NOVPUB
Chapter 81: Shopping Spree, Training
John couldn’t wait to use his newly acquired loot. He flew away from the camp and soon entered Monster Paradise in mid-air.
"Go and play with others," John said to Pymon.
Meanwhile, he took out the three King-rank Fruits that looked almost identical, with merely the difference in patterns, and asked Xhalthuun how many Xhal Drops he would get if he sacrificed them.
Soon, he got a response from Xhalthuun.
Fruit 1 - 248,500 Xhal Drops
Fruit 2 - 412,480 Xhal Drops
Fruit 3 - 329,290 Xhal Drops.
John’s jaw dropped.
"Let’s fucking go!"
He blinked. "Although the price is really volatile, but whatever. Let’s see how much I need right now."
John opened the shop.
[Xhalthuun’s Shop]
-Shop level: 2
-Xhal Drops: 63
< This week’s Items > ( Refresh Cost: 100 Xhal Drops. Free Refresh available. )
1. Soul Technique: Starlight Rider—300,000 Xhal Drops.
2. Spirit Armor (Light-weight): Hollowfang Drakeskin—240,400 Xhal Drops.
3. Seeds of Cradleflare Orchid—80,400 Xhal Drops (Sold).
4. Soul Technique Selection Box (Mid-tier)—100,000 Xhal Drops.
’So I need a total of 640,400 Xhal Drops...’
John was going to buy out all three remaining items.
He was essentially amassing things that could make a fortune for him later, even if he didn’t use them.
’These three King-rank fruits have attributes of Fire and Lightning, while the Cradleflare Orchids have attributes of Fire, Mist, and an exotic attribute called Dreamdust...’ John fell into thought as he looked at the five Cradleflare Orchid plants that were growing.
It would take one more day to grow them even after he had connected a channel with the ocean to Monster Paradise, and concentrated spirit energy around those five plants so they could mature as fast as possible.
Becky was also tending to them carefully.
John looked at the three King-rank fruits, and after a few seconds, he made a decision.
’Xhalthuun. Sacrifice the first and second fruits. Let’s the damn things right now.’
660,980 Xhal Drops acquired.
And John already spent 640,4000 Xhal Drops.
’Xhalthuun, I’ll upgrade you to level 3 the next time I sacrifice the resources, okay? For now, let’s refresh the shop and take a look.’
[Xhalthuun’s Shop]
-Shop level: 2
-Xhal Drops: 20,643
< This week’s Items > ( Refresh Cost: 100 Xhal Drops. )
1. Raaz Te’el Mask—64,300 Xhal Drops.
2. Oblivion Silk Plant—12,305,200 Xhal Drops.
3. Astral Lumen Carrot x 1—384,000 Xhal Drops.
4. Flag: Ember Bloom Aura—121,300 Xhal Drops.
John didn’t take a detailed look at these four items because he didn’t want to. He was sure he would get tempted to buy, but he had no resources to sacrifice, so he decided to take a look at them once the Orchids bloomed.
For now, it was time to check the items he just bought.
First, he grabbed the silver-astral scroll with life-like stars and patterns, sealed with a golden star symbol.
’This shit looks pretty advanced,’ John thought. ’Well, it cost 300,000 Xhal Drops, so it better blow my mind away.’
John inspected it using his skill while opening the scroll.
[Soul Technique: Starlight Rider]
[Type]: Movement / Buff.
[Attributes]: Space / Light
[Effect]:
—> Stage 1: Ignoring terrain and obstacles, the user can see anything within a 300-meter range and instantly travels in a straight direction to the desired location point. The distance of vision and travel can increase depending on mastery of Space and Light.
"Damn!" John couldn’t help but make a stanky face. This is exactly what he needed for Sage Kindred!
’But Space and Light...’ John fell into thought.
He could technically learn this soul technique without having Space and Light mastery, but only at its minimum effectiveness.
But still, being able to travel up to 300 meters in a blink was awesome and absolutely needed.
However, to even learn this Soul Technique’s first stage at a basic level, he needed at least one resource with Space and one with Light attribute, or a single resource having both of these attributes.
’It looks like I won’t be able to find Space-attributed resources here, but I already have a few Light-attributed resources,’ John thought as he looked at his garden.
There were three plants with Light-attribute, and one of them was a sole Light-attributed plan of Silver-rank.
He got the natural spiritual Light energy secured with that plant, but he would also need Space energy.
’I might be able to get one in the city, hopefully...’
John put away the scroll into his storage and turned to the badass armor made of leather and metal, a light-weight tunic with draconic scaled patterns and fang-shaped enabled in the middle.
The shoulder and arms had semi-transparent wing fins with scaled-shape motes that moved when John grabbed the armor and moved it.
It was an armor covering their shoulders, chest, and back, so their head and legs were still open and vulnerable.
Still, since this was a King-ranked Spirit Armor, it was useful.
[Spirit Armor: Hollowfang Drakeskin]
[Rank]: King
[Attributes]: Metal / Earth / Darkness.
[Stat Boost]:
—> Defense +500
—> Metal, Earth, and Darkness Resistance +250.
[Spirit Skill]:
—> Fortress Dome: Creates a dome-like barrier of 10 to 100 meters radius. The durability and size of the barrier depend on soul potency and the amount of soul energy infused.
