A boundless sense of accomplishment swelled inside Asher's chest. His lips had broadly split into a satisfied smile as he observed the shimmering blue Spirit Mana energy ball swirling around in his palm.

With each second he held the Spirit Mana energy ball, the more Asher felt invigorated by its incredible power.

This power was just as great as if he were to gather a large sum of Spirit Aura into his arm!

And thinking about his Spirit Aura, Asher got another idea. He had then surged the Spirit Aura energy from his veins and flowed it directly towards his right arm.

Like he guessed, his Spirit Aura energy didn't clash and meshed perfectly together with his Spirit Mana.

Two streams of incredible power energized Asher's entire body. Flickers of Ghost Lightning energy spewed from the ball of Spirit Mana as his energies smoothly combined together.

Because of his Ghost Lightning powers, this would be the official form his Spirit Aura would take when it manifest outside of his body.

Asher wasn't sure how long this would take for other Spirit Tier cultivators, but for him, he achieved this step like he was already doing it for all of his life!

His satisfied smile only grew wider, but there was a slight problem.

Though Asher felt powerful, some tiny beads of sweat continued to pool down his brows. Like he also expected, combining these two energies was a bigger considerable strain than usual.

It was quite tricky to keep his focus with his energy rapidly draining.

Still, Asher wasn't the one to quite a challenge and continued to hold on to the Spirit Aura, and Spirit Mana mixed ball for two minutes.

At the two-minute mark, he had to disperse it less he wanted to be entirely drained of his energy reserves.

Asher took a slight breath as his mood improved. Now he felt even more assurance about this mission. It may not be a vast improvement on his survival rate, but any slight upgrade gave his mind a piece of ease.

Right then, Yuki's melodic voice echoed out in his mind.

'Not bad, not bad at all, Asher. Like this, we have a small chance of success if you keep on practicing.'

'Yea….thankfully, I already got the hang of this. Now then….'

Right as Asher was about to get back on controlling Spirit Mana and Spirit Aura's energy at the same time, he heard a slight buzz come from his dresser.

His eyes peered over to his phone that made the buzzing noise that had indicated to him he had just received a new message.

When Asher looked at who it was, his mood instantly brightened up.

It was his recently new and cute little girlfriend, Elsa. The preview of the context message looked serious, but Asher couldn't stop a smile from blooming.

Even if it was for something later, it just felt nice to get texted by Elsa so early in the morning.

And Asher briefly wonders if he could try and coax her into doing it more some time in the future. He knew he was going to do it in the future.

Focusing on the time she texted him to be at the woods, Asher nodded to himself. 'Alright….seems like she needs to prepare a bit as well. Good, this gives us enough time for a decent amount of training before we have to go.'

Asher only heard a slight hum of agreement from Yuki.

And with a plan in action, Asher focused back on cultivating his Spirit Mana and Spirit Aura. No matter what may happen today, he was determined to survive this mission and tremendously increase his power!

….

Time quickly breezed by, and it was already late morning.

While Pearlcrest City residents were enjoying their days off, two youthful figures were trailing through dreadful Decrypted Woods.

The chilling place were going too far means your death will be assured, meant nothing for these young people. And, of course, the only kind of daring young people who would be here was Asher and Elsa.

They were sticking close to each other, strolling at a cautious pace through the woods.

Compared to yesterday, there wasn't a causal romantic mood permeating between them. They both were serious as it was training time.

Although, Asher did note the fact that Elsa did willingly come shoulder to shoulder to him. Not that he was going to complain about this subtle action of closeness.

As Asher stared over at Elsa's incomparably beautiful serious face, he began to recall her reasoning for their training today.

Elsa had explained to him that they wouldn't be doing something overly intense for today.

She claims that starting off with something so intense would only do him more harm and may even ruin his future prospects. She had looked over his whole body and stated that he needs to get used to the pace of Spirit Tier fights and hone his senses.

She had also even claimed his duel with Zara and his fight on the night streets are a mere taste of what's to come with their powers.

And while Asher saw all of her points and seriously took it to his heart. He knows himself that his endurance wasn't that huge of an issue.

No matter what battle he participated in, Asher always had enough energy to at least finish the fight out.

Moreover, Asher also knows that Elsa doesn't have accurate information on how much he really fights. Because of his own stubbornness and slight pride, Asher never wants to rely on Elsa to help make his training easy.

His fighting completely alone alleviated that extreme sense of danger as he knows any screw-up will simply cost him his life.

