Chapter 361 Spirit of Fire and Nature
The spirit stood silently before Moon, waiting for his command. The fire and nature elements consumed each other in an endless cycle, coexisting side by side in a single body yet somehow never devouring one another.
"Okay, I want you to demonstrate your strength." Moon looked around for a suitable target.
His eyes landed on a large boulder sitting at the edge of the clearing. It was massive, weighing several tons at least, half buried in the island's soil.
"You see that boulder? I want you to strike it with any basic attack of yours."
The spirit turned its head in the direction Moon pointed. Its mismatched eyes found the boulder and it began to walk toward it. When it reached roughly twenty meters from the target, it stopped and began to initiate its attack.
Its arms, which had been hanging loosely at its sides, rose and converged in front of its chest. The spirit clasped its hands together. Then, slowly, it began to pull them apart.
Between its palms, a small ball of wood began to form up, it was dense and tightly packed, it grew rapidly as the hands separated. It expanded from the size of a fist to the size of a skull, then kept going until it was a solid sphere of wood roughly the size of a small boulder.
The spirit raised the wooden mass above its head.
Suddenly, flames began to crawl across the surface of the sphere from the spirit's burning half, licking at the bark and spreading across it in seconds. In the span of a heartbeat, the entire ball was engulfed by crackling, roaring fire that made the attack much more threatening.
Moon's eyes rose, the wood didn't burn away.
The wooden mass held its shape beneath the flames. The fire fed off the wood, and the wood seemed to feed off the fire in return. The two elements weren't fighting for dominance. They were harmonizing, each one strengthening the other in a cycle that made the sphere grow brighter and hotter with every passing second.
"A wooden fireball that coexists?" Moon muttered, watching it unfold. "That's an interesting combination."
The spirit hurled the flaming sphere forward.
It crossed the distance in an instant and slammed into the boulder with a heavy, concussive impact. The wooden fireball didn't bounce off or shatter on contact. It drove itself deep into the rock face, embedding halfway into the stone as fire erupted outward from the point of impact.
Cracks spread across the boulder's surface like a web, branching in every direction. Chunks of stone crumbled away at the edges, and smoke rose from the hole where the wood continued to burn inside the rock.
But the boulder didn't break fully. It held together, despite the hot and fractured state.
Moon stared at the result for a long moment.
It was weaker than he had expected. Based on the output, the spirit's current strength sat at roughly two acupoints worth of power. For a fresh beast soul without any evolutions, that was probably respectable. But compared to Moon's own attacks, the gap was quite noticeable.
Still, the raw numbers weren't what caught his attention, rather it was the attack itself, it was impressive.
The way the wood and fire harmonized, feeding each other rather than canceling out, created a unique form of damage that was both physical and elemental at the same time. The boulder was pierced, cracked, and set ablaze from the inside. Against a living creature, that kind of combination would be very impactful.
And this was the spirit's weakest form.
Moon looked at the spirit standing silently beside the ruined boulder, waiting for his next command.
'If I pour lives into evolving it, this thing will probably grow fast.' Moon thought. The spirit's foundation was solid, and its use of elements was unique.
The potential was S-Rank according to the description. All it needed was investment.
"Not bad." Moon said quietly. "Not bad at all."
"Is there anything else you can do? Something interesting?"
The spirit stood in silence. Its mismatched eyes stared at Moon, but it offered nothing interesting.
"Alright then. Let's keep moving."
Moon willed the spirit back into the pocket space inside his mind and climbed onto Mirage. They pressed forward across the island, the wind howling around them as the terrain grew rougher.
Before long, Moon spotted something ahead.
A massive beast stood in a wide clearing between clusters of windswept trees. It was at least five meters tall, its body a grotesque fusion of panda and pig carried on six thick legs that supported its weight like stone pillars. Black and white patches of rough fur covered its torso, while its snout was flat and wide, flaring with each heavy breath it took. "This one looks strong." Moon muttered, immediately swinging off Mirage's back.
The beast noticed them. Its small, dark eyes locked onto the rider and horse, and its mouth opened wide.
A rumbling roar tore from its throat. The sound wave hit Moon immediately, pressing against his chest and rattling his teeth. Leaves ripped from the nearest tree and scattered into the wind. Moon didn't flinch, entering a staring contest with the beast.
Lightning crackled to life in his hands as he activated [Advanced Elemental Body]. He turned his focus inward, finding his acupoint and weaving the thread between it and the active skill. The connection was stronger now than it had been during the wolf fights.
The spiritual energy inside his acupoint began to react to his influence. Synchronizing with the lightning element, flowing into it, feeding it more power. The arcs dancing across Moon's fingers grew brighter.
The beast released another rumbling growl that shook the air around it. Then it charged.
Six hooves tore up the ground as it barreled toward Moon, each stride covering an absurd amount of distance for something so massive. The earth trembled beneath its weight, and the sound of its approach was like a drumroll building toward something terrible.
When it was roughly a hundred feet away, the beast did something Moon didn't expect.
It lunged.