Chapter 82 - The Grind (2) (2/2)
SP Cost: 50 SP
Cooldown: 5 minutes
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[Branch Benevolence]
Grade: B (Mortal)
You are the conductor of life and nature, allowing others to regain their lost vitality with your touch. Thanks to the blessings of nature, you are able to rejuvenate beings or yourself in a faster time than before, allowing life to propagate for longer.
>HP healed: 50 + (Attack stat * 0.15)
SP Cost: 200 SP
Cooldown: 30 seconds
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Just by the amount the skill healed at once made Aurus certain of his choices. Although the other skill would allow him to heal more HP over a certain amount of time, life and death hanged on an instant rather than a long amount of time.
Ding!
'Are you sure? Do you want to evolve [Stick Regeneration] to [Branch Benevolence]?'
”Yes.” Aurus did not have an ounce of hesitation in this choice.
Ding!
'[Stick Regeneration] has been evolved to [Branch Benevolence].'
Seeing that the evolution was finally finished, Aurus could not help but radiate a cheerful aura as he looked at Fenrir. ”Fenrir, don't you think it's time to go back?”
As he asked this, he looked at the sky, whose hue was already in the middle of orange and black, telling Aurus that night was almost close.
Fenrir released an affirmative aura as it replied, ”I think so as well, Master. Although, I might have a feeling that you still yearn to grow stronger even after going back?”
”Haha.” At that instant, the aura Aurus radiated grew more cheerful. ”That's correct. Let's go then.”
With a single thought, Fenrir disappeared from Aurus' point of view, its voice still heard inside Aurus' mind as a way to keep him company. After that, he activated [Tempest Levitation] and [Gale Hover] as a way to boost his movement skill, before heading back to the Tempest Branch Alliance's base of operations in a short amount of time with his greatly improved movement speed.
…
Although it was gradually turning to night, some beings preferred to traverse in the night rather than day. One of these beings was Chonk.
Currently, he was sprinting through the plains and forests of Tempest Cliff with ease as he had a certain place in mind, which had something to do with the improvement of his Tempering skill.
”After navigating the Tempest Cliff multiple times, I'm extremely sure that the core of this place is in there,” Chonk could not help but say to himself as he continued to sprint.
Once an Inanimate becomes an Animate being, hunger, thirst, stamina, and other things that are common to Animates now come alive on said newly evolved Animate. At first, they would be unfamiliar to this, easily neglecting their body's needs and dying. But for some, they knew that these things, when fulfilled to their body's limit, would allow them to operate at a power greater than 100 percent. Not only that, these limits could even be heightened with the help of Tempering skills and normal training.
Thanks to this, the limits to Chonk's hunger, thirst, and so on, have been pushed to the high limits of what a normal Animate can reach due to his strong Tempering skill. Also, his other stats, may it be Strength, Agility, Defense, are also high due to his strong Tempering skill.
Since the Tempest Cliff as a whole was somewhat small, only spanning around 15 kilometers on its longest side, Chonk was able to reach the place he had in mind within an hour or so. This place was located near the far right end of the Tempest Cliff.
Chonk stopped in his tracks as he noticed that he was standing near the end of a high cliff, where on the other side of the cliff laid pointy rocks that could impale him without mercy. Nonetheless, Chonk did not feel fear from these rocks, but instead felt a sense of relief and excitement from seeing them.
”From what I've gathered through my spies, this is the right place.”
He gradually went down the cliff, going through multiple detours in order to make sure he was not injured at all along the way. As he was getting closer and closer to the pointy rocks, he noticed that the Wind energy particles in his surroundings gradually became more and more condensed and intensified, letting him know that this was a place filled to the brim with Wind energy.
Only one place came to his mind within the Tempest Cliff when it came to dense Wind energy. 'This place truly is the core of the Tempest Cliff,' he thought.
A few minutes later, he was now on level with the pointy rocks…well, on the ground where the pointy rocks resided. These pointy rocks were over 10 meters tall. To a normal Animate, this was akin to a height of a normal three-story building.
He then tried to find the core of the Tempest Cliff, which was said to hold the most dense Wind energy in the area. Surprisingly, Chonk closed his eyes and relied on his innate sense of Wind energy, moving in the direction where the Wind energy gradually became more and more dense.
At times, he would get close to the pointy rocks and bump into them. At other times, he would jump on the pointy rocks and barely land safely on their tips as he continued to jump with his eyes closed.
In the end, he was able to find the most dense location, opening his eyes afterward to view an extremely large mass of Wind energy spiraling. It was a large tornado of Wind energy. If one were daring enough to enter it, they would definitely be crushed into pieces.
Of course, Chonk was not that stupid, making sure to keep his distance in order to not be pulled by the large mass of energy. Nonetheless, he was extremely excited as his tail wagged left to right at fast speeds.
”I finally found it, the core.”
”I can finally cultivate my Tempering skill to the peak and ascend to a Rank 1 class!”