Damien was looking at Luca, who was a year older and had grown taller by almost a foot. Lucas's regular body had grown strong and he had an athletic body that would put most ordinary adults to shame. His naïve and innocent demeanor was gone. He expressed confidence and carried himself in a confident manner. He was now 12 and was almost going to be 13 in a few months. His appearance didn't match his age. High-bloods are known for having superior genetics, and this was shown by how much faster they matured.
Right now, Damien was looking at how far Lucas cultivation had progressed in one year. Luca was now at the peak of body refinement. Nodding his head, he looked at Luca and transformed into his humanoid form.
"After your year of training your beast art you have progressed to the basic level. I will train you in the more advanced forms later for now its time to progress your magic. Today I'll teach two more spells. The first will be "spark step", it's part of the lighting affinity. Spark step uses lighting to force your body, specifically your legs, to be pushed to their limit. Your body puts a limiter in your body to stop you from causing damage to it. Meaning you don't truly use 100% of your body's potential. Normally it's around 80% to 90%, but this bypass's it. With our increased healing we won't suffer damage from this, but we will grow tired faster, depleting our stamina at a faster pace."
Damien stopped talking, and then around his legs a small spark of lighting would come off. Luca face was filled with excitement, and there was a thirst for knowledge in his eyes that flashed when Damien was talking.
"It might not seem impressive, but an increase of 10% to 20% could mean the difference between life and death. Also, because this is only a body refinement spell there's a limit to how much you can do. Once you start breaking into the higher levels you will be able to do more incredible things. What you do is pour your energy into your legs and visualize the lighting going into your legs in a circle. It's that simple, there's no need for incantation, hand movements, leg movements. It is fast to cast because it's created by the fox demon clan. It's designed for us and that makes it easier for us to use."
Luca did what he said and poured his energy into his legs. He imagined the lighting moving in a circle. He felt a slight prick and then he felt the lighting going in his legs. He felt a lock open and small sparks of lighting starting to come off his legs. He clenched his fist in excitement and started running. He immediately felt the difference in his speed, and he was faster. But he also noticed that his stamina was decreasing faster than usual.
Damien was again impressed by how easy it was for Luca to learn spells. His ego hurt a little, it took him an hour to learn this spell back in the day. He looked at the sky with a sense of defeat.
"Damn kid I thought I was a monster back in the day. I don't think my ego can take it if this keeps going." Shaking his head, as he whispered.
Luca was unaware of Damien's predicament and was enjoying the feeling of being faster. He was excited and wanted to learn more, so he quickly went back to where Damien was.
"I'm ready to learn the next spell!" He tried to contain his excitement.
Damien got serious again as he went on to explain the next spell.
"The next spell is "shadow claw" from the shadow affinity. It augments our claws by covering them in a shadow, like a glove. When you use your claws, the spell allows you to increase the length and sharpness of your claws. This is useful and can allow you to have claws as long as a sword. The sharpness increases by twice the normal sharpness. To use this spell, send the energy to your palms. Then you say shadow claw in demon tongue. With me teaching you demon tongue this shouldn't be hard."
With that, Damien said demon claw, and his hands were covered in black. It looked like he had gloves, then he took his claws and made them 12 inches long. He even made just one claw long and the rest short.
Luca did the same and was able to cover both hands. With anticipation in his eyes he increased his claws length and played around with the sizes. Seeing how he learned this spell fast as well, Damien took another blow.
"Alright that's enough, go and use it in the real world now. The lessons are over." Damien then transformed back into a fox and left.
Luca looked at Damien and was confused as to why he ended it so quickly. Still confused, he got out of the shard. The moment he got out he noticed Sergio was sitting on top of a tree in a relaxed manner.
"Looks like you're out, good, now it's time to test you."
Sergio jumped down next to Luca from the tree. Luca stood up and had a saber strapped to his side in a custom-made sheath made from a spirit beast. His clothes were made from the fur of a spirit beast, his shirt looked more like a coat that exposed the middle of his chest. His pants and shoes are black and his pants are tight around his legs. He almost looked like a barbarian. He stretched his body out, getting ready for whatever Sergio had in store for him.
"I'm ready, what's the test?"
"You've been training for a year with the saber. Now it's time to prove that you know how to use it in battle. You'll fight a peak body refinement spirit beast with only your saber skills. No magic or use of your evolved form. Don't worry I'll watch over you if the situation gets out of hand."
"Got it."
Luca was nervous, but he also had confidence in himself. This whole year he was with Sergio, who hunted down spirit beasts to eat and for him to drain. Sergio even slowed his movements at times to allow him to see what he was doing. He learned a lot from watching him. He had a general idea of how to fight a spirit beast with only a weapon.
Sergio would find the beasts as they walked through the forest. After an hour they found a black and white bear that was twice the size of a normal bear. Sergio then pointed to the bear, telling him that it would be his opponent. Even though it looked powerful, Luca ignored it as he was preparing himself as he controlled his breathing and put his hand on his saber ready to pull it out to attack.
