Stone Free

A spirit ring retained a little of a spirit beast's soul power. By the future, that was no secret. Everyone knew they should suppress it as much as possible and deal with most of it while absorbing the ring.

Knowing that was one thing. Doing it was another. Jodio couldn't be bothered. Few people had stronger mental power than he did, and a Stand was itself an expression of mental power. If he couldn't suppress a measly four-hundred-year-old Great Rock Python, that would be a joke.

"Wait. Four hundred? Why four?"

Jodio frowned. He could feel a little resistance and a faint ache as he absorbed the ring, but things improved once he summoned Silver Chariot into his sea of consciousness. Its sword stabbed the Great Rock Python's lingering spiritual fragments again and again, shredding the last traces of its instinct until it had no choice but to yield. Condensing the spirit ring was a little difficult, but only a little. Victory still belonged to him, Emperor Jodio!

"Interesting. It really is a Rhinoceros Beetle." Once he had absorbed the ring, Jodio stood and rested a hand against his chin, lost in thought.

"What spirit ring?" Flender and Zhao Wuji asked expectantly.

"Give me a second." Jodio summoned his Stand Arrow again and jabbed it into his finger. Well, not that hard. It would be troublesome to heal if it went all the way through. Just deep enough would do.

All four stared at him, dumbfounded by the self-harm. Was this what made his unusual Martial Soul special? Did he have to stab himself before summoning a spirit ring?

Blood spattered, and Jodio immediately felt power drawn from within his body. Blue light surged out of him. With the sharp hiss of lines cutting through the air, a blue humanoid wearing strange striped glasses appeared behind him.

Its muscles looked powerful. Unlike Jodio's Silver Chariot, this one looked like a Strong Type. Was it a strength-based Spirit Skill?

"This is my Stone Free." Without thinking, Jodio struck Jolyne's pose: one leg straight, the other slightly bent, one arm across his waist and the other raised beneath his chin. A touch of green appeared at the tips of his blond hair as he moved. For an instant, Oscar and Ma Hongjun both thought Boss Jo looked rather attractive.

"Holy shit! I'm possessed!" Jodio stared at the green tips of his hair in horror and hurriedly patted them down. Damn it, ghost girl, leave me alone! Using her Stand didn't mean he wanted to look like her. Though if it were Rohan... well, maybe.

"Whoa, Boss, you smell good!" Ma Hongjun shouted.

"Of course I do. I take care of my hygiene, unlike you two." Jodio gazed at Stone Free with satisfaction. Sure, a level-ten spirit ring couldn't give it the same attributes as Jolyne's Stone Free right from the start, but it should still be more useful than Silver Chariot.

"Boss, why are you acting so girly?" Oscar couldn't help asking.

"Silly boy, that's admiration. You've just been swept up in it. La-li-li-la~" Jodio spread his arms and hummed happily.

"What does the Spirit Skill do?" Flender asked, ignoring their banter.

"Stone Free!" Jodio drew Stone Free back into his body, then shot a thread toward a tree. The thread carried his hand to a branch, which he grabbed to pull himself forward. He landed in the tree with ease.

"That's Stone Free's ability. It lets me turn my body into flexible threads and move freely." Jodio jumped down and explained it casually.

"That's it?" Zhao Wuji asked, baffled. What good was that? It sounded even more useless than Blue Silver Grass.

"Come on, Teacher Zhao. You're jumping to conclusions again. Watch."

Jodio gripped his chest with both hands and gently pulled it apart, opening a hole straight through his torso. No blood flowed from its edges. Instead, they rippled with threads. Flender understood at once what kind of Spirit Skill this was. A top-tier skill. Absolutely top-tier!

"Jodio, listen to me." Flender placed his hands on Jodio's shoulders, his expression grave.

"Don't show anyone that you can change your torso unless your life is in danger. At most, show them your limbs. This is your lifesaving trump card. With this Spirit Skill, you can use what an opponent doesn't know to evade one fatal attack without fail," Flender said firmly.

Turning into thread might sound silly and dull, but when lives were at stake, it was no laughing matter. That effect alone made it an excellent first Spirit Skill—overpowered, even. Most people's first skills amounted to slashing, striking, kicking, shooting, hammering, grabbing, or binding. Jodio's could attack and had this high-quality defensive ability besides. It was outstanding!

"I can't turn all of myself into thread, actually. Seventy percent at most. The other thirty percent has to remain as organs. But I can tie them to the threads and pull them through, so I can still get through narrow spaces." Jodio rubbed his hands together as he explained.

