I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 33 - Forced To Submit

After fighting against Exos, Aurus decided to just hit his future enemies with the hardest hitting skill he had, which was the Acceptance form of the [Five Melancholy Spirit Spear]. If his enemies didn't die under the combination of [Spirit Energy Augmentation] and the Spirit Spear's Acceptance, Aurus would then use the second hardest hitting skill he had, the [Spirit Wind Ball].

Using this tactic, he was able to kill a bunch of S-grade branches and trees without difficulty, obtaining their Life and Will points in the process. Of course, the experience gained wasn't meager in amount since Aurus was killing beings that were one grade higher than him. After killing all of them, he gained 3 levels and was already close to maxing his current grade, being at Level 9.

...

Only a few hundred meters remained between Aurus and the Tempest Ruin as he could make out the place he was going to head to. The Tempest Ruin was an old building destroyed by the raging winds as the dust created from the rubble was scattered all throughout the ruin. Not only that, the rigidity of the walls were basically obsolete, only needing one push of a finger for it to fall over.

Of course, Aurus didn't head straight into the Tempest Ruin as he knew that some of his skills leveled up along the way. Since he was fighting, he muted the notification screen that popped up whenever his skills leveled up, only to let the feature be disabled. Not long after, a small bunch of notification screens appeared in front of Aurus' field of vision.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

'[Five Melancholy Spirit Spear] has leveled up.'

'[Low Spirit Spell Core (Wind Variant)] leveled up twice.'

Of course, the first notification screens to pop up were the offensive skills leveling up. It would be unusual for them to not level up after upgrading the [Level Up Synchronization] feature on the system's OS, right?

'[Supreme Purity Spiritas SP Vessel] has leveled up.'

'[Condensed Spirit Energy Core (Wind Variant)] has leveled up twice.'

After the offensive skills were the skills that had something to do with SP. All of his skills used SP so it would be unusual for them to level up.

'[High Rejuvenating Fruit Creation] has leveled up five times.'

Aurus looked at this and couldn't help but lightly chuckle. "I almost forgot about this one. I wonder how much SP I can hold now?"

The reason why [High Rejuvenating Fruit Creation] was able to level up five times was due to the fact that Aurus felt that the attack power of the Acceptance form wasn't high. Since the attack power of the form was proportional to the amount of SP he had, he decided to grind some levels on his Anima creation skill since that skill gave him the highest boost in SP amount.

Opening the details of the skill, he muttered, "After getting the Anima creation skill to Level 6, the maximum amount of Animas I can make has been boosted to 35 and the amount of SP each Anima can hold has been boosted to 22. Sweet."

Of course, the notification screens weren't over as there were a few more. These notification screens were expected by Aurus as they had something to do with...

Evolving.

'[Spirit Energy Augmentation], [Treader of Two Paths], and [Life and Will Vessel Manipulation] have all reached the MAX level. All of these skills have met the necessary requirements and are ready to evolve.'

Taking a bit of his time to look at the triangle hovering his body that showed the distance between him and the place he set a marker to, he noticed that there were only around 200 meters left. Since that was the case, Aurus commanded, "Evolve all of the evolvable skills."

Well, even if he evolved them all one by one, nothing would happen since he was sure all of these skills had a direct skill evolution path unlike the other skills he had.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

'[Spirit Energy Augmentation] has been evolved to [Spirit Energy Ascension].'

'[Treader of Two Paths] has been evolved to [Inheritor of Two Ideologies].'

'[Life and Will Vessel Manipulation] has been evolved to [High Vessel of Sentience].'

After removing those notification screens, he then formed 5 more floating Animas as he had to be prepared at all times, expanding his maximum SP by a small margin. He then took a glance at the floating triangle and saw that there was only 150 meters left. He then opened the details of the three skills while simultaneously casting [Spirit Detection (Wind Variant)] around his surroundings every once in a while.

________

[Spirit Energy Ascension] (Level 1/10)

Grade: A (Mortal)

The exchange of SP into power has reached its limits yet the Spiritas still needs more power. In the end, the Spiritas found a way to exchange more SP into power by condensing it and releasing it at the crucial moment, allowing the tides to turn around at battles.

