Chapter 98: A New Companion

“Evolve Fenrir!”

Whoosh!

At the very next instant Aurus was finished commanding the system to evolve his one and only pet, Fenrir’s body was hastily shrouded with an overbearingly bright light as Fenrir’s body structure gradually changed to morph into a blob that was made up of an unknown substance.

Although Aurus was interested as to what Fenrir was going to evolve into as he watched his evolution process, Aurus decided to do other things while waiting for Fenrir to evolve, since in the end, he would still find out how Fenrir evolved.

After commanding the system to position Fenrir’s body at the center of the green jade hall, Aurus then used his authority over the whole Tempest Cliff Inheritance to open up a pathway towards one of the special rooms within the inheritance, the skill room.

Swish!

Not long after, an entrance was formed at one side of the hall that led towards the skill room. After Aurus saw this entrance, he hovered towards the entrance as he looked at Fenrir’s currently evolving body.

“With a potential grade like his, his evolution will definitely not disappoint me. His A-grade form alone gave me a great boost in speed already!” Aurus reassured his doubts as he traversed through the whole entirety of the pathway, arriving at the skill room a few minutes later.

Being greeted by the sight of multiple rows of bookshelves that housed techniques and skills that ranged from being so simple that a baby could understand it, to being quite complex that even an Animate would be hard pressed to understand, Aurus could not help but take a breath in through his body as he said, “Time to find a defensive technique.”

Indeed, Aurus entered the inheritance to find a defensive technique. After fighting against the bosses, he realized that he had no way to defend himself whatsoever. He could dish out high amounts of damage and heal his HP back to full when time allowed it, but what would happen to him if the enemy could kill him in one shot? Just accept his fate that he was not able to dodge the attack or retaliate in any way?

Definitely not!

Although he had the Flux covering his body lately as a sort of passive defense, it was utterly lacking when compared to active defense. Sure, with his Spell Core being of the Middle-High grade, he obtained access to an extremely great spell that boasted active defense, [Spirit Gale Barrier]. But…with the long cast times needed to unleash such spells, he might already be dead before he could even defend.

This was his true purpose for coming back to the inheritance, evolving Fenrir was just out of whim.

“Hmm…” Aurus gradually browsed through the bookshelves as he slowly hovered along the way. Some of the techniques he found would make his nonexistent eyes glisten for a bit, but then after a bit, it would dim down, thinking of the disadvantages it held.

“Oh? A defensive technique that allows me to conjure shields to protect my body? Yeah…no, although I can conjure a lot of shields, it would probably take me a lot of SP to sustain that.”

“A defensive technique that casts a reflective mirror in front of me…I’d just get hit from behind if that’s the case.”

“Using swords made out of SP to actively deflect attacks…quite nice but incredibly flashy. Hard to sustain as well by the looks of it.”

“Hm…” After a while, Aurus finally stopped in front of a bookshelf, staring quite well at a certain technique as he scanned it through the help of his system. A few seconds later, rather than his nonexistent eyes dimming down just like what happened with other techniques, it instead brightened, showing his great motivation to learn it. “This is the one!”

Without hesitation, he commanded the system to learn the technique.

Ding!

Hearing the notification sound resound through his mind, Aurus could not help but think of the multiple possibilties and situations he could use the technique in. Adding in Fenrir who would probably be tanking all of the attacks, the possibilities became even wider.

He opened up his notification log and read the name of the technique, making sure that it was the technique he chose to learn.

‘You have learned [Barrier].’

‘Due to the incompatibility of the skill with the user’s body, the skill has been adapted to [Barrier of the Spiritas].’

“Yep, this is definitely the one I chose.” With a cheerful aura radiating around his body, Aurus then hovered back towards the green jade hall, thinking about the new defensive skill he obtained and the Learning module of the [Artificial Intelligence] portion of his system.

Wait…

[Barrier]. The most basic defensive skill anyone could learn…ever. Now why did Aurus learn that?

Think about it, would Evinkell—I mean Kevin, allow such a simple technique to enter the bookshelves of an inheritance’s skill room? With his standing in the Animate world, highly improbable.

“Let me just make sure of my choice one more time…” While travelling back to the green jade hall, Aurus thought of using the system’s Learning module to level [Barrier of the Spiritas] to its max level before leveling it up. “Identify [Barrier of the Spiritas].”

Ding!

________

[Barrier of the Spiritas] (Level 1/3)

Grade: Mortal (C)

The most basic defensive skill optimized by the Great Sage Kevin, which has been adapted to the user’s body through the system, allows the defensive skill to become an extremely strong defensive skill that can be comparable to defensive skills that allow the user to withstand attacks from tens to hundreds of people at once.

Through the Sage’s optimization, the defensive ability of the conjured barrier is proportional to the combined power of the user’s Defense and Vitality stat. This proportion can grow bigger whenever the user infuses more SP into said barrier.

Minimum SP Cost per second: 2 SP

Cooldown: 10 seconds

________

After skimming through the text twice, Aurus then commanded the system to nurture this skill whenever he was not using it, to which the system promptly replied with a notification.

Ding!

