Mountain Training

Deon agreed to produce 3 bronze muscle spirits each week whilst also practising other spirit refinements. He was supposed to give up all of his produced spirits to the kingdom, but it would probably be fine, or rather it would go unnoticed, if he kept one or two for himself.

Unknown to Deon, Lieutenant Shi's observations of his actions created a big shockwave in the upper echelon of the kingdom, even many generals and the king's very brother started to keep an eye on this upcoming talent! Many officials wanted to pull Deon out from the front lines to become a full time spirit refiner, but this idea was shot down on account of Deon's own wishes.

If he was able to refine for the kingdom whilst also fighting on the front lines, then so be it. Honestly though, the biggest problem was that they had turned Deon into a renowned war hero, pulling him out of the battlefield at this point was easier said than done.

Three days later, Deon was presented with a series of materials, spirits and recipes. Clearly, he was expected to use these things to practise his spirit refining, handing over any spirits he produced in the process. Of course, if he totally wasted everything, there wouldn't be a second generous offering like this.

Deon wanted practice and the kingdom wanted products, this cooperation worked well enough.

Most of the recipes he received from the kingdom were for basic spirits. These spirits weren't much use to him, but any practise was useful regardless.

Deon still wasn't given the poison thorn and rapid step spirit refinement methods, as these basic spirits were the core of the kingdom's bulk shaman military might. Although these spirits were basic and not overly powerful, the kingdom couldn't risk such recipes of mass producible spirits leaking into enemy hands.

After another month passed by and Lieutenant Shi returned, she now felt numb to Deon's abilities.

"Could you provide me with a bit more next time? I used up everything aside from the bronze muscle spirit resources within three weeks. Some class evolution recipes would be good too." Deon said as she stared at his products.

In one month, he produced 12 bronze muscle spirits as promised. He also produced 3 swift leaf spirits, 2 metal tendon spirits, 4 hardened organ spirits and 5 steel bone spirits.

In fact, he actually produced one more metal tendon and steel bone spirit than this, but decided to keep them for himself in the end. He had been putting off using these body tempering spirits for some time, but now that he had them on hand, he ended up keeping them for his own use.

"You…never produced any of these before now, right?" Lieutenant Shi asked weakly.

"That's right." Deon nodded.

By now, he understood that his refinement ability was actually beyond the top 1-Star spirit refiners in the kingdom. Only those rare few 2-Star spirit refiners could surpass Deon's success rate when refining 1-Star spirits.

Deon didn't realise that his abilities were so extreme before now, otherwise he wouldn't have displayed the full extent of his talent. It seemed that the tempering of his mortal soul within the underworld trial had some rather huge advantages that were only beginning to display themselves now…

At this point, trying to hide his talent would be impossible, so he might as well continue along this attention-attracting path.

Another month passed by.

Deon knew that he couldn't just hole himself up, refining and training forever, and this month proved this to be true.

After the troops of the 37th unit had a month to rest and reinforce the camp, they were sent on various small scale missions throughout the surrounding area. Exploration, scouting, reconnaissance and so on.

The war had escalated and the kingdom was now living under full blown wartime law. Many thousands of citizens signed up to become soldiers every single week, creating an influx in the academies that were now running condensed training programmes.

They were now aware of the locations of every major Fan Kingdom base on this South East quarter of the upper mountain. Likewise, the Fan Kingdom was also well aware of their enemy's locations.

Large scale battles broke out here and there, but mostly it was skirmishes between exploration groups on either side. Both sides were searching for more rare spirits that might be growing on the upper half of the practically unexplored mountain. Almost everyone above the mid-way point was a shaman, so the battles could become brutal very quickly, even when there were only a few people on either side.

The South East stretch of the mountain became a sort of naturally formed border between the two sides. Camps lined up and down the mountain at this border, but there was a 500ft gap between the Restari and the Fan, where nobody dared to set up camp. They could only slowly expand their already formed camps into this territory and take on any disputes this caused.

Deon also involved himself in these missions, acting as a sort of temporary captain for the new recruits who were brought into the 37th unit. These recruits weren't up to the standard of the other recruits who had undergone Reana's training, and none of the captains felt that it would be suitable to spread them across the existing groups.

And so, Deon now had 50 fresh recruits straight from the academy serving under him. This was the first time he was actually given real authority, and admittedly, it felt pretty good.

Deon spent this month training the recruits up within the camp, whilst incorporating some guard duty and exploration into their training. Being forced to learn whilst in active duty hardened them up quickly, and also dispelled any doubts they held towards being commanded by a young child.

Seeing Deon in combat would do this to anyone. He was quick witted, calm, and ferocious. He decapitated an enemy with every single swing of his core spirit sword.

The calm blood-soaked child, the vice commander of the 37th unit, struck fear and reverence into the hearts of these recruits. Chatting with others in the unit during their free time and learning about Deon's various accomplishments only made their respect deepen further.

