Once Kain was back in the privacy of his own bedroom, he began to run Simulations for the mutant Glimmering Salamander using the spiritual materials in his employers' inventory and his own. However, every single Simulation was unsuccessful.
And now he'd completely run out of GP to use since only 650 GP was remaining after the System upgrade and the purchases he'd made.
"Vera. Any insight that you could provide would be great right about now. Surely after seeing 6 tries you've collected enough data."
"Six attempts are not nearly enough in order to deduce the source of the failure 100%," Vera said.
"However, I do predict that along with the Infernal Stone that is the irreplaceable centerpiece of the evolution to an Infernal Salamander and used in conjunction with other fire-attribute materials that can be substituted, there must be a similar necessary material needed by the other bloodline it possesses."
Vera's statement confirmed a guess that Kain had hoped was incorrect. After all, how exactly was he going to broach this subject with Yara's mother without being torched to death.
"You can confirm with 100% certainty that the mutation is due to another bloodline? Not a random mutation." Kain asked. He had to be sure before he went around throwing out accusations.
"There is no 100% in science, but I can say with at least 99.99% probability that the mutation is due to an additional bloodline. Likely, a light-attribute lizard-type spiritual creature similar in appearance to its other parent so that the appearance of this bloodline is subtle."
Kain really did not know how to feel after having his suspicions confirmed. His mind flashed back to the male half of the loving pair he'd seen earlier.
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"Sigh…poor guy…"
However, completely unable to continue with his simulations Kain had to develop a plan to increase his GP. Due to being a city more to the west and slightly closer towards the core of the Empire, and not along the Empire's border acting as a defensive wall to the vast wilderness to the east like Dark Moon, Moonstone City did not have as many high-level spiritual creatures surrounding it.
In fact, the lack of danger is probably why this city is so large. Had Dark Moon City not been the site of the college, it likely would have been surpassed in scale long ago.
However, while this safety was great for the residents, it meant that Kain couldn't even go on a quick hunting mission to solve his issue of low GP.
"If I knew this mission would take so long, I would have risked missing class on Monday to go to a far enough region with powerful enough spiritual creatures. Now, if Yara can't quickly learn Light Shroud, I'll be in a similar predicament of missing class. Maybe I could request to return back to the college until Yara is finished learning? But while Darius would likely agree, Alaina seems…difficult.
Especially now that I revealed that I can improve Yara's condition, she may not let me go…"
"Ugh! All of my professors have said that attendance was mandatory. I've never seen anyone miss a lecture before, and I absolutely do not want to be the first."
"I'll settle the issue of GP by maybe asking the Ashenclaws to provide me with living spiritual creatures to feed my spiritual creature. I only need to kill 3 more orange-grade spiritual creatures to complete the current mission anyways and have it reset."
"However, 3 to 4 more tries won't be nearly enough if I can't at least narrow down what that other required material is. Which means…I'm going to have to have a little chat with Yara's mother."
A shiver ran down Kain's spine at the thought. When Yanna wasn't hostile to him she was already terrifying, once she does become hostile to him he really doesn't even know what he'll do… What he CAN do. He's completely hopeless against green-grade spiritual creatures, much less the more powerful blue-grade spiritual creatures.
'I wish the Genetic Reconstructor also could identify genes and tell me the species. Then I could skip out on a very awkward conversation. Unfortunately, it could only take the genes of certain traits and put them into another creature.'
With a feeling of futile hope, Kain went to the System Shop praying that there was something he could exchange for that could maybe protect him against creatures at Yanna's level.
However, there was nothing of the sort, not that he'd have been able to afford it anyways with only 50 GP left.
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"Argh! I'll think more about it in the morning…"
Kain went to sleep, but it was definitely a restless night filled with tossing and turning as his dreams were filled with 100 ways to die, starring him and the Blazing Ember Wyrm Yanna.
———
The next day Kain woke up with huge dark circles under his eyes.
Thankfully, he wasn't questioned about the reason behind his evidently poor quality of sleep. In fact, the members of the Ashenclaw family took it for granted that he must have been staying up late working on Yara's case. As a result, the faces of Alaina, her father, and even the butler, were much more gentle today than yesterday.
"You didn't have to come so early to continue working. Yara's trainer and many of the staff for the manor haven't even arrived yet since they come later on weekends."
Kain waved his hand carelessly. Like hell he'd want to stay in his hotel room and be killed by Yanna 100 more times in his dreams. It was best to get an early start and preoccupy his mind.
Seeing Kain's "dedication" to his work, Alaina's voice became even softer. "Please then, join me for breakfast. Yara will also be there, so you can also take the time examine her again."
At this Kain nodded. He hadn't had an appetite when he first woke up so it wouldn't hurt to get a free meal off of them.
Kain followed Alaina to what was likely a less formal sitting room used only for family and not for hosting. However, he only said so to the smaller more intimate size of the dining table. Everything else from the massive hanging crystal chandelier to the intricately carved wooden table and chairs screamed opulence.
After sitting down at the table with Alaina, her father Darius, and her mother who he'd just met today—Seraphina Ashenclaw. She was also contracted to the male Blazing Ember Wyrm Kain saw yesterday—Yara's "father." freeweɓnvel.com
Seeing her, Kain was once again reminded of the awkward secret he seemed to have stepped into and looked at Yara who looked noticeably better than yesterday and was eating a bowl of specially prepared food next to the table.
However, as Kain continued to examine Yara, an idea hatched in his mind on how to more safely get the answers he needed…
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!At the same time that Kain was examining the Yara, the surrounding members of the Ashenclaw family were also examining him.
'This young man is so devoted to his work, the raise in reward is well deserved,' Darius thought while looking at Kain.
'I was doubtful when my husband revealed that the solution to Yara's problem was such a young person. However, it looks like age is not as much an accurate predictor of success as hard work. He's so diligent.' Thought Seraphina.
'Maybe this guy isn't so bad. At least he'd better than the other guys in the city who only try to appeal with the money earned by their parents and their looks but have no real skills of their own.' Thought Alaina with a slight blush creeping across her face.
However, unbeknownst to them who all were admiring the seemingly hard-working Kain… frёeωebɳovel.com
'It'd be hard for her to torch me if I use her daughter as a shield. He he he' Kain was thinking deviously while planning to hold a juvenile spiritual creature captive while interrogating her mother.
"Ahem! Since it'll still be at least another couple of hours before Yara's trainer arrived, I was wondering if I could take her around the grounds. Particularly where her mother may usually roam. Occasionally, spiritual creatures may have a reaction to the spiritual materials they need for evolution. Perhaps, if there is something on the grounds that triggered this mutation, she will react to it.
It'd be even better if Yanna could escort me. It is a long shot though, but I figured we should explore every possibility." Kain said while facing 3 gentle gazes.
Kain couldn't help but have goosebumps appear across his arms at the looks so different from yesterday.
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"You truly do not stop thinking about work, do you young man?" Said Darius. "Do not mind, I will make sure that you are granted all of the necessary provisions and have Yanna escort you around the areas she most frequents."
"Excellent! You all can continue with your meal. Thank you so much for inviting me, but I would love to get straight to work."
Kain then quickly stood up, picked up Yara from where she was lounging with a full stomach and left the room. He followed his memory to once again reach the lush gardens outside.
