"Are you ready to become my stepping stone?" Aurus said as he sniggered. As usual, he forgot that the branch he was facing was at S-grade Inanimate, an Inanimate that has a pretty solid soul.

Hence he was shocked to hear words come out of the Young Tree as it said, "Oh? A measly inferior stick dares to fight against me, Arogancia who is almost at the level necessary to evolve to greater heights?"

"Eh...?" Aurus truly didn't expect to see the enemy in front of him talk. After a while, he stared at the Young Tree with his [Soul Perception I] skill as he slapped himself back and forth with his nonexistent hands.

"Why do you always keep forgetting that your enemies have some sort of sentience? Do you want to look like a fool in front of them?" Aurus slapped himself multiple times as he burned this statement in his mind.

After a while, he stopped slapping himself and looked at the Young Tree in front of him with a deeper gaze.

"[Species Analysis]," he commanded.

[Species Analysis], a skill forged from the combination of the system's identification skill and the [Ally Appraisal] skill he got after unlocking the Ally system. This would be the first time he would see its prowess.

Ding!

And he would surely be shocked.

________

[Arogancia (Young Tree)]

Existence Level: Inanimate (S)

Level: 18/20

HP: 1050/1050

SP: 300/300

Stats:

[Toughness]: 103

[Thickness]: 128

[Root Rigidity]: 110

Skills:

Uncheckable due to the [Species Analysis] skill's low level.

________

"..." Aurus was dumbfounded at the Young Tree's status screen that was in front of his screen. Although he knew that S-grade Inanimates were incredibly superior when it came to stats thanks to a better Class Seed, it still shocked Aurus. He then closed the screen, exactly at the moment that the Young Tree named Arogancia started to talk once more.

"Eh? You're not saying anything? Are you that eager to offer your life to me? Then..."

In the midst of Arogancia's talk, it charged towards Aurus with its roots sticking out of the ground. It was travelling at a speed that was fast when compared to other sticks, but that was only compared to other sticks.

"Submit!"

Whoosh!

At that moment, Arogancia commanded one of its roots to dart towards Aurus' important part, the SP Vessel, which was also known as the SP Storage.

If Aurus lost this, he wouldn't be able to attack Arogancia at all!

"Heh." Aurus looked at Arogancia's attack and smiled as he used his movement skill to dodge the root. While Arogancia was still immersed in controlling its root, Aurus went closer to Arogancia as he prepared a lance made out of Anima.

In an instant, the Anima lance exuded an aura of intense sharpness as if it could through anything. Not long after, Aurus shot it out towards Arogancia's unprotected trunk.

"[Spirit Lance: Judgement]!"

Bang!

Since Aurus was already near to Arogancia's trunk and all of his skills were imbued with the Wind element thanks to his new Spirit Energy Core, the time needed for the Anima lance to hit Arogancia was already near instant!

Ding!

'You have dealt 178 HP damage to [Arogancia].'

Aurus looked at this amount of damage and couldn't help but let out a sigh of amazement. Even though it only removed around 1/10 of Arogancia's HP, the amount of damage he dealt would already be able to deal with most A-grade Inanimates within 2 shots of this.

"Gah!" Arogancia was caught in a daze after realizing that Aurus wasn't struck by its root and it was attacked by the one it tried to attack.

Of course, from its name alone, it had a high amount of pride...which meant that it thought that losing to A-grade was extremely shameful!

Arogancia rotated its body to look at Aurus as it said, "How dare...how dare you tarnish my beautiful trunk!"

Within seconds, dozens of tough yet thin roots started to envelop Aurus' body, including the Animas created from the [Revitalising Anima Creation] skill.

"Since you dared to defy me, I won't delay my victory any further! [Life Siphoning]!"

At that instant, the roots covering Aurus' body started to glow an intense green. If one were to look closely, the green aura covering Aurus gradually weakened. The vibrance of Aurus' cells was also decreasing.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

'You have received 8 HP damage from [Arogancia].'

'You have received 8 HP damage from [Arogancia].'

'You have received 8 HP damage from [Arogancia].'

Without Arogancia directly attacking him, he already lost a quarter of his HP. Although he was stuck in this situation, Aurus didn't panic as he checked his SP bar. "I still have 75 SP left," Aurus mumbled to himself. "I guess it's enough to use that skill."

He then closed his eyes as all of the Anima on his body started to change into a state of fluidity, slowly dripping out of the gaps between Arogancia's roots.

"[Form Morph]!"

________

[Form Morph] (Level 1/3)

Grade: C (Mortal)

Experience: 0/3

A Spiritas can change into multiple forms thanks to the cells that build up its body, the Anima.

Changeable forms: Liquid, Branch Formosus, Sapling

SP Cost: 10 SP

________

As Arogancia was laughing with glee at its own intelligence, it gradually felt something wet dripping on its roots. It was at the direction of where it was siphoning the life out of Aurus. At the moment where it turned its field of vision around, Aurus was no longer there.

Arogancia looked at this with slight confusion before shouting loudly as it madly laughed, "It's finally dead! Hahaha! That's right, no one can defeat Arogancia!"

As it continued to laugh, it suddenly heard a voice coming from behind its current field of vision.

"Sure. But I'll be beating you now."

"[Spirit Lance: Sanction]!"

In an instant, five Anima lances hovered over Aurus' body as a notification screen popped up in front of his field of vision.

Ding!

'[Spirit Lance of Three Worlds] has leveled up.'

As the level up happened, the aura emitted by the five lances slightly grew stronger as they simultaneously collided with Arogancia's trunk.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

As the five lances collided, five notification screens simultaneously appeared in front of Aurus' field of vision. Nonetheless, he removed them and decided to look at Arogancia's HP bar, which was already near 50% HP.

Tons of dust was flung up into the air as the lances and Arogancia's trunk collided. It took a while for it to settle down, revealing Arogancia's severely deformed trunk. Arogancia looked at Aurus and said out of shock, "How is this possible...it can't be!"

As it continued to look at Aurus, to it, Aurus was akin to a demon ready to kill it for good. Was its death becoming a reality? Arogancia tried to move away from Aurus with its roots...yet almost half didn't move according to its thoughts.

Aurus looked at this and smiled with a playful expression on his face.

As he smiled, some of the floating Anima Aurus made that held SP converged on his body, turning into a sort of sphere that held a lot of SP. But within it was a crude magic circle, which only meant...

"I should test it out as well."

"Spell Core, form."