Despite being held responsible for training these fresh faces and needing to embark upon exploration and expansion duty himself, Deon still made plenty of time to refine, to train and to use his metal tendon and steel bone spirits.

The tendon line of spirits was considered the most painful of the body tempering spirits. Well, the skin variety also hurt like hell to use, but this searing pain only lasted for seconds at most.

He decided to use the metal tendon spirit first, only because it took less time. If he trained for 4 hours each day with this spirit including recovery time, just like he did with the dense muscle spirit back then, it would only take a single month to completely absorb the effect. Not many people would be able to endure such torment for so long each day though, and it also greatly wore down the mind.

However, Deon actually still had a fair bit of free time right now and wanted to make the best use of this opportunity. He might become too busy later on, so using this time properly was essential.

And so, he made use of the metal tendon spirit for 4 hours each day, including the recovery period where he meditated to restore his origin energy. Deon was just about able to force himself to endure for 10 minutes of use, then spent 10 minutes recovering his energy sufficiently. The mental strain this placed on him was extreme, but he decided to take this as an opportunity to improve the resilience of his mind.

Deon's mental resilience was already far beyond a 1-Star shaman due to his experience in the underworld trial. His body and mind had been further trained to endure this sort of exhaustion through Commander Reana's training regime.

That said, 4 hours was already pushing it when it came to what he could handle. This was the last activity he did each day, because after 4 hours of this suffering, Deon felt brain dead and basically just passed out.

To properly make the most of his time, he also spent 500 merit points on a spirit that was rarely used by shamans: 1-Star bronze class bed bug spirit.

The bed bug spirit formed naturally at 1-Star and could be refined further until 3-Star. This spirit had the effect of reducing a shaman's need for sleep. The 3-Star version almost entirely removed the need for sleep, making a shaman able to get by on 4 hours each month, so long as they recovered their mental strength each day by meditating for half an hour.

The 1-Star version wasn't as impressive, but it was still perfect for his current needs. As a shaman, 6 hours of sleep would feel like a lazy full night, whilst 4 hours was plenty to sustain himself without accumulating exhaustion. Some mortal humans could live like this, but not many could sustain 4 hours of sleep each night long term without even becoming tired.

With the 1-Star bed bug spirit though, Deon only needed to sleep for 4 hours every 2-3 days! Sleeping for 4 hours every three days was plenty to recover his mind and he didn't feel at all tired, even on day three! He still needed to meditate, emptying his mind for one hour each night though, but this was still a big improvement compared to before.

It took some getting used to sleeping so little, but he adjusted within a few days. He didn't sleep at all in the underworld trial, so perhaps he was already accustomed to such a way of living.

Because he now possessed 8 spirits and his origin energy could barely support this, Deon removed the steel bones spirit from his soul space. After unbinding the spirit, he stored it in a barrel of steel filings. This barrel could sustain the steel bone spirit for at least a month and a half, so he didn't need to worry about this anymore.

Deon sat in his tent with his eyes shut. He hadn't slept for three days and was feeling tired, but he wasn't willing to sleep just yet.

'Just a bit more…'

His body was soaked in sweat and his face contorted into a grim expression. The metal tendon spirit in his soul space continued to spin rapidly, it's grey vine-like appearance releasing a grey gas that stormed into Deon's body and settled in his tendons.

Simply using this spirit was notoriously difficult, but right now, Deon was aiming for the complete tendon transformation. Most serious users of this spirit would stop at around 80-90% completion, but the final stretch was actually the most important…and the most painful.

All of the tendons in his body were burning and twitching at the same time. His body looked grotesque as his veins bulged out and grey tubes rose to the surface of his skin.

TSSSS…

Finally, the change that Deon was waiting for. Transforming the tendons was one thing, but completing the transformation required that the grey gas released by the spirit be held within the tendons for a full half hour.

Simply reaching this point of 99% completion was like torture, but Deon continued and successfully persevered for half an hour! Originally, his limit was ten minutes, but this limit gradually increased as his mental resilience improved, as did his efficiency in using this spirit.

The hissing sound dissipated and Deon's body returned to normal. The metal tendon spirit in his soul space seemed to become dormant after releasing that thick grey gas at the end there.

The shamans on the Kingdom of Restari were seemingly unaware that the metal tendon spirit could be used this way.

Once 99% completion was achieved, the spirit released a powerful corrosive grey gas into the tendons, strengthening them by multiple fold compared to before!

Reaching 90% completion strengthened the tendons by 2 times…99% completion increased to 3 times…100% completion resulted in tendons that were 10 times stronger than normal!

Powerful tendons weren't all that useful on their own, but they were needed to support powerful strength. With the metal tendon spirit now fully used, Deon would be able to draw out more of his own muscular strength, the very same strength that he developed with the bronze muscle spirit.