Chapter 340 The Trial Of The Holy Beasts (Part-5)
After much deliberation, Mark came to a decision that is going to alter the course of his grand revenge plan, very soon.
He took out a bunch of black colored pills that resembled fish oil capsules and swallowed them one after another without any hesitation.
While there were no notifications from the system because it was offline at the moment, it didn't stop Mark's stats to rise according to the stat pill.
All in all, he took five strength pills (advanced grade), 3 intelligent pills (intermediate grade), 1 defense pill (advanced grade), 3 agility pills (advanced grade), 3 vitality pills (advanced grade), and 3 resistant pills (advanced grade).
These pills took all of his stats to cross 9 points, effectively making him a Supreme Being, although without proper ether energy to match his stats.
Due to the requirement of a high number of ether points, the Absolute Freezing skill became unavailable to use. Because of the system's offline status, the new summoning beasts weren't added to the list either. After all, a summoner, in general, would use a summoning spell to summon a beast from other planes and form a soul contract through ritual.
However, it was different for Mark. The system stores the beasts and unlocks them when its host reaches a required rank. In a way, it is like the system is giving him a free gift for breaking through to the upper realms.
Fortunately, this wouldn't disappoint Mark as he doesn't have many ether points to summon them anyway. With his 1 million EP, the most he could do is summon a 6-circle realm beast for one minute.
And since the lightning clone skill's cooldown timer has been reset with these multiple breakthroughs, Mark's mood also recovered a bit and he felt ready to go to the next level.
As he climbed the next step, the location changed once again, this time, he was on a small islet located in the middle of an endless ocean. There wasn't much space to move around but thankfully, the Exo suit can handle even the deepest parts of the ocean without a worry. Hence, he wasn't bothered by the place but focused on the surroundings to spot the enemy that appeared to be hiding underwater.
As the suit's enhanced vision only zooms into the object or makes things appear slower for a clear view, it didn't help him much in locating the beast. Hence, he could only prepare himself for the incoming attack.
As for summoning the lightning clone beforehand, he cannot do that either until the battle starts. After all, that skill would consume 1% of his ether energy per every second.
So, that leaves him with unleashing the other skill, which only consumes 1% per 40 seconds. With his ether regeneration passive skill, he could maintain it 24/7 without any problems.
Then, why would he delay it and wait for the enemy?
Mark decided to unleash the Gravity Dome and set it up beforehand.
He opened the skill interface, and as soon as his eyes immediately fell on the other details of the upgraded skills, his face glowed up in joy. "Man, every complex issue has been solved just like that. Now, I can clear up this trial with ease."
***
PASSIVE SKILLS:
Ultimate Defense I (disabled): By Default, the store is invincible under the heavens and cannot be damaged by anyone under the Demigod realm.
Ultimate Defense II (disabled): Within the store, the host cannot be harmed by anyone under the demigod realm. The host cannot also be dragged outside against his will.
Sage eyes: Allows the user to inspect any non-living thing or living thing and find their details.
The Devil's hand (disabled): Dismantle any object that you can touch and exchange in equivalent credits. And in case the object has an owner (bound to one's soul), then, you get 50% of equivalent credits as long as it is below Mythril grade (i.e. semi-divine and below).
Enhanced durability (level-1): Increase the user's body durability to receive less incoming damage of all types except for mental attacks. Effect: 1% DR. Limit: Opponents who are no greater than two ranks/realms above the user.
Ether Regeneration: Increase the ether recovery rate by 100 times. Effect: 1% recovery per every 0.7 seconds.
No Touch (Deactivated): Upon activation, the user's body will be untouchable physically. Nothing in the world (except for the items owned by the user and energy) can touch the user.
**
ACTIVE SKILLS:
Thunderblast (Lv-7): Summon a lightning bolt from the heavens to strike down the enemy with 150% attack power (max: 10.9). Cost: 50% ether. CD: 15 min.
Lightning Clone: Summon a lightning clone with stats equal to your maximum stats+1. Cost: 1% ether/second. CD: None
Gravity Dome (Level-9): Creates an invisible dome around the user. Inside the dome, the user could control the gravity from 0.2g to 200g. Range: 1000 meters. Cost: 1% Ether Energy per 120 seconds. CD: 0 seconds.
