Chapter 7: Shadow Serpent in Training

On a small open field inside the dark woods one black-colored serpent and a white-haired boy can be seen training, the boy is moving around in an agile manner, jumping from one place to another while changing his speed and momentum while using his pitch-black dagger to slash and stab in different directions. On the other hand, the little black snake can be seen spitting black colored sticky liquid towards a small tree and after a few seconds, the part of the tree hit by the black liquid started to bubble and eventually, the small tree fell, the black little snake is the Shadow Serpent while the white-haired boy is Damian.

When the shadow serpent's body got stronger he started reading about its fighting capabilities and the skills it already learned.

*Huff*huff

Damian sat on the ground panting trying to catch his breath, he has been running and jumping around since they woke up and it is now noon and they still haven't had lunch.

" Shadow, that's enough for now " Damian called out his battle beast, he decided to call his Shadow Serpent just " shadow " since he is not good with names, and the shadow serpent is alright with it.

" Go hunt something for us to eat, in exchange I will give you two spirit fruit, Deal? " Damian said.

* Hiss, Shadow hissed in delight, it clearly fell in love with the spirit fruits that Damian has been feeding him.

Shadow quickly slithered away from where Damian is and disappeared from his sight, He is not worried that the young Shadow Serpent will be in danger since the place where they are training only has low-class tier 1 wild battle beast and his shadow serpent is much stronger than them.

After a few minutes, Shadow came back with a rabbit in his mouth.

" Good job," Damian said and he proceeded to make a fire.

The two of them had a filling lunch.

After eating and resting for an hour they are now back to training.

" Show me your other skills " Damian commanded Shadow, the Shadow Serpent cannot understand his words but it can understand Damian's thoughts, the moment they were bonded their thoughts got connected and that is how beast master and their battle beasts communicate.

Shadow already trained with one of his skills earlier which is poison spit and early stage skill of poison attribute battle beasts, Shadow already learned three skills, but Damian can only know how many skills a battle beast has, not the exact skills is why he needs to see it first to know what it is.

Shadow followed Damian's command its eyes got serious then suddenly it dashed towards a small tree and used its tail to attack like a whip.

* Swooosh

" Tail whip, that's a normal skill but it's good that he knows a short-range physical attack skill " Damian nodded seeing that it was just a normal skill but he is not disappointed, his Shadow Serpent already held great promise, asking for a rare skill is too much.

" What's the last one? " Damian asked Shadow.

Shadow dashed towards another small tree and used his fang to attack Shadow opened his mouth and it revealed two sharp knife-like fangs and it is covered in a black-coloured aura, shadow bit hard at the tree that it snapped immediately without resistance.

" Dark fang! " Damian eyes grew bigger in shock, it is not just a normal bite attack but an attributed one, it is extremely powerful since it possesses an attribute.

" It seems like I am extremely lucky," Damian said.

" Okay you did great, for now, we will focus on your mastery over the tail whip first " Damian explained to Shadow.

" Hiss " Shadow said, understanding Damian's words.

" Okay, what you have to do is to hit that small tree over there " Damian pointed towards a small tree as thick as a grown man's arm.

Shadow quickly used tail whip, whipping sounds reverberating as he hit the body of the small tree after a couple of hits the tree finally fell down.

" It took you 10 hits, your goal is to lower that to 5 you understand? " Damian said.

" Hiss" Shadow said.

While Shadow is busy doing his training, Damian started to train as well, he is now using his spirit inspection technique along with his dagger, and he is doing this to familiarise himself with fighting while using a spirit skill at the same time since he only has two skill the spirit inspection and soul chain he can only use the spirit inspection technique during training since his spirit energy will drain fast if he uses his soul chains, plus using Spirit Inspection during a fight increases his chance of avoiding an ambush since he will notice if someone is nearby with his spirit inspection.

This kind of training lasted for a week before Shadow managed to cut down a tree using one tail whip and Damian got used to using Spirit inspection as if it was breathing.

" We should now put your training in a real fight," Damian said as he prepare his things.

" Hisss" Shadow hissed in excitement, he has been training with a tree for a week now and almost all trees nearby are cut down by him.

