I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 106: Transcending, Fleeting

“Comprehension Leaves?” After hearing Herellia mention it, Aurus could not help but commit it to his memory, not even daring to put it at the back of his head and forget it. “What do these Comprehension Leaves do?”

“As I’ve said before, these leaves help you max out a skill’s level as if it was maxed out in the first place. Not only that, it also enhances your speed in comprehending skills, basically giving you the feeling of learning skills at half the effort, but twice the result,” Herellia explained to Aurus without holding anything back. “Do you want me to go through the grades of Comprehension Leaves as well? If you used a high-ranked one without knowing it was a high-ranked one, you would surely regret it once you knew what grade it was.”

“Sure, I don’t mind,” Aurus nodded with his nonexistent head as he radiated an affirmative aura. “How many grades are there, and how heaven-defying is each grade compared to the previous one?”

“As far as I’ve seen, there are 3 grades of Comprehension Leaves, but from what I’ve read up on other places, there are 5 grades of Comprehension Leaves. I’ll only tell you about the first 3 since I’ve used the highest grade out of the 3 already,” Herellia replied.

“The first grade of Comprehension Leaf is called the Soaring Comprehension Leaf. Once you use it, it will give you the temporary feeling of flying along the clouds, as if you could see the whole world with just a single glance. Once you use this leaf, other than the fact that it maxes out a single skill, it increases your comprehension speed by twofold, basically making your comprehension speed thrice as fast than before.”

“The second grade of Comprehension Leaf is called the Unshrouding Comprehension Leaf. From the name itself, once you use it, you get the temporary feeling as if you could peer through everything, to its smallest particle, as if everything was laid upon your bare eyes to see, hence the word Unshrouding. Compared to the Soaring Leaf, it maxes out five skills, and increases your comprehension by sevenfold, allowing you to max out a skill eight times as fast than before.”

While listening to the details of the second Comprehension Leaf, Aurus could not help but ask, “Do the comprehension speed buffs stack on top of each other?”

“Yes…and no,” Herellia had a conflicting aura about her body. “I’m only telling you about the effects of the first consumption of a Comprehension Leaf. Once you consume two or more leaves, the effect they give out in terms of enhancing your comprehension speed would probably not even reach one-tenth of the first leaf.”

“I see,” Aurus radiated an affirmative aura to show that he understood Herellia’s words. “What about the last one?”

“The last one, the one that I was lucky to have consumed, is called the Transcending Comprehension Leaf. If Soaring allowed you to see the world with one glance, and Unshrouding allowed to peer through the minute substances that make up the world, then the Transcending Leaf allows you to not only peer through the minute substances, it would even show you the connections between the substances, may it be tangible or intangible, corporeal or incorporeal. Consuming one of these things would allow you to max out 10 skills at once, as well as increase your comprehension by 14 times, allowing you to max out skills 15 times as fast!”

“That’s…” Aurus was incredibly dumbfounded from the effects of the last Comprehension Leaf, left at a loss for words. It took a while for him to snap back to reality, remembering the words Herellia said earlier. “You told me that there were 5 grades of Comprehension Leaves, right? Although you told me that you would only tell me about the first 3, with the 3rd grade already being that powerful, I can’t help but ask about the last two grades!”

“I wish I could tell you about these last two grades,” Herellia could not sigh after seeing the eagerness radiating from Aurus. “But these two leaves are so rare that even I do not know about their effects. All I can say is…they’re bound to be many times better than the Transcending Leaf.”

Seeing that Herellia did not really know about the effects of the fourth and fifth Comprehension Leaves, Aurus decided to leave it at that, committing the first three grades to memory before asking, “If I remember correctly, you also told me about the place where we could obtain Comprehension Leaves, right?”

“Yep, and it’s an incredibly dangerous place for a normal S-grade,” Herellia could not help but look at Aurus with a serious aura, only for it to be replaced with a cheerful aura as she chuckled. “Then again, you’re no normal S-grade. Do you really want to obtain a Comprehension Leaf?”

“As long as it allows me to reach the level of Animate faster, then of course,” Aurus replied without hesitation. Although this reply might seem normal from the surface, Aurus replied this with the idea of hastily evolving to become an Animate before his current body would befall the danger, like what Kevin told him. He would only use [Spirit Clone] if he was left with no other choice, though he knew that with the help of his [Spirit Aura] skill, he could already cast the skill without a problem.

