John approached the massive skull, proceeding with slight caution in case of any danger lurking about. The feeling he had experienced earlier regarding the skull and fruit intensified slightly as he approached it, but he still couldn't pinpoint what the cause was.
John eventually stood directly in front of the skull, and inspected it closely. The skull was almost as tall as his shoulders, and gave off an ancient aura.
Ping!
John whacked his scythe against the skull as a test for danger, but nothing happened.
"Wow, that's tough!" John commented as he inspected the skull more closely.
Despite him hitting the skull quite hard with his scythe, it didn't leave so much as a scratch.
"What do you think it is?" Adam asked curiously as he closely inspected it. Despite his vast knowledge about many things, Adam had never seen a skull similar to this one.
"No idea...but whatever killed it was quite impressive," John commented as he pointed to the side of the skull. Adam looked over, and noticed a small hole in the temple of the skull.
"I couldn't even scratch it, but someone pierced directly through it in one shot. It must have been quite the attack," John continued.
He closely studied the skull and the hole for a while, and Adam did the same.
"The skull seems to be completely devoid of any remaining vitality and essence, as the fruits have completely absorbed what little blood and Qi was left when this creature died," Adam suddenly stated after a thorough inspection.
John nodded his head in agreement, as he had come to the same conclusion. He was hoping the skull would be able to offer some sort of value to them, but after all this time, it was just an extremely hard skull now.
"Do you have any need for this skull?" Adam suddenly asked John.
John thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. He didn't know of any way he could make use of it.
"No. Do you want it?" John asked.
"Mhm. This skull is incredibly durable, and while I wont be able to craft anything out of it now, I could potentially use it in the future for some of my formation arts, or potentially even weapon forging," Adam replied.
"Weapon forging? You never told me you could forge weapons," John replied in slight surprise.
"Hmph, who do you think I am? I am the amazing formations master, Adam Fenks! Of course I can forge weapons. Formations and weapon forging are incredibly similar, and stem from the same basic principles," Adam replied with a proud look on his face and puffed out chest.
John rolled his eyes but said nothing. The more talented Adam was, the better news it was for John.
"Fine, go ahead and take the skull, but first, let's inspect the fruit," John replied as his eyes trailed upwards to the top of the skull. The plant that the fruit grew on drilled its roots into the top of the skull, and seemed to have drawn the last bit of essence and vitality from the skull to make the fruits.
The two of them inspected the fruits for quite some time before coming to any conclusions. They didn't even know if they were safe to eat, as neither had seen anything like it before.
"I don't recall ever learning about this fruit. I wonder how we should to about testing it?" Adam mumbled as he inspected the fruits closely.
John was just about to reply when he felt a stirring in his soul. He was about to go inward and check on it, when all of a sudden, Kirii appeared before him and Adam.
"Kirii, what are you doing?" John asked in slight confusion.
Since John and Kirii made a companion pact, they shared linked souls. As such, Kirii was able to live inside John's soul space, when no other life could. At the same time, this allowed Kirii to enter and leave his soulspace on his own, without needing John's permission.
Kirii suddenly dashed forward towards the fruit, and before John could react, bit one of them and swallowed it.
"Hey Kirii, dont-" John tried to stop Kirii, but was too late. Kirii swallowed one of the fruits whole. John and Adam watched closely as Kirii had a satisfied look on its face after swallowing the fruit. Suddenly, Kirri's skin began to turn a dark shade of red, and steam began to emanate from its body.
It seemed to be fighting internally against the energy of the fruit, and slight struggle and pain appeared on Kirii's face. John wanted to help, but didn't know of any way to do so. He helplessly watched as Kirii struggled in pain against the energy of the fruit for quite some time.
Eventually however, the red color of Kirii's skin began to fade, and the pain on its face subsided. A satisfied look appeared on Kirii's face, and slight surprise appeared on Johns.
A close inspection of Kirii's body revealed some startling details. Kirii's body glowed with a brighter luster, as if it had been polished many times over. The power emanating from its body also increased substantially, surprising John greatly.
Kirii was an essence based beast, and was powerful from its essence attacks, not its body strength. However, John could clearly tell that Kirii's body power had been given quite a boost by the fruit.
"John, what is this beast?" Adam suddenly asked. It was his first time seeing Kirii.
"He's my companion," John replied without much details. The less people knew about Kirii's origins, the better.
Kirii was now quite a bit larger than previously, and was almost as tall as John's waist. It had doubled in size in the past few months.