The moment he stepped into the garden he spotted Yanna alone. Likely she had already been debriefed on the situation through her bond with Darius.
The towering figure of Yanna, the Blazing Ember Wyrm, cast a shadow over him. Her scales shimmered with a fierce orange glow, and her eyes, sharp and piercing, seemed to analyze his every movement.
"Hello, I am Kain. We met briefly yesterday…" Kain decided to break the silence.
Yanna's her expression was unreadable. However, unlike the other 3 in the house, there was absolutely no warmth in her cold gaze.
Without a word, she turned and started down the path into the forest, her massive body swaying with each step. The air seemed to hum from the intense heat waves her body gave off.
The path twisted and turned, leading them deeper into the garden and further from the Ashenclaw manor. Now he could now longer see the house…meaning that they could no longer see him.
Kain clutched his little meat shield, Yara, closer to his chest. He wasn't sure if it was just him but the whole atmosphere of their silent walk felt unsettling.
The only sound was Yanna's heavy body crushing the plants as she moved with purpose. Kain's mind raced as he tried to formulate his approach. He needed to be careful— a wrong move could lead to disaster.
He wasn't sure if it was all in his head, but he felt as though there was an underlying hostility coming off of her, and he couldn't afford to provoke her. He kept a close watch on Yanna's form, trying to discern any sign of her mood or if she'd make any sudden actions.
Eventually, Yanna stopped in a small clearing surrounded by ancient trees. The area was tranquil, the only sound being the rustling of leaves in the breeze. She turned to face Kain, her eyes narrowing slightly. The silence was heavy, and Kain could feel the weight of the Wyrm's gaze.
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"Alright," Kain began, using all of his self-control to keep his voice from quivering under the gaze of a creature far more powerful than him. "The gift I had previously mentioned that allowed me to determine that Yara was a mutant with unique conditions for evolution, also provides me with some additional information that I chose not to disclose.
For example, that Yara's mutation is from her bloodline rather than a random mutation or due to you ingesting a unique spiritual plant."
Yanna didn't reply. Instead her gaze got narrower and narrower while the surrounding air got hotter and hotter. Kain couldn't help but to raise Yara up higher in his arms, hoping to silently remind her that he was currently holding her only child.
'Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me.'
Kain took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. "I do not care how this bloodline was acquired. It isABSOLUTELY none of my business."
'And I don't want to risk you killing me to keep your secret.'
"However, I need some kind of information about the identity of the recessive bloodline to help Yara evolve. She is your only child, and I'm sure you can sense that her life-force is weak. She will die young if she cannot successfully evolve."
Yanna's gaze softened ever so slightly and her expression became extremely complicated at the reminder of her daughter's predicament.
However, the temperature around them still continued to steadily rise. He felt the greatest pressure of his life, he seemed to be pressed by a heavy mountain, and he did not dare to act rashly or even move a finger suddenly.
'Don't tell me she'd even risk killing her own daughter to keep this a secret?!'
"Truly! I have no intention of prying! Even if you could not provide me with the specific identity of the bloodline, would you at least have any clues about the important evolutionary materials for that bloodline? An object similar in its importance to the Infernal Stone that Glimmering Salamanders usually need to evolve.
Even if you're not sure, a list of possible objects to narrow it down to could save Yara!"
Kain had probably never spoken so quickly in his life. However, even faster than his speech was his racing heart. At any moment she may decide that it was worth it to just blow the two of them up.
'Please…' Kain prayed.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!Kain could barely maintain his composure as he faced the imposing figure of Yanna.
He held Yara close, her small frame was honestly more reassuring as a shield than any enchanted weapon he'd have access to. Each second felt like an eternity, and Kain could almost feel the oppressive heat seeping into his bones. frёeωebɳovel.com
Yanna's eyes seared into him as though she were trying to gauge the sincerity of his words—that he would truly not try to pry into the past.
Kain knew he was treading on thin ice, and the stakes were higher than ever. His and Yara's survival both depended on the outcome of this conversation.
"Please," Kain said, his voice steady despite the heat. "I don't need to know the exact source of the bloodline… maybe it happened due to the ingestion of something unusual that happened contain a bloodline. Although extremely rare, it isn't unheard."
'In reality it is…suddenly acquiring a bloodline through ingestion of a special material or the corpse of another spiritual creature only happens in stories. Mutations are more possible, but not a bloodline. And even if a bloodline were to be obtained in such a manner, it'd be unlikely to pass on to the next generation.
Typically, the introduction of a new bloodline can only occur under extremely rare conditions during evolution, and such acquired bloodlines are not passed on to the children.'
"It's clear that this is a sensitive subject…What I'm asking for is simply a list of possible clues that you suspect may be related to Yara's mutation.
Perhaps a light attribute spiritual material was near you at the time you were pregnant that could affect you without you knowing… If you could provide me with that, I can focus my search and perhaps uncover the necessary item without probing into matters that are personal and painful."
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Yanna's gaze remained intense, her eyes narrowing slightly as if assessing the weight of his request. The air around them grew hotter still, a clear indication of her inner turmoil. Kain took a cautious step back, giving her space to consider his words—but mostly to cool down.
For a long moment, Yanna remained silent, her massive form seemingly lost in thought. The rustling of leaves was the only sound that broke the oppressive silence since every other living creature in the vicinity had long been scared away.
Kain held his breath, every second feeling like it might be his last, but he knew that pushing too hard could be catastrophic.
Finally, with a heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the world, Yanna spoke. Her voice, though still gruff, carried a note of reluctant resignation. "Very well. I will tell you some of the events that could potentially be linked to the light-attribute bloodline that Yara mysteriously acquired."
Kain nodded vigorously, his heart pounding with a mix of relief and anticipation. "Thank you. That's all I ask. Any information you can provide will be invaluable."
"Now that I am thinking back, there are some things that may be related to Yara's mutation, although I couldn't remember when you and Darius asked previously…"
'Yeah sure, you stick with that story…'
"During the period I was pregnant, an unusual spiritual creature broke into the garden. It seemed quite mischievous. Now that I think about it, it seemed to resemble a pure-blood genie, and as you know pure-blooded genies can create completely unbelievable effects due to their influence over the practically unheard-of attribute of fate.
Perhaps a spiritual material related to a genie would be the possible spiritual material…"
'Wow! I don't know if it's because she's a spiritual creature or if she's just unused to it, but she is an absolutely terrible liar. Nobody would ever believe that story. At least I won't have to waste my time with following that lead.'
Likely because Kain was still looking at her expectantly, she continued with her next story. "A-Also, now that I think about it. I happened to eat a Bloodline Bloom which, as I'm sure you know as such an educated person, can allow the user to absorb part of the bloodline of the next creature they ingested. And right after eating the Bloodline Bloom I happened to um…eat…a Solarflare Drakeling."
'Isn't the Bloodline Bloom a make-believe flower in the children's novel My Little Dragon? Does she actually believe that it's real?' Suddenly Kain was no longer as terrified of her. In fact, she was almost cute, in a really obscure way, in her naivety and bumbling attempts to conceal the truth.
'However, the mention of a Solarflare Drakeling may be significant—Yara's biological father?'
