet promotions. It had now been 6 months since this war began and 10 months since Deon graduated from the academy and officially entered the military.

The one year mark was quickly approaching…

After one year, he had no doubt that he would be promoted to captain…if he chose to take the position that is. Some might consider the vice commander position to be more prestigious.

Deon didn't want the 'captain' position though, he wanted to become a full fledged commander! Only by becoming a commander would he gain a degree of freedom in his actions, along with the authority to make a meaningful impact in this war!

A single year to become a commander, he knew that even with his accomplishments, the only way to be awarded the rank of commander after serving for only one year, was to ascend and become a 2-Star shaman.

If he became a 2-Star shaman, the position would be his, no doubt about it. 'Commander' was even below the status of a 2-Star shaman; any 2-Star commander would naturally become a lieutenant later on, after some more service and proving their ability on the battlefield. Technically, the minimum requirement to become a lieutenant was also only one year of service, but this had never happened in practise. As far as Deon knew, the record speed for attaining the position of lieutenant was two and half years of active service.

'That's not relevant right now though. I still haven't received the order to return to the 37th unit, so I'll make the most of this time and refine some more spirits!'

With not much else to do, Deon only participated in 2 activities; refining spirits and using the steel bones spirit to enhance his bones.

Similarly to the metal tendons spirit, the steel bones spirit was largely misunderstood by the shamans in this kingdom. They only used the spirit to 90% completion, perhaps 95% if they could be bothered and 99% for those determined few.

But, since it seemed to be 'common knowledge' amongst the shamans Deon spoke to, that the steel bones spirit could be passed onto someone else after it was fully used, he concluded that these people were simply clueless.

If the steel bones spirit wasn't used to at least 90% completion before being unbound, then the entirety of the effect that it exerted on the bones would be wasted within minutes. The energy within the bones would dissipate and the bones would return to how they once were in an extremely depressing process.

For this reason, most people just used the spirit to 90% completion before passing it along, but this simply wasn't right in Deon's eyes.

Like the metal tendons spirit, the steel bones spirit needed to be used all the way through to 100% completion for the full effect to display itself!

Perhaps it was because of the dense muscle spirit, where progress would just stop at a certain point, that people assumed the other body tempering spirits were the same. Well, the iron skin spirit produced an effect instantly, whilst the hardened organs spirit activated itself passively and needed no further input to reach completion.

But the fact was, all 5 of the body tempering spirits had a 'point of completion', at every class and at every rank. Striving for anything less than this point was simply idiotic and would never truly reveal the potential of these spirits.

Like with the metal tendons spirit, the pain in activating the steel bones spirit increased at 90% completion and continued to grow stronger as the completion progressed further. After reaching 99%, the pain in taking the final step was actually even worse than with the metal tendons spirit, but it only lasted half as long in most cases.

In the past 2 months, Deon did not relent on his daily steel bones spirit training. Two weeks after the upper region was closed for business, Deon reached 99% completion.

He calmed himself and recovered his origin energy, then took a deep breath and focussed on the small white bone in his soul space. This bone appeared to be covered in a translucent matt-grey finish.

As Deon injected his origin energy, the bone started to vibrate. The speed of vibration rose slowly, until it was no longer a simple vibration, but a jarring and rapid shaking motion.

Along with the vibrating bone in his soul space, Deon's own bones started vibrating in harmony. He felt his organs and skeleton shaking to the point that he was actually injured! He quickly lay down and tied his hands to some tight leather straps.

His legs were already tied and held firmly in place, whilst the straps around his midsection tightened when he yanked on a piece of leather.

Deon felt himself now being held tightly in place, he couldn't move, even if he wanted to.

Of courses, he made absolutely certain that nobody would enter his tent for the following hour. It would be difficult to explain why he was so thoroughly tied up and why his body seemed to be vibrating.

The vibration could easily distract a shaman and forcefully cut their connection to the steel bones spirit. At this point, they would need to begin this final process again.

The reason for tying himself down was actually to prevent injuries like those he started to feel building up earlier. Right now, his entire skeleton was vibrating within his body, slamming into his muscles, organs and everything else. By tying himself up, the movement would be decreased and the damage wouldn't be so bad.

With this sorted, Deon grit his teeth and forced even more origin energy into the spirit. The vibration increased to a new level and blood started leaking from his mouth, nose and eyes.

This vibration wasn't without reason. As time passed by, the vibrating spirit in his soul space slowly eroded away, the dust then entered his body and landed on his bones. The vibration forced the dust to cover the bones, enter the bone, then evenly disperse throughout.

This process continued all the way until the steel bones spirit disappeared. The spirit was no more, every scrap of its essence was absorbed into Deon's bones.

After resting for a few minutes, Deon awkwardly undid the straps and sat up painfully with a grin.

"Now this…this is the true steel bones!"

There were many shamans with 'steel bones' obtained by using the spirit to 90% completion. In Deon's eyes, they were just frauds! The strength of the bones with 100% completion was 5 times that obtained with a mere 90% completion!

This was also the only way to create the proper foundation for future use of this spirit. Whether it was the 2-Star version or the bronze class version, completely using the previous spirit was essential for successful usage of the higher versions.

Even though he was a long way a way right now, Deon was already considering his future path, the path towards using the 5 mythril class body tempering spirits, the path towards increasing his internal talent!