"You're too honest. That's it, Flender. I'm teaching this kid. Don't fight me for him!" Zhao Wuji put a hand on Jodio's head and thumped his own chest. Damn, the kid had openly told them his Spirit Skill's weakness. Could anyone be more straightforward? If Flender taught him, he'd end up a scheming little merchant. He needed an honest, trustworthy teacher like Zhao Wuji!

"How can you be so selfish? Back off!" An angry vein bulged on Flender's forehead.

Heh. Just as planned. Jodio smiled to himself. It wasn't much of a weakness. Anyone who fought him a few times would work it out; it only mattered against someone seeing the skill for the first time. More importantly, these people had enough principles not to reveal it straightaway. They each had their oddities, but their protectiveness was definitely good for him.

"Boss Jo, what did you mean by Rhinoceros Beetle?" Oscar asked curiously.

"It was an observation." Jodio looked at Stone Free's hand.

"A Rhinoceros Beetle represents transformation. This is my first Spirit Skill, so it's a transformation for me too," Jodio explained.

Good fortune out of misfortune. I lost the mighty King Crimson, but gained a real path to godhood. Heh. Is this fate's answer? Victory belongs to me, Jodio, after all!

"It's still early. Let's find Hongjun a spirit ring too," Zhao Wuji and Flender decided together. His would be harder to find: they needed a Spirit Beast with fire abilities. If they could settle it within the next two days, that would be good enough.

(This section was revised.)

"Speaking of which, what's Oscar's first Spirit Skill?" Jodio asked casually.

"His ring came from a 270-year-old Shield-Scaled Insect," Flender said after a moment's thought.

"And its effect?"

"It restores Soul Power and heals wounds. Nothing fancy." Flender saw nothing unusual about it. Most food-type Martial Souls had much the same first Spirit Skill. Few had anything special.

"Oscar, your level's higher, so you'll probably reach twenty sooner. I'll teach you a trick for sensing the skill in a spirit ring. You'll need it eventually," Jodio said.

"Focus. Reach into your heart for what you desire, and your heart will answer." Jodio was already preparing Oscar to choose the spirit ring he wanted. A ring's skill did not depend entirely on the type of Spirit Beast it came from. The user's subconscious mattered a great deal too. Mental power and the form of the Martial Soul combined with the beast's spirit ring. What emerged reflected all three: a spirit ring of one's own.

An extraordinary ability lay dormant in the human body. With training, its potential was limitless. Jodio called that ability mental power. No one could afford to neglect it. How far a person could go depended to a great extent on how strong it was.

"How am I supposed to reach for it?" Oscar was baffled. He understood every word Jodio had said, but put together, they might as well have been nonsense. What did it mean to reach into his heart? How was his heart supposed to answer him? Who talked like that?

"In plain language, think about the Spirit Skill you want," Flender said. "Try to sense it while the ring is merging with you." He understood Jodio's point. Whether it would work was another question, but it was better than doing nothing. It might just help.

"Boss, I don't think Oscar's clever enough to understand," Ma Hongjun tattled.

"You're at level nine, and you're questioning someone born with level-ten Soul Power? How does that make sense?" Jodio asked in surprise.

"Being level nine means I've actually trained, okay? Don't worry, Boss. I'll get the best defensive Spirit Skill and take hits for you," Ma Hongjun boasted.

"Oscar, show me your Spirit Skill." Jodio was still curious about Oscar's Martial Soul. Just curious. Nothing else.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Besides, why would I need you? I'd have failed pretty badly if I needed someone else to protect me." After answering Ma Hongjun, Jodio turned toward Oscar, who was gathering himself to release his Martial Soul.

At Jodio's request, Oscar gave him a look that said, You asked for this. Then he pulled a face that seemed to say, No, please, anything but this. Jodio suspected the kid was doing it on purpose, but he had no proof.

"Your daddy has a big sausage!"

For fuck's sake!

The moment Jodio heard the Spirit Skill's incantation, he wanted to say something. It was crude. So crude he hardly knew where to begin.

Information currently available:

Level-ten Stand: Stone Free

User: Jodio Joestar

Spirit Ring: Yellow — 400-year-old Great Rock Python

Destructive power: B; speed: C; range: C+; stamina: B; precision: C; development potential: A

Stand ability: The user can turn his body into threads and control them freely.

Because the threads are made from his own body, their maximum length is limited by his mass. If a thread breaks, he is injured. Later, his body recovers more quickly from broken threads, giving him some regenerative ability.

By drawing out threads to reduce his body's tissue and turning his body into flexible threads, he can use the principle of a Möbius Strip to evade certain direct attacks.

The threads can detect things, carry sound, bind targets, stitch wounds, weave bulletproof clothing, form a net he can walk on, or gather into hard objects such as drills and handcuffs. They have a wide range of uses. In humanoid form, the Stand's range is only about one meter, and its range rating drops sharply to E.