90: Chapter 90: Terrifying Combat Power! A Resource Scarcity Crisis Re-emerges!

An empty forest clearing.

It became the perfect place for Jiang Yun to test his companions' new powers.

He took a deep breath, his eyes shining with anticipation as he first turned his gaze toward the extraordinary Storm Thunder Sparrow.

"Little Cloud Sparrow, first try your new abilities, [Storm Wings] and [Summon Thunderstorm]!"

"Li!"

The Storm Thunder Sparrow let out a high-pitched cry that reached the clouds.

The sound shook the surroundings.

It flapped its wings violently; no longer just simple beating of the air, it was as if it directly stirred the wind and thunder attribute Law.

Green wind vortices and silver electric light instantly gushed out from every feather on its wings, completely rendering its massive wings into a pure energy form.

Skill!

Storm Wings · Transcendent!

At this moment.

It was as if it were no longer a bird, but had become the Incarnation of storm and thunder.

The air at the edges of its wings was extremely compressed and sliced, letting out a sharp whistling sound.

Jiang Yun could even see the fine, distorted transparent ripples left behind as its wingtips sliced through the air!

"Such speed!"

Jiang Yun's pupils shrank.

In his perception, the Storm Thunder Sparrow's current speed was more than several times faster than when it previously used [Wind Rush]!

With just a simple flap of its wings, its figure left several afterimages within a hundred-meter range, moving so fast that the naked eye simply couldn't capture it!

"Next, [Summon Thunderstorm]!"

With a thought, Jiang Yun issued the command.

In the sky.

The clouds that had just calmed down were stirred once more.

The Storm Thunder Sparrow hovered in the air, its body radiating intense green and silver light, like the core of a storm and thunder.

Using itself as a conduit, it connected with the wind and thunder elements between heaven and earth.

"Rumble—!!!"

In an instant, with it as the center, the sky within a radius of nearly five hundred meters suddenly darkened. Thick dark clouds gathered out of thin air, and within the cloud layer, countless silver snakes danced wildly amidst the booming thunder.

A heart-palpitating Heavenly Might descended!

The next moment, without any warning, countless silver lightning bolts as thick as a child's arm frantically crashed down from the thunderclouds like a torrential rain.

They were not random.

Instead, under the guidance of an invisible force, they bombarded the area targeted by Jiang Yun's will in a carpet-like fashion.

Skill!

Summon Thunderstorm · epic!

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The explosions of thunder were continuous and deafening!

The ground covered by the thunderstorm instantly turned into scorched earth. Countless ancient trees were turned to dust in the lightning, and hard rocks were shattered into pieces, flying in all directions!

The air was thick with the smell of ozone and burning, and the brilliant white lightning illuminated the dark world as if it were day!

This was no longer a single-point assassination, but a true descent of a natural disaster!

It was an area clearing!

Its grandeur and scope of destruction far exceeded the previous [Thunder Strike]!

Jiang Yun watched with surging emotions, incredibly excited.

"Good! What a 'Summon Thunderstorm'! With this skill, why fear group attacks? If I encounter a Vicious Beast tide like the one in the exam again, one skill will clear the field!"

Jiang Yun was very satisfied with Little Cloud Sparrow's performance.

After testing the Storm Thunder Sparrow.

Jiang Yun turned his burning gaze toward the Golden Scaled Fire Dragon Fish, whose aura was now deeper and heavier.

"Little Fire, your turn! Show off your [Golden Scale Protection] and [True Dragons Wrath]!"

"Roar!"

The Golden Scaled Fire Dragon Fish let out a low and majestic dragon roar.

It seemed to be responding to Jiang Yun.

It didn't fly up but remained coiled on the ground.

With a thought, its crimson-gold scales seemed to be infused with life. A faint but extremely solid golden halo emerged from the surface of the scales, flowing rapidly, and finally forming a solid golden dragon-force shield on its body surface!

Golden Scale Protection · epic!

Passive trigger!

The shield didn't look heavy, yet it radiated an aura of being indestructible and impervious to all techniques.

Jiang Yun could clearly feel it.

This shield had incredibly amazing defensive power against both physical and elemental attacks!

"Test the strength!"

Jiang Yun commanded the Storm Thunder Sparrow to execute a full-power [Thunder Claw] against the edge of the shield.

"Sizzle!"

The lightning hit the shield, but it only caused a tiny ripple in the golden halo before vanishing like a stone dropped into the ocean, failing to leave even a single crack!

"What a strong defense!"

Jiang Yun marveled once again.

This was just the basic state of the passive trigger. If it were hit by a powerful attack in battle, the defensive effect of this shield would likely be even more astonishing!

"Finally! True Dragons Wrath!"

Jiang Yun's voice carried a hint of trembling expectation.

The Golden Scaled Fire Dragon Fish heard him.

Within those dragon eyes, crimson-gold flames instantly ignited!

An aura far more primitive, more violent, and more noble than the previous [Bloodline Might], like a Vicious Beast that had slept for eternity, suddenly awakened!

Skill!

True Dragons Wrath · epic!

The crimson-gold light around it instantly became blinding, and its body size seemed to expand by a circle. The ground beneath its four dragon claws cracked inch by inch due to the sudden surge of power it couldn't withstand.

A terrifying Dragon Might, which made even the Storm Thunder Sparrow instinctively retreat, swept out like a storm!

In this state.

Jiang Yun could clearly feel it.

Little Fire's total attributes!

Power, speed, defense, and energy intensity were all soaring at a terrifying rate!

It was as if it had become a true member of the Dragon Clan!

Ready to tear everything in front of it to shreds!

