Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
It was still early in the day. After Jon killed the griffons, he landed on the ground and looked for a place to rest and recover some of his elemental power.
The place where he was taking a break had a good view of the griffon’s cave entrance. When the other griffons returned, they saw the bodies of their dead companions and angrily flew around in the air crying out.
After calculating that all the vultures had returned to their cave and after Jon’s elemental power had been basically recovered, he stood up from the tree trunk where he was resting.
“Ice Leap!”
Jon used his teleportation skill to approach the cave entrance on the cliff. When he got close, he froze his feet to the cliff, letting him stand firmly on it.
He unfroze one foot, moved forward, froze it, and then unfroze the other to move forward again. Using this method of progression, Jon arrived at the entrance of the griffon’s cave.
As soon as he entered the cave, one griffon immediately noticed him. Because it was sleeping with its head facing the entrance, it woke up as the surrounding temperature dropped quickly due to the cold winds Jon had brought with him.
“Caw, caw, caw!”
It immediately began to scream, alerting and waking up the other griffons.
“Water-Rock-Ice Sword!”
Jon summoned the water-rock-ice sword at once and charged at it.
The cave was actually very spacious inside, but the griffons were even bigger. They had to curl their bodies slightly when coming in.
The griffon stood up, its body reaching the top of the cave. It couldn’t spread its wings at all either.
Jon realized that what he had thought previously was mistaken. There was in fact no need at all to adopt some strategy to break through the cave. As long as they were inside the cave, the griffons were all lambs awaiting slaughter.
The reason why they were able to stay in the cave until now was that no monsters had attempted entered the cave and attacking them in the past. The enemies that could threaten griffons were either unable to approach the cliffside cave, or they were afraid of their combined group combat power and didn’t dare come attack them.
Only Jon, a monster amongst monsters, was capable of entering the cave and discovering this secret of theirs.
“Cut!”
The long sword gave off a cold light and cut the eagle in front of him in half. No blood was splattered though, because the eagle’s body was frozen into an ice sculpture.
“Ding! Mission completed. Level 22 Elite Griffon killed. Level fragments +1,900 obtained. Successfully extracted battle aura type advanced fragments +170 from the target’s body.”
Seeing their companion cut down, the other five griffons realized that they could not rely on their physical capabilities right now. They gathered together and attacked Jon with battle aura.
Their battle aura gathered together, exuding a terrifying influence. Jon did not dare be careless.
“Triple Sword Desire! Water-Rock-Ice Sword!”
Jon used his strongest move to meet the opponent’s battle aura attack.
The battle aura and ice storm suddenly collided. Half of the cave was covered in an ice half-a-meter thick, and the other half was shattered by the battle aura.
“Caw!”
One of the griffons that appeared to be commander-tier let out a loud shriek, and the battle aura output of the five of them suddenly increased by another level.
The ice storm that Jon was using gradually started losing its advantage.
“Triple Sword Desire! Icy Diancang Fist!”
Jon launched another attack and instantly stabilized the momentum of the battle.
“Ice Spirit Shock!”
He realized that if things were to continue in this manner, it would be difficult to predict who would win this battle. He could not keep fighting his opponents with brute force, so he used Spirit Rush on two of the griffons.
Jon had already enhanced Ice Spirit Shock one time before to deal with the high-leveled swordfish knights from back then. Afterwards, the number of targets the spell could attack increased by one, and now it could temporarily stun two enemies.
After two of the five griffons were stunned, the enemy’s battle spirit was instantaneously reduced by half. Jon’s frost storm then crushed them like rotten wood.
“Ding! Mission completed. Level 22 Elite Griffon killed. Level fragments +1,900 obtained. Successfully extracted battle aura type advanced fragments +160 from the target’s body.”
“Ding! Mission completed. Level 23 Elite Griffon killed. Level fragments +2,000 obtained. Successfully extracted battle aura type advanced fragments +170 from the target’s body.”
…..
“Ding! Mission completed. Level 21 Elite Griffon killed. Level fragments +1,800 obtained. Successfully extracted battle aura type advanced fragments +150 from the target’s body.”
The system notification rang. Two of the vultures lost their lives while still being stunned.
The griffon crusade mission was completed. Jon looked at his data panel on the spot and shockingly discovered that after these few days of hard work, his battle aura advanced fragment count had reached a delightful 3,600 pieces!
Including the other types of advanced fragments, this was enough for him to rank up again!
“Consume advancement fragments and rank up!”
Jon expressed his intent to rank up to the system.
“Ding! Consuming 280 water type advancement fragments, 230 ice type advanced fragments, and 3,490 battle aura type advanced fragments. Rank up preparations now complete. Please choose your rank up direction.’
The virtual screen opened, describing the three rank up directions to Jon:
1. Ice Warrior: Uses battle aura containing an icy desire to battle, further strengthening its close combat abilities. At the same time, battle aura protects its body, making it indestructible.
2. Elemental Warrior: A rank up direction focusing on long-rage elemental and battle aura attacks. It has an exceptional talent for casting spells and attacks with the combined power of the elements and battle aura.
3. Ice Battle Aura Envoy: Maintains an elemental body. The strength of its physical body is enhanced, and it has a considerable increase in short and long-range combat strength.
The first advancement direction seemed like it leaned towards the defensive aspect of combat aura. Jon currently did not have much need for defensive abilities, since a good offense was the best defense, after all.
The second advancement direction focused on long-range combat abilities. He did not really like it. Jon had chosen to specialize short-range attacks from the very beginning, so despite his long-range combat abilities not being weak anymore, his strong suit was still close combat.
Then there was nothing else to think about. He had no choice but to pick the third rank up direction that leaned towards well-rounded power.
“Choose the third rank up direction.”
Jon said to the system.
“Ding! Host’s intent has been confirmed. Beginning rank up…”
The system’s notification chimed. A large amount of advancement energy surged from the inside of his body out, rushing towards Jon’s elemental core.
As the energy advanced, Jon felt his body becoming more and more compact. His muscles felt like they were about to explode.
The advancement energy entered his elemental core, and the crystal core was strengthened bit by bit. In the end, it became as indestructible as the million-year-old ice in the Arctic. Only the great power of nature could destroy it.
The time he took ranking up this time was even longer—it was more than twice as long as the previous time. It took almost six hours. By the time he had finished ranking up, the moon had already covered half of the night sky.
After ranking up, Jon’s ice crystal armor was suffused with a wave of battle aura. The armor that was originally as white as crystal was now stained with a bit of red.
“Ding! Rank up successful. Congratulations to the host for obtaining the innate skill ‘Battle Aura Wings of Ice’ . The innate skill ‘Ice Elemental Body’ has advanced to ‘Battle Aura Ice Husk.’ ”