The Medallion

Chapter 36 The Rapid Progress

No matter how powerful a spirit manipulator was, he couldn't easily improve his cultivation with the much coveted spiritual crystal. Usually refined from beast bones containing spiritual power, the spiritual crystal had immense power. Together with the breed of the essence all over the world, its spiritual power was far beyond a man's control and endurance.

At the moment, Rocky was deeply alarmed, knowing that the power of the spiritual crystal might rip him to pieces. He could almost feel a stir in his body, his blood boiling and muscles twitching and jerking violently as if he was in in a meat grinder.

Luckily for Uriah, the raging spiritual power wasn't launched against him alone, as Rocky too, was affected, which meant Rocky shared hits pain and the attack was less focused. After a short while, tiny sparks popped and cracked around it, wrapping its small frame.

Seeing this, he made up his mind to soldier on with a stubborn will. On all accounts, he would never give up on Uriah. So, he kept the cultivation on even if it meant putting himself in danger.

After some time, the spiritual power that had threatened to rip him apart began to ebb. Uriah's dragon spiritual power had helped a great deal in lessening the full effect of the spiritual crystal. Like a whirlwind, the spiritual power circled through Rocky's body. For a moment, it settled in his belly, before finally going back to Uriah's Dragon Spirit Marks. The cycle of movements went on and on, bursts of spiritual power circulating between the two of them.

Though the pain in Rocky's body was less intense, the dash of the spiritual power was overwhelming. His mind started to cloud until he finally passed out, his hand still being dropping limply on Uriah's head. The circulation of the spiritual power between them still went on, cracking with tiny sparks.

At the break of dawn, the sun beautifully lit up the horizon with a spectacular glow that promised the first glimmer of hope. A slight breeze blew from the east, making the bamboo groves sway with a peaceful rhythm and grace — a stark contrast to the turmoil that had raged and ruled at night.

As he slowly regained consciousness, Rocky's fuzzy mind registered something licking him. Feebly, he waved his hand and shouted, "Uriah, stop!" The scary events of the night began to replay on his mind, but he was too exhausted to remember everything clearly.

Despite his protests, the licking didn't stop, so he struggled to open his heavy eyes, only to find that he was lying on something unusually soft — a gigantic animal.

When he looked up, the beast had its head towering over him. Immediately, he sobered up, hastily sat up and realized it was like a dragon, with a head twice as big as that of a man. Blinking, it stared at him, but strangely, its eyes were not threatening. Then it casually stuck out its wet tongue to lick his face once again.

In surprise, Rocky sprang to his feet in an instant. To his surprise, he felt much lighter than usual, so cautiously, he checked his spiritual power. Even his usually faint spiritual flame now burnt extremely bright.

His power too reached the third grade of the Mortal Stage from the second grade overnight.

"My goodness! What's going on?" Rocky couldn't believe what was happening to him.

A minute passed by without him noticing, until the giant beast stood, allowing him for the first time to see just how massive it was. The beast had the head of a dragon, and its trunk and limbs were as strong as the tiger's. Behind it had two tails that lit up with dancing flames. On the whole, it looked quite imposing. There was something familiar about it, but for the moment Rocky couldn't figure out what exactly it was.

"Is it a war beast of a royal spirit manipulator? Why did it come here? And where is Uriah?" Rocky pondered as he looked around. As if in response to his unspoken questions, the beast whimpered, obviously trying to communicate something to him.

The strange beast leaning too close blocked his view, but apparently, Uriah was nowhere nearby. Recalling last night's events, and his unexplained surge of power, the reality slowly dawned on him. He raised his head and looked carefully at the beast. "Uriah... You are Uriah..." Rocky cried out.

Seeing Rocky had at long last figured out everything, Uriah excitedly threw his weight around. Forgetting his current enormous size, he tumbled Rocky down by mistake.

"Uriah, you damn fool, you're too big to me now. Do you want to kill me?" Rocky gasped for breath underneath the massive weight.

Feeling sorry, Uriah moved quickly aside and squatted beside Rocky, whimpering to show his apology.

Rocky picked himself up and patted his big buddy's head. It seemed that after getting bigger Uriah was more like a dragon now. It almost shared all the features of the dragons that Rocky had met. To thank Rocky for his kindness, Uriah stuck out his tongue again to lick Rocky on the face.

Amused, Rocky pushed Uriah's head away to avoid a shower of saliva. He stood up and walked around Uriah a few times. Stroking his chin, he said to himself, "It must be the yellow spiritual crystal. Uriah has evolved. Besides its changes, I also accidentally reach the third grade of the Mortal Stage. Not only Uriah becomes bigger and stronger, its star level has improved as well. It is said that only a spiritual beast can rise its star level, while an ordinary war beast can't. So is Uriah a spiritual beast?" Thinking of this, Rocky's eyes lit up. If Uriah was a spiritual beast, he really got a treasure.

However, with his current power, Rocky couldn't really tell whether Uriah was a war beast or a spiritual beast. He also couldn't tell its star level. Judging from its body features, what he knew for sure was that overnight, Uriah had miraculously improved to the two-star level at least.

Rocky was eager to know the extent of Uriah's evolution. But it was so extraordinary that no beast evaluator would ever believe, hence he had no one to seek for help.

"Well, I have the Beast Encyclopedia..." Suddenly, Rocky remembered the Beast Encyclopedia that General Marcia had given him. He had better depend on that than go around asking for explanations of the phenomenal growth he and Uriah had experienced.