Steven was sitting at the table, using a pencil to draw on a stack of kraft paper. What he was describing was exactly the kind of monster he had killed in the eastern mountains that day.
The brushstrokes moved quickly on the paper, and soon a sketch of a monster was vividly depicted: it was attached to the side wall of the rock cave entrance, its long tentacles coiled, as if it was about to be thrown out to catch prey.
I drew an enlarged picture of the tentacle suckers and mouthparts. After the drawing was completed, Steven picked it up and looked at it with satisfaction.
Then he wrote a few lines on the lower right side of the painting: Purple Star Whip Python, which appears in the dark mountains and mountains of dark rainforests, usually lurks on the cliffs, waiting for prey to launch a surprise attack when it passes under the cliffs, and captures them.
It preys on prey and uses the suckers and bone spurs on its tentacles to poison the prey. This monster has not been found to have any eyes, nose, ears and other sensory organs on its body. Its method of sensing prey: unknown, species classification: unknown.
Steven carefully put the painting in a flat leather bag, then stood up and walked out of the room. In the yard outside, Kate was getting familiar with and training her newly awakened ice elemental power.
He held a wooden stick and waved it according to the basic movements of swordsmanship. After a while, some mist appeared near the wooden stick. This was the water vapor in the air around the wooden stick frozen by the cold. They wrapped around the wooden stick and became increasingly dense.
Then the stick was covered with a layer of white frost.
At this time, the air around Kate's body began to become colder, and a layer of white mist appeared around his body. Steven asked: "Kate, do you have any discoveries or ideas about the use of ice elemental power in combat?"
Kate replied: "I don't have a clue yet, I'm testing its properties, and I made a discovery: it must be an object in direct contact with my body to have a big effect, such as this stick and the water vapor in the air around me.
If it is indirect contact, for example, if I press the top of a wooden stick against the ground, it will work, but it will take a long time to freeze the ground. In addition, I also found that its essence should be cold, not ice.
"Frost is just a phenomenon. I can lower the temperature of the objects I touch. If I indirectly touch other objects through the object I am holding, the efficiency will be very low."
Steven said: "Really? We have a lot of time, so we can study it carefully. I plan to move the daily meditation time to when I go to bed at night. This will not affect my sleep and save time in the morning. It is just right.
Let’s study the combat application of ice elemental power in detail with you.”
So Steven and Kate began to study and test ways to apply ice elemental power in battle every morning for more than a month.
First, they discovered that the essence of this ability should be cold force, which can drastically reduce the temperature of an object being directly contacted, and can be quickly transferred to another object on a material with good conductivity. Of course, the effect of direct contact is much better.
many.
For example, Kate puts her palm on Steven's chest and activates her ability, which can drastically lower the temperature of Steven's upper body almost immediately, greatly affecting his ability to move, and the cold can quickly enter his body. Of course now
Kate's ability is not enough to have a great impact on the opponent's body.
But it is foreseeable that when Kate's abilities are greatly improved in the future, he may even freeze the opponent's whole body instantly or let the cold enter the body along the body, destroying the opponent's internal organs, etc., causing great harm
The damage can even kill the opponent directly!
Of course, this also depends on the heat insulation ability of the opponent's armor. If the opponent wears cotton clothes under the armor, then this effect will be greatly reduced.
In addition, this ability is also greatly affected by the environment. In a cold or humid environment, the cold power will be multiplied, and in a dry or hot environment, it will be greatly reduced.
Although the temperature in the tropical rainforest environment they are currently in is relatively high, due to the humidity of the air, the cold force is actually very practical. Through the abundant moisture in the air, the cold can be quickly transmitted, and even directly make the air cool.
The water freezes on the surface of the object, just like Kate froze the monster's tentacles that day.
In addition, they also found that since Kate awakened the ice elemental power, her physical fitness has also been improving rapidly, including strength, agility, reflexes, and endurance at a very fast rate. Originally, Kate had been training for a period of time before.
The improvement of his physical fitness has stagnated, but with the awakening of the ice elemental power, his improvement has begun again, and the improvement speed is much faster than during the previous training camp.
This was definitely great news for the two of them. It was already early August, and they originally planned to wait until September when the rainy season stopped and the dry season came to start investigating and exploring the ancient ruins they discovered last time.
Because the monsters on the platform they encountered in February were completely beyond cognition. It seemed that those monsters were powerful and must be very difficult to deal with, and they could completely deduce the number and types of monsters in the ruins.
There are definitely more than just the few on the rock platform.
So the two of them are actually very wary of that ruin. Steven was especially worried about Kate before. Because he practiced the visualization method on the scroll, his strength has been qualitatively improved and he has a certain grasp of the monsters inside. Although he had previously
Kate's strength has also been greatly improved, but Steven feels that is not enough.
If the two of them entered the ruins like this, Steven might still be able to protect himself, but Kate would be in great danger. He originally planned to go in and explore alone, leaving Kate to take care of him outside.
But he knew that it would be difficult to convince Kate to agree to this plan. Now it seems that this worry is no longer necessary. After Kate masters and skillfully uses the ice elemental power, and with the great improvement of physical fitness and combat strength, they will
You can enter the ruins to explore.
Of course, necessary material preparations are also necessary. The skin peeled off from the tentacles of the purple star whip python (this is the name Steven gave the monster) should also be processed at this time. They are going to make it into an upper body
Leather armor and leather arm guards will greatly improve their protective capabilities.
But this scale skin is very tough: there is a layer of thick skin of more than one centimeter under its scales, which is both strong and tough. The reason why it was able to be peeled off at that time was because the skin from the side of the monster's tentacles to the suction cup surface had no scales, so it could be cut through with a machete.
.
The machete was also damaged when the two of them fought the monster before. It was very difficult to chop the scales with a hand axe.
In the end, Steven came up with a way: He asked Kate to inject ice elemental power into the part where Kate was going to split it to lower the temperature to an extremely low temperature. When the low temperature made that part very brittle, he cut it open.
It took the two of them a week to complete the two pairs of scale leather armors. They also made a special arm armor for Kate. When he uses the ice elemental power, he must directly touch the opponent with his palm, and there is a protection on the arm.
Well-fitted arm guards will minimize the risk of injury.