Chapter 157: You Venture Into The City

The newly unsealed ability Crushing Endurance was as powerful as he had thought it would be, but as he had feared, the new ability came with its drawbacks, and could not be easily activated like his other Lumina Vein Art, Crimson Vein Dominion.

Elias was realizing that the Art of Stone may no longer be a tool of punishment, but the way it changed was to use this punishment as a tool to enhance the user.

The first ability it gave the user was the best, not because it was the most powerful, but because it had the least restriction, since only a fully armored body could activate this ability.

Elias could see how this ability could be viewed as just a common grade Art, and it remained this way for a long time since the second ability of the Art of Stone had such a massive threshold that no normal Siphon would be able to activate it or even think of using it.

Crushing Endurance, the second ability of the Art of Stone, gave him even more benefit than the Crimson Vein Dominion Art.

Sanguine Resonance of the Crimson Vein Art 0.05% of Vitality anytime blood was spilled by his hands, and that was a power that was defying the heavens, but Crushing Endurance was even better.

This permanently increased his Durability, and this increase compounded infinitely. Vitality was born from his Durability Attribute, and with the ability of his Ascendant Swarm to triple the Vitality he gained from his Durability, this made any growth in this Attribute have more weight than the flat Vitality gained from Sanguine Resonance.

Apart from his Elder Talent, this was the first Art he had seen that was able to directly increase his Attribute, even if it was only a single Attribute, but who knows what else he might unlock if he kept evolving the Art of Stone to the Earth grade and even higher.

Like Stone Skin, Crushing Endurance required full-body armor, but if a normal Siphon could use Stone Skin, then what Crushing Endurance asked for was too much.

It required him to wear full armor with a weight of about 5000kg, every single day, and that would net him an average of 0.4 points of Durability.

Which meant he was gaining an average of a single point of Durability every 2.5 days. This may not seem like much in the short term, but what about in a year, a decade, or a century? And this Art was only at the Initial level!

And this did not stop there, the greatest weakness of Stone Skin was just its ability to engage physical forces and not other exoteric forces like heat, lightning to even conceptual attacks like those listed on his Status Screen such as fate alteration which he was sure that the Commander had used on him and even soul erasure which was a scary thought… an ability that could erase the soul.

Even with his powerful body, it was unknown if he could survive a powerful enough attack on his soul, and Crushing Endurance could give him that edge, only if he wore armor that was at least 15,000kg!

The full body armor that Elias was wearing weighed almost 300kg, and he doubted if there would be any Fury Forge who would be able to wear this armor for more than an entire day without feeling wiped out… for him, this weight was negligible, and if push came to shove, Elias believed that he should be able to wear a 5,000kg armor.

This would surely strain him, but was that not what he wanted? With his Elder Talent of Extreme Adaptability, it would not be long before his strength grew to the extent where this weight would become nothing for him; however, the problem came from the fact that Elias did not know where he would find armor that weighed 5,000kg.

He doubted he would be able to find armor heavier than a thousand kilograms inside the armory, but then Elias thought about the second level of the armory and decided not to give up the hope that he might find the perfect armor for his needs.

This meant that he would have to tell his master details about his new abilities for him to be able to use armor of this level, and Elias saw this as a chance to explain the rapid advancement of his Attributes.

There were two things Elias knew he needed to hide above all else, and the first was his Infinite pools, the second was his Talent.

His rapid growth must have something he could push the blame towards; otherwise, he would always need to hide and lie, and there was a limit to how much he could lie if he wanted the right resources and the chance to be in the right places.

If he had not shown enough promise, then the Commander would not have given him any assistance when his Void Incursion descended, and he would have been void food by now, being rapidly digested inside the stomach of the Void Echo.

His test has not ended, and if he did not keep pushing himself to the front of the pack, he would be left behind.

With his plan to request armor of that weight from the Commander, or if possible, see how to craft it for himself, Elias thought about the final portion of the Stone Art, which was the direction for him to upgrade this Art, and Elias knew that at this time, he would not be able to fulfill these conditions.

The requirements were ridiculous, and if he did not have the core of this Art, he would have given up on it.

Elias knew that in the future, when he could get the right opportunities, then he would work on unsealing more of the Art of Stone, but before then, it would have to be at the mystic grade for a while.

Elias sighed and stopped channeling stone skin, and he gasped as a shock of cold ran through his body, and his body lost the texture of stone, and he returned to a state of flesh and metal.

Now that he had returned to normal, Elias took off the helmet of his armor, and he found himself missing his previous state where he had been connected to the stone of the earth, and he saw the world not just with his eyes anymore, but with more than that.

When he was stone, his internal noise went silent, and the world became almost… pure.

Maybe some people might find it confining or claustrophobic, but Elias loved the sensation of the invincibility of stone.

Elias sighed. Perhaps it would not be so hard for him to unlock the Earth grade of this Art if he could find such peace in silence when he was wrapped in stone.

With deft hands, Elias removed the armor from his body and placed them on the mannequin, piece by piece, until he was naked.

Reminding himself to polish and run maintenance on the armor, Elias picked up the first set of clothes that Lyssa had made for him, and, pushing his hat lower on his head, he walked out of his room, heading for the gate of the Asylum. It was time he proceeded with the rest of his day.

For the first time since he became a Siphon, it was time to enter the city and see it with new eyes.

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