Chapter 88: Ervas Does his Best
Chapter 88: Ervas Does his Best
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Two giant beasts, with long and limbless bodies, captured a large crocodile-like creature the size of a truck.
One of them was a giant worm covered in purple scales that was over seven meters long, it had a giant gaping mouth filled with sharp razor-like teeth, and the other was a giant snake made up of countless purple vines covered in sharp spikes, it didn’t really have a true mouth, but its vines shaped themselves as one, ‘biting’ on the crocodile-like monster with its venomous spikes.
“Gasshaaa!”
“Giishaa!”
“Grrowl!”
Their powerful bites and venomous poison quickly diminished the vitality of the large crocodile-like monster, which died after a few minutes of struggling.
“Well done, Nidhogg, Ivy,” said Jason, who was seeing the fight from a respectable distance.
The giant worm covered in purple scales was Nidhogg, one of Veronica’s tamed monsters, which through these two weeks evolved into a Rank 4 Venomous Scales Drake Earth Worm. It gained the ‘Drake’ word into his name, but his appearance only changed slightly, his scales became harder and his body a bit longer. It did not really become a dragon, yet it had the ‘drake’ into its name.
Some speculated that it was perhaps due to its naming, which Veronica and Ervas explained was the name of a dragon in the mythology of their original world.
And the long snake made out of purple vines was Ivy, one of Ervas’s firsts monster plant monsters, which these last two weeks, it hunted voraciously for more and more prey, acquiring enough Experience Points and ranking up to a Rank 5 Huge Constrictor Venomous Spike Vine Boa. It was strong enough to entangle and kill a Rank 4 monster such as the Grand Crocodile with its poison.
Nidhogg and Ivy then began to consume the corpse of the monster they just killed.
“Hey, they’re eating it,” said a floating figure made out of gray stone with the appearance of a small humanoid, Gnome, Jason’s bonded spirit. After two weeks, it had developed enough to be capable of speaking without any more issues and seemed to have the personality of a young boy.
“Don’t worry, Gnome, it is lunchtime, and they haven’t eaten anything yet, so it is fine” said Jason.
“Hm, I see… well, what about these other guys?” asked Gnome, pointing at Charlotte, Aqua, Cthulhu, Nick and Gwendolyn, and other plant-type monsters.
“I suppose they should share, they look just as hungry,” said Jason, as he told Nidhogg and Ivy to share the giant beast they hunted. The two groaned, but let the other monsters dig in.
Although the monster meat was filled with poison, all the monsters present had developed strong resistances to poison or were naturally immune to it, so there was no problem.
Jason glanced to the distance, where he saw Ervas practicing Techniques with Veronica.
Ervas, two years and a few months old half-demon, which had developed his body a bit faster by leveling up the ‘Demon Metabolism’ Skill, was currently fully armored in dark and scarlet armor, which seemed to be made specifically for his body, fitting in each area perfectly, from greaves to helmet. He was also holding a small shield, although it was small for Jason and Veronica, it was big enough to cover Ervas’s whole torso.
Meanwhile, Veronica was holding her golden-colored javelin with her right hand, while smiling. Her head was exposed as she had left her helmet in the ground alongside her shield.
Ervas sighed.
“This is harder than I thought, learning Shield Technique, Armor Technique and Unarmed Fighting Technique is quite hard even when I constantly insert memories and experience about practicing it into all of my muscles constantly,” said Ervas.
After seeing that his body had developed a bit more, now giving him the appearance of a boy at his four years of age, he had decided that he was big enough to learn techniques.
He had thought that it was impossible due to his small bones and weak muscles, but through the ‘Demon Metabolism’ skill leveling up, his body quickly developed at an abnormal pace.
After changing Jobs, he asked Veronica to train him into the basic three techniques that she used.
Veronica agreed, bringing the full armor set that she had created for Ervas beforehand, which were of course her clones, the shield included.
However, even after two hours of training, he was having problems learning it. The sun was already setting on the horizon and it would be soon time to go back to the village to have dinner and then sleep.
