Spirit Taming

Chapter 582: Further In To The Jungle

When Maria went to lay down, she was still pulling Clark with her wanting to know more. "I already told you, I have no idea what your little jade worm will break out as. It's entirely unique and will be a new beast." Clark felt that he was on trial a little bit, but his worries were washed away by the smile that kept appearing on Maria's face.

"You are tired, instead of bothering me about things I don't know, you should rest." The look that MNaria gave Clark was one that told him he would not win this fight.

"You are going to tell me everything you saw about my new partner. And I mean everything. I can tell Ella later.'' After flopping down on to the sleeping bag, she pulled out a notebook and set it up on her knees waiting.

"It's nothing-"

"Everything, now. Then you can relax too." The smile that she gave Clark was a clear warning. Comply, or she will go out of her way to make sure that while they all rested at this campsite, she would have his life.

Clark could only sigh before he kept talking. "Because of the alchemist's brew potion, the unique energies that the alchemist put and condensed in to it, were shared. It would have also made you a better alchemist since you could learn at an improved rate. Like an enlightenment. But I thought it better for the jade worm to use as a material. It was the right move."

There was a slight eyebrow raise from Maria before she wrote a few notes down. "The energies that your jade worm managed to take on in a unique way were the earth, water, and fire affinity. Then the spiritual affinity was most likely from it and your bond that was enhanced."

"Because you have allowed it a safety and learning, it was able to ignore any battle potential. Therefore, it will not be able to fight much at all. It might not strengthen you much unless you are using alchemy related techniques. But one thing is for sure, with those affinities, it might be able to make potions without all the tools normally needed. It will be that strong."

This seemed to appease Maria before she stopped writing. What Clark managed to glance at over her knees was a large list of growing theories. He hadn't realized that Maria had more than just read some of the information about alchemy that she had found. She had actually started to memorize it while developing new ideas.

This was a similar process that Ella used. But when Ella did this, she would find history and other supporting information. Since this was very limited in the deep wilderness or while traveling, Maria had used it differently.

Maria had managed to use herself as an opposing point. Taking different sides of her own theories and arguments. From there, she was starting to breakdown what she needed to test and what she might need to know.

Along with all of this,she had started charts with herb desc receptions and similar herbs that might be replaced with one another. So much of this was on the papers that Maria was flitting through that Clark realized Maria had started to surpass him.

He was working so much on becoming a stronger fighter. In that respect, he was the strongest in the entire group. However, since Maria focused on healing, alchemy, and her current body strengthening, she had taken a mental leap ahead.

Maria could now focus and develop her own potions on paper without need to test them. She lacked the actual experience to do so in real life, but that was fine. On paper, she had devised a way to step over that gap of materials and time. She could make potion formulas without needing to make them in real life.

This all meant that when the new beast broke out from the cocoon, Maria and it would be working harder than ever. Every theory could be tested. Every attempt not yet taken would be taken. It was a miraculous way to ensure that there would be new potions and even more to grow in to.

If any alchemist were to see her personal notes like this, they would be stunned to find out that this was from someone who was a novice in alchemy!

"I take it that you have plenty of new ideas?" Clark saw that Maria had smiled been more. With this, he felt that he could get up. But before he could move, Maria had reached out and pulled him back.

"You can take a break too. You can read through my notes and let me know what you think." While Clark didn't feel that he would be the best person for this, he realized that it wasn't actually the point.

Before long, the two had fallen asleep talking about potions and alchemy ingredients than either would have ever found if they had never met one another during the first exam to enter Nova academy. They had come a long way since then. Whether either of them really understood just how far that was and how far they had yet to go.

By the time the jungle was waking up, the group found themselves surrounded by a much denser morning mist. This was slowly being brought up higher by the rising sun. However, they had become used to it since this area was under the effects of a dungeon.

"What are we looking at today?" Grace was the one heating up breakfast over the fire that isa had started for them. Her conversation had started once everyone had gathered. They had to clean up their tents before they ate or else they might be too lazy to actually get a move on.

"I was planning on traveling along the larger trees towards the deeper area of the jungle. If we follow it, we should come to a place where many vines grow, plant type beasts will be heavy there too. But what we should be after is the small waterfall dungeon. It may be very useful to us since it has many healing herbs growing near it due to the purity of the water."

Now this sounded good to everyone. It wasn't for the reason that Clark had said though. "We can have a bath!" Isa and Ella both broke from seriousness and had decided that this would be the best thing since sliced bread. They would be solely heading toward the purer water for the basic bonus of cleaning themselves.

To be fair, everyone had been traveling in the jungle and the last dungeon they had been in was fairly muddy. Not to mention that the steam and mist had managed to make their skin feel dirtier than usual. Adding the sweat from the heat of the jungle, and anyone would naturally want to travel to the best place to clean themselves up.

"Cleaning would be an ideal option." Brad sighed a little while looking at his beast. The possessed armaments was naturally dirty. It was his sword, shield, and armor. While it was still growing and was not an entire suit of armor, it was covering his chest and back fully. It had enough space to get dirty.

That wasn't even mentioning the head gear that got splattered with mud and dirt while they had fought before.

"I can't really say I don't want to clean up. As much as the dragon welp seems to dislike water, it hates having its scales dirty." Ralph had been learning a lot about the beast he had gained recently. It was naturally picky because of the dragon blood it had. Even weak, it was able to grow that sense of pride and majesty that a dragon would have. Clark had sensed it many times with Crim.

"The plan is to follow the larger trees. Once we get to a less misty area, you will all know what kind of trees they are." Clark didn't share this. He had already used the analysis of the system and was glad that they would be having additional food.

"You really can't hide much from us. They are banana trees Clark." Reese tossed a banana at Clark. "Jerold and I spotted a beast moving through the trees last night while we were on watch. It knocked a whole bunch down before running off with a few of them. We took the rest." the two fist bumped before handing out the rest.

"And did you see the other beasts that like to hide in those trees? The orange and yellow jungle spiders? Or did you see the giant fruit bats? What about some of the spider silk monkeys? They all like these fruits. They all have valuable materials and some can even be food for us." Clark looked calmly at the group who were all understanding that they would have a new task.

"It will be a good test of our strength as we move forward. I bet that we will be managing a lot more than we expected.