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"F-finally…there is one last possibility. Ah, yes! R-right before I had actually laid Yara's egg, I soaked in the pond at the back of the property. However, at that time it was unusual. VERY unusual…" Then she fell silent. Kain waited to no avail for her to continue her next story.
At least a full minute passed with them in complete silence.
"Um…How exactly was it unusual?" Kain prompted her to continue her story.
"Well…it was just unusual…so unusual because…it was red! Like blood! Maybe an extremely powerful spiritual creature with a light attribute got injured and bled in the pool, and that's where Yara's bloodline came from."
'That would not have any chance of allowing Yara to acquire a bloodline. She really has no idea about how bloodlines are acquired does she…'
"Any idea on what kind of spiritual creature bled in the water?" Kain asked.
"Uh…no"
'Okay, no need to continue wasting my time.'
"Great! Thank you for all of your help. I have a lot to think about. Yara's trainer should be arriving soon and I better get her back." Kain took his leave and left Yanna behind.
Yanna noticeably sagged in relief that Kain did not ask for too many details about her stories. She also looked visibly exhausted as though she'd just been through a tough battle. Clearly, having to come up with so many stories had drained her mentally.
However, her clumsy attempts at concealing Yara's bloodline were pointless.
Kain walked back to the manor much more happily. He glanced down at Yara in his arms.
'It looks like you are one-half Solarflare Drakeling.'
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After giving Yara some more royal jelly to ensure she could handle the training, Kain went to a private study in the Ashenclaw household that they were kind enough to lend to him.
Additionally, upon his request, they provided him with books about the Solarflare Drakeling and its pre-evolution forms.
The Solarflare Drakeling is a light and fire dual attribute spiritual creature. Similar to the Blazing Ember Wyrm it also had a small amount of dragon's blood. Looking at its appearance, it had radiant golden scales that transitioned to a fiery orange at its underbelly. However, its appearance is quite different from Yara's.
Kain turned to the portion of the text that talked about its two prior forms. They usually start as light and fire attribute Luminous Lizards as juveniles, which look like small lizards with scales that glow a soft light-yellow. The appearance of the Luminous Lizard more closely resembles Yara, and he could see why her scales were probably lighter.
Then the next evolutionary form is the Radiant Lizard, which closely resembles the Luminous Lizard but is larger and more robust and also has a large orange crest surrounding its head resembling the sun.
The predominant attribute for both of the earlier forms is the light-attribute, however the two attributes become more equal in the Solarflare Drakeling.
'So should I try to balance the attributes from now, since the light attribute is very weak right now? Should I have the fire-attribute continue to be the dominant one? Or should I have the light attribute become the dominant attribute?'
Kain had already requested to have living orange-grade spiritual creatures delivered to him to supposedly feed his contract. Thankfully, their good impression of him made them very agreeable to his request.
Moonstone City were not surrounded by as many woods rich in spiritual creatures as Dark Moon City, therefore they can't as easily hunt for the spiritual creatures they want for meat. Therefore, Moonstone City, not Dark Moon City, actually had the largest livestock industry in the eastern region by far.
It would be even easier to obtain living spiritual creatures for meat here than it would at Dark Moon.
Also, unlike Kain's hometown Brightstar City that rarely saw a spiritual creature above red-grade and didn't have much of a spiritual beast farming industry (the limited amount of decent quality spiritual creatures would be used to breed new contracts and not killed easily) there were many more orange-grade and even yellow grade spiritual creatures raised in captivity simply to supply food.
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Of course, after generations in captivity they are among the weakest at their level and the benefits they provide upon consumption aren't even a quarter of their wild counterparts, but an orange-grade spiritual creature is still an orange-grade spiritual creature and it shouldn't matter to the System.
Three orange-grade spiritual creatures were delivered to Kain as requested. They were extremely old and would be on the verge of death anyway. Kain was told that they were recently retired members of breeding pairs that had been used to produce the next generation of spiritual creatures for food.
However, the remains of the body had to be returned back to the farmer, they had agreed under the condition that Kain would just need the brains.
Kain used them to finish his remaining mission, and put in a similar request for the next day. Kain had arrived here Friday, today was Saturday, and he would need to catch a train back tomorrow night in order to attend classes. Before then, he'd need to tie up as many loose ends as possible.
After finishing this mission and adding the 350 GP to the 50 he already had, Kain had enough GP for 4 Simulations. He'd still need to be very careful with each attempt.
Thankfully, the information on the evolution of Luminous Lizards was easy to obtain, and Kain was able to narrow down the required evolutionary material to the Radiant Flower, a spiritual plant with light and fire attributes.
Along with the Infernal Stone required by normal Glimmering Salamander for evolution, Kain only needs a suitable stabilizing material to reduce any negative reactions during an evolution with 2 or more elements. He eventually settled on a tear-shaped gem in the Ashenclaw inventory, the Sunblaze Tear which has just this property.
Kain put the necessary materials into the Simulator for the mutated Glimmering Salamander, and the light of evolution began. Fortunately, the light appeared stable. Much more stable and long-lasting than any of his previous tries.
Finally, Yara's future appearance was before him. Thankfully, it still closely resembles the appearance of the Infernal Salamanders. However, the difference in colour is very apparent. free𝑤ebnovel.com
Unlike most Infernal Salamanders with a deep red-gold scale colour, this evolutionary form had the stunning appearance of molten gold across most of the body and faded into a gradient of shimmering pale gold along the underbelly.
The name attributed to it by the System is also a combination of its two lineages—Radiant Salamander.
'However, it's the first of its kind that I know of, I guess I can just make up another name that doesn't so obviously hint at Yanna's infidelity. After all, there's no reason to stick my nose into a much more powerful family's business. What if I'm killed to keep this scandal a secret?'
Kain proudly exited the System and left the manor in the afternoon under the excuse that he needed a change of scenery to help him think. In actuality, he already had the evolutionary plan and just wanted to use the remainder of the day touring the city. And it was an enjoyable mini-vacation indeed.
Although the potency of spiritual beast meat is much lower here than at Dark Moon due to most of the meat coming from beasts raised in captivity, and was also more homogenous due to the limited number of spiritual creatures suited for being livestock, the food in the city made up for it with quantity and cost.
Kain could get a heaping stack of spiritual creature meat at most restaurants—ribs, steaks, and more—for only a fraction of the cost at Dark Moon City.
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Stomach bulging slightly in contentment, Kain retired to his hotel room for the rest of the evening.
—————-
Kain notified the Ashenclaw family that he had formulated an Evolutionary Plan he was confident in the next day.
Thankfully, their trust in him now was much greater than it was when he first arrived and they didn't make any snide remarks about needing to get it checked by another planner—especially since all of the planner's they'd previously requested couldn't even figure out what was wrong with Yara.
Yara's progress in learning the new skill was slow but steady. That also probably helped with their confidence in Kain since, although she hadn't learned Light Shroud yet, the trainer also supported Kain's claim that Yara definitely is able to manipulate the light attribute.
Unfortunately, since Yara hadn't yet met the requirements for evolution, Kain wasn't able to finish his mission.
"I gave you the plan. You can just have Yara evolve once she learns the necessary skill. You really don't need my presence here." Kain's lips twitched in irritation as Alaina once again refused to sign off on his completion of the mission and insisted he returned to oversee Yara's evolution.
