I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 131: Preparation

While Shirohana was heading alone towards the plane where Hinari and Hodazuka lived, a great commotion between two high level Inanimates occurred within the entrance hall of the Tempest Branch Alliance.

“The Verdant Nut Alliance is no longer existing,” Herellia looked at Aurus, who had just got into the entrance, and said.

“What?” Of course, Aurus did not really imprint the words Herellia said into his mind, hence he asked, “Could you repeat that one more time?”

“I said,” Herellia replied, not minding Aurus’ request. “The Verdant Nut Alliance is no longer existing!”

“…” At that, Aurus became at a loss for words. Eventually, what Herellia told him imprinted in his mind as he shouted in shock, “Eh?!”

Only to follow up with a, “What’s the Verdant Nut Alliance?”

“Huh?!” As Herellia heard these words come out of Aurus’ non-existent mouth, she could not help but become infuriated…only for her to ponder a bit and reply in understanding, “Now that I think about it, I haven’t really gone in-depth about the situation of Tempest Cliff.”

“I told you before that Tempest Cliff is governed by three alliances and a single powerful being, right?” Herellia asked, wanting to make sure if Aurus remembered.

“Mhm, you told me before.” Surprisingly, Aurus agreed with what she said, remembering very well that that was what she said before he entered the alliance.

“And I also told you that our aim is to destroy that single powerful being, right?” With Aurus agreeing to her first question, she then followed up with another one.

“Uh…” Aurus tried to rummage through his memories for a bit before agreeing. “Yeah, I kinda remember you saying that back then. You told me that that was the reason you accepted me even though I was A-grade back then.”

“Okay, good.” Seeing that Aurus remembered up to that point, she let out a sigh of relief internally before starting to explain the entities that governed over Tempest Cliff.

“So, as I’ve said before, there are three alliances within the Tempest Cliff. Namely, these three alliances are the Verdant Nut Alliance, Blossom Breeze Alliance, and our Tempest Branch Alliance.”

“The Verdant Nut Alliance specializes in spells and magic-based stuff, the Blossom Breeze Alliance specializes in illusions and souls, while our alliance doesn’t really specialize in everything, but we’re not bad at everything as well.”

“Anyways, that single powerful being who I’ve surely mentioned before is Chonk, an Inanimate turned Animate wolf turned hater of alliances.” After saying this, Herellia looked at Aurus, wanting to see if there were any changes. But even with her [Eyes of Undeceiving Kin], there was no change in Aurus’ emotions.

Without hesitation, she continued, “Since Chonk is a hater of alliances, it would make sense if he started destroying the alliances, right?”

With that question, Aurus agreed. “Yes, that’s correct. What are you getting to though?”

“I’m saying that, the Verdant Nut Alliance is not the only alliance to be destroyed. Even the Blossom Breeze Alliance could be destroyed. Or even our own alliance at that,” Herellia replied with a serious aura emanating out of her body.

“Ah…” And at that, Aurus understood…only to scream out in shock. “Then doesn’t that mean…we can die?”

“Of course, we can,” Herellia brushed death off like it was nothing. “War never changes at all. Although I’m not scared, we should still prepare.”

“Eh? Why aren’t you scared?” Aurus could not help but ask after hearing Herellia mention it.

“Goddess.” And that was Herellia’s only reply. After that, she turned around and started to fly into the main portion of the alliance as she said, “You better prepare Aurus. We don’t know when we might fight against Chonk.”

Whoosh!

And with that, Herellia left the hall, leaving Aurus alone to himself.

“Eh…goddess?” Aurus pondered over this word for a bit and eventually got down to what she was trying to imply. He could not help but agree to that as he muttered to himself, “She ain’t wrong. Kurohana would definitely protect me.”

“Oh wait…I forgot to ask her about soul sealing skills!” Just as he finished thinking about Kurohana, his previous train of thought related to his soul and the clone went back to the track, making him scream in annoyance, an annoyance at himself.

He continued to scream for a bit more before returning to his previous self, composing himself as he tried to formulate a plan regarding to what he wanted to do and what Herellia wanted him to do.

“Okay, so…I have to prepare for a future attack,” Aurus said to himself as he decided to fly out of the hall, heading towards a place that held importance to him as it pretty much changed his path for the better.