He knew that if he could smell the bear then the bear could smell him too. Trying to sneak up on it was out of the question. He then steadily ran towards the bear, his hand on his black saber. His eyes had a determined and cold look as he was 50 feet from the bear. The bear stood up on its feet and roared at Luca with its mouth open, spit flying out. Showing it sharp teeth and its arms spread open, ready to fight it out.
"Come on!"
He pulled out his sword as he dodged under one of the bears' paws. He slashed at the bear's arm pit, it was fast and cut deep into the bears shoulder, going halfway in. He pulled out the saber as he rolled to the side, avoiding the bears' heavy stomp. It missed him but caused the ground to cave in.
The bears back was exposed and he slashed out with his sword, cutting into the back of the bears calves. He kept moving around and avoiding the bears attacks. The bear had strong and powerful attacks but was to slow to catch him. He was able to get in a few more cuts into the bears legs and arms. He was attacking and cutting its muscle fibers and joints.
After two minutes of intense dodging and slashing, the bear's legs collapsed, and its arms fell to its side. Luca was sweating a bit as he approached the bear from behind. He had successfully cut into the right spots that would cause the bear to lose control over its limbs. It was now helpless as it was just sitting straight up, it struggled and roared in desperation trying to get its limbs to move but nothing worked! It was in a frenzy, but it was hopeless.
Luca jumped and slashed with all his strength into the blade. Cutting into the bears neck and going ¾ of the way in. He pulled it out and got onto the bears shoulder. He then did a powerful side kick and was able to kick the bears head off.
It flew a few feet away from the body, dark red blood was gushing out of the neck like a fountain. A pool of blood was forming on the ground. He wiped the blood on his saber onto the bears fur.He didn't have a single spot of blood on him as he looked towards Sergio with a smile and gave him the thumbs up as he shouted.
"See that!" He puffed out his chest in pride.
Sergio looked back and lightly chuckled.
"Don't get cocky kid but I guess it's fine for today since you passed."
That night they set up camp and cooked bear meat. Luca looked at the bear meat and sighed. Two months ago, when he almost reached the peak body refinement stage, he found out that the energy that he drained from body refinement beast gave very little energy.
It seemed that the stronger he got, the less effective body refinement energy was. It no longer gave him a boast which meant that things weaker than him wouldn't give a significant boast in his cultivation. He had to go after those who were stronger than him.
He was also stuck at the peak of body refinement. He asked Sergio why that was, and he told him that the reason this stage was called body refinement was because it would increase the body's strength and model it to be the foundation for the next stage. If your foundation wasn't stable, then you couldn't move into the next rank. Your body wouldn't allow it, not until it felt ready.
Sergio told him that since he progressed so fast with the help of an outside source. That his body was trying to catch up, and lucky for Luca he was a bloodline holder. His body will grow physically stronger in a few weeks. Then he could move to the next stage by opening the next core meridian. He couldn't wait to get stronger and was thankful to Sergio.
Sergio didn't eat a lot of his food as he looked a bit distracted. They had been heading north for a reason. There was a hidden continent within the depths of the forest, hidden away from the angels and demons. It is surrounded by rivers on all sides, separating it from the forest. It was a haven for low-bloods and humans. They were both discriminated against and used as slaves by angels and demons.
He knew that they were close, but that also mean't that he didn't have a lot of time to teach Luca. He wasn't given much time, only about a year and six months, but he was impressed by how fast of a learn Luca was. The saber technique he gave him was one of the harder ones to learn. He didn't think that Luca could learn it all and was worried that he wouldn't even be able to learn the basics in time. But he was surprised that he had learned not only the basics but the whole saber art, from the basics to the advance. It usually took 5 years to master, but it only took him 1 year!
This was a relief as he was starting to like the kid. He knew how hard this world was, but he was sure that he could increase the kids' cultivation a little more and teach him the spear in time. Giving him more tools to protect himself
"Luca have you noticed that we've been traveling north?" He spoke as he turned his head towards Luca.
"Yeah I felt that it was a bit strange, but I felt that you did it for a reason."
"Your right I was heading towards a continent that you've never heard of. It's where I'm from, it's called the Santuari continent. We'll reach Santuari in 3 months but I'll be able to train you for about another 6 months before I have to leave."
"Ok" Luca seemed a little sad
"Don't worry kid I will send you to an academy. It's an academy dedicated to teaching magic, saber arts, martial arts, etc. You'll be safe there and be able to live there for free until you turn 18 with my recommendation. Even though you won't be able to learn much from them, it's a good place to lay low and grow up in. You might even learn a few things."
Hearing this, Luca was hesitant, but his curiosity and hunger for knowledge was ignited. He nodded his head and agreed. The next day Sergio created a black spear that was 2.5 meters long. He handed it to him.
"Alright now I'll teach you the Pravus spear art. It's an aggressive and powerful spear style, so get ready!"
Luca had a fire in his eyes.
"I'm ready!"