Unfortunately, neither of her parents were currently in the manor otherwise he'd have had more success convincing them to not be so unreasonable.
Likely, because she knew how unfair of a request this was Kain was welcomed to 5 elderly orange-grade spiritual creatures this morning to contribute to the renewed System Mission and Bea's meal. He'd thought it was out of their appreciation for him, but he sees that it was more likely out of guilt.
"Ahem! The trainer says that Yara is making rapid progress. If you come back next weekend she should have completely learned the skill by then." Alaina said awkwardly.
Kain didn't even bother to reply. He stared unhappily at her to wordlessly express his protest with this arrangement. 'Now I have to put off evolving Bea for another week! Just great!'
"How about you take something from our inventory as a token of my apology? It can be anything orange-grade or lower."
The expression in Kain's eyes lightened up slightly. Likely seeing this Alaina pushed on.
"Really! I have full authority over any spiritual materials in that range. And I promise to have 5 more—no, 10!—orange-grade spiritual creatures waiting for you when you return."
"Sigh… fine." Kain finally relented and followed Alaina to the inventory, there was already a material he'd had his eyes on from the first time he'd entered. Although not for Yara or any of his own contracts—it was a breakthrough in the Lumifin evolution investigation.
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Kain hadn't given up on investigating the Lumifin's evolutionary form ever since the previous Simulations. However, he didn't want to waste any more GP on simulations when he wasn't sure about how to increase the faint line pattern covering the Lumifin to the rest of its body.
However, when he was taking his sweet time going through the Ashenclaw inventory and pretending to mull over each item, there was one item that did stop him in his tracks—Opal Glow Lotus.
The Opal Glow Lotus is a breathtaking flower with broad, gracefully layered petals that shimmer with an ethereal, pearly white glow. Its hues blend together soft shades of white, pink, and blue, creating a mesmerizing, shifting glow as light dances across its surface.
The petals are smooth and translucent with a constant dewy quality, making it ideal for infusing a subtle, moonlit dewy glow to the skin when smeared on.
The lotus is a white-grade spiritual flower that has very little value in increasing the strength of a spiritual creature or human. It has only one known purpose, to improve the quality of the skin when used over time. It is a common ingredient in at-home skin masks and beauty regimens for housewives across the nation.
However, it was this useless light-attribute flower that stopped Kain in his tracks in the inventory. As he stared at it for close to an hour, he finally figured out in what way it resembled the faint lines on the Lumifin, and the identity of those lines, a concept that he hadn't come across since he was on Earth in his past life—the Golden Ratio.
Kain suspected that the lines, if he were to measure their proportions, would adhere to the golden ratio like this flower. Therefore, in order to increase the coverage of such lines, he may need to focus on these seemingly useless but beautiful spiritual plants that adhere to this ratio—and the closer the plant adheres to this ratio the better.
This cosmetic ingredient, out of all the plants that Kain's seen so far, most perfectly adheres to this ratio. Moreover, it is extremely cheap compared to most evolutionary ingredients, meaning that it perfectly suits Kain's needs for an evolutionary form that targets the masses.
Kain could easily buy some on his own, but most are gathered in the western and southern regions where there are a lot more bodies of water, therefore it can be weeks or even months before he receives his order. None of the other red-grade or orange-grade materials were particularly desirable for him at this point, so he went with the extremely cheap but plentiful box of lotuses.
When Kain indicated that he wanted the entire box of Opal Glow Lotuses, Alaina was confused and a slightly judgmental glint appeared in her eye.
"Based on how you usually look, I didn't think you were the type to take such careful care of your appearance. However, since it's not particularly valuable, you can take the whole box"
'Excuse me?!' Kain decided not to even acknowledge the insulting statement. Instead he just stepped forward to retrieve the box containing dozens of the flower, likely her mother's stock for several months.
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'Your mother will likely be pissed at you giving away all of them to me, since this is probably her personal stash that she just stored here…but dealing with the fallout is your problem' Kain thought happily at the coming retribution. Unfortunately, he won't be around to see it.
After putting away the flowers, Kain left Moonstone City and headed back to Dark Moon College.
He spent the remainder of the week attending classes and visiting Barret to test out the preservation of the beer.
Additionally, learning from Moonstone City, Kain visited all of the livestock owners in Dark Moon City to see if they had any retired elderly orange-grade and above spiritual creatures he could use to complete his hunting mission.
Fortunately, because he only wanted to kill them to complete the mission and feed Bea, they were mostly all receptive to the arrangement.
Unfortunately, because the scale of the livestock industry is so much smaller than Moonstone City, after scouring the whole city, Kain only managed to obtain 8 old spiritual creatures, and it'd likely be a long time before he could get another one from them.
Additionally, due to the spiritual power in them after generations of taming and a reduction in their capabilities, the spiritual power they contained was not much better than red-grade spiritual creatures and Kain still had to supplement Bea's meals with the brains yellow and brains green-grade supplied by the school.
'Sigh…I thought I'd finally found a way to hack the missions and get Bea a steady supply of fresh food. Maybe once I get the business up and running, and I have more money, I can consider starting my own livestock farm or shipping a steady supply of living spiritual creatures from across the empire for her to eat and finish the missions.'
However, with the increased amount of GP Kain was able to do several simulations on the Lumifin, not only with the Opal Glow Lotus, but also with other spiritual materials that closely match the golden ratio, including weak white-grade ones and more powerful-orange grade ones, to see if the evolutionary form will change.
He also used a couple of the simulations to try different attributed spiritual plants that match the golden ratio.
Finally, Kain developed a set of rules for the Lumifin's evolution and only needed to start the process of proving that it works in reality and filing the patent.
The first rule was that the materials used must be of the water and/or light attribute. Any other attributes will cause the evolution to unquestionably fail.
The second rule was that rather than the spiritual power in the material what is more important is how closely it aligns with the golden ratio. A material that doesn't closely align with the golden ratio with result in failure. The degree to which a material matches the sequence can be graded on a scale from 0 to 1—something Kain called the Golden Score.
The third rule was that no matter what materials were used, the total Golden Score must exceed 1. If multiple materials need to be used to match this requirement, then materials used to stabilize the evolution must be used and the chances of failure increase. That is why it is best to use only 1 to 2 materials with a higher golden score.
From all of the ones Kain has studied so far and had Vera calculate a Golden Score for—it's wonderful having an assistant to do the grunt work—the best material in terms of score and cost is undoubtedly the Opal Glow Lotus with an impressive score of 0.97, meaning only 2 of the cheap flowers were needed to succeed at the evolution.
Additionally, since they are the same material and low in spiritual power, a stabilizer isn't as necessary and an evolution can be attempted with a 97% success rate if the beast-tamer doesn't want to splurge on a stabilizer.
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Finally, no matter what materials are used for evolution, as long as the evolution is successful the evolutionary form will be the same: freewebnvel.coɱ
————–
Species: Gilded Serafin
The Gilded Serafin is the evolutionary form of the Lumifin, perfectly embodying the balance and beauty of the golden ratio. Its body is adorned with intricate spiral patterns that follow this mathematical principle, creating a beautiful visual harmony.