Plus, Asher considers that relying on a stronger force all of the time will never let him grow powerful. It's why he didn't dare ask Elsa for help with the Jayline issue since this was an obstacle only he can solve.

Still, now that they were all Spirit Tier cultivators, Asher also knew getting slight help from a far more experienced Spirit Tier can majorly help him out. And, it is also not a bad idea at all to work on his stamina.

As they made it further in the Decrypted Wood starting, they had eventually reached the area where Mana monsters that can kill Spirit Tier cultivators roamed about.

While they were getting here, Asher had noticed that Elsa was taking some precise turns and twists through the woods. So he had to ask,

"Do you have a particular beast you want to test against me? I'm amusing so because of this route we walked on. And you said you want to hone my senses."

Elsa kept her eyes forward but did nod to Asher's question. "Correct guess. We will be facing several snake-type beasts for today. They are fast and deadly, which should be sufficient enough training. By my route, we should be around their turf."

Asher raised a curious eyebrow. It was almost like she had specific routes already planned in her mind for particular kinds of Mana monsters.

Though, thinking more about it, with Elsa's powers and vast experiences, Asher found it made sense for her to be this meticulous.

With a slightly humorous tone, Asher told her, "You know….it's almost like you have a digital map in that bright mind of yours. I've been here for years and still only rely on my general senses to know where I'm going."

Elsa shot Asher a brief look, giving him a good-hearted light smirk. "You can achieve this state too, you know? I know in your mental scape space, you can also form blurry phantom images of whatever you focus on, right?"

"Oh? Haha, nothing can ever escape your sharp senses. But, indeed, I can. Guess creativity is another thing I'll need to work on later." Asher leaked a slight chuckle.

No matter how much Elsa showed off to him, he was constantly impressed with whatever she does.

Elsa was about to give another remark when suddenly she and Asher stopped on a dime. Immediately when they stop, they both tensed their bodies for the first sign of action.

Several presences had entered the range of their Aura Sense, and none of the presences they picked up on could be taken lightly.

Each presence holds a powerful Magical Aura that at least gives Asher a sense of danger.

Asher wasn't sure if Elsa felt the same. But, no matter how strong her foes were, he always saw her take any fight seriously.

Focusing on his surroundings, Asher began to squint his eyes on the dark-shaded trees. As he focused more, his gaze caught wind of several shadowy outlines quickly jumping from tree to tree.

These shadowy outlines were even faster than that gibbon beast he fought a few days ago.

If it wasn't for that power boost he received yesterday from his mission, Asher fathoms, he would even have trouble tracking these shadows without it.

Right then, one long shadow had stopped and soared straight at Asher!

As the shadow appeared out in the open, Asher recognized it to be an extremely long snake expanding over fifteen feet wide!

The distance between him and that Mana monster snake was at least over thirty feet apart.

But, distance matters little to the Mana monster snake. Its speed was slightly swift as it blitzed straight through the air currents and crossed over twenty feet in a manner of seconds.

Asher reached into his pocket, a blue glow flashed, and he had pulled out his trusty axe. Wanting to rely purely on his reactive senses, Asher was going to wait until the snake got close to him.

But when the snake beast was just eight feet apart from him, it snapped open its disgusting jaws, revealing its horrid fluids.

Asher sensed genuine danger and swayed his body to his right as he narrowly avoided a gust of wind.

As the gust of wind passed him, Asher scrunched up his face. A foul stench drilled up his nose, and he saw it was a batch of some horrid black fluid that swept past him.

And immediately when Asher had dodged the putrid black fluid, he sensed danger just mere inches from his face.

In this position, it would be impossible for any newly awakened Spirit Tier cultivator to dodge.

But for Asher, he flexed his body to his maximum state without the use of Spirit Aura. And in a great show of speed, Asher swung his axe down on the sneaking Mana monster snake in just a nanosecond!

'Chi!'

Black blood and putrid smelling guts sprayed into the wind as Asher cleanly chopped the large snake beast in half right before it could bite his face off.

Asher managed to move out of the way before he got sprayed with any foul-smelling blood and guts. He only took a brief glance at the split Mana monster snake before refocusing his attention on Elsa.

Unsurprisingly, Elsa didn't even move from the spot. Her short sword only had a single drop of blood, and at her feet lay a dead Mana monster snake whose giant head only had a single hole of blood flowing out of it.

While Asher looked over to Elsa's graceful image, he heard Yuki lightly snort in his mind.

'Hmph. I'll give the little girl this. She certainly knows how to put herself in a positive light even when fighting.'