Chapter 6: Rank Up part end

Getting back to the cave at the edge of the centre circle, Elias immediately put down the three bodies, the two monster cores, the strange sword and Jessica who ran off to one of the corners of the cave, too scared to be in the presence of Elias.

Elias didn't mind this as he was going to absorb the human’s essence to further his training anyway. Because monsters cannot gain Ki by meditating like the humans do they have to either eat other monsters cores or absorb the Ki essence off of human bodies, but most monsters didn't mind this, as they always enjoyed a good death match.

As he dragged the noble’s body out of the pile as he had the most essence in his body, Elias laid next to the body trying to sense the essence. After 30 minutes he found the essence he dragged the essence out and absorbed it sending the silver lights into his core, but again he saw the peculiar lights only they were green this time, and they immediately got ejected by his body and after numerous tries he found he couldn't absorb them.

Annoyed by not knowing what the lights were he came to the decision of asking his newly found walking encyclopaedia. “Oi girl!” raising his voice slightly he saw Jessica peak round a rock near by “Y..y..yes?” she looked at Elias strangely, as if to say why haven't you eaten me yet? Elias showed a wry smile as if reading her mind which only led to further frightening her “Have you ever cultivated before?” the question shocked Jessica but soon returned with “Y…yes… I’am currently at the D rank” this excited Elias but soon wondered why she was with that group before but was replied with “I… was with those bastards because… I was attacked by some bandits one day and was soon sold as a slave… shown by this chain on my leg which absorbs your Ki so I can’t attack my owners”.

Hearing the Jessica’s explanation only gave Elias more questions but soon got to the point and said to Jessica “Do you know what the strange coloured lights are when I absorb or eat others cores… if you help me enough ill break that weird chain for you”.

Thinking for a moment Jessica smiled and said back “I am not too sure… but I've seen in some books saying that to reach the A rank one must somehow combine both the lights and your Ki, apparently this will not only make your Ki stronger than it was. It will also give your Ki an element and by having an element you can then create Ki skills, most people only have one but some other have two or even three! However the more elements you posses the harder it is to combine”.

Receiving this information grinned wildly and immediately started to first combine the golden lights, but this process was indeed difficult as it took Elias over 1 year to even bring out the lights stored in his bones and skin, over this period of time he occasionally brought food in for Jessica, who had now washed away the dirt and some of the bruises on he had started to fade.

After another 2 years Elias got up and started to laugh maniacally as even though it was a hard and long process this only made him more determined and by the third year he had finally fused the golden lights with his Ki. “HAHA! I finally did it not only did I fuse it but I found out that the element was actually lightning haha! I can already imagine the awesome skills I would make with this hehe” with a childlike grin Elias couldn't help but shake with glee as this was his longest training period he has ever done, as all demon fox’s are born at the C rank it was extremely easy to get to the B rank, so he only needed to eat some core of other animals, but this type of training was very taxing on the mind which Elias did not enjoy at all.

“Congratulations Lord Elias on your breakthrough” Jessica spoke with a soft voice but one could not help but listen to it. Over the past three years Jessica actually started to get close to Elias as he eventually freed her from the ankle chain, due to her constant supply of information and Elias to satisfy his arrogance made her call him Lord not just Elias. Jessica had now fully recovered from her injuries and now at 16 looked like an up and coming beauty with her long blond hair, pale skin and watery eyes was a sight for any red blooded male.

“Hmph of course I broke through after all I am a genius” Elias proudly stated “Any way this is no time to rest I now need to fuse the red lights as well” with some resignation Elias laid back down to redo the whole process.

Another 2 years passed by and Elias finally fused the red lights with his Ki. It took less time due to already knowing how to pull the lights out. His core was now split one golden and one red this showed his success at fusing both elements, but Elias had a gloomy expression on.

“Why?... I've fused both lightning element and blood element with my Ki but how come I haven’t advanced” a childlike complain was very clear within his voice as he spent 5 years in total doing the same thing but nothing has happened yet.

“Damn… oh well I'll just eat that snake core I got that one time and go to sleep” eating the core and immediately dropping to the floor, Elias entered into his well earned rest.

However, before long in both of Elias’s cores a change was happening, as the silver light entered into both cores, this in turn sparked of a fusion between both cores instantly becoming one core again, only this time the entire core was two times bigger than his past core, and emitted a golden mist on one side and another bloody red mist on the other.

If Elias was still awake he would recognise this as the transition between B and A rank as Jessica had told him some time ago. But because Elias was asleep at this point he didn't get the chance to personally choose his human form. So his body assessed his personality and made a body fitting this.

Waking up Elias strolled over to a pool of water inside the cave not noticing his change in height or his new walking method he started to drink out of the pool after he finished, still looming into the pool did he now notice the difference and instead of a happy expression Elias held one of confusion as he started to touch his face that matched with the reflection in the water and as he did he let out a very child like scream saying”W..W…WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!!!!!!!”