‘[Barrier of the Spiritas] is now being passively nurtured by the system. If the user wishes to hasten the rate of improvement, the user must upgrade the module to higher levels.’

Although Aurus was quite tempted to upgrade the Learning module, he knew that he should focus on the Battle module more, rather than on the former.

…

Arriving at the edge of the green jade hall a couple of minutes later, Aurus was greeted by the sight of a new and improved Fenrir.

At first glance, one could notice that Fenrir’s body became more detailed when compared to his A-grade body. If one could compare it to something, then Fenrir’s body was comparable to a novice sculptor creating their first wooden wolf sculpture.

Though it did not capture much of the ferocity of the wolf, many details that could be seen on a wolf that were not seen on Fenrir’s body before, was now visible. Claws, a sleek body, some tufts of wooden fur, these are some details that were now added on Fenrir’s body.

Not only that, Fenrir grew in size once more, now being thrice the size of Aurus’ body, and that’s taking into consideration that Aurus’ body grew a bit after evolving to S-grade!

“Master!” Thanks to the flexibility given by evolving to S-grade, Fenrir’s jaw, that did not move at all at A-grade, now moved somewhat as it screamed towards Aurus, wagging its tail back and forth from excitement.

Why?

It was because his master said that he would not be unsummoned anymore, allowing him to be by Aurus’ side always!

“You’ve grown Fenrir.” As Aurus got closer to Fenrir, Aurus’ cheerful aura intensified by a bit, seeing that Fenrir has grown stronger, far stronger compared to his previous expectations. “Could you sit for a bit? I’m going to identify you.”

“Go ahead, Master. Be my guest.” Following Aurus’ command, Fenrir sat on his behind, eagerly waiting for Aurus’ next command.

“Identify Fenrir.”

Ding!

________

[Fenrir] (Level 1/70)

Potential Grade: S

Experience: 0/35 (can be filled with unused experience points)

Species: Gale Wolf King Forminosus (Rare++)

Existence Level: Inanimate

Grade: S

[HP]: 1700/1700

[SP]: 550/550

Stats:

[Toughness]: 200

[Thickness]: 210

[Density]: 325

Skills:

[Gale King Burst Lv. 12], [Wolf King’s Dignity Lv. 8], [Supreme Danger Instinct Lv. 21], [Gale Wolf King Spirit Core Lv. 7], [Supreme Wind Affinity Lv. 11], [Grand Tempest Claw Lv. 29], [Gale Wolf Clone Lv. 2], [Gale Wolf King’s Fortress Lv. 12], [Gale Wolf Seed Lv.MAX], [Gale Wolf King Seed Lv. 1]

Ally Skill: [Blessing of the Gale Wolf King]

________

“Although his HP is lower than mine by three times, that’s just a given due to him not having the blessing of the alliance,” Aurus was extremely satisfied with the improvement Fenrir had after evolving to S-grade.

“Alright Fenrir, I’m done. We’re going back to the alliance now.” Closing the screen that housed Fenrir’s status, Aurus said as he started to hover off the ground.

“Okay, Master.” Without a hint of resistance, Fenrir stood up and followed Aurus’ command. But surprisingly, Fenrir then said, “Anyways, Master, I wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it?” Aurus could not help but have a bit of shock as he did not expect Fenrir to ask him a question.

“Why haven’t you summoned another companion? Wouldn’t that make you stronger, Master?” Since Fenrir was connected through the system, and he was looking out for his master, he could not help but bring this up.

“Ah, you’re right.” After thinking about it for a bit, Fenrir was indeed correct. He had not touched the Ally system for a long time now…or rather, he had not touched it at all. Although he wanted to follow Fenrir’s suggestion, he still had to take into consideration Fenrir’s feelings. “Are you okay with me having another companion?”

“I only serve to protect and help the Master,” Fenrir replied. “With more companions, Master’s safety would be more assured.”

Extremely surprised with Fenrir’s reply, Aurus could not help but say, “Man, a single grade gave this much difference to a being’s intelligence. Anyways…”

“System, open the Gacha.”

Ding!

In an instant, a screen appeared in front of him, revealing two columns that separated the two types of summoning.

“The Normal Gacha that needs 500 SP to summon once, or the Premium Gacha that needs 50 Life and Will points to summon once,” Aurus could not help but say, recalling that the requirements to summon had not changed at all.

“What’s better?” Aurus mulled over his choices for a bit before summoning without hesitation.

“Of course, with the word Premium on it, how could you not choose it?!”

Swoosh!

In an instant, a magic circle was formed in midair, just a few decimeters away from Aurus and Fenrir’s face. Bit by bit, the magic circle grew larger as it gradually took on the shade of red.

A minute later, the magic circle reached the maximum amount of energy it could hold, exploding into bits as a few particles remained from the magic circle, heading towards Aurus’ body to be absorbed.

Ding!

“I wonder what Ally I got…” Since he had not summoned an ally yet, he had high expectations for the gacha system for his allies. With his excitement at an all-time high, he opened up his notification log.

‘You have obtained an Ally with SS-grade potential, [Burnt Twig]!’

“…”

“…”

“Are you fucking serious?”