Chapter 723: Honeybun’s Skill!

"Now, show me what you got from the River."

Unfortunately, he had no clean way to measure the turtle’s new ability. Unlike his own copied skills, he couldn’t pull up a detail screen and read the rank and effects. Beasts didn’t work that way. They had no system display to interface with. Their abilities were intrinsic, built into their very being rather than granted as readable entries, and the turtle couldn’t articulate its own skill’s rank any more than a bird could explain how it flew.

Still, Moon could observe. He could watch the skill in action and gauge its strength by comparing it against his own arsenal. And his arsenal was extensive, ranging from Common all the way up to Legendary. He’d handled skills across the entire spectrum, which meant he had a solid frame of reference for estimating where Honeybun’s new skill fell.

The turtle didn’t complain. It complied at once.

Honeybun’s body began to change.

The change began at the edges of its shell. The golden surface slowly hardened into clear crystal, spreading across its body. Sharp, uneven plates formed over its shell, covering it layer by layer.

The transformation moved down its limbs next. Crystal grew over the flesh, forming overlapping plates that locked together as they spread. Even its claws changed, stretching into rough, pointed shards.

Within moments, the little turtle was covered from head to tail in thick crystal armor, its body built to withstand blows and its jagged claws ready to tear into anything that came too close.

Moon stared, visually stunned by the transformation. Just by looking at it, Moon deemed the skill to be an Epic-Rank skill at the very least. The density, coverage, and elegance of the transformation was admirable, something that no Rare-Ranked skill could do.

By the look of it, this is a defensive skill. A body-hardening technique, let’s find out how good it truly is.

"Honeybun, is it okay with you if we test how good your new skill is? To better estimate your strength?" Moon asked the little turtle.

Honeybun responded and he seemed eager to test it out.

Moon began a series of experiments where he attacked the crystal shell himself, calibrating his strikes carefully to not injure the turtle. He started at Four-Star Evolver strength and worked his way up.

At Four-Star, his blows landed with no effect whatsoever.

"Not even a scratch on the crystal...impressive."

After the impressive defensive power the crystal armor showed, Moon didn’t hesitate to raise his strength output to Five-Star, striking harder, and even then the damage was barely meaningful, his attacks leaving faintest of impact.

"It’s incredibly durable against physical attacks... Let’s see how it handles elemental attacks. It might have a weakness there."

With the ability to command six different elements, two of which were advanced elements with additional effects, Moon began his experiment.

He cast several spells from each element, testing them one after another. The result was mostly the same. The crystal was highly resistant to elemental attacks as well, though the two advanced elements did noticeably more damage.

Even then, the crystal held strong. The spells only left deeper scratches across its surface.

Moon continued, casting several more lightning and ice spells. After a few more tests, however, he noticed something strange.

When he repeatedly struck the shell with the same element, lightning to be precise, the crystal began to adapt. With each successive hit, the surface seemed to adapt, hardening specifically against the lightning. The turtle’s crystal was learning, whether manually by Honeybun, or automatically, tuning itself to resist whatever it was hit with repeatedly.

"The lightning’s effect dropped by approximately fifteen percent... That’s insane," Moon muttered.

He wondered if the adaptation was limited to lightning or if the crystal could adjust to other elements as well.

Without wasting any time, Moon tested the other five elements. The result was the same each time. The shell adapted to each element, reducing the damage it took over time.

The amount varied depending on the element, with the reduction ranging from fifteen to twenty percent. Whatever this crystal was capable of, it wasn’t limited to resisting a single type of attack.

By how many times did its defense just increase? It gets harder against whatever you keep throwing at it.

Moon’s shock deepened.

He needed a stronger test. So, Moon summoned his Beast Soul.

"Attack it," he ordered. "Start with your weakest strike. Raise the power slowly, step by step. I want to find where the breaking point is."

The southern commander obliged, beginning with light attacks and escalating gradually. The commander climbed through peak Evolver-tier force and into its true Surpasser strength, and still the crystal’s durability remained.

It took three Surpasser-level strikes before the crystal armor finally cracked and shattered, pieces of it breaking away.

Moon’s eyes were wide. Honeybun’s new defensive skill was withstanding multiple Surpasser attacks without trouble.

Shocking Moon once didn’t seem to suffice Honeybun.

The instant the armor broke, fresh crystal regrew out across its body, replacing what had shattered, restoring the full defensive shell within seconds, ready to withstand the attacks all over again.

"You can regrow it too," Moon breathed. "Break it and you just... build it back..."

Moon stared at Honeybun, comparing everything he’d just witnessed against every skill he’d ever used or seen before.

Adaptive resistance that strengthened against repeated elements. Defense capable of tanking multiple Surpasser blows despite operating at five-star Evolver rank. Full, quick regeneration of the armor once broken.

That wasn’t something even an ordinary Epic skill could do. It was far, far above that.

"This can’t be Epic," he murmured, staring at the crystal turtle. "No Epic skill does all of this. This is at least pseudo-Legendary. On the level of the colossal light sword Alaric summons." He shook his head slowly, a stunned grin spreading across his face. "...Or it could just be flat-out Legendary rank."

Honeybun let the crystal recede, its shell returning to smooth gold, and looked up at Moon with those knowing eyes, as though it had expected nothing less of itself.