Chapter 89 - 89. Loot

Noah decided to transfer everything except the clothes in his space-ring and then he threw Lena's cracked ring between the corpses.

He had then one empty deposit and one with things to evaluate.

'I have to take care of these things first.'

He looked in the corner of the cave where the dead bodies were amassed.

He neared the pile and his mental energy began to deplete as he stretched his arm toward it.

Black smoke came out of his hand and engulfed the corpses.

As everything in the corner was consumed by his spell, Noah analyzed its effects.

'The corrosion is indeed stronger if the distance between me and the smoke is small. Assea.'

His blood companion came out from his other hand and Noah concentrated.

Even more mental energy was expended as the body of the snake was being covered by the black smoke.

Initially, it seemed that Assea's body was becoming stronger but then it rejected the empowerment and started to corrode.

Noah stopped the spell and retracted his blood companion while shaking his head.

'Assea can't endure the Demonic form, it should be because its core it's from a magical beast of the earth element.'

He was eager to change his companion and that's why Assea's figure in his sea of consciousness remained slightly cracked.

He wasn't prioritizing fixing it since it was still somewhat usable.

The black smoke made everything in the corner vanish and Noah decided to find another hideout to sort the rest of the items, that cavern had become too smelly.

About thirty minutes later, he was sitting on a large branch of one of the trees.

As he went deeper in the forest the trees had become larger, he found trunks longer than two hundred meters along the way.

'Everything is bigger in this world, harnessing "Breath" gives every living being a limitless potential apparently. Such a miraculous power, I wonder how things really were in my previous world. Maybe the "Breath" there was so thin that it couldn't be noticed.'

From time to time he would still compare the development of humans in his two different lives.

Sure, his previous world created deadly weapons on a daily basis but could it have resisted the endless incursions of magical beasts?

'Personal power it's always superior to the collective one of societies or governments. The King of the valley could have single-handedly destroyed entire cities.'

He shook his head and focused again on the items, a small scroll appeared in his hands.

'Surging river, water spell, rank up to the fourth, creates a perpetual flow of water at high pressure that crushes the target.'

'Up to rank 4? Is it the limits of the strength of the magic spell? My education really is shallow.'

He put the scroll back in the ring and took out the silver sabers.

These weapons were new a couple of weeks before but they had already been slightly blunted in the single battle that he had fought.

Noah injected his "Breath" on them and the green inscriptions lightened up.

The dents and the corroded parts began to fix themselves and in five minutes the sabers were as good as new.

'This is almost miraculous! I guess that Eccentric Thunder gave these blades to me because he knew of the disadvantages of the Demonic form.'

He was the only one immune to the black smoke of the spell, his weapons suffered from the same corrosion that everything else it touched experienced, even if in a weaker way.

'It is because I don't want to damage them that they were degraded so scarcely. I wonder if there is a way to avoid it like it should be possible with the blood companion.'

He sheathed the sabers and took out the last item in need of inspection.

The reagent and the Earth pill were one-time-use items and didn't need any control, their usage was pretty straightforward.

The potions and pills from Lena's inventory were all sorted in an ordinate way with their explanation, their usage was essentially battle oriented, consisting of raising momentarily the healing process of a determined center of power.

However, the scroll that he took out was of vital importance to Noah at the moment.

'Dark vortex, rank 2 cultivation technique, restricted to darkness element. Cultivating at night will speed the accumulation of "Breath".'

On the scroll, there was only this explanation and the descriptions of the respiration forms.

'With this technique, the Earth pill, and the reagent, my road to the rank 2 dantian will be smooth. He really thought of everything.'

Noah smiled a little thinking about the old man with the giant hat.

'I wonder why did he have that much stuff unfitting for his element, such a strange character.'

The sun was still up but he decided to give a try to the technique.

He crossed his legs and joined his hands to form a circle where is dantian was.

A drop of his liquid "Breath" was consumed to ignite a vortex at the center of the circle.

"Breath" began to gather inside the spinning spiral coloring it in black.

It seemed that the drop that he used attracted the "Breath" of its same kind.

Since the "Breath" had not to be filtered before entering the dantian, the accumulation process was faster and smoother.

During the meditation, the vortex abruptly enlarged and rotated at a faster speed, needless to say, even the quantity of "Breath" embodied was higher.

Noah was surprised and opened his eyes.

He noticed that the sun had set and the night had come.

'To think that there was actually such an increase in effectiveness! Cultivating during the day feels like a waste now.'

He calculated in his mind for a bit and believed that if he meditated every night during the time the sky was dark, he could reach the limits of the liquid stage in less than two years.

'I've decided. I will spend my nights cultivating and my mornings between the training on second Kesier rune and my sleep. As I wake up, I will repeat some forms and then proceed toward Ebonrest city during the afternoon.'

He had still four months before the test of the academy and he wanted to increase his strength now that he had the means and the time to train.

'I should also search for a rank 3 darkness-type beast since I'm at it.'