"Target, the rock wall ahead! Dragon Flame Burst Kill!"

Jiang Yun pointed to a steep rock wall several hundred meters away.

The Golden Scaled Fire Dragon Fish, having entered the True Dragons Wrath state, no longer condensed a dark red fireball in its dragon mouth, but a crimson-gold fireball that looked like it had golden lava flowing inside!

The air around the fireball was completely distorted and turned into a vacuum by the extreme heat!

"Roar—!!!"

Accompanied by a dragon roar that seemed to come from ancient times, the crimson-gold fireball shot out like a Meteor at extreme speed.

BOOM!!!!!!!!

The world-shaking explosion seemed ready to tear one's eardrums.

The hundred-zhang-high rock wall in the distance was not blown apart at the moment of contact with the crimson-gold fireball, but rather was erased from the world as if by an invisible giant palm.

In its place, only a huge, charred deep pit with a glazed edge remained, from which a small mushroom cloud rose.

No rubble flew about.

Because everything had been vaporized and annihilated in that extreme heat and destructive energy!

Silence!

Dead silence!

The Storm Thunder Sparrow folded its wings.

The light around the Golden Scaled Fire Dragon Fish also slowly faded.

But the lingering aura of destruction in the air and that massive deep pit all bore witness to the terror of the strike just now.

Jiang Yun stood in place, his chest heaving violently, his heart already filled with wild joy and shock.

"This power... is too terrifying!"

He recalled the beasts of those Silver Rank seventh and eighth stage captains of the City Defense Team; the skills they used were like night and day compared to the new skills of these two little fellows!

"Powerful Aptitude, hidden Bloodline, and the ultra-high level of their skills... make their actual combat power far exceed those of the same Rank!"

Jiang Yun was absolutely certain of this.

He thought to himself.

Little Fire could instakill a Silver Rank when it was only at Bronze Rank Seven.

Now it was already at Silver Rank Ninth Stage.

Did the power of that strike just now mean... it already possessed the possibility of challenging and defeating a Gold Rank?!

At this moment, he desperately longed for a Gold Rank opponent to verify this hypothesis.

True combat power can only be perfectly demonstrated in a life-and-death struggle.

Pressing down the urge to immediately find a Gold Rank expert to spar with, Jiang Yun began to work on the next step—resource allocation.

Now that the Fire Dragon Fish had such a powerful defensive skill as [Golden Scale Protection], its survivability had greatly increased.

While the Storm Thunder Sparrow was matchless in speed, it still had a weakness in defense.

He unhesitatingly took out that precious bottle of earth dragon essence blood.

"Little Cloud Sparrow, this earth dragon essence blood contains boundless blood Qi. It should be of great use for tempering your physique and strengthening your defense. Absorb it. If you're lucky, you might even awaken a defense skill of the Earth Dragon Clan."

The Storm Thunder Sparrow let out a cheerful cry.

It carefully picked up the jade bottle with its beak, flew to the side, and began to slowly absorb and refine the pure energy within.

Next.

Jiang Yun piled up the remaining thousand-plus water and fire attribute Spirit Stones.

The Fire Dragon Fish opened its mouth wide and swallowed the small mountain in a few gulps like a whale, then looked longingly at the Fire Attribute Spirit Crystal in Jiang Yun's hand.

Seeing the little fellow's eager look and its dragon claws constantly gesturing in desire, Jiang Yun smiled and began to feed it the precious Spirit Crystals, each equivalent to a thousand Spirit Stones, one by one.

One, two, ten, thirty... The Fire Dragon Fish accepted all of them. Its aura slowly grew denser as the Spirit Crystals were consumed, and the golden light on its scales seemed to become even more brilliant.

When Jiang Yun had fed it eighty-six crystals.

The Fire Dragon Fish finally let out a satisfied burp and shook its head, indicating it couldn't eat any more.

"Eighty-six..."

Jiang Yun looked at the remaining fourteen Fire Attribute Spirit Crystals in his hand.

Although he had expected it.

Little Fire's appetite would grow along with its strength.

However, the corner of his mouth still couldn't help but twitch.

Eighty-six Spirit Crystals were equivalent to 86,000 Low-Grade Spirit Stones... and this was just for one meal!

And that was under the circumstance where it had just completed its evolution and its strength had skyrocketed, making it in urgent need of consolidation and improvement.

It was foreseeable that as its strength further improved, this number would become even more terrifying.

It wasn't hard to imagine that after the Storm Thunder Sparrow finished refining the earth dragon essence blood, its demand for high-level wind and thunder attribute resources would not be any less.

"I thought the hundred Spirit Crystals from the competition reward were a huge sum, but I didn't expect... they'd just be a drop in the bucket."

Jiang Yun sighed helplessly.

A familiar sense of crisis called "resource scarcity" once again loomed over his heart like a dark cloud.

Resource freedom—the road is long and difficult!

This also made his determination to go to the Molten Fire Grotto Secret Realm to fight for Opportunity even more resolute.

To improve quickly, one cannot do without the support of massive resources, and a Secret Realm is often the fastest place to obtain resources.

For now, searching for Opportunity and resources within the Secret Realm was still a bit far off.

Jiang Yun sighed.

He recalled the two beasts into the Beast Taming Space.

Letting them peacefully digest and absorb what they had gained.

Then, he said goodbye to Little Cloud Sparrow's parents once more.

And headed toward the city center.

Toward the direction of the C City Beast Taming Mall.

The Beast Taming Mall was also a good place to obtain resources.

He had to go there to see if there were any ways to quickly obtain resources... after all, improving his strength was of the utmost urgency!