Chapter 20

Upon the Armoured Horn Beast's death, a purple ring rose out of its body. Unlike the last Purple-ranked spirit ring Yuhao had seen, that came from the Black Turtle, this ring was much darker, already over halfway to becoming black.

"Keep on the lookout" Yuhao stated to Amra before sitting down next to the dead beast and beginning the absorption.

He released his spirit eyes and FrostFire spirit, while simultaneously summoning his Steel Space Dragon spirit. As the metallic dragon scales formed over his whole body he absorbed the six-thousand-year-old ring into his body. As he did so, Daydream unsealed another one of her origin energy seals which boosted the ring all the way to one-hundred-thousand years. Unlike previously when the Illusion Fox was upgraded to this level of cultivation and concurrently provided a spirit bone alongside it, this spirit beast was dead, with no consciousness and had the spirit ring separated from its body. This means that even though the ring is at the one-hundred-thousand-year-old level, no spirit bone is produced.

As this massive age increase happened, Yuhao's blood essence began flowing through his body. Some of this essence drifted away from the strong flow and was absorbed into the new spirit ring. This triggered an evolution in the ring, similar to the Black Turtle. The spiritual avatar of the Armoured Horn Beast appeared before slowly transforming into an Armoured War Beast. This spirit beast, unlike the Armoured Unicorn Beast, kept the damage deflection skill, turning it into an aura-based ability instead of a physical manifestation.

As Yuhao's blood essence and spirit power returned to its normal functionality, he arose from his cross-legged stance. While he did so, a wide smile spread across his face. This was due to the most recent information his new spirit ring gave him. Prior to the mutation, he would have received two skills, one that when used would increase both the elemental and physical resistance he would have. The second would have given him the ability to deflect 50% of all damage received if he was moving in a single direction for over 3 seconds.

Post-evolution, while his resistance skill, adeptly named War Beast's Blessing has remained the same, the deflection skill, named Armoured Charge has had a massive change. Now, on top of the previous effects, his damage deflection skill now allows him to keep deflecting 50% of incoming damage as long as he keeps up his forward momentum with an additional one per cent increase in movement speed for every minute consecutive minute it is used. Even though this movement increase may not contribute much to his strength in short scale combat, if he is chasing someone, covering large distances or fighting large groups this ever-increasing movement speed will be significant.

Satisfied, Yuhao began leaving the forest. He had accomplished everything he had set out to achieve in the two months before The Shrek Academy's outer court examination and he still had four days remaining before making the final two-week journey to the academy.

Yuhao, as he began his venture back out of the Icebound Forest, being careful to keep his stealth and perception skills up, was mentally planning out what to do next.

'I only have two days worth of food left in my bracer. I can, with rationing and cultivation extend that to just over a week however, I will need to restock once on the journey ahead. Do I stock up myself through killing and cooking a beast? Nah… That would require me to use up a lot of time to find a beast suitable for consumption as most are too tough or bland. I don't have any spices or anything, so that route would leave the food pretty bland. My other option is to go into a city on the way. Which one would be suitable? I have saved up a considerable amount of money over the last four years so I don't think I will need to worry about funds. Hmm…Now that I think of it, didn't Mum mention about some kind of high-class restaurant on the border of the Haagen-Dasz Kingdom and the Silvers Kingdom? It should be somewhat south-west of here, so it won't be too far out of my way.'

Looking for a second opinion, Yuhao asked his companions, "What do you think guys? Do you think I should use this opportunity to head to Snow Rock City? It holds the restaurant publicly acknowledged to be the best restaurant in the whole Heaven Dou Empire, and only falling behind slightly as best on the continent by one on the southern-most coast of the Star Luo Empire. I need to stock up on more food so I will be able to experience good food at the same time."

"I don't know even know why you need to ask us Yuhao! That sounds like a good idea!" Daydream replied happily, her loud voice disturbing Amra from his sleep.

"Mm!" Kunou replied, bobbing her head.

Yuhao seeing her cuteness couldn't help but have his conscious self pat the little fox's head. He chuckled seeing Kunou lean into the pat more, "Well let's go then."

Deciding to experiment with his new skill, he released his Steel Space Dragon spirit and used Armoured Charge as he moved. Three seconds later, he noticed that around the front half of his martial spirit and body, appeared an incorporeal, semi-transparent, white barrier. As he picked up pace he discovered that this barrier stayed firmly on him and seemed to passively negate the air resistance that he experienced. Even though this was a simple by-product of the skill it was still quite handy.

Moving for over a minute led to his speed slightly increasing. With his current cultivation, he was able to run an average of twenty metres per second. With the one per cent increase from the skill, he began running at twenty point-two metres per second. This tiny increase was noted through his usage of Spiritual Detection as he would not have been able to discover the small increase without it.

As he continued to run, breaking into the second minute, what he expected did not happen. Rather than his speed increasing to twenty point-four metres per second, it increased to twenty point-four-zero-two metres per second. While this is a tiny increase, the meaning behind it is enormously significant. Contrasting to his previous belief, the skill does not simply increase his base speed by one per cent every minute, but his current speed at that time. This means the skill will increase his movement speed exponentially not proportionally.

'HAHAHA,' Yuhao laughed exhilaratingly in his mind. 'Here I come, Snow Rock City!'