Young froze in his tracks as he gazed up at the creature, some twenty meters above him. It stood motionless, its eyes transfixed on him as well. The intensity of its gaze was enough to inspire flashbacks to their last encounter.
"Has this thing been waiting for me this whole time?" Young thought to himself.
"Wait.. this may not even be the same one.."
The tension between the two was undeniably uncomfortable. Though Young felt he'd made great strikes in growth the past week or so, he still felt utterly and completely exposed as he gazed upon the beast. His every instinct screamed "Run!".
[Cannot Scan Entity. Out of Proximity (10 meters maximum).]
"So this thing allows me to scan creatures? Come to think of it, the same thing happened against the Cave Grub when he first encountered it. Could it only be triggered upon the first encounter?
Young decided not to worry about that for now. He wasn't sure why but the creature remained immobile. If he had to speculate, perhaps it didn't want to get trapped in the ravine. Regardless of how big or powerful it might be, Young imagined it would have great difficulty getting out of the ravine as well.
Rather than stand in a tense face off Young decided to slowly move towards the cave. He toyed with the idea of switching to his spear and tossing it -- but there were too many variables involved. Assuming his throw could even make it that far (which he doubted highly), there wouldn't be enough force to even injure the creature.
White lightning element had managed to destroy rock and decimate the Cave Grubs, yet this creature took a head on blast with little to no damage. The more he thought about it, the more impossible it seemed and so he decided to turn and run. He darted off quickly towards the cavern, the run was easily over 3 kilometers but he had no choice at this point. He glanced back occasionally to see if he could still see the monster and of course it remained within sight.
It had set its sight upon him, of course it wouldn't let him go that easily. Young picked up the pace, really pushing himself and in the process he learned just how speedy his body had become. What normally would have tired him out in five minutes was like child's play. His stamina felt almost limitless as he dashed forward towards the mouth of the cave. A distance that took him almost thirty minutes had been bridged in less than ten. By the time he reached the mouth of the cavern he could no longer see the creature in pursuit.
Young took several breaths before entering the cavern and heading directly towards the spring. The encounter was jarring, it reminded him just how real the threat of death was. He'd become all too comfortable after reaching the spring. He'd even managed to make a normal routine to cope with the situation, but looking back now he felt like punishing himself for his own naivety.
"I need more. I'm nowhere near ready to deal with something like that. I'm not even sure I'd be able to run away effectively at this point."
The original encounter led Young to believe that he would always be able to outrun the creature if he needed to, but when there were no obstacles the creature was much faster. As it followed him along it never once broke into a serious stride. Young by comparison had gone all out in an effort to bridge the distance.
"I'm too slow to run away. I don't have enough power most likely and absolutely no armor."
"Armor.." Young thought to himself as he finally made his way back into the spring oasis.
"I totally forgot, I do need to make some armaments."
There was only one problem, he didn't have anymore materia. What's more, Spark was resting. Still there was a solution, probably.
He could make his own materia.
Young made himself comfortable and summoned forth some qi to his fingertip so that he could draw the seals required to attempt materia crafting. Basically, one to gather ambient energy and another to encapsulate it with his own qi.
The process itself was surprisingly simple once Young tried in earnest. He drew the two seals and closed his eyes to focus. He flowed his qi into the seals, first to gather and then to encapsulate -- the result was an orb of energy the size of an orange.
It was significantly larger than the materia made by Spark but there was also another problem.
"This one is….garbage…" Young said as he looked at the description.
[Materia (Large) Rank 1 Quality 13 x1
A materia devoid of significant elemental charge. It can be used, but the results will be poor.]
From Young's understanding, materia's usefulness depended on two things. The first was the skill of the crafter, the second was the type of energy collected. Ambient energy contains all known elemental charges within it, thus all cultivators can draw energy into themselves and assimilate it. The assimilation process is actually the process of drawing only the energy one has an affinity with and discarding the remainder back into the environment.
Materia creation was very similar in the sense that, if one understood the nature of an element, or used a seal, one could gather the chosen element in a single place and encapsulate it. The lightning mass inside of Young was one such example, furthermore it was grade 9 energy, highly pure lightning energy. To create such a large mass of pure energy -- Young was finally coming to realize just how frightening his situation was.
It also occurred to him just how powerful spark must be if he was able to hold back such powerful energy.
Young decided to test the materia he created by making his first armament.
"Let's see. First I'll go with… a set of bracers."
After configuring the forging process and crafting the item he was left feeling extremely disappointed.
[Bone Bracers
Rank 0
Armor : 25/25
Abs. Def. : 1
Element : None
Effect : None
Plain beast bone bracers. They may block one hit -- but that's being generous.]
"These descriptions are getting out of hand. Who writes this stuff?" Young remarked as he sighed.
He put the bracers on and was greeted with his first tutorial alert in some time.
"Spirit Forging [4] Armaments are spirit items that are centered around protection or self defense. Much like other spirit items, the Rank determines usefulness. When the AR of an armament is depleted, the armament will either shatter or become unusable until recharged.
Unlike spirit weapons, spirit armaments are always active and they will require a portion of your qi when equipped. In exchange, whether you purposely display the armament or not--its effects will be active."
"Hmm…" Young absorbed the small, brown orb into his soul sea and watched in amazement as two matching bracers appeared on his forearms.
The bracers were predominantly made of bone via the frame and blackened leather in other areas. He banged them together to get a sense of just how hard they were and found them to be fairly durable.
"These aren't so bad…" He said to himself.
"But definitely not good enough!"