Chapter 94 - Departing & Using Sage Stones
It had been twenty-one days since this mysterious phenomenon descended on the Earth.
By now, except for toddlers, everyone had entered the world of Myriad Mountain, Wild Expanse, at least once.
People inside the Wild expanse were adventuring to get strong, and one of them was Aren, who had just returned to Focrent Kingdom's capital with an exhausted expression. The armor he bought was destroyed on this adventure, so he was with tattered clothes right now.
"Sigh...," Aren sighed as he looked at the protective amulet. The amulet had two glowing lights in it before, but now, there was only one.
...
While he was completing the last quest, which was about finding gem-crown crabs in Myriad aurora pools, he encountered a damn aquatic creature of Legendary lifeform. It was just one-meter-long squid, but it was burning in purple flames underwater, and when Aren looked at its information, he found to his shock that it was a Legendary-1 lifeform.
Thankfully, he was five kilometers away from this creature and just noticed it because of its strange appearance while he was collecting the gem-crown crabs under one of the water pools in the Myriad aurora pools area.
But Aren still ran away after discovering that it was a Legendary creature. He left the water by riding on his sword and just flew away with his full speed.
However, a second after he left the large water pool, a dark brown barrier with golden patterns formed around him, and he heard a loud boom before he was thrown away several kilometers due to the powerful impact on the barrier that still remained intact after he was attacked by an unknown attack of that Legendary-1 creature.
However, he still needed one more gem-crown crab, so he wasted one day observing the pools while being hidden before hurriedly scooping up a gem-crown crab and leaving.
...
After submitting the quest materials and getting the rewards, he directly went to the skill store and bought the skill stone of the <Nature's Breathing> skill.
After buying that, he looked at his status a bit and fell into a thinking daze.
-Name: Aren Azrael
-Level: 15 [ 0/20,000 ] ( Stored Exp: 290,060).
----
<-Aren->
[ Path- Emporio Armalist ]
-Level: 7 [ 55,010/64,000 Exp ]
-Armalist Force: [ 600/600 ]
...
During this adventure, Aren had to kill creatures as well with no choice to avoid them, so he gained a total of 34,840 Exp.
Right now, he was done with his business in this kingdom and wanted to start traveling north towards the Demon continent.
After thinking for a while, he decided to level up instead of resting.
[You have leveled up to level 16. Five stat points gained.]
Aren decided to put 4 stat points in Constitution and 1 stat point in the soul.
Athan felt instantly refreshed and energized. All of his exhaustion was swept away.
"Wooh...," Aren took a short breath before he started walking towards the Armory shop and rebought the same armor <Wind Rider Leather Armor> before leaving the town.
Right now, he only had 1390 gold coins after buying the skill stone and another leather armor.
After leaving the capital town, he paused at the same waterfall spot to take a bath, upgrade his armor, and learn the <Nature's Breath> skill from the skill stone.
[Wind Rider Leather Armor]
-Rank: High-grade Gold-tier.
-Type: Articule Gear.
-Requirement: Armalist Drive+2
-Perk: +28 AGI +9 CONT. Increase wind attribute damage by 600 and grant 1000 wind resistance.
-Defense: Physical [630] Energy [770] Soul [45] ( Wind Resistance: 1000 from the perk.)
-Trait: Blend with the Wind: Lower Air resistance by 9% and gain a windshield of 2100 hit points with 0 defenses while you are flying in the sky. (Shield cool-down: 3 minutes 15 seconds.)
-Note: Upgradable.
Afterward, Aren took out the skill stone and infused his spirit energy into it.
After he did that, the knowledge regarding the skill rapidly entered his head.
<Nature's Breath>
-Skill Level: 1 (max: 5)
-Skill Rank: S
-Cost: 95 spirit energy.
-Effect: Make yourself blend into the surrounding nature to turn you invisible to the naked eyes and diffuse your presence a bit. The effect will be perfect if you remain stationary in one place.
Aren didn't waste time and took out the two sage stones before grabbing each in his hands.
He then closed his eyes and executed the <Chemo Mask> skill and the <Nature's Breath> skill before infusing their spirit energy flow into left and right sage stones, respectively.
After doing that, Aren joined his hands as the two sage stones touched each other and shined before becoming a single sage stone.
[Due to high compatibility between two S rank skills, an SS rank skill has been created from the combination.]
<World Varnish>
-Skill Level: 1 (Max: 5)
-Skill Rank: SS
-Cost: 125 spirit energy.
-Duration: 5 min.
-Effect: Invoke world essence to blend you into the surroundings, making you invisible to the naked eyes for a short duration. Your presence and spirit energy readings will also be entirely masked while the skill is active.
-Note: If you do anything that uses spirit energy while the skill is active, the skill will lose its effect immediately.
"Nice, let's see how it is," Aren muttered as he learned the skill from sage stone.
Two sage stones are combined into a single stone, becoming the same thing as a skill stone since one can only learn the skill from it as one does from a skill stone. After all, one couldn't use this combined sage stone to make further combinations with other sage stones.
Aren used the skill right away after learning it. He failed to execute it correctly the first time, making his whole body ache painfully for a few moments.
However, he succeeded in the next try as he felt that a mysterious coat covered his whole body from outside and inside both.
Aren could see that he was blending into the surroundings, and as he moved, his body was constantly changing its aura and coating to continue his blending.
However, if he moved too fast, the coating couldn't keep up with the constant change and would display a weird, colorful Aren.
But Aren felt that this skill was perfect for now for adventuring in the wilds.