After fully savoring the fruit, Kirii quickly returned to John's soul space and fell asleep. John shook his head slightly at these sudden antics of Kirii's, but wasn't upset. It's instincts were much sharper than his, and had detected no danger from the fruit. As such, John was now certain that it was safe to eat.
John reached out and plucked one of the two remaining fruits. Without hesitation, he quickly bit into it and ate it fully. As soon as the fruit hit his stomach, a violent energy wildly run amok throughout his body.
John grit his teeth in pain as the energy tried its best to destroy his body, but he resisted it. He didn't activate his Supreme Battle Art, as he wanted to absorb as much of the energy as possible, instead of just resist it.
John's skin began to glow a bright red color, and his body heated up greatly. Steam began to emanate off his skin from the heat, and John felt like he was sitting in the middle of a furnace. Wherever the fruits energy went, it tried to destroy his body. However, his incredibly tough body resisted this destructive power, and instead absorbed it.
John could tell that even though his body was incredibly powerful already, it was slowly but surely growing even tougher and stronger, surprising him greatly. His Immortal Asura Body was a one of a kind body, and run of the mill fruits and pills were unable to increase his body strength and durability any further.
However, this fruit was doing just that, showing just how amazing it was. His body was in a state of battle against the fruit, constantly being destroyed and healed, and in the process, strengthened. The process lasted for quite some time, before John could feel the energy begin to run out.
Eventually, all the energy from the fruit was absorbed by John's body, returning his state back to normal. John breathed a sigh of relief as he began to inspect his body. A small smile appeared on his face as he discovered that the base strength and durability of his body had increased by quite a bit, making him all the more powerful.
"That was quite an amazing fruit!" John mumbled out loud as he continued to inspect its benefits.
"What happened?" Adam asked curiously.
"The fruit increased the strength and durability of my body by quite a bit. It was truly incredible," John replied with a smile.
Adam nodded in agreement as he stared at John's body. Just like Kirii, Adam could tell that John's body had improved, as it seemed to be more clear and lustrous than before. It was as if he had shed a layer and revealed a body of carved marble beneath.
Adam gulped in anticipation as he looked over to the remaining fruit and began to reach out to it.
Slap!
"Ow! What was that for!" Adam exclaimed in slight pain as he recoiled his outstretched hand. John had slapped his hand away as soon as he began to reach out for it.
"I did it for your own safety. You have a weak body. If you had consumed that fruit, you would have exploded from within and died," John replied in a voice of caution.
Surprise appeared on Adams face as he looked back towards the fruit with slight fear.
"Was it that intense?" Adam asked. John nodded in confirmation, squashing any hopes Adam had of eating the fruit.
John reached out and plucked the last fruit. He thought about eating it, but decided against it. It was a fairly common trait for medicinal ingredients and fruit, that the more one ate them, the lesser their benefits would become.
He had already experienced this with the Undying Vitality Fruit, and did not want this amazing fruit to go to waste. The best practice for these kinds of events was to eat one, and have the other turned into a pill to get maximum efficacy from it. John put the fruit away in his spatial realm, so that Kirii would not be able to eat it either.
The spatial realm was unique to him and him alone, and only he could enter it. As John stored the fruit in his spatial realm, a slight tremble emanated from within the palace. However, it was so slight that John did not detect it, and he quickly returned to the real world.
With the fruits gone, there was no use for the plant anymore. Neither John nor Adam had any idea how to raise such a plant, and so they didn't bother with it. Adam took the skull away, storing it in his spatial ring along with the plant attached to it.
Both John and Adam had satisfied expressions on their faces, as they had once again obtained immense treasures from these lands.
"Where to next?" Adam asked John as he looked around.
"Don't you want to use that formation of yours again?" John asked in response.
Adam shook his head. "I already told you it has limited uses. Unless we wander for days without finding something like last time, I don't want to use it. Let's just pick a direction and proceed forward," Adam replied.
John agreed with Adam and picked a direction. It was still towards the center of the wastelands. The two of them proceeded forward for nearly a day, walking through the thick forest. They encountered many beasts within, but all were weak enough to ignore.
Bright light eventually began to filter through from in front of them.
"It looks like we're about to exit this forest," Adam said as he rushed towards the forest's end.
John ran alongside him, and before long, the two of them exited the forest. Bright light from the sun high above lit the land in front of them, as well as their shocked and stupefied faces.
"Just...what is this?" Adam mumbled out as he stared in front of him in complete shock.