The creature glows with a soft, ethereal light that reflects its emotions, resulting in a stunning display of colors that shift and dance across its surface. Its mesmerizing beauty will mesmerize other spiritual creatures and humans alike.
Quality: Silver
Type: Fish
Attribute: Water, Light
A-Ethereal Charm: With the combination of the Gilded Serafin's appearance as well as a calming glow, it can enthrall nearby creatures and make enemies temporarily unwilling to attack. The effective time is 5 minutes for spiritual creatures at the same level, and 1 minute for those one level higher.
Spiritual creatures beneath the Serafin in strength will be enthralled until the Serafin runs out of spiritual power.
B-Luminous Mirage: The Gilded Serafin can manipulate light to create a dazzling illusion that mimics its surroundings, making it difficult for enemies to pinpoint its location. This skill enhances its stealth and allows it to evade threats effectively.
C-Spiral Torpedo: A swirling vortex of water can be launched at opponents. The strength of the skill, and whether it has the strength of a water balloon or sharp lance, is highly dependent on the skill proficiency of the user.
———————-
When Kain first saw the evolutionary form, he was more than satisfied. Silver-quality was even higher than he'd hoped for considering it was originally only a black-iron quality spiritual creature and white-grade spiritual plants were used for the evolution. Plus it has an A-level skill that will allow safety from higher level creatures for one minute.
It perfectly met all of Kain's requirements for a spiritual creature that would target the masses. Plus, its beautiful appearance will make it even more popular, not only with low-level beast-tamers but powerful people who'd want to collect it as a pet.
Finally, since neither group would likely expect it to ever reach a level above orange-grade, they won't be put off by the lack of a known evolutionary form. Most beast-tamers level D and under will likely never pass being a 2-star beast-tamer in their life.
After all, while the affinity rating is more so a prediction of the creatures that can be contracted, being bound to more powerful spiritual creatures would definitely help with condensing each star. For example, now that Eve had broken through to orange-grade, Kain will have a much easier time at condensing his next star due to the feedback from her.
However, Kain does not plan to leave them high and dry. Since it is the first evolutionary form developed by him, and the species will likely be associated with him forever, Kain planned to take responsibility and develop the Lumifin until the end. That way it'd also provide some hope for even the lower-level beast-tamers to one day reach the middle-level of 4-stars and above.
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Once the next weekend arrived, Kain headed back to Moonstone City.
After establishing the rules for Lumifin's evolution, Kain had spent much of his free time working on the patent.
The patent first requires for Kain to prove that the proposed evolutionary formula is reliable, with at least 5 proven instances of success (of course the more the better) and a success rate above 90%.
Additionally, to prove that the credit of the research is his own, Kain must organize his research notes and write a report outlining his thought process when encountering any successes and failures. Thankfully, Kain didn't have to actually re-enact all of the failed evolutions, and the descriptions of the failed evolutions and evolutionary forms such as Gloomtail will suffice.
Since they were failures, if he claimed to have discarded them, nobody would dig too deep. Especially since he was a newbie.
However, Kain must also successfully evolve at least 5 Lumifin, and he must have them in person to present when someone comes to actually verify his results. Therefore, he put in a rush order for the capture of 10 wild Lumifins in case, and is simply awaiting their delivery to Dark Moon City.
Over the past week, in preparation of them he'd paid a local company to dig up a large pond in the backyard of the property he owns in the suburbs. He had already purchased some artificial spiritual orbs at only orange-grade and cheaper catalysts on the market, keeping in mind that he wanted to prove the effectiveness of his evolution plan even with lower-quality materials used for evolution.
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Additionally, although only a little more than a week had passed since first opening the beer barrel, Kain could already see that Barret was leaning towards partnering with him since barely any reduction in quality was sensed each time they reopened it to obtain a sample.
'Everything is finally coming together. I just need to finish this one mission to get Bea to evolve and then all of the plans I'd made recently will be on track.'
Thankfully, Kain had confirmed before making the trip that Yara had learned the necessary skill so this trip wasn't a waste. Plus he could take this trip to prey on their guilt of having him make this trip to complete more orange-grade hunting missions.
When Kain arrived in Moonstone City Friday morning, he was pleased to find that they'd sent a car for him. They must have been even more anxious than him to get Yara's evolution completed.
Thankfully, everything went smoothly. In an open clearing surrounded by the anxious members of the Ashenclaw family, Kain, and her "parents," Yara began to glow with the light of evolution due to the plan Kain had created.
After the glow emitted had lasted far longer than the previous attempts without any signs of the energy going out of control, the tense bodies of those watching in the clearing relaxed.
Finally, after some more minutes the figure of the Radiant Salamander was revealed. However, that species name was only known to Kain, since it was the first of its kind that they knew of, the members of the Ashenclaw family selected a name themselves and eventually settled on Cinderlight Salamander.
After participating in a celebratory dinner in which they all thanked Kain for his work, and he was given the promised orange-grade spiritual creatures for Bea to feed on and complete the mission. Alaina escorted him to the front door of the manor.
"By the way Alaina, by any chance have you ever met a Solarflare Drakeling?" Just before leaving the manor Kain was finally unable to repress his curiosity about Yara's potential father.
"Yes. Our former neighbours across the pond at the back of our property had one. Why?" She asked in confusion.
'The neighbour? Tsk tsk.'
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"No reason," Kain said while making sure to have no changes in his face or tone, "I've just been researching a lot of fire and light attribute lizard-type creatures lately for Yara and I became curious about it because they're so rare."
Alaina didn't question him anymore about the uninteresting topic. "By the way, I hope you don't mind, but my parents were so excited at the prospect of Yara successfully evolving that they told some of their friends after the last time you came about your gift.
People weren't too interested at the time since Yara hadn't evolved yet, but once word gets out that you did manage to accomplish what the previous planners had been unable to, you may be contacted for some more help requests."
'I suppose that's not so bad… but I should probably keep the details about this so-called gift vague if more people will be taking an interest in it.'
"I don't mind… it can't be that many people anyways that need help. Instances like Yara's are pretty rare. See you again when it's time for Yara's next evolution!"
Kain waved his hand nonchalantly and then headed back to the station. This quick trip hadn't even taken a day.
Finally, he could focus on the most important task at hand with the sudden influx of credits—getting Bea to evolve.
However, once Kain re-arrived at the college he was shocked by the sudden barrage of mission requests being specifically sent to him through the school. There must have been dozens.
'There's no way that all of these people have problems that other planners can't solve.' He strongly suspected that some of these so-called missions were just pretenses to find away to make contact with him. For what purpose? He didn't know and he didn't care.
He had no desire to waste his valuable time preparing for the re-ranking to just socialize with some annoying rich people curious about his gift. He'll have to carefully comb through each request to see if he can filter out the few that actually need his help.
Maybe using his 'gift' he can create a greater reputation for himself as a planner, which will help once the Lumifin evolution is launched. Additionally, if he becomes highly desired as a planner then even if he ignores many of these people now they'd still be eager to meet him in the future.
Kain now had 3 plans for wealth: the spiritual beer company, creating evolutionary patents, and fulfilling challenging missions for planners.
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The next morning Kain booked the mental-attribute room for Bea's evolution. Finally, it was the long-awaited moment.
