The forest was silent, save for the rhythmic chirping of insects and the occasional rustle of leaves.
Jace slept heavily against the oak tree. His chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm.
Tank stood guard nearby, motionless as a statue! Its red eyes scanned the darkness for threats.
While Jace slept, his body was working overtime. The connection between a Tamer and their Beast was a two-way street! When a Beast grew stronger, a portion of that energy fed back into the Tamer to strengthen their soul and body.
Tank had jumped from F-Rank to D-Rank!
The feedback loop was massive!
Inside Jace's body, his dormant mana channels were being forcibly widened. The bottleneck that had held him at Awakened Realm Level 1 for three years was cracking under the pressure of the feedback!
"CRACK!"
Not inside his body. In the woods!
Tank swiveled instantly, mandibles opening!
A figure emerged from the shadows of the trees, stepping into the moonlight.
It was a girl.
She had silver-blonde hair that shimmered like moonlight itself, and her eyes were a piercing, cold blue. She wore the customized white and blue uniform of the Academy's elite track.
Elara Vance!
The "Ice Queen!" The daughter of the City Lord!
She stopped, looking at the scene before her. Her eyes didn't land on the sleeping boy first. They landed on the shattered training dummy.
She walked over to the remains of the granite stone. She ran a gloved finger over the fracture point.
"Clean break." She murmured, her voice cool and analytical. "Granite doesn't shatter like this from blunt force. This was a piercing crush. Something with incredible torque."
She looked around.
"Who is training out here at this hour?"
Tank let out a low, warning hiss! He stepped between Elara and Jace, his carapace gleaming menacingly.
Elara looked at the beetle. She didn't flinch. In fact, she looked unimpressed!
"An Iron-Jaw Beetle?" She said, tilting her head. "D-Rank. Decent defense, poor mobility. But... Iron-Jaws don't usually grow that large. And that sheen on the shell..."
She took a step forward.
Tank snapped his mandibles!
"Clack!"
The sound echoed like a gunshot!
"Feisty." Elara noted.
She raised her hand, and the temperature in the clearing dropped ten degrees! Frost began to form on the grass around her boots.
A faint image of an Ice Phoenix flickered behind her, her contracted beast!
Tank dug his legs into the earth, preparing to charge! He didn't care about the cold! He only cared that this threat was too close to Jace!
Elara paused.
She looked past the beetle to the boy slumped against the tree. His face was shadowed, and he was wearing the generic, worn-out uniform of a commoner student.
"He's exhausted." She observed. "Soul force depletion."
She retracted her aura. The frost dissipated.
"Relax, bug." She said, her voice losing its combat edge. "I'm not going to hurt your master. I was just investigating the noise."
She glanced back at the shattered dummy one last time.
An Iron-Jaw Beetle did that? Unlikely! A standard D-Rank beetle can chip granite, not pulverize it! Maybe he used a chaotic stimulant? Or a high-level skill scroll?
She looked at Jace again. He looked pathetic, passed out in the dirt, but his beast was fiercely loyal. That was rare. Most low-level beasts would have fled from her Ice Phoenix's aura!
"Interesting." She whispered.
She reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a small, blue vial. She tossed it through the air!
Tank didn't move, but he didn't attack. The vial landed in the soft grass next to Jace's hand.
"Recovery Potion." Elara said to the beetle. "Tell him he owes me for the noise pollution."
With a swirl of her silver hair, she turned and vanished back into the woods, moving as silently as falling snow.
Tank watched her go until she was completely gone from his senses. Only then did he relax his stance. He nudged the blue vial closer to Jace, then resumed his guard duty.
Jace woke up with a gasp!
The sun was rising, filtering through the canopy in shafts of gold. He felt stiff, hungry, and... powerful!
He scrambled to his feet. The dizziness was gone! In fact, he felt lighter than he had in years. The world seemed sharper, the colors more vivid!
"Ding!"
[Feedback Assimilation Complete.]
[Congratulations, Host.]
[You have advanced to Awakened Realm Level 2.]
"Level 2!" Jace breathed, looking at his hands.
He clenched his fists, feeling the mana coursing through his veins. It was a river now, not a trickle!
"I did it! I actually broke through!"
He looked down and saw Tank waiting patiently.
"Good job, buddy." Jace smiled.
Then he saw the blue vial in the grass.
He picked it up. It was high-quality glass, stopped with a cork made of crystal. The liquid inside glowed with a soft azure light.
"A Minor Mana Recovery Potion?" Jace frowned. "These cost 2,000 Credits! I definitely didn't have this!"
He looked around the clearing. He saw the frost burns on the grass where Elara had stood.
"Ice..." Jace realized. "Elara Vance?"
He looked at the shattered dummy, then at the potion.
"She saw the damage." Jace realized, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. "She knows someone strong was here!"
He looked at his uniform. It was dirty, but nameless. He hadn't been wearing his ID badge.
"She doesn't know it was me." Jace reasoned. "Or if she saw me, she just saw a passed-out student. She might think the beetle belongs to a senior."
He pocketed the potion. He couldn't worry about the Ice Queen right now. He had the assessment today!
"Let's go, Tank." Jace said as he unsummoned the beetle into his soul space. A beam of light shot from his forehead, absorbing the massive insect!
Jace felt the weight of the beast in his mind. It felt grounding.
He began the trek back to the dorms to shower and change. As he walked, he checked the System one more time.
[Status: Awakened Realm Level 2]
↳ Beast: Iron-Jaw Beetle (Tank)
↳ Evolution Ready: No
↳ Mutation Possible: Requires Iron Ore x1
Jace stopped walking.
"Mutation possible?"
He read the line again. Usually, a beast couldn't evolve again until it hit the peak of its rank or level. Tank had just evolved yesterday!
[System Note: 10,000x Evolution Speed allows for rapid, consecutive mutations if materials are provided.]
Jace grinned.
It was a predatory grin!
"Iron Ore." He muttered. "I can find scrap metal in the academy junkyard before the assessment!"
If Kaelen Thorne or anyone else thought they were going to bully the "Dust Mite kid" today, they were in for a rude awakening!
Jace broke into a run, heading not for the dorms, but for the scrap yard!
The stagnation was over! The rise had begun!