He did not know why, but he did not want to cast this skill at this moment. He had the feeling that he was better off living as a stick rather than a human just like his previous life.

Taking the chance to contact the other Pillar level members while Aurus was engrossed in his thought, Herellia then said to Aurus, snapping him back to reality, “Alright, I’ve contacted the other Pillar level members about us leaving the alliance in their hands for a bit, so we now have time to head towards that place.”

“Eh?” At first, Aurus heard Herellia’s words as if they were an incoherent mix of words. It took him a while to fully understand Herellia’s statement before saying, “Well that’s fast.”

“As a leader of a big alliance, you need to take the initiative, leaving them no choice but to agree,” Herellia could not help but chuckle. After a while, Herellia started to hover off the ground, to which Aurus started to hover off the ground as well.

Whoosh!

A couple of minutes later, the two of them were already near the pathway that connected the small ecosystem to the large hall of the alliance, leaving no trace of their presence on the Alliance Lobby…since they were Inanimates that did not have presence in the first place.

…

Whoosh! Whoosh!

With the wind blowing against their bodies, Aurus and Herellia were now outside the Tempest Cliff, taking only around 5 minutes to leave the boundaries, heading towards a certain direction where Aurus had no choice but to follow Herellia from behind.

“Where are we going [1]?” Aurus could not help but ask as he felt a bit of anxiety creeping up his mind. Herellia dispelled this anxiety in an instant as this feeling was instead replaced by intense shock as she said, “To an inheritance. It’s not just any inheritance, but it’s an inheritance found within the civilizations of the Animates.”

“A-Animates?!” Aurus was left at a loss for words. So this was why Herellia said that it was dangerous for normal S-grades to obtain this thing! “You mean…humans?”

“Although not all Animates are humans, the civilization we’re entering does indeed have a lot of humans,” Herellia radiated an aura of affirmation towards Aurus as she decided to explain the place they were entering. “This civilization is small to the humans, since according to their level of civilizations, it is only a town, the second smallest unit of civilization, only being bigger than a village, the smallest unit of civilization to them.”

“This inheritance is located at the outskirts of the town, near the walls that protect the town from the other Animates, the beasts,” Herellia continued.

Although Aurus could not help but laugh at Herellia’s words since he knew what villages and towns were like, and he told Herellia about him being a human before his current form, it did make sense to other Inanimates. Perhaps Herellia was just being careful at all instances, not wanting to leak out any information about Aurus being a human in his past life.

“Is the inheritance hard to complete?” Since he now had an idea as to where they were going, Aurus decided to ask about the difficulty of the inheritance.

“Nope, not at all. But if you excel at each part of the inheritance, there’s a higher chance of obtaining a Unshrouding or a Transcending Leaf from the inheritance, with the Soaring Leaf being a given even if you do it halfheartedly,” Herellia radiated an aura of disagreement, giving Aurus the sign that it was not that hard at all.

“The only hard part of it is the risk you’re going to take to reach the inheritance. Many incidents of Inanimates being taken by Animates as materials have occurred multiple times already. Even some of our alliance members have been discovered by the Animates, their fates unknown,” Herellia could not help but sigh after saying this. It could be said that it was unavoidable for them to escape this fate if it was their destinies to be captured by the Animates.

“I see,” Aurus could not help but feel somewhat disheartened as well after sensing the melancholic aura around Herellia as she remembered the members that were captured by the Animates. Deciding to change the topic into something that was relevant, Aurus then asked Herellia, “Herellia, if you don’t mind, could you tell me the full reason why Horell left the alliance? Although you only gave me a brief description of the reason back at the base, I want the full story of his leaving. Don’t skimp out on the details, okay?”

Hearing Aurus’ question for a bit, Herellia could not help but shudder slightly before calming her emotions down, taking a few deep breaths through her body as the aura around her body became serious. “Alright then, since you’re going to help me protect the alliance, it won’t hurt for me to tell you Horell’s life even before him joining the alliance.”

“I’m sure you know that Horell is the most cooperative and supportive Pillar level member in our alliance, right?”

“But what if I told you…”

“I already had doubts of his superficiality from the start?”

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[1] CLAP CLAP CLAP (For those who haven’t watched Dora the Explorer, the show that has been a big part of my childhood, you won’t get this reference).