“Come to one, Ervas, you can do it!” said Ervas’s chest plate.
“Don’t give in my boy!” said Ervas’s shield.
“You can do it; I know you can!” said Ervas’s helmet.
Every piece of equipment was one of Veronica’s clones, and they all talked to him constantly.
“You don’t need to talk me through the equipment, you’re literally in front of my sight, Veronica,” said Ervas, a bit frustrated.
“What’s wrong with a bit of cheering up? Alright, here I come again! Piercing Shoot!”
Veronica rushed towards Ervas with immense speed, pointing her javelin towards him and clashing against his armor and shield constantly.
Ervas resembled a heavy ragdoll while being pounded all over by a force that he could not reflect.
In this training, he was prohibited from using Telekinesis or any magic except his phantom and soul form. But even controlling these two was harder than he thought, especially using techniques with them.
He saw how Veronica did it so easily and thought that it would be as easy for him.
“But I was wrong” muttered Ervas, falling to the ground all tired.
Since he has a memory of being born in this world that he had used Telekinesis to support his body, defend, attack, and everything. Now he was deprived of his strongest tool and forced to use things he seemed to not be familiar with, even after constantly inserting experience and memories of the practice of them.
“I guess Veronica had an affinity with these techniques and the use of her soul as a limb because she was born as undead and a Living Armor… it’s like a natural talent. Similar to how birds with wings can fly, it’s something natural that surged from her without any need to train intensively…” thought Ervas.
Veronica glanced at Ervas resting in the ground, motionless.
“Ervas, are you okay? Was I too brute?” she asked.
“No… I am fine, my sore muscles quickly healed with my Life Attribute Spirit Magic… let us do it again” said Ervas, jumping from the ground and getting ready to tank Veronica’s hits again.
The best way to learn Shield and Armor Techniques was by… imbuing mana into the equipment and then receiving a bunch of strong hits while trying to resist them.
“If even Aqua learned them… I should be able to as well… let’s use my soul again…” thought Ervas, glancing at Aqua who was happily eating crocodile meat.
Ervas extended his spectral soul, which had a grayish-white color, covering his entire body with it below his armor, and tried to take on Veronica’s javelin again.
“That’s the spirit! Here I go!”
Crash! Crash! Crash!
“Ugh…”
Ervas was shot like a bullet, hitting a tree.
“Ervas! Veronica weren’t you a bit brute now?!” roared Jason, running to help his son.
However, Ervas quickly stood up again.
“I’m fine. Let’s do it again” he said.
Jason was not aware of Ervas superhuman regeneration abilities due to constantly imbuing himself with Life Attribute Spirit Magic healing spells.
“O-Oh… very well…” sighed Jason, moving away. He began to admire his son’s perseverance.
Veronica praised Ervas’s willpower and once again clashed against him…
“Here I come! Crushing Charge! Piercing Javelin!”
Clash! Clash!
“Ngh!”
Ervas resisted the first two hits with all of his soul put into it but then was blown away again.
Veronica was not going easy on him, she was giving him all the words of motivation, but she was being ruthless. Because Ervas was her split soul, she knew that that is what he wanted.
If she went easy on him, he would probably never learn the technique, Ervas needed to be constantly thrown away, recover, and then stand up again.
This practice of resisting a few hits and then being blown away, recovering, and then standing up again to just receive more hits repeated itself until the sun disappeared through the horizon and the bright white moon raised in the night sky.
Although he did not gain any techniques, he got something else.
[You acquired the [Rapid Healing; Level 1] Skill!]
Perhaps being damaged and healing constantly made his own body adapt to this, and triggering the regeneration capabilities of his demon blood.
“It is better than nothing…” he thought, as he ate skewered grilled Earth Worm meat covered in herb sauce with the rest of his family.
“Maybe what Ervas needs is to train with many different people! I will train with him tomorrow!” said Acathea.
“And me!” said Pekorina.
It seems that tomorrow, Ervas will receive even greater blows.
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