Kale turned his back on the training arena, the silence following his victory as heavy as the mana-dampening arrays embedded in the floor. Behind him, the capital’s elite lay in the dirt, their pride shattered alongside their beasts’ morale...
One of the female Master-rank recruits, her expensive silk tunic stained with arena dust, did not look away as the others did. Her eyes traced the lines of Kale’s shoulders, a flicker of something far darker than simple resentment dancing in her pupils...
She watched him until he vanished into the archway of the central trunk, her fingers twitching near the soul-sigil on her own forehead. "So... it is him?" she whispered, the words barely more than a breath of poison that no one else heard...
Kale did not notice the gaze. He moved through the irrigation ducts with surgical efficiency, his mind already discarding the mock battle as a completed data set. It had been a necessary variable to test Neo’s concealment, nothing more...
He reached room 555 and sealed the heavy wooden door, the hum of the ancient tree acting as a familiar balm for his nerves. The green starlight beneath his skin pulsed rhythmically, a sign of his Greater Master rank settling into his Hexarion physiology...
"System... activate the Gene Lab," Kale murmured, and the room was instantly bathed in the familiar greenish glow of holographic displays. Neo appeared from his shadow, its three heads arching in a display of draconic arrogance that seemed to fill the small lab...
He spread the Ignis Core blueprints across the stone table, his pen scratching across the parchment with rhythmic precision. Neo’s fire affinity sat at 92%, but the half-flame core was still a bottleneck that prevented a transition to the Ravager rank...
He needed a catalyst that could bridge the gap between pure elemental essence and biological stability without triggering a rejection cascade. His mind ran through millions of simulations, seeking the perfect "Fire-Catalyst Chimaera" to act as Neo’s elemental battery...
The list of requirements was daunting: high-density thermal radiation samples, neutral Crystal Slime bases, and the specific biological anchors found only in apex-level fire species. He noted each item, his analytical mind calculating the probability of procurement...
"Guild resource hall first," Kale decided, pulling his hood low to hide his light green hair. He left the room, navigating the labyrinthine root-walkways with the practised ease of a phantom, his senses scanning for any prying eyes from the Dragon Church...
The Greenroot Guild’s exchange hall was a bustling hive of logistical activity, smelling of dried herbs and mana-conducting ores. Master-rank tamers hurried between counters, their beasts acting as heavy lifters for crates of medicinal pills...
Kale stood before a frail-looking clerk, presenting his rough list of materials. The man scanned the paper, his eyebrows rising higher with every line until he looked at Kale with a mixture of pity and confusion...
"We have the Crystal Slime bases and the obsidian resin," the clerk noted, pulling a few vials from the shelves behind him. "But the Ember-Drake Eggs? You won’t find those in any Imperial market, not at this purity level..."
The clerk leaned forward, his voice dropping to a cautious whisper. "There is a rumour among the scouts of a nesting ground in the Inferno Hollow... a deep trench three miles south. But it is a death trap, teeming with Ravager-rank beasts..."
"Ravager-rank?" Kale repeated, his expression remaining a mask of analytical stoicism. He took the few available items and paid the necessary Accredit, his mind already calculating the tactical route to the southern trench...
"I understand. It sounds far beyond my current capability," Kale said with a weary sigh, making a grand gesture of defeat that satisfied the clerk’s expectations. He turned away, his posture slumped, as if discouraged by the task’s impossibility...
However, the moment he slipped into the shadows of a secondary ventilation duct, his demeanour changed. The slump vanished, replaced by a fluid, predatory grace as he activated Lesser Mana Manipulation to mask his signature...
He sneaked out of the massive tree trunk, bypassing the guards who were still weary from the previous tide’s surge. To them, he was merely a shadow moving against the backdrop of the Tigerwood canopy, a ghost in the machine of the guild...
As he breached the perimeter and entered the deeper forest, Kale felt a surge of cold, dark pride. After his advancement and Neo’s evolution into a Peak Alpha rank, he no longer viewed Ravager-rank creatures with the same dread as before...
