Chapter 213 - 213. Unorthodox
Another wave of attacks crashed on the Shrinking elephant once it was on the ground, when dealing with a rank 4 creature, it was better not to take any chance.
The magical beast was laying on the ground, its skin was torn everywhere and its gray flesh sprouted blood on the terrain.
Newton and Kurt hit repeatedly its head for a while before they stopped seeing that life was abandoning it.
"Vance, it's safe now!"
Kurt shouted seeing that the elephant was about to die.
Noah didn't hesitate and ran at full speed toward the battlefield.
He had come prepared: he was wearing a black robe that featured long and large sleeves that completely hid his hands.
That allowed him to perform the Blood drain spell as he ran without being noticed by the others in his group.
"Turn."
Noah ordered once he arrived next to Kurt.
Snorts could be heard coming from some of the hunters, yet, under Kurt's admonishing gaze, they all turned and left Noah alone with the beast.
Only when he was sure that each of them went to gather the bodies of the other beasts did Noah stabbed his already morphed claws into the beast's flesh.
One hand went for the uncovered flesh while the other tried to pierce the remaining skin of the beast.
However, the second hand didn't succeed in overcoming the natural defense of the beast and Noah was forced to stab it in another uncovered spot.
'The Blood drain spell heavily depends on the strength of my body. It seems that my physical strength is still not enough to hurt rank 4 beasts.'
He thought before being amazed by the immense quantity of vitality that entered his body.
'What the…'
The demonic claws began to absorb the blood of the beast as soon as they came in contact with its flesh.
Noah was prepared for that, yet he couldn't help but be surprised when he realized the amount of power contained in just a single beast.
He had used his spell on a cultivator with a rank 4 body after all!
Even if Abel's blood could almost instantly heal his injuries and still have power left to empower his body, it was still far away from what he was feeling now.
'This is incredible!'
His claws absorbed blood nonstop, accumulating the energy that it contained on Noah's back, right below his acupoints.
He had by then become used to the spell, he had killed more than five hundred rank 3 magical beasts with it after all!
'Just this surpasses the "Breath" given by fifty rank 3 magical beasts and it's still going!'
Life slowly abandoned the Shrinking elephant so Noah focused more on the spell to accelerate the absorption process.
Yet, in less than a minute, the beast exhaled its last breath and died.
At that point, the blood lost all its vitality and became devoid of nourishment, forcing an unwilling Noah to stop his spell.
A rank 4 magical beast had died right in front of him but his mind couldn't be bothered with that thought.
He was still internally calculating the amount of nourishment that he had obtained using rank 3 beasts as a unit of measure.
'Two hundred rank 3 magical beasts in just one hunt… In a few days, I have obtained the same results of two months of slaughter.'
The "Breath" that he had just absorbed had to be refined through his body-nourishing method to be used but just its sheer quantity was enough to make Noah gasp in surprise!
Magical beasts could absorb the "Breath" of any element to increase their strength while cultivators had to use the one required by their nourishing method or they would harm themselves.
'This is way faster than what I did in the past months, obtaining a rank 4 body before I turn twenty has never been more feasible.'
The problem with hunting in low-danger zones was that the number of rank 3 magical beasts was low.
Noah had to travel a lot to reach different hunting zone to accumulate all his killings, which was quite inefficient.
Sadly, those zones had only a few dozen magical beasts, leading to even less rank 3 specimens, only danger zones had hundreds rank 3 creatures in them.
"Hey, kid, are you done?"
Newton asked from his position at some distance away, making Noah come back to reality.
"Yes, you can take the body now."
The hunters turned and were a bit surprised by the state of the corpse.
Noah didn't manage to absorb all its blood before it died but it was still in a dried state.
"You know, a few centuries ago these demonic techniques were banished. Yet, the Royals discovered that it was easier to control their practitioners if they didn't hunt down each of them."
Hazel commented, linking the state of the corpse to an unorthodox cultivation technique.
Unorthodox techniques were also called demonic techniques.
Differently from the orthodox ones that used the natural "Breath" of the world to function and emphasized stability, the demonic ones worked through extreme exercises.
Noah had practiced in one of them in his youth, namely the Forging of Seven Hells.
They usually involved sacrifices and dangerous treatments but they also gave fast results.
Seeing that Noah had absorbed part of the blood of the creature, Hazel could not help but guess that Noah cultivated in one of those techniques.
"Your martial art should be the same, right? Those needles of yours seem more the art of an assassin rather than a hunter. Don't worry though, my technique doesn't function with human's blood, that's why the academy accepted me even after discovering it."
Noah blatantly lied to cover his aptitude.
An unorthodox technique would explain his fast improvements and also his relentless hunts, he didn't mind giving some random information about it.
As long as he obtained a rank 4 body while keeping his aptitude a secret, he would gladly create the fake story of a cultivation technique requiring beasts' blood.
"That's right, you sure have good eyes for these things. I have to refine my weapons in quite a peculiar way to use my martial art. It's a bother sometimes but the effects are good."
Noah nodded at her words but his eyes fell again on the corpse of the elephant, he felt some eagerness toward his next hunt.
"So, will you stop going into low-danger zones and join our hunting group?"
Kurt asked, arriving next to him and putting the rank 4 magical beast in his space-ring.
"As long as my conditions are respected, I don't see why not."