Due to the continuous delays with getting the necessary amount of credits to book an attribute room for Bea, her evolution actually coincided with Lady's. Therefore, Kain and Bridge decided to witness the evolution of each other's contracts. A privilege that they would only grant to each other due to their bond as family.
It was decided that Bea would go first since Lady was still extremely anxious.
As for Bea, as her strength increased the clarity of the thoughts and emotions Kain could receive from her through the contract have also become more clear. Thankfully, he could sense that there was no nervousness, only anticipation.
Kain released Bea into the center of the room surrounded by the necessary materials, including the 3 evolutionary base materials he'd selected. Since Bea wouldn't be able to drink the catalytic elixir, Kain placed her into the liquid, with worked out perfectly since she herself prefers to be in liquids.
He then backed away against the wall to stand next to Bridge.
"Aren't you going to release your contract?" Bridge asked. He still wasn't too sure what Kain's contract was. The last time he'd asked Kain about his affinity he wasn't even sure what his affinity was himself. However, he assumed that Kain's contract took the form of a mist.
Given that Kain's second contract was also of the wind-attribute, the prevailing theory among their classmates was that Kain's affinity was related to the wind-attribute.
However, Bridge knew that this wasn't correct. If Kain's attribute could be described so simply, he believed that he'd have told him by now.
"Bea is already there." Kain replied while pointing to the obviously empty space. Typically when there is an invisible spiritual creature, beast-tamers could still sense their presence due to fluctuations in spiritual power. But in the space that Kain pointed at Bridge sensed nothing.
And as the minutes continued to tick by and there were no changes or anything moving. Bridge even began to think that this was a prank done by Kain and that any point he'd yell out 'Gotcha!'
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"Take your time, we paid for an hour and I can add more time if needed," Kain said aloud to the seemingly empty space while Bridge looked at him as though he questioned his sanity. That is until a faint glow originating from the bottle of elixir began to appear.
The ball of light grew larger and larger until the light consumed the nearby materials.
The duration of the light far exceeded Yara's when she evolved. At least 10 minutes passed without any signs of the light fading.
"Is it supposed to last this long?" Bridge asked worriedly. He didn't want Kain's contract to have any problems, especially not when the re-ranking was less than a month away. He took more pride in bragging about his brother's top 5 status than Kain himself.
Kain shook his head but he wasn't worried. He had already run the simulation and he knew that the chance of failure was extremely low. His major concern is which form the evolution would take.
The more likely form is the white-gold Sovereign Mindshard Amoeba that he'd initially had planned with only minor changes to the skills due to the newly added material from the spider… the lack of significant changes to the evolutionary form is likely a result of Bea being unable to adequately assimilate the energy of the green-grade material meaning that's addition was practically rendered useless.
The less likely evolutionary form is for if Bea can assimilate with the green-grade material from the spider, resulting in more significant changes. Such as an increase in quality to Platinum…a jump so large that even the System said would be almost unheard of.
Kain couldn't help but put his hands together and close his eyes in prayer. He wasn't praying to anyone in particular, it was more so just to comfort himself. He couldn't do any of his other superstitious actions like lighting a candle or washing his body, because he didn't want to distract Bea.
Finally, when only 20 minutes were remaining in their booking of the room, the light began to fade and both boys stared anxiously at the now mostly empty center of the room. Where there'd previously been many materials, there was now only an empty glass bottle that previously contained a catalytic elixir.
Bridge looked around the empty space with growing confusion before turning to Kain, "Did it succeed or not?" Considering that Bea couldn't be seen with the naked eye, Kain would need to either look at the System or sense her changes through the contract. The former was much faster and easier so it was what he did.
Closing his eyes to give the appearance that he was communicating with Bea through the contract to determine her changes.
Heart beating so loudly he could hear it in his ears, he went to Bea's new profile:
———————————————
Species: Apex Mindshard Amoeba
An advanced evolution utilizing both the Subliminal Orb and the Mindleech Vine and enhanced by the integration of the crystal core of the Mindweaver Spider. This evolution represents the pinnacle of mastery over the mind at its level, capable of reading, altering, and controlling not just memories but entire thoughts and actions of multiple targets simultaneously.
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The Apex Mindshard Amoeba embodies a nearly omnipotent presence within the mental realm, commanding legions of minds with a mere thought.
Quality: Platinum
Type: Microorganism (Amoeba)
Attribute: Mental
Skills:
SS-Mindshard Manipulation: The Apex Mindshard Amoeba can fragment a target's mind into separate cognitive shards, each containing different memories and aspects of their identity. It can then permanently manipulate, erase, or reassemble these shards to alter the victim's perception of its present and past reality or to temporarily completely control their actions.
Erasure of all mind shards will lead to death. Erasures and manipulations of mind shards are only possible for targets up to one grade higher.
SS-Threaded Dominion: By utilizing mental-attribute threads, the Apex Mindshard Amoeba can send splits of itself that can exert up to 90% of the original bodies' strength to numerous targets over vast distances. Skills performed by splits can only affect those equal to or lower in level than the Mindshard Amoeba.
S-Mental Veil: This advanced protection mechanism allows the Apex Mindshard Amoeba to hide its presence from entities with spiritual power up to two grades higher, while simultaneously maintaining control over its puppets, ensuring minimal interference.
A-Mental Nexus: This ability establishes a powerful network of shared consciousness among all connected targets, allowing the Apex Mindshard Amoeba to communicate and coordinate strategies instantaneously.
A-Memory Siphon: This ability allows the Apex Mindshard to siphon and store the most crucial memories from its victims, transforming them into a reservoir of knowledge and power. There is a very small chance of it developing new skills based off of these siphoned memories.
B-Psychic Assimilation: By consuming extracted memories, the Apex Mindshard Amoeba enhances its spiritual power and cognitive abilities.
———————
'Yes!' Kain almost screamed out loud at Bea successfully achieving the desired evolution. He recalled her back to her star space after praising her on a job well-done. Once she returns to optimal condition, she can then attempt to breakthrough to orange-grade.
Kain opened his eyes with a smile and turned to Bridge, "Your brother is going to aim for the number 1 spot." Bridge's smile soon mirrored his own.
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Thankfully, after calming down Lady's evolution was also a huge success.
When Kain had first helped Bridge decide on his initial contract, one of the pros that they'd discussed was the multiple evolutionary pathways available to Huricanine Pups. Although the evolutionary plans for all forms weren't readily available in their small city, at Dark Moon Bridge and Kain got access to the full catalog of possible evolutions.
And one of the first things they did upon entering the college was to settle on which evolutionary route Lady would take, especially since she was of a species that would need to be primed over a long period of time through her diet in a certain evolutionary direction.
After weighing all of the pros and cons of each form, and how well each would match with Bridge's and Princess' combat styles, they finally settled on one form—the gold-quality Tempest Wolf.
It wouldn't require major changes to Lady's combat style and would provide an all-around enhancement to her physical attributes, particularly her speed. However, this evolution would also make up for one of Lady's biggest weaknesses—her lack of long-distance attack abilities.
This form presents a drastic increase in her ability to manipulate the wind for both offensive and defensive purposes.
