Divine Beast Ascension

563 Vero

“First off, what are we calling you?” Vloz asked.

Oli opened his mouth but didn’t say anything just yet. He took a moment to think. “How about… Vero?”

“Vero. It’s different but it’s not so different from ‘Oliver’ that you’ll get too confused. I think it works,” replied Vloz. “Do you accept your new name?”

“Vero… I’m Vero… My name is Vero,” Oli repeated to himself.

Unlike the last time he assumed a new identity, Oli had never used the name “Vero” in his past life. So Oli knew he was going to need either time or repetition to let it sink in.

“Good. While you’re reciting your name, let’s test out your dark-based skills,” Vloz continued. “Do you know all of your current dark battle arts?”

“Yes. I don’t have many, so it’s not too hard to remember,” Oli sighed somewhat bashfully. “Should I practice some more arts before heading to Forell City?”

Vloz shook his head. “If you had more time, I would agree with you. But you’ve only got tonight with me and tomorrow with Herman before you leave. Then, you’ll be too busy to simply cultivate. Besides, adapting regular dark-based arts to your incomplete death essence would take even longer than normal and might not be worth the effort anyway.

“That’s why you’re going to attack me, Vero,” Vloz slyly remarked, “and then I’m going to attack you. We’ll take turns. And I’ll make sure to only use the strength of a peak-elder. Got it?”

.....

Nodding, Oli closed his eyes. He took a few seconds to feel and sense his Shadow Drake form. He had trained it briefly in the past but it had been months since that brief training period. Luckily, Oli’s body was unable to take a full dragon form. Otherwise, Oli would’ve been left adjusting to an entirely different body type, forcing Oli to take far longer to get comfortable just moving around, let alone attacking and defending himself.

After a few minutes of small movements, stretches, and swiping at the air, Oli opened his eyes. “Alright. I think I’m ready.”

“Good. Then come attack me.”

Oli bounded forward with more speed than he had anticipated. Even though his drake form wasn’t as physically strong as his gorilla form or as balanced as his human form, “Vero’s” newfound speed was a marvel. The streamlined, draconic body seemingly flew through the air with a leap alone, reaching Vloz much faster than Oli was anticipating.

Despite arriving at his target sooner than expected, Oli still put up a solid attack. Dark-death essence coated Oli’s claw, extending and sharpening it. As Oli streaked past the leopard, the black claw ripped through a solid chunk of Vloz’s defenses.

“Good… That’s better than I expected. If I had regulated my defenses to the extent of a peak-elder, you would’ve landed that blow. Of course, that’s with dark essence defenses, which have some of the weakest defenses of all,” Vloz explained. “However, your dark essence is far more potent now compared to before. Had you fought that wyvern in your drake form, I think you would’ve won, and with far less trouble.

“Now, I will attack you. Put up your best dark essence defenses,” reminded Vloz.

Oli hurried to cover his entire body in dark-death essence. It was mostly solid but it had a tinge of tangibility and mistiness due to the somewhat turbulent death essence.

Frrip...

Vloz’s claw poked through Oli’s defenses like a knife through paper. But there was no disappointment on the leopard’s face.

“Good. Now you feel for yourself how vulnerable you are without your earth essence acting as a shield. You’ll have to find other ways to defend yourself. Luckily, you’ve already got one way to do so, and it’s the purpose of you taking on this mission,” Vloz stated.

“The purpose of all this? … Death essence?”

Nodding back at Oli, Vloz proudly smiled. “That’s right, ‘Vero’. With death essence, you become far less enticing to attack. Because even if I land a blow on you, I’m left dealing with your residual death essence. See?”

Vloz held up his paw, catching Oli off guard. There was a trickle of misty, black energy trying to consume and eradicate the dark essence Vloz had left active on his claw.

“Death essence can be terrifying to face when you’re not prepared for it. And since so few people can wield it, you’ll find death essence to work like a shield in a place like the Prodson Territory. It will be somewhat more common during your run through the Mortal Championship, but that’s only because you’ll be pitted against the best of all mortal cultivators,” Vloz reasoned.