> Conversion rate: 1 SP -> 1% boost in all stats

> Current limit: 100% boost in all stats

> [Spirit Ascension] skill can be used once limit has been reached, increasing the limit by 50% for 2 minutes (Has a cooldown of 1 hour)

________

________

[Inheritor of Two Ideologies] (Level 1/5)

Grade: B (Mortal)

As a Spiritas, you tread the two paths of Life and Will. With this, you gain knowledge of both paths and know how to use them to your advantage, thus granting you more power.

> For every 10% of the Life and Will bar being filled, user gets a 2% boost in stats, maxing out at 20% at full bar

________

________

[High Vessel of Sentience] (Level 1/5)

Grade: B (Mortal)

As a Spiritas, you tread the two paths of Life and Will, thus gaining knowledge on how to use both paths efficiently. During this process, you obtain a feeling that the two paths are lacking in their peak, thus deriving an expansion to their rumored peak.

> The maximum amount of Life and Will points that could be stored has been raised to 110

________

Just at the nick of time, Aurus finished looking at the skill details and was able to focus at the path in front of him with the gap between him and the Tempest Ruin being around 50 meters. Aurus couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as he tried to remember the information that's needed for him to obtain the [Blessing of the Tempest] and [Stick Regeneration] skill.

At this moment, when only 10 meters separated Aurus from the Tempest Ruin, a large branch and a tree barred Aurus' entry to the Tempest Ruin as a gust of wind blew towards Aurus' direction.

Aurus, of course, noticed the two entities standing in front of him as he dodged the gust of wind before coming back to his previous position, which was in front of the two entities.

Not knowing who they were, Aurus asked the question, "Who are you?"

...

A few minutes prior to Aurus' current situation, a branch and a tree were hastily travelling towards the Tempest Ruin as they slightly hovered about the ground. The branch and the tree were none other than Horell and Loran respectively. They were tasked by Herellia to ask the Spiritas they saw to join the Tempest Branch Alliance.

As they were still heading to their destination, Loran, the tree, asked Horell, "Why do you think Herellia wants that Spiritas thingy to join the alliance? Does he want the guy for his weird magic? If so, we already have weird magic since you're here Horell."

Being entities of the S-grade and X-grade, they were able to classify themselves through the genders of male and female, which was a sign of becoming sentient.

Horell, the one Loran just mentioned for having weird magic, couldn't help but blurt, "Weird magic? Just because you don't understand Higher Level 1 Magic doesn't mean it's weird! If it was really weird, then why would I cast [Flight] on both of us if it was a Higher Level 1 magic spell?" The way Horell spoke was calm and elegant, yet had hints of sadness between them.

Loran sensed Horell's sad expression and sent one of its roots to pat Horell on its body. "You know what? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I'll make it up to you by having fun with me later." From this statement alone, one could infer that Loran was female and Horell was male. Horell, not losing sight of the task Herellia gave them, then said, "I would love to but let's focus on the matter at hand. We must make sure that this Spiritas thing should join our side no matter what it takes."

Of course, Loran agreed to Horell's statement. There was a time where a branch of the alliance didn't fulfill Herellia's mission, that branch wasn't heard of afterwards, with the rumors of it being absorbed by Herellia sprouting within the alliance.

In the nick of time, Horell and Loran landed 10 meters before the Tempest Ruin just as Aurus was almost at the Tempest Ruin. Since Aurus wasn't paying attention to his surroundings while checking his system, he wasn't able to perceive Horell and Loran's landing, assuming that they were already there by the time they met.

Horell looked at Aurus before looking at Loran, who nodded as a signal. Afterwards, Horell conjured a small magic circle that packed a punch as it sent a gust of wind to Aurus.

"[High Breeze]!" Horell chanted inwardly.

Contrary to their expectations, Aurus was able to dodge the skill and went back to his previous position as he looked at the two and asked, "Who are you?"

At this moment, Loran stepped forward and instantly exuded an aura that inspired fear into anyone and looked at Aurus, who showed slight fear towards Loran. Loran then said in a mighty tone...

"You don't have to know who we are."

"For we are here to be your masters."

"Join the Tempest Branch Alliance or die."