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Additionally, the Tempest Hound also has a weak affinity to the lightning attribute. Although its control over the element is very weak and at most effective for giving a strong static shock to those in direct contact with it, the strength of this additional attribute will truly show itself when it is time for its third evolution. freeweɓnovel.cm
After briefly celebrating the success of both of their contracts with a quick meal, Kain and Bridge separated. Bridge to familiarize himself with Lady's new abilities. Kain to meet with. Barret who finally conceded to starting a company with him after there was still no decline in the spiritual power and quality of the beer after over a week since opening the barrel.
They were going to be meeting up with a lawyer to establish the rules of their business relationship and also with a businessman that Barret highly recommended to assist in the logistics of their business.
After meeting with the lawyer and drawing up the paperwork, it was established that Kain would receive a 70% share in the business for providing the preservation method to actually allow the large-scale exportation of spiritual beer and investing more funds, while Barrett would receive 30% for managing the creation of the beer and the development of future beer recipes.
Additionally, while with the lawyer they settled on the trademarked name for the company. After numerous discussions, they finally settled on Aetherbrew, which Kain convinced Barett would hint at the fact that it was a beer rich in spiritual power, considering that it used the ancient term for spiritual power. But really it was a nod to Kain's secret ingredient—Aetherbrew Yeast.
Afterwards, they headed to a massive property on the outskirts of the city—it was a farm that the owners with money-problems had hastily sold in order to receive a large influx of cash after the land had been ravaged by spiritual creatures during the beast tide. They met their future operations manager there—Collin.
The plan was to grow their own large supply Brewer's Barley. However, It would take a while for the barley to fully grow, so they will begin on a smaller scale testing out their marketing strategies and setting up shipments to nearby cities using the Brewer's Barley the Kain currently had growing on his personal property.
In their free time, the Eve and the wasps will come here to speed up the development of these barley fields.
Additionally, on this land they planned to set up the factory where not only will the beer be brewed on a large-scale, overseen by Barret, and then bottled and shipped out, overseen by Collin.
"Did you already get an estimate of the cost for setting up the factory with all of the machinery we'd need?" Kain asked.
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Collin nodded, "The costs of construction, machinery, workers, and transportation are outlined in this document here. I met with some of our potential future partners for the shipment of the bottles this morning." He handed over a document with a long string of numbers at the bottom.
Kain's heart skipped a beat at the astonishing figure. 'What they say is true, it takes money to make money…and that is A LOT of money.' However, he made sure to keep his face unperturbed, as the one primarily responsible for the company's finances.
Although looking at the number on the paper he was quite a bit short of all the money he needed in order to get the company up and running, even after selling all the materials he got in the beast tide that he hadn't exchanged for school credits.
'I'm gonna have to take on more of those evolutionary planner requests than I anticipated. And I'm also going to have to increase my fee…'
"I brought my personal stock of barley that I'd grown. Barret, you use it to create the first few batches that we will send out on a smaller scale to some influential individuals to get the name out there." Kain handed a small space ring filled with barley he'd already prepared.
He couldn't help but think back to the days when a small space ring would be way too expensive for him, and now he can give one away at his convenience.
"Leave the marketing to me," Collin said. "We can even set up a meeting with a marketing firm. I went to college with someone who now works at one of the top firms in the empire. I can get us a cost estimate for their services."
Kain's eyebrow couldn't help but twitch at the prospect of spending even more money.
"Leave that for now…let's first focus on getting the business up and running."
Before Collin could come up with any more expensive ideas, Kain excused himself.
'There's one more day before classes start on Monday. Let's see how many of the simpler planner requests I can complete by tomorrow. I only have a few hundred GP left, maybe in addition to the increased cost I should also include providing living orange-grade spiritual creatures as part of my fee?'
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The next few weeks flashed by quickly as Kain rushed between classes, meeting with Barret and Collin for the business, and completing as many Evolutionary Planner requests as possible to get enough funds for the business.
Strangely, after finding out that Kain had quite a high fee for a first-year student who hadn't even graduated yet, the people directed to him by the Ashenclaws seemed to have even more faith in his abilities.
In fact, despite charging more than many official planners, Kain's skills were even more in demand. In combination with his mysterious 'gift' and his request for orange-grade 'offerings,' Kain's reputation actually grew greatly as his image in the eyes of others became shrouded in mystique. Maybe he could even increase his fee again…
During this time the Lumifins that Kain had ordered had all successfully evolved into Gilded Serafins with a 100% success rate, and are being kept in an artificial pond on his property.
With the assistance of Vera and the lab notebook provided by the System, Kain put together the research report needed for the patent application and was just waiting for the validation process to be initiated, in which they will visit Kain in person and attempt to independently recreate his results using his research notes.
However, Kain was certain that he'd eventually have his patent approved, and so in preparation, he had invested heavily in several companies that specialized in breeding and capturing water-type, and particularly fish-type, spiritual creatures. Also as an investor he'd also given them a tip to begin capturing Lumifins and collecting any Opal Glow Lotuses they see by the way.
Thankfully, with his crazy running around to complete planner requests, he'd made enough to support both business ventures.
Currently, he was very tight on funds, and if food for him was not provided by the university, he may be forced to live off of cheap bread for the rest of the month.
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However, money, or lack thereof, is not what Kain's mind needed to be focused on right now. Currently, he was standing amongst all of his peers at one of the college's large stadiums as they listened to the lecture being delivered to them by Professor Flint, their instructor for Wilderness Survival.
Today would be the beginning of the first re-ranking of Kain's career, and one could practically feel the palpable tension humming through the air.
Due to constantly being on the move, Kain hadn't yet had the opportunity to set multiple days aside to focus on breaking through to 3-stars.
Although, based on the number of leave requests being granted leading up to the re-ranking, Kain was certain that at least 10 of his classmates, including the twins Addison and Aiden, had attempted to breakthrough and were likely successful given that nobody had returned to classes looking ill.
However, despite not being at 3-stars, Bea had successfully broken through to orange-grade. Meaning that the strength of Kain's contracts was not inferior, and may even be superior, to many official 3-star beast-tamers.
He'd gone on some hunting missions in his limited free time to familiarize both of his contracts with each other's skills and different battle strategies.
However, those few missions were still not enough. If he did not have the newly provided Training Arena from the System to practice battling against known spiritual creatures owned by his classmates or practice honing their skills, he would be feeling a lot more unprepared.
"Your first re-ranking today is of particular importance because it will determine the order in which you will have access to the Enchanted Spring. As I am sure you all know, entering the spring increases the likelihood of manifesting a gift and might slightly improve the strengths of gifts in those that already possess one."
"However, the magical properties of this pool are limited in effectiveness and the order for entering the pool is based on your rankings, with the top 5 students of each year being granted first access, followed by those ranked 6 to 20, and so forth.
With the magical properties of this pool being limited in effectiveness, there may not be much of an effect remaining by the time those of you at the bottom of the rankings enter."
"Therefore, I hope you all will put your best efforts into improving your rankings as the gap between you and your higher-ranked peers will only continue to increase due to the differences in resources provided. For those of you in the top 20, and even top 5, we will see today which of you have relaxed during your time as students and are destined to be surpassed."
"I will now be revealing the matchup results for your first re-ranking battle."
