Spirit Taming

Chapter 490: Weird Evolution

"That wasn't a shadow we just saw, right?" Maria whispered to Clark. She and Purple had both seen the same thing and Clark's eyes had become fixed on the place that purple had just punched with no results. They had been sure that he had struck something.

"It should be a darkness affinity beast. I almost hit it but it played tricks on our eyes." Purple seemed like this had happened before, But Clark caught the shadow out of the corner of his eye again and managed to use the system's analysis skill.

'Tailless scorpion- uncommon

The tailless scorpion was forced to develop without a tail since the larger tail it had generations ago would get caught on cave crevices. It slowly developed longer legs able to be used to pierce prey in the deep water pools it likes to hunt.

Due to living in the darkness of caves for a long time, the innate darkness affinity and skills developed much more than the small earth affinity that the tailless scorpion has. It allows the scorpion to move around and appear to be larger than it is by enhancing its shadow. From there it is able to confuse prey and predators.

They are fairly quick as well since they have lighter bodies due to their odd spindly legs. This is a benefit when they cimb and avoid being attacked. However, it causes them to make a distinctive tapping sound when they move. If they are attacked by a large jaw bat, they are easily defeated in one or two attacks…'

Clark realized that there was a slight tapping sound aside from the soft sounds of water. With this identified, Clark was able to focus on the shadows and darkness once he had managed to understand that the tailless scorpion was using them.

"Focus on the darkness and shadow. With your midnight eel you should be able to grasp the energy better too." Clark gave Maria the heads up and noticed that she took a stance facing the proper direction.

As the smaller body of the scorpion became focused in their eyes, Clark and Maria were able to see that it was literally stretching the shadows around it. That the smaller mass of darkness that its shadow would be was misshapen around its entire body. The more it stretched its long legs, the more the shadow seemed to get bigger. Like it was trying to scare them and appear like a large predator.

Without even saying a word, Maria and Clark moved at the same time. Maria took the lead and the tailless scorpion realized that it had been seen through. In an effort to avoid the dagger that Maria had, it began to move away to the side while striking out with one spiked limb.

Maria effortlessly ducked under the attack, but because the tailless scorpion was so focused on her, Clark's existence had been lost to it. That was why it had moved right in line with Clakr's crescent moon slash.

The spear head slashed right though the weaker shell and cut the tailless scorpion in half. This was the downside of developing in methods to scare enemies and not defend against them. But evolution was like that. Everything adapted to the place they were and the best possible way of survival. It was not the tailless scorpion's fault it had just found itself pitted against three tamers with training.

"You were able to grasp the changes in darkness energies very easily. You have a beast that shares similar energy?" Purple had not dug too much in to how many beasts that Clark had or what their types were. It was fair not to do so since some tamers took this as disrespect or planning to beat them.

"I have a shadow type beast." Clark mentally called for Shy, "This is Shayama, she is still young but since she might like the cave I don't mind letting her hang out." The odd calm that was around after a battle didn't faze anyone. It was just what came with being confident in their skills along with being able to sense that they were not being targeted by any other opponents.

That didn't mean that Clark hadn't also let Devi out to keep an eye on them though. Safety was safety.

"The doll is not a doll." Purple knew that the doll that was in Clark's hand was definitely not a doll. But Shy didn't make a move to show her real spider form. She was not able to trust everyone so easily. Especially since she knew that they were in the wilderness. It was safer to pretend to just be a doll so that when she attacked she could do so with surprise. The best way to protect Clark.

"She has a better shadow affinity. My midnight eel is more of a darkness affinity to match the spiritual affinity." Maria saw her midnight eel move around her slightly popping out of her shadow. But it was the same way that Shy was. It preferred to hide there and keep her guarded.

"Hm, I could never have another beast. We are all we need. It would strain our bond." Purple didn't seem unhappy that limiting to one beast was all that he could do. The unique nature of a purple spirit beast was that it would bond on a deeper level than any other beast. However, it was also altering the tamer's spirit.

Taming another beast could come at significant risk. However, because of the unique nature of a purple spirit beast, the tamer was much stronger and also had a much more durable mind. This could make them much better overall compared to the average tamer. Hence why Purple had easily united with the purple spirit beast and been able to rise so high in life.

"Wwe should keep looking, those pools over there against the wall seem to be the slowest moving and I don't see anything near them." Clark refocused as they all understood one another a little better. He wanted to keep their goal at the front of their minds.

Maria also seemed to think that and began moving toward the pools only to shake her head. The totally empty water pools were not exactly unexpected but she wanted to find a jade worm sooner than later since the sense of time in a cave like this was hard to grasp. An hour could be a minute and a minute could be a day.

"There is plenty of time to handle this." Purple was the first to reassure Maria when he noticed that they had checked the last fifteen pools with no luck except for another pool crab. But hey, food was food and they would need more when they got hungry again.

"That's because we are missing a huge part of this chamber." Clark got their attention. It was odd to find him lying flat on the ground near the wall. But when they saw him reach his hand under the wall, Purple and Maria realized that they had not noticed something.

The wall was not touching the ground. Water had flowed from underneath and created an odd passageway. If the three went under the water, they could duck under it and arrive on the other side of where the water had long carved out a space. "We missed it because the shadows hid the fact that this is probably one of many water opened caves."

With this, Clark shrugged as he got up. He didn't even hesitate to step in to the cool water of the pool and duck under the stone of the cave wall. As he did so, he felt that he was risking it a little too much, but with the training in Nebula City, the cold didn't have much effect on him. Adding in the resistance from Crim's dragon type energy and he was easily able to handle the colder water.

As his head popped out on the other side, Clark spotted a few shadowy shapes retreat. They felt the risk they had sensed before as Clark and the others to fight beasts. These tailless scorpions would not be facing Clark head on since they now believed him to be a predator hunting them specifically. But that was a good sign.

As Maria and Purple popped up after Clark, he leopard them out of the water and on to more stable ground. Their eyes scanned the area seeing the retreating shadows but also noticing that the size of the chamber was equally large compared to the last.

"I see it, a green glow way back." Maria held her excitement close. She knew that they had already alerted the tailless scorpions in the area. They had to prey on something here. Therefore, they were in a more dangerous section of underground caves with water pools.

"But if there are green glowing pools then I would say that's the vibrant green algae. Now we really get to hunt." Clark smirked while he slowly began checking water pools. He easily ignored the dripping water on his body. They were closer than ever to their goal.