[Found a location rich with spiritual power. Producing spiritual essence. Upgrading Beast World. Upgrade failed. Cause of failure: Host's current realm.]
He was startled but quick recovers, it seems that he can no longer take it slow and builds his foundation.
Steel Plate looks at the surrounding and nods his head.
"We should start searching, let's stick to the plan and start searching towards the east." Steel Plate spreads the map once again.
Sean suddenly raises his hand. "This would take too long, how about I split from this group, don't worry, I won't go deeper and only search at the boundary of the two cores."
"Absolutely not, lord Harold tasked me to keep you safe, I won't let you undertake a dangerous task in your first mission." Steel Plate immediately disagrees.
Sean sighs inwardly, it seems that he can't train in this location then.
Suddenly, the branches and leaves starts swaying.
In an instant, Sean and Wuk enters battle state, with Nima and her pet beast behind them.
Jasmine jumps into Nima's head, she might not have direct combat strength but she isn't weak.
"Be careful! There's danger!" Steel Plate seeing Sean's reaction also notices something and warns.
"Devil Apes!" Sean and Steel Plate was shocked, this was too much.
Devil Apes are considered popular mystique creatures for the major populace of the city.
With an Uncommon grade, it has a chance of reaching silver rank albeit low.
Those that has higher quality bloodline would even become Rare grade giving them a chance to reach Gold Rank.
Once they reach adulthood, they would automatically reach bronze rank.
The number of Devil Apes present right now is estimated to be in thirties.
"D*mnit! They made this place their nest! Be careful there should be elites amongst them! Hopefully their king isn't amongst these group!" Steel Plate shouted.
He had long known how dangerous the inner core is but to think that he still had underestimated it.
"F*ck! The king is here! Sir Steel Plate, you deal with it! Everyone gather around me!" Sean commands as he looks at Jasmine and nods his head.
Jasmine let's out a cry as all the Devil Apes became attracted to her.
She's now the center of attention.
"Don't look at Jasmine, continue attacking the Devil Apes near you." Unfortunately, the humans can managed because of their high intelligence but for their pet beasts, they became mesmerized.
"Control your partners!" Sean roars.
Unlike them, Wuk wasn't affected by Jasmine, probably because of its Innate Trait.
With burning blood, he takes out the stuff out of nowhere (Beast World) and starts attacking the approaching Devil Apes.
He might had just broken through but his strength had already far surpassed those of bronze brank but still weaker than silver rank.
'This is the perfect opportunity to level up.' He thought before swallow two basic vitality pills.
Monkey Body Tempering Technique, while attacking, he was operating this technique.
He had discovered that he doesn't need to do the stances as long as Wuk is either nearby or inside Beast World but the refining process is incredibly slow.
Jab! Straight! Hook! Kick! Knee!
Unlike before, he no longer constrained himself with boxing but it was still his core.
When a large Devil Ape tries to swipe him away to get to Jasmine, he grabs it's hand and suddenly, the view of the creature turns upside down.
BOOM! The impact was great but not enough to kill it.
King Kong Punch!
BAM! With it not still recovering, a punch came flying through its head, burying it's head to the ground.
Raising his foot high, he smashes it down.
BOOM! Finally, the High Tier Bronze Rank Devil Ape was killed.
"I should have used King Kong Ironfist rather than just King Kong Punch, the toughness of a beast bronze rank is really incomparable to that of an insect." He mutters.
There's also the fact that most bronze rank mystique creatures in the outer core were killed with just a full powered King Kong Punch.
The beasts in the inner core are much stronger!
This information made Sean's expression turns serious.
Taking a deep breath, he lets out a loud battle cry as he takes a stance known by everyone present.
"Is he? No way! He's going to do that!" Chika exclaim, her large chest rising.
She's one of Sean's fans, she's born from a rich family but isn't comparable to that of the Gold Family but still she can still live as a rich young lady, especially with her special status as a martial artist.
Unfortunately, she seemed to be drawn to adventuring towards other places but she's quite a scaredy cat.
All of her pet beast are defense oriented or have a very tough body.
A yellow Iron Bird and a Big Jelly Beast.
One is tough while the other is resilient.
Seeing Sean saving those civilians that day, his tough body and bravery, it feels like she saw her large knight with muscular body appearing in front of her.
Berserk!
Impenetrable Fortress!
Charm!
All three skills activated in an instant.
Jasmine turns off hers, she uses her tail to cover Nima and her pet beast's eyes.
"Come!" Unfortunately, with this command, not only the Devil Apes were approaching him, even his own teammates.
'What the hell!?' He was speechless, this is the reason why he wanted to hunt on his own.
Wuk, wielding his stuff starts smacking the Devil Apes away, he uses King Kong Punch to either kill or heavily injured those that are at high or top tier.
Self created technique!
Infinite Karate Jabs!
Sean created this technique just for situation like this, other than his back, he can in any direction.
"Wuk, wake them up!" He roars as he feels the scratches and bites of the Devil Apes.
Wuk starts smacking the pet beasts and humans away from Sean, he held back his strength.
The humans and pet beasts starts waking up, realizing their reaction, they can't help but feel ashamed.
"Toy! Blob! Protect Sean!" Chika snaps out and shouts.
Her yellow bird let's a cry and with it's eyes closed, it charges towards Sean's location.