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The format of the Re-ranking Tournament is as follows:
—————-
Phase 1: The Group Stage
Of the 53 students that were originally in their year, 4 students had died during the first field assessment, and one of the two that lost a contract during the beast-tide was unable to recover from the trauma and grief and dropped out. Therefore, there were 48 names shown on the screen above.
Likely due to there being 48 students, they sorted the top 8 students into separate groups as seeds and then randomly assigned the remaining students into groups 1 to 8 to form even groups of 6.
Each group of 6 will compete against one another in a round-robin format to form a within-group ranking of 1 to 6.
Phase 2: The Ranking Stage
All students with the same within-group ranking will then compete against the others with the same rankings from their respective groups in a round-robin format.
That means the first place of each group will compete against one another to determine ranks 1 to 8. The second place of each group will determine ranks 9-16. The third place of each group will determine ranks 17-24, and so forth until every student has determined their final ranking.
—————-
As one of the seeded candidates, Kain wasn't too worried about anyone that would be in his group for Phase 1. In fact, aside from Serena, he wasn't too worried about the strength of any of his peers.
And looking at his group, Kain's feelings of confidence were re-affirmed. There was nobody he thought would force him to show any major cards before Phase 2. He was grouped with ranks 10 (newly crowned after the death of the previous rank 10), 23, 31, 35, and 42. None of which were any individuals he was particularly close to.
In fact, the only one he'd even spoken with previously was Riley at rank 35 who was one of the two survivors in the group that enraged the Glacial Leviathan during the Wilderness Survival field assessment.
He was more anxious about Bridge's assigned group.
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Thankfully, out of all of the groups, Bridge seemed to be in one of the easiest groups.
Bridge at rank 39 (his rank now higher due to four of the 5 students dying or dropping out being ranked above him) was placed into group 8 which had the eighth seed, rank 14, Riley's fellow survivor Elara at rank 37, Aria at rank 46 who was in Kain's group for the field assessment, and rank 47 who was one of the two students to lose a contract during the beast tide.
Kain was confident that aside from ranks 8 and 14, Bridge could defeat any of the other 3 easily. With a little luck or a favorable matchup between spiritual creatures, he may even be able to defeat the 14th ranked student. Therefore, regardless of if Bridge is ranked second or third in his group, he can look forward to a substantial increase in rank.
If he finishes second he'd be able to automatically receive a single room, while if he places third he'd still be able to fight for a position in the top 20.
Among the others that Kain was close with, Aiden and the last-ranked Elias, were both in Kairos' group 5.
Finn and Leonara were also together in group 6 led by Dwayne, who as the only S-rated affinity not in the top 5 had a lot to prove during this re-ranking.
Finally, Addison was sorted into group 4 led by Ranya.
Looking at the groupings, Kain felt optimistic that most of his friends should either remain at a similar rank or go up.
With the group stage requiring 5 matches per group, it was decided by the teachers that they'd each participate in 2 matches per day to strike a good balance between pacing and intensity, allowing participants to compete while minimizing fatigue. This means that the group stage will last for 3 days, with the last day only having 1 battle so that they have more time to rest before Phase 2.
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Thankfully, the battles occurring on the same day were spaced far apart and there were teachers with healing contracts available at all times, as well elixirs to restore spiritual power that can be taken after each battler. Therefore, it could be ensured that each participant were competing at max strength.
"Can the first set of students set to battle from each group make their way to the stage assigned for their group. Up first for Group 1: Seed 1 Serena and Rank 22 Lila Carrington; Group 2: Seed 2 Kain Newman and Rank 31 Julian Carr; Group 3…"
Kain made his way to the second stage from the left with a large 2 carved into the center. There were 8 large stages separated by translucent barriers to prevent interference between the matches.
Kain noticed that the first called upon were the seed candidates for each group, likely as a way to heat up the atmosphere and also to clearly show the other students the targets they should be aiming to surpass.
And the Kain could sense that the teachers' intentions were achieved. Kain could feel many pairs of eyes practically digging into the flesh of himself and the other 8 seeds like the pricks of needles.
Unfortunately, this arrangement meant that Kain was unable to watch the battles of who would likely be his biggest competitors.
Based on the field-assessments, beast-tide, and missions, information about every students contract had likely already been spread around and could be obtained if desired. In particular, information about the members of the top 5 was especially valuable and the most discussed.
However, during the past month since the beast-tide, Kain was sure that like him many of the other top students had evolved their contracts, had breakthroughs, or maybe even acquired a new contract.
Therefore, the best information would be the first-hand observations he'd get by watching them today.
'Maybe if I finish this match early, I can watch and get some more info…'
Kain looked at his opponent, Rank 31 Julian Carr. Despite in the lower half of the rankings based off of strength, Julian would probably be ranked within the top 10 of their year based off of appearance.
Julian stood at around 6 feet tall with a lean, athletic build. His tousled dark brown hair framed a chiseled face, with high cheekbones and a strong jawline. His piercing green eyes stood out against his sun-kissed tan skin and seemed to glimmer with either curiosity or mischief. He didn't at all seem intimidated by Kain's ranking.
'I guess he wouldn't be fit to be a Dark Moon student if he didn't even have that much fighting spirit.'
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Julian's contracts was an orange-grade Steelwing Hawk and red-grade Storm Albatross. Both of which were wind-attribute bird-type spiritual creatures, likely due to the limitations of his affinity.
The second he was given the signal to start, Kain covered the arena in a mist. After losing the water attribute, Bea could no longer integrate into liquids as easily as before. However, Kain's knew style of battle did not require Bea to be within the mist.
In fact, Kain didn't plan to use Bea at all for the duration of Phase 1 and this mist was purely to conceal more of his information from the watching crowd.
For added concealment of his strength, Kain also only summoned 6 of the 18 Vespirae he could currently summon. He had only ever summoned 12 Vespirae in front of others, therefore none of the students knew the maximum guards he had. Still, Kain felt that 6 were enough to deal with the two contract before him.
As Julian and his contracts looked warily through the mist for any sign of movement, without warning the six Vespirae shot forward, their wings creating a powerful gust that momentarily parted the mist as the surrounded Julian's contracts.
Each wasp zipped through the air with remarkable speed, barely visible to the naked eye. Julian's hawk roared, instinctively flaring its wings to take to the skies, but resistance was futile.
In an instant, the Vespirae launched six stingers with pinpoint accuracy. The first projectile sliced through the mist and struck the hawk in its side, piercing through its defences. The creature let out a shriek of surprise and pain, spiraling slightly as it struggled to regain its balance and doge the remaining.
However, the intensive training inside of the System had drastically improved the accuracy and predictive ability of the Vespirae guards, and only one stinger was able to be successfully avoided while the other 4 hit the target.
As the hawk crashed to the ground, the mist momentarily cleared due to the movement, revealing Julian's wide-eyed shock and the formidable figure of his once-majestic mount, now incapacitated. The Vespirae then moved to surround the previously ignored Albatross.
"I concede!" Julian quickly called out before Kain could seriously injur the reminder of his two contracts.
Kain recalled the Vespirae before dispersing the mist.
Finally, those in the audience could see the arena. All they'd been able to see was mist before they heard a screech, a loud bang and Julian's signal of defeat.
The whole battle was over in less than 10 seconds.
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