The forest floor blurred beneath his feet as he moved at nearly thirty meters per second, his body reinforced by Beast Force. The Ravagers that roamed these trenches, once terrifying lords of the woods, now felt like mere cattle waiting for slaughter...
He reached the Inferno Hollow, a jagged crack in the earth where the temperature spiked so sharply that the air shimmered with thermal distortion. The scent of sulfur and ground stone hit his lungs, a familiar echo of the Beast Tomb...
The den was a nightmare of shifting stone and fire-veined rock, home to a colony of Flame-Scaled Drakes. Hundreds of Lesser Ravager-rank creatures crawled across the blackened islands of the hollow, their eyes glowing with elemental malice...
Kale stood at the edge of the descent, his green eyes flashing with a manic scientific hunger. He didn’t need to hide anymore; he needed data, and he needed the unborn eggs residing at the very heart of the nest...
"Neo... maximum output," Kale ordered, his voice echoing through the hollow like a death knell. The Nemesis Hydra erupted from his shadow, its scales shimmering with a pulsing orange light as it activated Flame Form...
The Hydra dived into the hollow like a falling star, its three heads unleashing torrents of refined fire breath that turned the surrounding rock to liquid. Kale followed close behind, his daggers humming with a high-frequency mana edge...
He moved through the swarm with the efficiency of an executioner, his Master-rank strength making every strike a lethal deletion. He didn’t just fight; he harvested, his movements circular and grounded as Lazek had taught him in the pit...
Ravager-rank drakes, creatures that would normally require a squad of Masters to suppress, were dismantled in seconds. Neo’s Flame Devour ability sucked the elemental attacks from the air, converting the drakes’ own fire into raw Beast Force...
The slaughter was systematic and absolute. Within less than an hour, the hollow had gone silent, the carpet of Ravager carcasses cooling in the dim orange light. Kale stood at the heart of the nest, his white coat stained but his pulse steady...
He reached into the central incubation chamber and retrieved five glowing, light-green eggs with black stripes... the perfect catalysts for his Ignis Core. He tucked them into his spatial storage, a sense of grim satisfaction filling his chest...
Suddenly, he froze. A low growl erupted from all three of Neo’s heads as the hydra sensed a shift in the ambient mana. It wasn’t the erratic energy of a beast; it was the structured, rhythmic pulse of human movement...
Kale immediately moved fifty meters north, his body melting into the dense foliage of a giant ironwood root. He suppressed his presence to its absolute minimum, his green eyes narrowing as he scanned the direction of the movement...
A group of humans emerged from the thickets, walking toward the very hollow he had just cleared. They moved with caution, but their gear was expensive, bearing the insignias of both the capital academies and the Artificers Association...
Kale’s heart let out a dull, painful thump as he recognised the faces in the lead. The first was Paula, her Prism Hornet hovering nervously above her head as she scanned the area for signs of the battle...
Beside her was the girl from the Master-rank recruits... the one who had muttered to herself after the mock battle. She looked around the clearing with a sharp, analytical gaze, as if searching for a specific energy signature...
But it was the third face that made Kale’s blood turn to ice. It was the female Apprentice Artificer from the Association’s gate... the pious devotee who had publicly insulted him and denied his application form so many months ago...
She was no longer the haughty receptionist; she wore the robes of a certified researcher, her presence far more powerful than it had been in the capital. She seemed to be leading the group, her eyes fixed on the trail of broken mana Kale had left behind...
Exactly the moment Kale’s gaze landed on her, the girl’s head snapped toward his position. It was a movement too fast, too precise to be a coincidence. Her eyes locked directly onto the gap in the foliage where he was hiding...
An ominous, soul-chilling feeling of threat washed over Kale’s entire frame, a sensation of being scrutinised by a power that defied his rank. Beside him, he felt Neo shudder through the bond, the creature’s four hearts beating in a frantic rhythm...
The girl’s lips curved into a slow, terrifying smile as she raised a hand toward his location. The forest around him seemed to go silent, the very world turning hostile as the Dragon’s Curse flared in response to her gaze...
"I found you... blasphemer," she whispered across the distance, her voice reaching his ears with the clarity of a death sentence.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter