43 Spending Qi (1)
Kai walked back to the nest to top up his Qi. He planned on leaving these caves to collect some more information on breakthroughs before he continued. The last breakthrough had woken him up to the dangers of forging ahead without proper understanding.
Kai arrived at the cave which was now relatively empty. Apart from the hundreds of eggs inside the walls, there were just a few juveniles [Rock-Wyrm] slithering around. As soon as they noticed him, they would run away or hide behind the eggs in fear.
Kai ignored them and went directly for the eggs without hesitation. It was rare to be able to get this much Qi all at once so he wanted to take advantage of it as much as possible.
Kai broke every egg he came across. The few brave juveniles [Rock-Wyrm] that tried to stop him were only rewarded with a Qi-enhanced stomp to the head, turning them into mush. Kai smashed 100 eggs then checked his Qi casually.
[700 /700 Qi]
"Good, Let's see if my luck is still good," Kai said excitedly as he went back to the initial tunnel. He walked to the closest [Grade-2] [Rock-Wyrm Adult] corpse he could find and immediately turned it into a manual.
=[Create Manual]=
=[Grade-2] [Rock-Wyrm] selected as base material. This will cost [10 Qi], will you proceed?]
Kai accepted as usual and the corpse flashed into lights. It turned into a small booklet that Kai picked up and flipped through.
"E-Rank huh, well this is what I expected anyway". Kai was a little disappointed but he knew not to expect too much.
He absorbed the manual and scanned the new contents in his mind.
==[New Entry Recorded]==
=[Martial Arts Manual]
>Unnamed Martial Arts Manual [E-Rank] based on [Grade-2] Rock-Wyrm]
[The Earth spawns claim the strongest exo-skeletons forged from the magma in the depths]
>[Ability 1, Active]: Skin turns as hard as stone for 1 minute.
[Cost]: 1
[Duration]: 1 minute
"Pretty simple for an E-Rank". Kai learned the skill seeing as he now had two empty martial arts slots.
Kai activated the skill and his skin slightly glowed before going back to normal. He walked up to one of the [Rock-Wyrm] corpses and gave it a light punch. The sounds of rocks smashing against each other was heard and the shell cracked.
Kai let out a surprised whistle as he inspected the damaged shell. "My skin alone is almost as hard as their scales. This lasts for a whole minute huh. I wonder if it will work with the stacks from [Primordial Dragon Stance].
Kai didn't know why all his skills had been defensive lately. He only really received one movement manual which was [Hare Leaps Over Moon]. His only attack-oriented skill was [Corrosive Dragon Stance] which he only ever used for long drawn-out fights because of its high Qi cost.
He tried using [Corrosive Dragon Stance] on the bugs, but the poison took forever to penetrate their hard exoskeletons so he had resolved to just crushing them with brute force.
Kai looked back at the cool-down time of [Create Manual].
[1 hour, 56 minutes 34 seconds]
"Looks like I'll have to wait around then..."
Kai sat down cross-legged and wanted to try absorbing the Qi in the air again. If he could master this ability, then he wouldn't have to push himself to fight dangerous beasts all the time.
Kai closed his eyes and sensed the Qi particles in the air. He tried to inhale them but nothing happened. He thought about the feeling he had when he did it the first time and tried to recreate it, but that was easier said than done.
Before he knew it, two hours had passed without him being able to absorb a single spec of Qi.
"Man this is harder than I thought. I can't manipulate the Qi in the air so sucking it into my body is proving to be difficult. It just disperses before going into my body...I must be missing something..."
Kai put the matter to the back of his mind and walked to another [Rock-Wyrm] corpse. He put his hands on it and turned it into a manual. Another small booklet fell to the ground and Kai quickly absorbed the information.
==[New Entry Recorded]==
=[Martial Arts Manual]
>Unnamed Martial Arts Manual [E-Rank] based on [Grade-2] Rock-Wyrm]
[The Earth spawns crawled from the depths controlled by the hive. The True hive is long gone, however, the lesser hives control their brethren and wage bloody war in the depths]
>[Ability 1, Active]: Gain the hive mind ability, allowing you to communicate telepathically.
[Cost]: 1 Qi
[Duration]: 30 seconds
[Distance]: 1Km
"Well this is new. This must be the first non-combat skill I've gotten". Kai was disappointed again. He didn't know what to do with it but learned it anyway since he had an empty slot. Talking to people with his mind seemed cool anyway.
Kai sat back down and tried to absorb the Qi in the air again, but after an hour, he decided to give up.
"The feeling is completely different. I'm missing something here..."
Kai decided to focus on something more important, naming his two new Qi manuals. However, when he opened his status page, a system skill he had been curious about attracted his attention.
>[Manual Customization]
[Manuals can be combined with a chance to create Manuals of a higher Rank depending on the Qi spent]
"I've always been saving Qi so I didn't even think about this skill, but now..."
Kai decided to give it a shot. He decided to fuse his newly acquired defensive Manual with [Primordial Dragon Stance]. They were both E-Rank defensive skills so they should have some sort of synergy at least.
>[Manual Customization]=
=[Unnamed Manual] and [Primordial Dragon Stance] selected. Please select amount of Qi to be used for combination]=
[100 Qi]
[500 Qi]
[1000 Qi]
Kai only had [690 Qi] so he only really had two options here. Since he was going all in, he chose [500 Qi] and crossed his fingers, hoping for the best.
The process was anticlimactic. Kai only felt the Qi leave his core before a notification flashed in his mind.
=[Congratulations, to host for a successful combination]
==[New Entry Recorded]==
=[Martial Arts Manual]
>Unnamed Martial Arts Manual [D-Rank] based on [Combination] of [Grade-2][Rock-Wyrm] & [Fungus-Ape]=
[Ability 1, Active]: Gain Stone-Scales that significantly increase physical and Internal defense. When attacked, defense is further increased]
[Cost]: 5 Qi per minute
[Duration]: 1 minute
[Ability 2, Active]: Gain 'Stone-poise', making you immovable for 3 seconds]
[Cost]: 1 Qi
[Cool-down]: 30 seconds.
Kai Was surprised. The skills had fused for sure. The new skill had also become a D-Rank with descriptions that seemed a whole lot stronger.
Kai activated the first ability and his skin glowed as brown scales formed from his skin. The scales looked sturdy and covered his entire body, including his face. Kai ran his hands over his face and felt the intricate scales with the tips of his fingers.
"This is pretty cool. None of my other skills had changed my appearance before". Kai felt how sturdy the scales were and figured that even hard steel would struggle to pierce him now.
He further enhanced his body using Qi and then lightly punched the tunnel wall. The walls were solid but his fist broke right into it, leaving a small crater and a web of cracks spreading around the point of impact
"..."
Just as Kai was wondering why a simple punch had done all that, he heard the ground shake violently.
"Is such a simple punch really going to bring this place down?..." Kai was a little worried. He grabbed his backpack and got ready to run out of there, but suddenly noticed the source of the sound.
The ground shattered as a massive creature burst out of the cave floor. It looked eerily like a [Rock-Wyrm] but was the size of a bus, which was 3x the size of any adult [Rock-Wyrm] that he had seen.
[Rock-Wyrm Queen] [Grade-3] [Qi 3467]
Kai could only stare in shock as the massive behemoth broke through the tunnel floor.