That is why today Damian decided to take Shadow out to fight wild battle beasts nearby.

" Let's go! " Damian jumped towards a tree branch and started to dart forward while Shadow started to slither on the ground keeping up with Damian's speed, Shadow grew a lot during the span of one week, he is now one and a half meters long and as thick as Damian's arm, though he is still quite on the thin side his body undoubtedly stronger than before.

" Stop!" Damian said in his mind and Shadow reading his thoughts stopped in his tracks as well.

Not far away from them, there is a young black swamp crocodile.

"Low-class Black Swamp Crocodile, high-level tier 1 and it learned two skills already " Damian used his spirit inspection on the Black Swamp Crocodile.

" Shadow go fight with this Black Swamp Crocodile" Damian commanded Shadow to fight, despite it being a high-level tier 1 while Shadow is still Middle-level tier 1, his rank didn't improve since Damian focused on strengthening Shadow's body first, but despite being weaker in rank, Damian thinks that the Black Swamp Crocodile is a perfect match for his Shadow.

" Hiss" Shadow didn't immediately attack instead it slowly approached the wild battle beast from its blindside.

Shadow went for a dark fang wanting to kill the Black Swamp Crocodile in one strike.

The Black Swamp Crocodile felt Shadow's presence and it managed to dodge but Shadow's fang grazed it, and it made the Black Swamp Crocodile angry.

The Black Swamp Crocodile attacked and chomped at Shadow but Shadow dodged the attack easily he didn't expect the Black Swamp Crocodile to use tail whip, Shadow was sent flying, but he quickly got up if it was the old Shadow he will definitely die from that attack.

" With Shadow's fighting experience being non-existent he is doing quite well " Damian understood that there is a disparity in fighting experience between the two battle beasts but he does not plan to intervene, wants Shadow to be able to fight on its own without his command because there will be a time where he will be occupied in a fight and will definitely be unable to command Shadow's every move, plus it is better this way he doesn't want his battle beast to be just mere weapons.

Shadow and the Black Swamp Crocodile are still in a heated battle but this time Shadow made a change in his approach he is now fighting in a distance using poison spit trying to poison the wild battle beast but the Black Swamp Crocodile also has a long-range attack called water ball since it is a water attribute battle beast.

Shadow's new plan is ineffective against his opponent and he is now on the defensive trying to dodge and block the Black Swamp Crocodile's attacks.

After suffering from a few more attacks Shadow decided to retreat and the Black Swamp Crocodile didn't chase him.

" Hiss" Shadow said from a distance, he is asking for help from Damian who is high up in the tree branch.

" Nope, you deal with this crocodile on your own. " Damian said in a relaxed manner.

" Hiss! " Shadow said pissed at Damian, but he cannot do anything about him.

This time Shadow didn't go in to fight again instead he just hid in the nearby bushes and waited till the sun goes down and the surroundings grew darker.

Damian is not worried at nighttime anymore, with his current mastery over Spirit Inspection he will be relatively safe.

Seeing Shadow's action made Damian smile.

" That's right, you are not the type to gain an advantage in a frontal fight, not currently, so you must use your advantages " Damian praised Shadow in his head.

Shadow having pitch black scales made him hard to spot in the dark, he is now one with the shadows, fitting for his name Shadow.

This is also the reason they got the name Shadow Serpents because they are one with the shadows.

The Black Swamp Crocodile is now lazily slumped on the ground since it just finished having dinner, then suddenly Shadow attacked with a tail whip, he targeted the Crocodile's head and it made the Black Swamp Crocodile to be slightly dizzy.

Shadow didn't have the Black Swamp Crocodile any chances to counter-attack and he used poison spit to poison it it landed on the crocodile's face and it blinded the Black Swamp Crocodile.

* Growl The Black Swamp Crocodile growled in anger.

As the Crocodile angrily growled Shadow went for the kill and he used Dark Fang aimed at the Black Swamp Crocodile's neck, it successfully landed the crocodile tried to struggle free from Shadow's fangs but he slowly lost strength and died.