’Oh, this one has an effect.’
John was surprised.
Azelis had already given him a Spirit Armor, which was a full-body set— A robe with a vest, trousers covering his bottom half, and a hoody over his head.
But it didn’t have a Spirit skill imbued in it!
John decided to bind with this second armor on top of that, increasing his defense.
John moved around, feeling no problem with movement. "Alright, I guess nothing will happen to me as long as an Emperor-rank Monster doesn’t attack me."
But he also wanted to check the Hollowfang Drakeskin’s skill effect.
Since the barrier’s durability depended on his soul power, he wanted to see its toughness.
He called Alfred and Rexion and did some experiments.
First, he spent 100 soul energy on the barrier and told Rexion to use his Searing Blood Armor and physically attack it.
After receiving six attacks from Rexion, the barrier shattered.
John was surprised. Four attacks from Rexion in his Searing Blood Armor were powerful!
Of course, John had 500 soul power while Rexion had less than 400, but Rexion’s physical stats were like early-stage Gold-rank Monster, so the barrier was quite powerful.
Next, John conjured the barrier again using 100 soul energy and told Alfred to use Shattering Tail Smash + Doom Blast Impact.
On the impact of Shattering Tail Smash, the barrier formed cracks, and on the Doom Blast Impact, it completely shattered.
And Alfred had used 150 soul energy total.
’So for now, I can defend against a top-class Silver-rank Monster with 500 Soul power and level 2 masteries,’ John face-palmed himself. ’There’s no monster like that in Silver-rank except for my Alfred, hehe.’
He felt good that Alfred was able to shatter the barrier in a single-skill combo.
Afterward, he experimented a bit more and realized he could maintain an energy connection with the barrier, meaning that instead of outright shattering, the barrier would take his soul energy to maintain unless it was shattered in a single strike.
"Alright, it’s time to train! Create a super combat ground here to train my monsters."
34,203 Molding Essence consumed.
’What?!’ John was startled. Sure, his current Molding Essence production was over 30k per day, but he was surprised this much was consumed.
However, he understood the reason soon.
Away from the forest, an empty ground with a weather and terrain control system appeared.
John grinned as he looked at the user interface of a 5-kilometer radius of the ground.
He could literally make rocks, boulders, rivers, water puddles, storms, blizzards, and anything on this ground for training purposes!
"Perfect."
John gathered the monsters while Starry and the other kids also broke out of their cocoons right on time.
He put Alfred, Rexion, Pymon, Starry, Roby, Toby, and Coby inside.
Starry, Roby, Toby, and Coby were completely different from each other now since John had evolved them differently.
But they didn’t have any Quirks yet, and he also wanted to train Rexion and Pymon to increase the levels of their Quirks as well as create combo moves.
Especially Pymon, who still hadn’t awakened his Talent. Usually, Monsters would awaken their first Talent in Silver-rank, and most would awaken earlier, but Pymon had reached Prime-rank and still yet to awaken it. Hopefully, once he trained in the extreme on this ground, he would awaken it.
"You all train with each other here, and use your attribute energy manipulation in fights to create advantages, okay? I’m training on my own, so you all also better improve. Alfred, make sure you put Pymon in the most extreme of training."
And so, the monsters began training in the training ground. Alfred used the UI to change the weather and terrain in different areas before he directed the training sessions and also trained against Rexion.
Starry trained with Roby, Toby, and Coby, while Pymon was solo training under an extreme blizzard and storm at a corner.
Meanwhile, John began training in his Monster Geno Art.
Only three days remained, so he had to reach the peak of Silver-rank as soon as possible.
And he was going to use the resources to speed up.
’Let’s get this done!’ John was determined to reach the peak of Silver-rank before doing anything else, so he could focus on training monsters.
Two hours later, he was interrupted as powerful auras surged in the Monster Paradise.
Crocky, Sony, Merc, Twin-Fanged Panther, and Owl....all five of them evolved into Gold-rank Monsters with completely different species with Sovereign-rank potential!
Now, if he wanted to show a Monster or two as Sage Kindred, he could summon them!
But John dumped them in the training ground first and continued his Monster Geno Art training.
And while John resumed his training, the Gold-rank Monsters in the training ground had qualms.
"We are going to decide a hierarchy among us," the Owl said. "So let’s decide who is strongest among us, aight?"
"Sounds good."
"Brother Alfred, you don’t mind, right?"
"Do whatever, but don’t kill yourself by going overboard in fighting."
"Oya, oya, I just smelled something interesting. Alright, I shall hold a competition for you five," Chuthulos’s avatar arrived while grinning. "I have some other viewers who will be watching, so do your best, hehe."
"Hey, we are not entertainment for you. Give us something in return if you want to do that."
"What Panty said makes sense," Sony nodded.
"Hey, the fuck do you mean by Panty? Do you see my three heads and monstrous viper tail? I am fucking Chimera, and the strongest among you all, so you better fucking respect me."
"We’ll decide who is strongest soon, humph."
Chuthulos laughed and said, "Alright, calm down. We are going to have a round-robin competition where you all will fight against each other one by one, so the one with the highest wins will be considered the strongest."
"Sounds fair. Let’s get started," the Tiger said with a nod.
