I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 223: Flame Spirit Inheritance

Ding!

Hearing the notification sound resound in his mind after what seemed to be a very long time, Argentum wondered as to whether this notification would be the last notification he would get that was related to what he was doing all this time. Commanding the system to open up the notification screen in his mind, he soon skimmed through the latest notifications he had received, letting out a sigh of relief as he muttered, “Ah, finally. The grind is now over.”

‘Congratulations! You have obtained the passive skill [Incredibly Inferior Flame Resistance]!’

‘The amount of copies you have of [Incredibly Inferior Flame Resistance] is now sufficient to fuse as one and form into [Lower Flame Resistance]!’

‘Congratulations! Your 2 copies of [Lower Flame Resistance] have fused as one and transformed into [Flame Resistance]!’

‘[Flame Resistance] has now reached its maximum level of upgrades.’

After closing the notification screen, Argentum then went ahead and opened up the description for the newly upgraded [Flame Resistance] skill, making sure that it was a bona fide skill meant for resisting the Fire element, not like the [Incredibly Inferior Flame Resistance] skill that gave an infinitesimally small boost to his resistance.

Ding!

Skimming through the words on the screen that had just appeared in front of his field of vision, Argentum let out another sigh of relief as he lightly chuckled, saying, “I guess there are some upsides to grinding as well.”

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[Flame Resistance] (Lv. 1/10)

Grade: Mortal (C)

A skill that increases the user’s resistance to the Fire element. This is the most common variant of the skill, which could be upgraded and evolved in order to increase the user’s resistance to the Fire element even further. Due to the effort exerted by the user to obtain this skill, a small bonus has been added to the skill.

> Increases the user’s resistance to the Fire element by 50%

> Reduces damage taken from Fire-based attacks by 10%

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In total, it took Argentum around eight hours to upgrade [Incredibly Inferior Flame Resistance] to the [Flame Resistance] he was currently looking through, with the latter upgrades taking up most of the eight hours that he spent killing Fire Slimes. Recalling the great number of Fire Slimes that he had killed during those eight hours, Argentum could not help but shudder a little bit as he muttered, “I really don’t want to do something like this ever again…”

“Then again, that’s what I do for the skills I already have so…” It did not take long for Argentum’s emotions to come back to normal as he remembered that grinding made up a great portion of his power. “Anyways, is this skill enough to negate the damage I obtain from the Inferno Plains’ atmosphere?”

Surprisingly, even though Argentum’s resistance to the Fire element increased whenever his [Flame Resistance] skill upgraded to a higher tier, he still obtained the same amount of damage at the same interval, prompting him to heal himself every once in a while. Although this allowed him to evolve the skill to the next grade since it had already reached the Master level of mastery, he found it somewhat peculiar that he still obtained damage from the environment even when his [Flame Resistance] skill was called [Lower Flame Resistance], the previous form of the skill he currently had.

With that in mind, he then went ahead and waited for the notification from the system to come, which would inform him that he had taken damage from the environment. After a couple of minutes had passed, Argentum had not received any notification from the system, bringing his hopes up that this skill was what he needed to barely negate the damage from the environment, but he decided to wait a bit more, thinking that the interval between the notifications had increased due to him obtaining better resistance against the Fire element.

Eventually, thirty minutes had passed since Argentum pondered as to whether he would still take damage from the environment. Unsurprisingly, after all that time, Argentum had not obtained any notification from the system regarding damage from the environment whatsoever, making him let out an inward sigh of relief as he did not need to heal himself up every once in a while anymore.

Ding!

“Oh no…” Just as he was about to go ahead move towards the original location he had in mind for this trip to the Inferno Plains, a notification sound resounded from the system, making Argentum automatically think that he still obtained damage from the environment, albeit the gap between them now was incredibly long.

Hoping that that was not the case, Argentum went ahead and commanded the system to open up the notification screen in front of his field of vision, radiating an aura of slight nervousness as he slowly read the latest notification he received. Surprisingly, as he read through the latest notification, his nervousness gradually transformed into relief, which then soon transformed into elation.

