Chapter 803 - Still?

Spending a few more weeks while fighting the other puppets, Jason tried to analyze their fighting style in-depth without releasing his entire combat prowess.
He simply increased the amount of effort, and strength he utilized in each new round while trying to fight against the puppets head-on.
Unfortunately, this was easier said than done, which Jason realized painfully.
He got injured a lot but using the moonlight affinity, everything was rather easily solved because he was never severely injured.
As such, he fought against each puppet several times a day, closing the gap between them as his combat awareness was gradually increasing.
At the same time, Petri seemed to have been trying to study his curses, wondering about ways of enhancing them.
Ever since he had seen Spyro's relentless efforts to learn the duplication technique Jason liked to call [Mirrored Image] technique, Petri wanted to make Jason proud too.
It was a pain not knowing where to start, or what to do, and Petri had to start from scrap which was different from Spyro, who just copied the mirrored image technique.
Jason wanted to help the Cursed Basilisk, but he was as clueless as to his soulbond on where to start.
Because of that, he allowed Petri to find his own way to improve.
As such, it was only after a total of eight weeks had passed since the start of the fifth trial that he recalled something.
'Wasn't it my plan to leave the dungeon soon? It's not even a task to improve my strength right now..the dungeon only expects me to show the highest level of combat prowess that I can reach…'
This was his task, but he hadn't bothered about it, and it was only after eight weeks that he felt it was time to start sparring with one of the puppets, revealing his highest combat prowess.
Despite that, he didn't plan on using Artemis because she ignored his well-meant advice to stop cultivating and start trying to learn how to use her affinities and racial traits in a better way.
Instead, Jason wanted to fuse with Petri owing to the fact that he was working hard and that he was the only other soulbond he could fuse with.
With that in mind, he decided to allow Petri, who was about to solidify his second large rotating crystal, to occupy his mana core.
During the last few weeks, his combat prowess was slowly increasing and nearing that of the five puppets.
But, he couldn't take the sole credit of the increase because his soul bonds were also becoming stronger, and not just him.
His cultivation was slowed down by the constant battles, while his soulbonds switched between actively cultivating and learning new techniques.
Thus, with his enhanced strength, he seemed to be slowly closing the gap between their physical strength and the strength of their cultivation energy.
Because of that, only their technique, the distinct auras, special traits, combat awareness, talent, and the endless will to emerge victorious were deciding factors, and not that one party was stronger in terms of cultivated energy.
With that in mind, Jason chose the opponent he was the most confident in defeating, after carefully analyzing its basic tactic which he had seen hundreds of times.
As such, his final opponent would be the Spiral path puppet, which he assumed to be the weakest amongst the five puppets.
Or at least its duplication technique was utilized in a way that allowed Jason to understand that the Spiral path puppet wanted to defeat him as harshly as possible.
Following that, it had always summoned 12 duplicates with which it attacked, utilizing a tremendous amount of spirit force, with an additional supply in order to maintain the solid shape of its duplicates.
That was something Jason had figured out owing to Spyro's comprehension which was quite helpful, even more so because he wanted to defeat the Spiral path puppet.
Showing his strongest prowess was not enough, and he became ambitious, thinking that he had to defeat one of the puppets to clearly tell the dungeon that he was not to be taken lightly!
With the intent to win the fight, Jason entered the combat arena, where the Spiral path puppet was already waiting for him.
As always, a huge stream of spirit force enveloped the Spiral path puppet before a total of 12 duplicates manifested around it.
Each of them was weaker than the one before, and the last few were certainly too weak to defeat Jason, even if they were to fight together.
Jason believed that his current state was a major improvement over his strength at the start of the trial.
After all, he had attained it after working relentlessly on improving his combat strength, while learning more about the five mysterious puppets.
While the Spiral path puppet had manifested its duplicates, Jason didn't remain idle.
Instead, Jason had already fused with Petri, manifesting his tail that grew out of his coccyx, followed by his entire body that was enveloped by Scales.
After that, Jason's eyes turned into reptilian slits, while his aura turned wild. Unleashing it to the fullest, the wild, ferocious aura swept through the combat arena, only to face off the Spiral path puppet's aura that? Jason was clueless about.
Following that, Jason's aura was pushed back, but it was just a fraction of a second later that the two stigmas above Jason's right eye began to shine brightly.
They were fully utilized, and reinforced the aura, along with his mana circulation.
Through this, his aura was finally on par with that of the Spiral path puppet's, which meant that neither party had an advantage by utilizing their aura.
This was great, but not yet everything Jason had to use.
Instead, he manifested Byakur which he enveloped with a thin layer of Solaris' flames before traces of mana were inserted into Byakur itself.
In the end, this strengthened his soul weapon to the extent that he could defeat all duplicates and even the main body of the Spiral path puppet without an issue.
As such, he advanced towards the closest duplicate that reached him, before unleashing his petrification and race specific weakening curse followed by the abyssal effect.
This decreased the duplicate's strength tremendously as it was defenseless against the slew of attacks.
By fully facing the decrease duplicates, Jason was able to make use of the Emperor Eyes and foresight blessing in order to predict the duplicate's movement.
Instead of being predictable, he reacted in an unexpected and directly opposite way.
In a single swipe, he cut through the duplicate's arm, only to split a part of Solaris' flame that continued to burn through his opponent's body.
Without another backward glance at his defeated opponent, Jason focused on his front because there were 11 more duplicates which he had to defeat.
Leaving no stone unturned, he creatively utilized his tail to make the weakest duplicate trip.
Seizing his chance, Jason cut through it, while evading the attack of another duplicate.
Several minutes passed, and finally, he had defeated all 12 duplicates, only to notice that the main body was still standing at the exact same position as before.
Yet, it had been far from idle.? The Spiral path puppet had accumulated its entire energy in the center of its forehead, only to release it at once, shooting towards Jason in the form of a beam.
At that moment, Jason noticed that he had made a big mistake. He had allowed the duplicates to keep him occupied so that the main body could do whatever it wanted.
"Fuck!"? Jason cursed as he suddenly felt dizzy, followed by him being forced to face a world that was literally turned upside down.
However, that was not even the worst because his Emperor Eyes began to glow brightly.
His eyes were trying to dispel the illusion that corroded his mind, only for Jason to realize that it was impossible for his Emperor Eyes to do so.
They had just gotten a taste of failure in a very long time, and it was only a moment later that the main body of the Spiral path puppet emerged in front of him.
He was blasted out of the combat arena with a seemingly simple punch that reverberated through his entire being, shaking his insides.
'I…still lost?' He thought before losing his consciousness.
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