Chapter 326: Marking the Puppets & Progress

The fight between the two spirit marks was the same as watching two kindergarten kids fight each other, using their most primitive attacks.

But the moment that he increased his attention in that direction his representative started growing stronger, from a kindergarten kid into a primary school.

With that increase, the fight became pretty much one-sided, as his avatar was kicking the shit out of that other guy's spirit sense, and completely erasing him from the space.

It was his complete win, as he had erased the mark of the previous owner, and had placed his instead, making the team leader Stone Puppet his, forced to follow his rules and orders.

Inside the puppets mark space, he was winning, but outside the situation was a bit difficult and dangerous, as it was taking everything, he had to only dodge the attacks of the Stone Puppets.

It wasn't his full capacity strength, as the best he could use in that state was around 60% of his full strength, due to more than 40% of his attention being fixed on the team leader Stone Puppet.

As a matter of fact, the moment that he had succeeded in erasing the old mark and placing his own on the team leader Stone Puppet, he had lost his concentration on the outside.

Two powerful-looking stone katana were cutting towards him with all the strength the Stone Puppets could use, and even if it was Eric in full strength, he would have to avoid them.

But it seemed like it was too late for him to even do that, when suddenly he saw the figure of the beautiful Ren Jia in front of him, covering him from the two hits.

With her feeble strength, her action was nothing short of asking for her own death, as it was impossible for her to escape the two hits.

Even Eric himself would have problems surviving that, yet this stupid beautiful woman was jumping between him and the two stone katanas to save his life.

If he still had any doubts towards her loyalty, and trustworthiness until that moment, with that action of hers everything had disappeared like never existing before.

This was what true luck meant, finding these kinds of people that would do anything for you, even if it meant lying down their life in front of your eyes.

Eric was extremely touched by Ren Jia's action so as he was retreating, he suddenly stopped, and hugged her lithe and weak body, totally squishing her against him.

Ren Jia was like a startled rabbit at that moment, she had taken such a difficult decision to save his life using her own, while this stupid Master of hers, seemed to waste her efforts, and resolve and hugged her.

This stupid Master clearly didn't seem to understand how difficult had been for her to do something like this and had wasted everything. What a hateful Master!

But as she was thinking like this, an unbelievable sense of warmth and care conquered her whole body, and she couldn't help but let herself bask in that feeling.

She didn't care that most probably she was going to die the next moment, this hug and that warmth was enough to make her death worth it for her.

'Clang, Clang~!'

As she was waiting for the two stone katanas to hit both of them and sent them flying, she heard two stone crashing sounds, but no pain.

Eric and Ren Jia fell on the floor, with her on top of him completely shocked, as she was unable to sense any pain from her back.

Could it be that she had died instantly? Or had she been crippled!?

She didn't understand what was going on, as she was looking at her own body and she discovered that there seemed nothing wrong with her.

Trying to find a reason for this strange situation, she turned her head around towards the two incoming attacks, only to see the team leader Stone Puppet, protect the two of them.

She had no idea why this Stone Puppet would suddenly try to protect them against the others, but she knew that it was something related to her Master.

Only he could make such a kind of miracle happen in her heart and mind. Especially when the two of them were completely alone in that place.

Considering her previous character, she wouldn't have accepted that he was the one doing that, and she might even accuse him of trapping her, but now she was different.

Without caring about what happened behind her anymore, she lowered her head and gave her Master a kiss, as she said,

"Thank you, Master! It seems like I was worried uselessly!"

Her change was most certainly drastic, and a bit unbelievable, but it had happened. And her face, or heartbeat when she put herself in front of him didn't seem fake.

She had truly wanted to exchange her life for Eric's which made him extremely touched. It was truly difficult to find people like this in this world and age.

In his previous life, he had thought that he had quite such people around him, but he was extremely wrong, as those people had betrayed him, his hopes, and all his feelings.

He had his own hesitations, and reserves to fully believe people like that once again, but this weird and complicated encounter with this beauty, had made that ice wall around his heart crack a bit.

Just because it was cracked though it didn't mean that it had been destroyed, so even though he felt her sincerity Eric still kept a natural and calm expression, as he said,

"Hm~! Very well done beauty! I will reward you later!"

The moment that Ren Jia heard those words, her face went fully red, but she didn't say anything. She just got up and freed her Master from her weight.

On the other hand, Eric stood up, and then coordinating with his new puppet he was able to easily subdue the others, and take them under his control.

He found out that each of these puppets had a momentary burden on his Spirit Power depending on their level as fighters.

The consumption was 0.01 Spirit Power for every 1 extra level. What made this even better was that the Spirit Power consumption was measured in terms of the beings under level 100.

Meaning that to subdue the team leader Stone Puppet, Eric had used 0.83 of his Spirit Power and then adding the other five with an average of 0.76 Spirit Power per piece.

In total, he had used 4.6 Spirit Power when he had a total of 114, as the more he suffered during the body tempering, the more did his Spirit Power increase.

Furthermore, the best feature was that this Spirit Power wasn't lost permanently but temporarily. As long as he rested long enough, he would be able to recover it naturally.

With such a prospect in front of him, and with such a stroke of luck in front of him, Eric decided to delve deeper inside the tunnel, and see what was awaiting him.

But before he continued deeper, he called one of the Stone Puppets in front of him, and it gave it a full-strength punch.

Destroying the poor Stone Puppet into mere pebbles and dust, Eric was looking seriously at it, as a new notification appeared on the Legacy System's interface.

*Level 73 Stone Puppet destroyed! Would the Host like to use 7.3 Spirit Power to regenerate the Stone Puppet to its nominal state? YES/NO

Without losing time, Eric selected YES, and just like before the Stone Puppet started regenerating once again.

But this time the price of its regeneration was cut out of Eric's Spirit Power, and it was 10 times its value.

As long as he had enough Spirit Power value available to him, these puppets would be indestructible. Just this thought sent chills through all his body, as he couldn't believe his good luck.

A level 73 fighter might not be an expert, but it was still not easy to come across, especially one that wouldn't die and wouldn't feel pain.

There were many more things that Eric would want to find about these things, as for example, how long they were able to stay active.

What was the time window of the regeneration and recuperation ability after destruction? Were they able to leave the tunnel, and work in the outside world!?

But all these questions would have to wait for some time before getting a reply, as right now he had much more important things to think about, like exploring this tunnel, and walking towards the exit.

This was just the start of the treasures this place held inside, and it was just the beginning of his journey, there surely were some much better things further inside.

With those thoughts in his mind, Eric returned to clean the bathtub, placing it inside his space ring once again, and then accompanied by Ren Jia he made his way through the depths of the tunnel.

The Stone Puppets walked ahead in order to discover any kind of trap, or any possible danger, while he and Ren Jia followed behind with their nerves, and senses taut.

They never knew when something might happen, or what kind of traps and difficulties awaited them in here, so they had to keep their selves ready at any moment.

When they had walked around 100 meters inside the tunnel, Eric felt that the whole tunnel seemed to have become much more dangerous, all of a sudden.

Like he had just entered from a warm bath into the boiling water…