��[Flame Resistance] has reached the MAX level.’

‘[Flame Resistance] has met the necessary requirements and is ready to evolve.’

“I guess I can rest assured that I won’t obtain any damage from the environment then,” Argentum said as he let out a light chuckle before commanding the system to evolve [Flame Resistance] to the next level, changing its name to [Intermediate Flame Resistance].

“Wait what?” At the very instant Argentum had evolved the [Flame Resistance] skill, his feeling towards the surroundings had significantly changed. Before, he would feel a lot of pain thanks to the environment, which he would not feel since he actively concentrated on ignoring it. But now, he felt like he was in an area that was familiar to him, as if the surroundings did not hamper him in any way. Wondering if this was an illusion, Argentum went ahead and stopped thinking of ignoring the pain from the surroundings, eventually radiating an aura of elation as he found out that the pain he felt was now at the level of incredibly tolerable.

Although he was not expecting [Flame Resistance] to solve his problem of feeling pain from the surroundings, it was still a welcomed addition to him as his mood became better. After that, he then went ahead and moved the map, that was on the rightmost part of his field of vision, towards the center of his vision. He then removed the marker he had set for the area he was currently in before setting a marker towards the area he originally intended to go to.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Without hesitation, Argentum turned his body to face the direction where he needed to move towards and dashed at his maximum speed.

Since the area he had chosen to kill Fire Slimes was not far away from the place he planned to head towards in this trip to the Inferno Plains, it only took around an hour or so for him to arrive at his destination, with the sun finally out of the horizon, shining its rays down the land as the sky had now turned a light blue.

“Is this the place?” Argentum asked himself as he looked at the scenery in front of him, which had a reddish tint to it, something that was not prevalent in the terrain he moved through a while ago. He then went ahead and used [Keen Vision] to its fullest extent, eventually making out a silhouette that seemed to be similar to the silhouette that was in his memories.

“Hmm…that silhouette looks familiar from the one in my memories, but I’m not so sure…” Argentum muttered to himself as he radiated an aura of slight disbelief, as if he felt like the silhouette he was seeing was not the same in his memories. A few seconds later, he changed his perspective of thinking, taking on an optimistic perspective as he said, “Then again, this is a living world based on ISE. The appearance might change but its purpose would surely not change.”

“I just gotta hope that it hasn’t been fully cleared by anyone yet if that were to be the case,” Argentum soon added as he slowly entered the area with the reddish tint, instantly feeling that it was kind of hard to breathe on his very first step thanks to the dryness of the air. Even though that was the case, Argentum did not feel any pain just like before, though he still felt a bit of heat.

He then continued to move through the area, his sense of vision locked onto the vague silhouette he saw a while ago. While doing so, he could not help but say to himself in slight disbelief, “Although this area is at least ten times hotter than the area outside, I can’t believe that I’m only feeling a bit of heat here. Is it because my resistance to the Fire element has improved along the way?”

Since [Flame Resistance] was a skill that increased Argentum’s resistance to the Fire element, it was pure common sense for its experience to increase if Argentum was exposed to areas filled with the Fire element. Combine it with his insanely high comprehension speed thanks to Aurus ingesting Comprehension Leaves, from the B-grade Mortal level [Intermediate Flame Resistance] Argentum had a while ago, it was now the S-grade Mortal level [Greater Flame Resistance]. Not only that, but it seemed that it would evolve to the next level after quite some time as well.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Due to this area only being a small fraction of the large Inferno Plains, it only took Argentum around twenty minutes or so to arrive in front of the silhouette he saw from afar, letting out a sigh of relief after getting a closer look of it.

“I guess that feeling from a while ago was just a result of pessimism and anxiety,” Argentum lightly chuckled as he said this to himself. He soon added, “Then again, I’m quite surprised that its appearance hasn’t changed that much from the one in ISE.”