Blob is much better, with its body looking like a undulating waves of fats, it bounces towards the same direction.
The others also orders their pet beasts to do the same.
Sean now surrounded by Devil Apes is punching with all his might.
With Impenetrable Fortress, all his attacks are powered by Ironhide Skin, together with Berserk, his strikes aren't to scoff at
'I had underestimated them!' Sean quickly realizes his skin being pierced but he didn't panic.
With pain, his strikes grows sharper, faster and deadlier.
He enters a state of enlightenment, blows after blows.
Monkey Body Tempering Technique was operating in tandem, Ionhide Skin is active, Berserk is draining his vitality rapidly, Charm is draining his spiritual energy, and the attacks of Devil Apes makes his blood boil.
[Vajra Body has broken through! Warning! Warning! Host is currently in special state incapable of further action!]
All of a sudden, Jasmine's body enlarges as she lets out a loud snarl.
Her tail wraps around one of the corpses, then another.
The vitality she absorbed was incredible little, all of it flows towards Sean.
10th Stage of Skin Tempering Realm!
Undergoing perfect tempering!
A surge of vitality was coursing through Sean's body but he himself was unaware of it.
BOOM!
With an explosion of power, the Devil Apes surrounding him were blown away, they weren't injured, only shocked.
Bronze Rank reached.
Middle stage 1st level of Monkey Body Tempering Technique.
Tempered Soul.
Power! Vital Force! The newfound strength courses through Sean.
Before the Devil Apes can recover, his jabs are already flying towards them.
This time, each blow made their heads smashed backwards.
King Kong Ironfist!
He charges towards a group of stunned Devil Apes.
BOOM! With one attack, five of them were blown away, the one that was hit first even had its flesh destroyed.
'Just how strong had I become!?' He was shocked.
Suddenly, a sense of hunger crepts up to him, without hesitation, he takes out one bottle of basic replenishing pill and downs all of it.
Monkey Body Tempering Technique seems to generate automatically.
Jasmine after Sean's successful rank up immediately falls to the ground like a puppet with broken strings.
Seeing this, Nima quickly grabs her, seeing that she was so weakened, the former lays her on her hands.
After recovering, Sean felt invigorated but he knows that the fight isn't over yet.
Unfortunately, the system's warning made him unable to use Charm to aggro on them.
"Wuk, on me! We need to protect Jasmine and Nima!" Knowing he's the reason for Jasmine's current condition, he felt guilty, he never expected that he would rank up in such a situation.
He lifts two apes, one in each arm and throws them towards any apes close to Nima.
Stomping on the ground, he propels himself towards Nima.
Punching the air, he stops himself in front of her and starts dishing out jabs.
Wuk already joins the fray, following behind him were the mystique creatures of their side, together with their human partners.
With Sean's dominating strength, he's unrivaled in the current battlefield.
The only ones he can't instakill are the elites, they are a lot stronger and cunning than he first thought.
Wuk was even tied down by three of them, their cooperation was greater than anything he had ever seen.
BOOM! Suddenly, a person was sent flying towards them, Sean immediately reacted.
"Catch him!" Leo leaps and catches the person, it was Steel Plate, he was bloody and his armour is broken from a powerful attack.
Everyone despairs, Sean was prepared to go all out, burning his vitality but the situation changes when a loud enraged roar was heard.
Then, one by one, the Devil Apes starts retreating, they lost twelve of their kinds, all casualties were from Sean and Wuk.
"What happened?" Sean was shocked to see their enemies retreating.
Steel Plate starts coughing, he laughs with blood on his mouth. "Don't underestimate my partner."
A large creature with scales shimmering with metallic light, it was breathing smoke and steam out of the holes in its armoured scale.
"Silver Rank Iron Plated Beast." Sean mutters seeing the creature.
It's a metal-type creature that lives in the same habitat as the Gold Eating Beast.
Both are actually quite connected as the Iron Plated Beasts are known to hunt Gold Eating Beasts in the wild.
Two more beasts appears and both of them are defense oriented mystique creatures.
"Bronze Rank Sturdy Turtle and Iron Rhino." Sean was surprised, he seems to discover a trend in how martial artists choose their mystique creatures.
"Nima, bring me Jasmine, I'll put her inside my backpack, she loves this place, it makes her feel safe." Taking Jasmine from her hands, he acts like he's carefully putting her inside the backpack but actually puts her inside Beast World.
"Jasmine, do you know why most martial artists would pick the same kind of mystique creatures or at least have the same element?"
"I know that one, it's said that to form a core, the easiest way is to have a high compatibility to one's martial arts and a much more refined vital force."
This doesn't answer his question though.
"Mystique creatures would give feedbacks to their partners every time they level up and rank up, their feedback came from their own source of power." Steel Plate added.
Sean gets the gist of it, the feedbacks would affect the partner's vital force of vitality, the more similar they are, the higher the chance of creating a better core.
"Then why don't everyone just sign a contract with identical mystique creatures?" He asks.
"Having same elemental types or same kinds of mystique creatures doesn't make it certain that you will reach Gold Rank, it just increases the chance, having similar mystique creatures would make your combat prowess too linear and predictable."
"There's also the fact that you can't stack in one kind of vitality, especially on Silver Rank, each different types of mystique creatures would emit different types of aura to stack with each other." Nima added.