I Reincarnated As A Stick
Chapter 44 - Absurd Upgrades

Ding!

With the fourth wave of enemies being killed without any difficulty thanks to the upgraded form of Bargaining, the dust that was transformed from the bodies of the clones Aurus killed gradually headed towards his body before being absorbed as a notification screen appeared in front of his field of vision.

'Wave 4 has been cleared.'

'Experience +80'

'2 Genesis Points have been obtained.'

After being shocked with the fact that the upgraded form of Bargaining was extremely destructive and useful, Aurus was shocked once more as he found out that the amount of Genesis Points he obtained was increased by 1.

"Now where did this extra Genesis Point come from?" Aurus asked himself. Pondering for a bit, he tried to remember what he did differently and noticed that there wasn't anything different to what he was doing at all.

With that being the only thing that came to mind from his side, he then thought about the enemies he faced in the fourth wave, remembering that there was a new type of enemy.

"Maybe it has something to do with the varieties of enemies I face against." With the hypothesis being kept in mind, Aurus looked at the center of the green jade hall as the disembodied voice resounded through the hall.

"The fifth wave is starting."

Whoosh!

With the number of enemies being doubled every wave, he was now facing against 16 clones of himself at the same time.

Looking at the different types of enemies he had in the current wave, he noticed that there were now two strong clones of himself. With that, he noticed that every time a certain type of clone reaches a certain threshold, a new type of clone would be released.

"I'll have to test if my hypothesis is true or not though." As Aurus was still thinking of his hypothesis, a bombardment of 14 walnuts headed towards his way, with two tridents made from walnuts were behind the 14 walnuts, exuding a feeling that they were unavoidable.

"Welp, this is going to be hard to dodge," Aurus said to himself as he looked at the sixteen shots coming at him. Without any choice, he transformed a floating Anima into a Spirit Spear and shot it out towards the sixteen clones as he said, "Then let's not dodge it and kill them before the shots hit me."

"[Spirit Spear: Depression]."

Whoosh!

Supported by Aurus' high movement speed, the speed at which the spear reached the clones was considerably faster than the speed of the shots the clones shot out, not even allowing to be on guard.

In the midst of its flight, the Spirit Spear gradually became darker in color as it slowly transformed into a spherical shape. Once it collided with one of the clones' bodies, it had already compressed its shape into a tiny bead that was even smaller than the tip of a finger.

Aurus looked at this with interest. If the upgraded form before this made the Spirit Spear disappear before bombarding the clones with incessant attacks? How about this current form where the Spirit Spear transformed into a tiny dark sphere?

Even though he expected something special to happen, he wasn't prepared for what happened next.

The tiny dark sphere that was previously the Spirit Spear, embedded itself into the body of the clone it hit before...

Exploding.

Bang!

In an instant, the tiny dark sphere exploded within the clone's body as a domain that was pitch black in color covered the other clones' bodies as they gradually lost health and died under the effects of this domain.

"..." Aurus was at a loss for words. With each form being used after the previous one, the effects of the form that was upgraded afterwards grew more and more crazy in effect.

Ding!

In the midst of this situation where the dark domain engulfed the clones' bodies, a notification screen appeared in front of Aurus' field of vision.

'[Spirit Spear: Depression] has been used after [Spirit Spear: Bargaining], allowing the former's properties to be boosted.'

'[Spirit Spear: Depression] has been upgraded to [Spirit Spear: Despair], turning into a skill that casts a domain around a certain radius where the enemies are greatly suppressed while the user that casted the skill has its stats greatly boosted. Lasts for 5 seconds.'

"A domain type skill..." Aurus couldn't help but mutter softly. As he looked at the domain he made in front of him, there was no semblance of a domain whatsoever.

To Aurus, the domain looked like a killing chamber! A killing chamber where the enemies that are inside the killing chamber would have a sentence that equaled to certain death!

Not long after the clones' death, the domain that covered their bodies dissipated into thin air as the dust transformed from their bodies instantly darted towards Aurus' body as the usual notification screen he saw appeared in front of his field of vision.

Ding!

'Wave 5 has been cleared.'

'Experience +160'

'2 Genesis Points have been obtained.'

While Aurus was looking at the notification screen that came out after every wave, another notification screen appeared behind the notification screen he was reading, prompting to move the current notification screen away and look at the other notification screen with surprise.

Ding!

'Congratulations! Aurus has leveled up.'

'Aurus has reached the MAX level.'

'Aurus has not yet met the necessary requirements to evolve.'

At first, he was ecstatic to see that he had finally reached the maximum level for his current grade as he only needed to grind his skills in order to obtain a better evolution. But after reading the final statement, he saw that he still needed to do something else.

"Huh? Why can't I evolve?" Aurus thought to himself. After a while, he realized what he was missing. "Ah. Life and Will points."

Indeed, the points that could be exchanged for temporary power were also the requirements needed in order to evolve. For Saplings, it was Life points. For Branch Formosii, it was Will points.

"I'll have to grind some Life and Will points later," Aurus muttered as the disembodied voice started to talk again.

"The sixth wave is starting."

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

In an instant, 32 clones where 4 of them were strong clones while 28 of them were the normal clones, appeared in the center of the green jade hall, positioning themselves towards Aurus' direction as they were about to fire their nut tridents and walnuts.

"Oh no, you don't! I'll go first!" Aurus couldn't help but shout as he knew that with his current movement speed, he would be cornered by all of the tridents and walnuts. He could use his movement speed boosting skills and spells, but he wanted to use them only for strong enemies, which he had a feeling that would pop up next round.

Hastily forming a Spirit Spear, he shot it out towards one of the strong clones as he shouted, "[Spirit Spear: Acceptance]."

Whoosh!

The Spirit Spear was shot out like normal, darting towards the direction of one of the strong clones as they were still unaware of the Spirit Spear heading towards them.

At that instant.

Weeeennngggg...

The Spirit Spear froze in place. The clones also froze in place as well, as if...everyone was stuck in time.

Aurus, who was not affected by this, looked at this weird situation and felt a looming destructive aura gradually envelop all of the clones. Not long after, like they were not there in the first place, the bodies of the clones disappeared into thin air as any remnant of the clones being there wasn't even left behind.

Ding!

'[Spirit Spear: Acceptance] has been used after [Spirit Spear: Depression], allowing the former's properties to be boosted.'

'[Spirit Spear: Acceptance] has been upgraded to [Spirit Spear: Truth], turning into a skill that attacks every enemy seen by the user and deals damage that is equivalent to 25 times of the user's Attack stat (multiplier increases as the level of the skill is increased).'

...

On another green jade hall.

Herellia finally broke through the second illusion world after wasting multiple minutes replaceing the exit. As a branch at heart, she didn't know the meaning of being mentally exhausted, using her soul to the limit as she continued to replace the exit to each illusion world using logical and rational thinking, and of course, brute force.

Being a leader of an alliance, one must not only be the strongest, one must also be wise.

Letting out a sigh of relief as she saw the green jade hall for the first time, she couldn't help but complain about her trial. "This illusion thingy is definitely confusing. It forces me to use all of my soul to think up of ways to escape."

With her complaining about the difficulty of her trial, she couldn't help but think about Aurus and how he was faring. "I wonder how far Aurus has gone in his trial."

While thinking about Aurus, the disembodied voice that didn't care about what Herellia felt, continued to resound throughout the green jade hall.

"The third world, Longevity, is now being casted."

Remembering that there were still 7 more things like these after this one, Herellia finally snapped and couldn't help but say as she sighed.

"Ah shit, here we go again."