Chapter 21 : Intensive Training
With a new goal in mind Young decided to throw himself into intensive training. As Spark pointed out in their last meeting, he'd been lost for almost two weeks now. This left him very little time to escape and cultivate his strength. With that in mind Young decided to step his efforts up by training multiple facets of his strength at the same time.
The Cloak skill was deceptively difficult to master. While standing still it was an easy task to envelop one's body in qi but any prolonged motion made the technique much more taxing on the body. At best he could hold the technique for five minutes while motionless and less than thirty seconds while walking. He combined his practice of Cloak with weapon practice. Spear and Sword, he used them both equally alternating between breaks and doing several sets of weapon strikes.
His stamina decreased not only when he was tired, but also by taking strenuous actions therefore after just an hour of this he was forced to rest for some time. He repeated this process over and over for hours until his body ached. He would then take a nap and continue.
By nightfall he felt he'd gotten proficient enough with using Cloak to enable it in thirty minute bursts, regardless of movement. He also felt more comfortable with the spear and thus opted to use it for his battles for a while. The main reason for using the spear was the fact that he also sought to get better with using his own lightning affinity.
Rather than do traditional training for this, Young felt it would be quicker to throw himself into the heat of battle. Though the Grubs could damage him, he doubted they would truly pose a challenge at all. Which is why, when he exited the safety of the spring and happened across a larger Grub he didn't think twice until he saw the creature's description.
[Greater Cave Grub
A cave grub that has grown undisturbed for a decade. Powerful enough to eat both flesh and bone. It's acid can melt soft metal, beware.]
It was roughly twice the size of a normal Cave Grub and its flesh was almond colored, a contrast to the pale white flesh of the smaller variety. It was currently a little less than five meters away from Young and it was surrounded by several other Cave Grubs.
"Well. I wanted to jump into the thick of things. No excuses now." Young felt himself wanting to switch back to his sword, he simply felt more comfortable doing so but he knew he'd only grow by tackling his weaknesses.
He rushed forth and hurled the spear at the Greater Grub's chunky body, the spear pierced it's flesh but the creature seemed largely unbothered. Instead it slowly pivoted on its legs and turned to face its attacker. Unlike the small variety this one had several eyes , six total and all of them blood red. They shined through the dimly lit cavern as it shrieked loudly. The smaller grubs next to it also turned to face Young and began their assault.
"Uh oh." Young said to himself as he dashed forward. His speed was much better than before, so much so that it only took him a couple of seconds to bridge the distance. Before the creatures could attack him Young recalled his spear and stabbed two of the smaller grubs, instantly killing them. He then dashed away, avoiding several balls of acid -- or so he thought.
"Ptoo!" The sound from the Greater Grub vibrated in the air as a high velocity ball of acid flew forward from its mouth, pegging Young in the abdomen. The pain was severe, enough to leave a bruise despite the fact that he had his Cloak active. What's more, the acid still corroded his skin, this time completely exposing the pink beneath.
Young grimaced in pain, but he refused to stop moving, after all the Greater Grub refused to stop firing!
"Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!" Unlike the other balls of acid which were slow and took a while to shoot, the acid pelts were quick and rapid fire.
"What the heck? I definitely wasn't expecting this!" Young thought to himself as he ran along the cave wall and stopped only for a moment to hurl his spear, this time at another small Cave Grub.
Another hard acid ball pelted him on the shoulder, forcing him to keep moving.
"I need a ranged attack, I can't get close enough to finish this with a sword or spear!" Young remarked as he decided to rely on his agility to see him through. He dashed forward as fast as he could and veered around, attempting to take the back of the Greater Grub in one movement.
"You're mine!" He shouted as he called out his Beast Bone Short-sword and quickly activated Arcing Lightning. The spear disappeared, as he could only have one Spirit Weapon active at any given time. The lightning energy issued forward and impacted the Greater Grub but much to Young's surprise the attack didn't kill it --in fact he barely made it through the creature's thick skin.
"You've got to be kidding!" He shouted as he hopped backwards a few times and recalled his spear. The short-sword disappeared, it's final charge expended as Young prepared to charge his Fern Spark Spear. The shaft of the weapon pulsed with lightning energy as he rushed forward to pierce the Grub's flesh. Though the spear went in easily at first, after sinking several centimeters the spear edge felt hung up on something dense and thick.
"Does this thing have two hides?" He thought as he activated his 'Spark Burst' technique. The large orb of lightning quickly expanded, consuming half of the Grub before it stopped moving. It's lifeless body deflated as its green filled innards spurted out.
"Geez, that's really gross." Young said as he kept moving. The other creatures would be a cinch to get rid of, now that the large one was gone. He settled the battle with a decisive strike to each before he took a moment to catch his breath.
"That wasn't so bad...but I could probably do better." Young said to himself as he began the process of collecting his monster spirits. Not only was the Greater Cave Grub more powerful, but it also rewarded him with a monster spirit that was four times as potent as the smaller ones.
After this was done Young turned his attention to his abdomen to check the place where the acid ball struck. Though it didn't bother him in the heat of battle, the wound indeed saw several layers of his skin melted off.
"I wonder how Young was able to heal me. I should ask him about that later.." Young thought. After giving him a few moments to rest he continued to press on. It turns out that the cavern was now full of the larger grubs as well. The remainder of the night went much like the first encounter, only Young focused on dispatching the Greater Grubs with his Fern Spark technique first. It seemed somewhat wasteful, given the fact that he could only use the technique less than a dozen times now but he could not afford to sustain any serious injuries.
After defeating four more groups of mixed Cave Grubs he retired to the spring for the evening and decided to for the night. Before retiring to sleep Young took mental notes of all of his shortcomings during the conflict and things he'd need to correct.
The next day he decided to try using his Lightning affinity. As Spark explained he shaped his own qi into lightning, but that was essentially all Young could do at the moment. He found it difficult to integrate it into battle, short of bridging the distance and thrusting his fist into a Cave Grub. Ultimately, for the second day, this is what he decided on when it came to his battle training. The weaker grubs died instantly, splattering green goop in all directions as they met their demise. The Greater Grub was a different beast altogether. Young managed to land several lightning affinity strikes but the damage was so minimal that he was forced to rely on a weapon to end it. Rather than use his spear, this time he used his new longsword to cleave the creatures in two. The blade did the job effortlessly, and as a result Young learned something new about the weapon as well.
By flowing his qi into weapons he could activate their skills, but with the Fulger Crystal Long-sword he could continue passing energy to it in order to expand the attack range of the Lightning Blade effect by up to three times (roughly 9 meters). Of course, the energy drain on the charged version was also more significant.
Thanks to reaching Rank 2 his qi surplus allowed him to freely use the blade to cut a swathe through any foes that stood in his way. As long as he could avoid the acid pelts and outmaneuver them, the Cave Grubs posed no threat.
There was however one thing that bothered Young. The act of converting his qi into lightning took much too long and the effects ended just as quickly. There was no way using elements was that impractical in battle, after all he'd seen plenty of cultivators do battle with elements and none stopped in the middle to convert their qi. This led Young to believe that perhaps he was doing something wrong.
He decided to spend some time looking through the help and realized a crucial part of the puzzle.
"The Affinity Cores is a personal compartment in the soul sea dedicated to storing converted energy. By converting the energy and storing it beforehand it can be readily accessed at any time."
"Oh! That makes perfect sense!" Young practically shouted.