“But before that, I’ll go to the Tempest Cliff Inheritance first. I might just find a soul sealing skill and then I could rest easy afterwards, putting my full focus on grinding the shit out of my skills.”

“And then finally evolving to X-grade.”

Of course, Aurus knew that his evolution was long overdue, hence he thought that after grinding all of his skills would be a good time to evolve.

…

Whoosh!

It only took an instant for Aurus to enter the Tempest Cliff Inheritance as he was the owner of the inheritance, only needing to be on the green magic circle that served as the entrance for a short bit.

As the sight of the green jade hall entered his eyes, he could not help but feel nostalgic for a short bit. Not long after, he started to hover once more, commanding the system that controlled the inheritance to open the pathway that led to the room that was filled to the brim with skill books.

It only took Aurus a few seconds to arrive at the room thanks to his newly heightened speed, hastily looking for the soul searching skill he wanted to get after increasing his Soul Power to 188?

Will he increase his Soul Power after this? Probably not.

“Not this…not this one either…” As he was hastily shuffling through all of the bookshelves in the room in search for the soul sealing skills, a pile of books from the shelves fell on the floor due to the breeze he was generating. Eventually though, he stopped searching as he had finally found the skill he wanted. “Here!”

Ding!

‘You have learned the skill [Soul Suppression].’

‘[Soul Suppression] is compatible with [Soul Manipulation], combining together into the Special-grade skill [Soul Morphosis].’

“Now all I have to do is to max this skill out to possibly X-grade Mortal level and everything will be fi—” Just as Aurus was about to start grinding his newly obtained skill to its peak, everything in his surroundings turned white, shocking him so much to the point where he could not continue his sentence.

Soon enough though, he felt a familiar aura within this white space, giving him the urge to ask himself, “Ain’t this the place where I met…” As he continued to look around, a silhouette extremely familiar to him eventually showed itself to him.

“Kevin!”

“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for a while now!” Kevin, who was standing at the moment in the white space, could not help but be angry as he looked at Aurus.

“Well I’m sorry then! I entered an inheritance and became a Ruler and well…” After hearing Kevin berate him after meeting after a very long time, Aurus could not help but reason his way out.

As Kevin continued to listen to Aurus’ reasons, he could not help but perk his ears up after hearing a specific word. “Hey Aurus, did you just say you became a Ruler?”

At first, Aurus was surprised to hear such a question out of Kevin’s mouth. Nonetheless, he answered it, saying, “Yeah. Ruler of the Void, lowest level though.”

“To think that you can become a Ruler at your level…” Kevin was at a loss for words after looking at Aurus. He could not help but strengthen his belief at the idea that this stick…well, wooden sculpture in front of him would definitely do some big things in the future.

“Congratulations on becoming a Ruler of the Void, but let me ask you a question.” Although Kevin was surprised, he was only pleasantly surprised. He then asked Aurus a question he wanted to ask all this time.

“Why haven’t you created a clone yet?” Kevin has already warned him a long time ago that danger would befall him in the near future, but it seemed that he wouldn’t learn.

“Oh, I was just about to create one after I leave this inheritance,” Aurus replied to Kevin’s question and continued, “I didn’t have enough SP…I mean, FP before. Right now, I have more than twice the amount needed…probably.”

“That much? If so, that’ll be even better for your clone then,” Kevin said as he heard Aurus talk about having more SP than needed. Wait, it was called FP.

“What’s great about having more FP? Could you perhaps enlighten me, Kevin?”

“Well first off, the FP requirement needed to activate the clone creation skill will only allow you to create a low-level clone. You could always nurture it, but you would be committing a lot of resources into it. Not only that, its form is limited to your current form as well,” Kevin started to explain.

“If you infuse more SP into your clone though, you’ll be able to change the clone’s form and even change its existence level if needed,” Kevin started to talk about the good points of having more FP than needed. Eventually, he said something that caught Aurus’ attention.

“Not only that, by infusing more FP into your clone, you can even create a resonance skill between your clone and yourself, increasing your stats by a great degree once your two bodies are in close proximity.”

“…” Aurus became silent for a bit as he pondered on what to say. After a few seconds though, he opened his mouth and asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier then?”