In front of him was an abandoned building that spanned three floors, being around 15 meters in height. Only the first floor of this abandoned building was intact, with the second floor filled to the brim with the rubble that seemed to be the broken remnants of the third floor. Every inch of this building was of a black hue. If one took a whiff of the air surrounding it, one would smell something that was burning, giving one the idea that this building might be the only building that had survived a great fire.

Even though that was the case, the aura it radiated was a stark contrast to its appearance, exuding an aura that it was storing something special in it. Not only that, but it also gave off the aura that if it was attacked in some shape or form, then the one that attacked would be blasted into smithereens with a power unfathomable to even Argentum, who had memories of Aurus showcasing his power at the Divinity level.

“Now where is that entrance?” Argentum soon asked himself as he got closer to the abandoned building, utilizing his [Keen Vision] to inspect every nook and cranny of the building’s first floor as he entered it. Fortunately, it did not take long for him to find the ‘entrance’ that he was looking for, which was a red orb covered in dust tucked under the stairs that led to the building’s second floor.

Using his affinity with the Wind element to create a gust of wind to blow the dust off of the red orb, Argentum soon muttered, “If Aurus’s memories are correct, then this orb is the entrance to the Flame Spirit Inheritance.”

The Flame Spirit Inheritance. Just like the name implied, every reward inside the inheritance was related to the Fire element. Not only that, but every challenge inside the inheritance also had something to do with the Fire element. There were some rumors back then that the Flame Spirit Inheritance housed a method that allowed one to summon a Flame Spirit that could be nurtured, which was one of the reasons why Argentum entered the Inferno Plains.

Of course, Argentum’s goal in the Inferno Plains was to amass a great amount of Fire-based skills, with [Flame Affinity] being the most important skill he had to obtain from the inheritance.

“How do I enter this again?” Argentum muttered to himself in a questioning tone, looking at the red orb from every angle possible. After asking himself this question, he touched the red orb, eliciting no response from the orb soon after. He then went ahead and infused some of his MP into the orb, but that also ended up in failure, eliciting no response from it.

“Hmm…” As Argentum pondered over the method to enter the inheritance, he went ahead and rummaged through Aurus’s memories, wondering if one of his memories held the key to entering the inheritance. Fortunately, one of his memories did hold it, making Argentum radiate an aura of slight confusion as he muttered, “What did they say?”

In Aurus’s memory of the Flame Spirit Inheritance, there were three people in it, with Aurus being one of them. The three of them then stood in front of the red orb and talked about a few things in a whispering voice. After that, the three of them went ahead and shouted a single word as they released all of their MP, resulting in their disappearance not long after.

Argentum had no problem with releasing all of his MP since he just needed to use all of his skills that needed MP. The main problem for him was the word that he needed to shout as he released all of his MP. In the memory, the word said by them seemed to have been muddled due to how long it has been since the memory was made.

Thankfully, the conversation between the three of them was not that muddled, allowing Argentum to get a headstart on what word he needed to shout.

“According to the memory, I just need to shout a word related to the red orb and the Fire element,” Argentum muttered to himself as he pondered over the word he had to say. A few seconds later, Argentum then went ahead and released all of his MP through his skills before shouting, “Fireball!”

Whoosh!

Unfortunately, there was no response from the red orb at all, making Argentum ponder whether he was heading the right track. Thinking of another word that was related to the red orb and the Fire element, a spark of inspiration flashed in Argentum’s mind, finally dawning on him on what seemed to be the most common word that came to mind when a red orb and the Fire element is involved.

Taking in a deep breath, he muttered to himself, “I hope this word is the one.”

After waiting for his MP to fill up back to maximum capacity, Argentum went ahead and released all of his MP through his skills once more before shouting out a single word once more.

“Sun!”

Whoosh!

And just like that, Argentum had disappeared from the insides of the abandoned building, appearing somewhere unfamiliar to him sometime later.