Spirit Taming

"What else should I look for." The sudden push from Grace made Clark want to laugh. He hadn’t expected her to have the same kind of pushy attitude as Ralph could have. She was often so quiet and reserved that it was hard to remember she was there sometimes. Not that it was bad. People would easily underestimate her in battles because of that. But now, Clark was looking at her in a slightly different light.

"I would say we should check the base of the tree for some cracked mushrooms like this one. But they can’t be turning brown. They need to be white with the slightly purple hues to the edges where the cracks on top are." The mushroom that Clark pointed out had turned brown all over the top but had some smaller ones near it.

"Just don’t touch them directly. They have a poison that makes people hallucinate on them. But it’s a good weak spiritual and ice type herb." Clark saw the seriousness on Grace’s face as he noticed that the frost finch had returned with a few small green leaves in its talons.

’Young breeze leaf- common

The breeze leaf is one part of the sun reaching vine. Before they shed their younger leaves, they will be a stringer wind affinity vine that uses the breeze to help it wrap around branches. When it reaches the highest above the trees, it will be able to shed these leaves. Upon doing so, the true fire elemental nature will take over causing the vine to become tougher and bright red. It is one of the rare herbs that will completely change elemental affinities upon maturity.

It is also rare due to the fact that the seeds need to incubate within the coldest of temperatures before they can grow. Many researchers are yet to understand why but it is theorized that the minerals needed often fall in snow from the air. Otherwise, it is a very hard herb to grow within captivity making it more valuable whether it is wind or fire.’

"I’ll have to show Maria and Ella this herb. I bet that they will be pretty amazed." The frost finch chirped as it saw that Clark was very impressed by its find. That was why it and Devi had started collecting them. It only took a moment before Devi came in to view as well. Small arms holding the pile of tongue breeze leaf that he had found.

This made Clark take a whole new look at Devi and his growth again. Last time he had really focused on him, Clark had seen that Devi had changed shape to look more humanoid again. But now Devi was easily switching from the more orb shaped ghostly being he was to using more developed arms like he did when he used his ghostly claws. This was a very clear show of how much energy Devi had absorbed and used to enhance his body. Not just a good thing, a great thing!

"Crim, can you head over and help carry those mushrooms for Grace? You shouldn’t be affected by such weak hallucinations because of your dragon energy. It will be safer that way." Clark saw Crim nod his head softly. He was up for the task since he knew that Devi was working so hard. But because Clark had let Devi and Crim out, he felt the sudden unsettled attitude from Shy.

"Yes yes, I am not forgetting you either. But don’t you still have some darkness crystals to absorb?" Shy appeared from the eden’s end taming space as well crawling to Clark’s shoulder before taking the doll from back. She appeared to have a few more strands of shadow like hair around her that would hide her in doll form better. But the density of her inner energy was what Clark could feel had made leaps and bounds.

As a young beast, Shy was growing faster with every day. That was just the nature of having enough energy and always training in some way. She also had a great pair of role models. Devi who always had Clark in mind and would actively train with Crim within the taming space was the best at driving Shy’s motivation. Crim’s tough dragon will was a perfect show of how to be stubborn and train while under pressure keeping Shy from faltering too.

"Clark? What about this radish looking thing? It was buried near the mushrooms and looks a little...dangerous." It was an odd question. Definitely not one that Clark was asked about often. However, he moved to check things out and saw exactly what Grace was talking about.

In the ground barely exposed, was a small white radish. It was prickly with little blue hairs that seemed to be partially made from ice. Even thinking about touching it made Clark’s skin crawl. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. His analysis was proving that this was a really good find.

’Prickling frost radish- rare

One of the odd ice materials known for being poisonous. It holds a unique kind of poison loved by a sub species of mantis insects. The ice blade mantis will hunt these radishes to use as the base for their poison. The little icy hairs on the radish are able to greatly increase the rate at which someone gets frostbite.

The unique ice energy within the radish is able to help grow the strength of ice within an ice type beast. It also has the effect of potentially awakening the frost burn skill within certain beasts. The frost burn skill is known for causing skin, scales, and other exterior defenses to be burned by colder temperatures and become much weaker to cold overall.’

There was a lot more information about how they grew and what they needed to flourish. Yet, Clark was not that interested in this. He was more focused on the fact that they were able to help awaken skills for creatine beasts. That was the key to them and the poisons they produced. Otherwise, it was noteworthy to see that they could attract a beast called an ice blade mantis.

Clark could recall what a praying mantis was, he had not really seen them as beasts here and had thought that he most likely wouldn’t encounter something like this. But a sub species that had grown an ice affinity that made its blades of ice sounded interesting. Definitely, a powerful beast to be sure. Something that could move quickly and attack with sharp blades of poisonous ice. Enough to make anyone shiver.

"We can pick it but we need to have you frost finch do it for us. It will poison us if we do." Grace took a step back and the frost finch chirped with pride. It enjoyed being able to be useful and have this task assigned. With just a quick dive it had latched on and flapped its wings to pull the radish from the ground. Before it could fall, Clark expertly stored it with one of his rings to keep it from touching anything at all.

"We can see if we can find a way to make some sort of ice poison for your attacks. You want to focus mostly on the rapier, right? it would be ideal to use that while also adding some of the poison from this. Enhancing the frostbite effect of your and your partner’s attacks while also weakening defenses." This seemed like a sound battle strategy. The only issue was that Grace would need to be faster so that she could last longer in a battle to this end. But that was what her wind energy would be for. The frost finch wasn’t just ice type. That was just the current focus.

’Alright, that’s enough for now. We have a good idea of what the edge of the forest might hold. We also got an idea of what might be in the forest. Some ice blade mantis beasts could be waiting to ambush around here. It would be a little annoying." Grace shook her head with some worry at this, but Clark didn’t miss the glint of excitement that also showed up in her eyes. She wanted to fight a little.

By the time they returned to the camp, there was already a roaring fire and Isa had taken the chance to relax. Ralph was also half asleep proving that he had been more tired than he was admitting.

Showing off the herbs they found, Maria was skating them for Ella while Ella recorded everything that she heard about them. Especially their sizes and shapes. Her interest would always go beyond the basics when it went to anything. But that was good, it also helped Grace better grasp how the herbs could be used as materials for her first finch to grow stronger. Especially the young breeze leaves that held wind energy in them before they were shed away from the vine they grow from.

They could have sat like this for hours if they hadn’t noticed that Brad was getting significantly louder. His breathing had harshed as he was meditating near the fire. His face turning red and a small drip of blood falling from his nose.