“For now, focus on death essence. And the transformation of your essence nature should go even faster now that you’re in your drake form.” Vloz asked, “Did you ever experiment with your various forms to discover the different boosts in abilities they had?”

“Yeah. Eeole helped me with that.” Sighing, Oli thought back to those few days of training his new forms. “My human form is neutral and has no buffs or debuffs to any of my essence types. Eeole said my drake and gorilla forms boost my dark and earth essence by about one hundred percent, respectively.”

“That’s good, ‘Vero’,” Vloz replied, genuinely surprised by that statistic.

But Oli continued, “They also give my other essence types a hundred percent debuff. So using earth or gravity essence in my drake form is a lot harder and really inefficient. Just to make a stone wall will take me almost ten times more earth essence than normal.”

Vloz bobbed his head in thought. “I see… But what about your gravity essence? Does that get debuffed in gorilla form too?”

“Yeah, it does,” Oli answered, flooring the leopard. “The only form that buffs gravity essence is my full Draco Roxite form. In that form, according to Eeole, I get a fifty percent buff to dark and earth essence along with a one hundred percent buff to gravity.”

“Oh. So your full form is definitely the strongest overall?”

“Yeah. But Eeole recommended that I eventually master shifting from one form to the other. That way I could need just a second to shift between forms and use whatever form is most applicable,” said Oli. “Like if I needed to hide, then being a Shadow Drake would be best. And if I could only defeat an opponent with physical strength, then I could use my Roxite Gorilla or Draco-Roxite Gorilla forms, depending on the situation.”

Just imagining that, Vloz was left without words. It left him dazed thinking about all the possible strengths that Oli had at his fingertips. “... By any chance, is there a single form more compatible with your soul arts than the others?”

Oli shook his head. “No. We tried that too, but the abilities of my soul art never changed.”

“How far are you on the soul art?” asked Vloz.

“I’ve mastered the third level. I wanted to start training the fourth level but Eeole stopped me and told me to only attempt that after getting my divine core. Eeole said that the soul art level matches the person’s cultivation. Since I’m in the third realm of cultivation, the elder realm, then I should stop at the third level of the Infinite Torture soul art,” explained Oli. “And that just like how the difference between an elder and a perennial is vast and nearly incomparable, the same is true for the third and fourth level of the soul art.”

Feeling much more at ease, Vloz commented. “I see. Then I should be fine pushing all the way to complete the fourth level. Hold on a moment…”

A thought came to Vloz’s mind from years ago. It was a memory at first but was quickly stretched into a question. “Is that how your father died? Didn’t your father master the fifth or sixth level of the soul art even though he was a perennial?”

Swallowing all saliva in his mouth, Oli offered a slight nod. “... That’s what Eeole said.”

“And that’s how he assumed the strength of a king without actually being one, which left his body destroyed because it couldn’t handle the technique at that level…” Everything he had heard about the gorilla clan’s soul art was finally starting to make sense.

“Vloz? Shouldn’t we get back to my training?”

“Yes! You’re right,” Vloz interjected between his own thoughts, stopping them in their tracks before he was unable to keep testing Oli. “Now… since you can use soul arts again, don’t you dare use the fourth level as you are. Don’t even attempt to learn it.”

“I know, I know, Vloz,” Oli replied with a partially badgering tone.

“Good. Then let’s move on. You know the pros and cons of your drake form, so it’s time you got more comfortable with it. You’ve attacked me and I’ve attacked you. But we haven’t had an actual fight,” Vloz stated. “So let’s fight. Try and use this as an opportunity to create your own means of defense or armor using death essence. You’ve fought Kraz before, so you’ve seen how he does it. You’ll also get a taste of trying to hunt down an invisible foe. It’s time to see how fast you can learn and apply your newly-gained knowledge.”