**
BLOODLINE SKILLS:
Absolute Freezing: Freeze your surroundings for 1800 seconds. Those who were frozen will face a temperature under -220 degrees Celsius. Range: 3000m. Cost: 100,000,000 EP. CD: 60min.
Ice bolt: Conjure any number of ice spears with your ether energy at any time to launch them at your enemies with 120% power. Anything that gets pierced will be frozen. Cost: 20% ether. CD: 0 sec. Range: 3000m
*
Blizzard Wings: Create a pair of indestructible icy wings, which can be used to fly, block incoming attacks, or attack enemies with a blizzard.
Flying: 10 EP of consumption every second.
Block: Up to 150% defense stat points (max: 12.5). Cannot fly or attack. The back will also be vulnerable. No ether consumption. And no external items can augment this feature (original defense points).
Attack: Generate a blizzard for ten seconds with the power of 100% intelligence stat points. Cost: 10,000,000 EP. CD: 30 sec. Range: 3000 meters. The host is immune to the reduction of visibility due to the blizzard.
*
Freezing gaze: Freeze any kind of matter just by looking at it and locking the target. Those without bloodline skills, divine weapons, and less cultivation level than the user's intelligence stat points will not be able to escape. The frozen people face a temperature of -220 degrees Celsius. Cost: 1,000,000,000 EP. CD: None. Range: 3000 meters.
***
Without thinking much, Mark clicked on Gravity Dome, unleashing the skill.
An invisible dome was released into the surroundings, instantly.
"Cool." Mark let out a pleasant smile as he started sensing the graviton particles even far as 1 kilometer away when it was only 100 meters a while ago.
"Now, for the next safety measurement."
The torn part of the suit around his wrist reminded him to be careful of physical damage from close combat. Hence, he toggled on the "No Touch" passive skill he bought a while ago.
With the skill staying activated, apart from the things he owned, no object or living thing in the world could touch him. As for how it decides what he owns, usually, it was the system that decides.
With the system going offline, Mark didn't know its overall limits but with the experiments, he conducted during the past ten days, he concluded that the skill would atleast push away the people and doesn't resist the ether weapons bound to his soul.
That much is satisfactory enough for Mark to depend on this passive skill of his.
Once he was done with setting up the defenses, he was finally relaxed and read the description of the skills once again to formulate a plan against the future enemies.
"Let's seeโฆ My body can regenerate all of the ether energy within 70 seconds. That means I can continuously keep the lightning clone with me without worrying about consumption. Maybe, if I can cover it up with armor like Song Yun, I can also use him as a bodyguard.
Thunderblast skill was a bit of a disappointment but it is expected anyway. After all, it depends on intelligent stat points. While I might have them over 9 like the rest of the stats, the original int stat was still only at 7.6.
Anyway, against beast emperors of the 9-circle realm, the skill will be more than enough to turn one of them into ash even if they turned out to be a defensive type.
But then again, I won't have to depend on the rest of the skills with the lightning clone to do the job for me.
๐r๐ฆ๐ฆ๐eb๐๐คvel.c๐ค๐ข
As for defense against the ranged attacks, I would have to unequip this suit and depend on the wings. They will protect me as long as I don't let them attack me from behind."
While keeping his eyes on the surroundings in wariness of a sudden ambush, Mark proceeded to summon the lightning clone and then went on to take off the suit, followed by unleashing the Blizzard wings.
"Okay, now I'm ready. Only the enemies are left to appear," mumbled Mark as he spread his wings widely.
He waited for half a minute in patience before bubbles appeared on the surface of the water, just a hundred meters away, and nine giant snake heads rose from the water.
Surprisingly, there was only one 9-circle beast as an enemy but this one isn't a beast emperor. When Mark inspected its details through his Sage eyes, his expression changed right away upon finding that it is a beast that could be said to be on par or stronger than even Lan Ju at his peak strength.
Xiang Liu
Grade: Ancient
Rank: 9-circle
Description: Xiang Liu, a monster with 9 snake heads was once the underling of the Water God.
"Who the fuck is the creator of this trial?" Mark couldn't help but cursed out loud in anger while staring at the giant squid.