The air in the grotto felt stagnant, heavy with the weight of a thousand years.
Dreleon stood before the ancient turtle, his mind still reeling from the revelation that humans were masters on the other side of the world.
But a more pressing question burned in his throat: how could he, a slave, ever hope to protect a Princess in a world of monsters?
"You look at your hands as if they are new to you," Elder Genbu rumbled, noticing Dreleon staring at his hands.
"You have the power, but you are a blind man holding a sword.
You do not even know the rungs of the ladder you are trying to climb."
The Elder shifted, his massive shell grinding against the cavern floor.
"In this era, power is defined by how deeply your soul has merged with the Pact.
There are three stages that even a commoner understands."
"The first is the Low Level," the Elder hissed, a second snake-head emerging to look Dreleon in the eye.
"It is the stage of the Flesh.
It is what you felt in the cage—the ability to shed your weak human skin and take on the traits of your partner.
The claws, the mane, the strength.
Most pacters never move beyond this. They are mere brawlers."
Dreleon nodded.
He remembered the terrifying surge of strength when his bones had shifted into the lion-hybrid form.
"Wait… how do you know what I did in the cage!?" Dreleon asked, feeling like he was bare naked.
"What! You think I don't even have basic vision!?" Elder Genbu said with some frustration.
Only then he remembered the scary scale of the elder turtle's body.
Imagining two big eyes seeing him when he was practicing.
"Then comes the Mid Level," Genbu continued.
"The stage of the Manifestation. This is when your spirit is strong enough to pull a physical tool from the void. Your sword, Dreleon.
It is not just wood and stone; it is a bridge between your soul and the Princess's power. It allows you to strike what the hand cannot reach."
He stopped for a few seconds then continued.
"To check what your sword's ability is you can go to old lizard at the bugs river"
"And the High Level?" Dreleon asked, his voice low.
"The stage of the Essence," the Elder said, his eyes glowing with a sudden, sharp intensity.
"It is the birth of a Strange Ability.
Some command the flicker of a flame, others the flow of the tide. You... you were reforged into the High Level, because of the Princess's bloodline.
You have the Space element. But having the ability does not mean you have the Mastery."
The Elder paused, his expression turning grim. " But don't need to think the Pact is the only way to power. Before the soul pact was discovered, there was only the Heart."
"The Heart in the Sea," Dreleon whispered.
"Exactly!
When that unknown entity fell from the stars and sank into the deepest trenches of the ocean, it bled.
The water became a soup of primordial energy.
This is why the Dragon Clans are the undisputed lords of the deep—they lived closest to the source.
They drank the sea while the rest of the world merely smelled the salt."
The Elder's voice dropped to a gravelly whisper. "Some say the ancient beasts grew strong by drinking the water.
Others, the more desperate ones, followed the trail of the Heart as it fell, drinking the literal blood that rained from the sky. But the Heart itself? It is gone.
The Dragons claim the Earth itself swallowed it, using its divine pulse to restart the Primordial Era.
The world we walk on is now a living being, breathing out the energy you use to move your telekinesis."
Dreleon looked down at the floor, suddenly aware of the miles of rock and living earth beneath him. "So the Pact... it isn't just a contract?"
"No," the Elder barked a laugh. "The Pact is a shortcut.
A beast gains the cold, calculating intelligence of a human at the start, and the human gains the indestructible body of the beast. It is a fusion of two halves to create a whole that can survive the coming storm."
The Elder's snake-head pulled back, coiling for a strike.
"But you are a lopsided whole, Dreleon. You have High-Level space, but the soul density of a child. If you do not learn to thicken your spirit, the first High-Level beast you meet will shatter your space ability like a thin sheet of ice."
The Elder's gaze turned predatory. "Now... enough talk.
Your ancestors spent ten thousand years at the pinnacle because they were the most efficient killers on the planet.
Let us see if that blood still runs in your veins."