What had she just seen?

  Before she could contemplate further, her train of thought was shattered by the maniacal glint gleaming in his violet eyes as he stared at the crimson beast crystal before him, which elicited an amused huff from Lena.

  Weren't beast cores only useful to beast tamers?

  Sure he could sell it for a decent sum of money—but did that really explain the shit-eating grin plastered on his face?

  Probably not.

  Something felt off, was he onto something?

  She dismissed the thought for now, watching as he pocketed the beast crystal and moved toward the fallen bronze-rank Armoured Quadruped, placing his hand on its mangled skull.

  And for just a second, she could’ve sworn she saw a flicker of anticipation in his eyes.

  "Another maniac huh?"

  Not that this was in any way weirdly unusual.

  She'd seen battle junkies do the same 'ritual'. Called it respect for a worthy foe, utter bullshit.

  So he was just another battle freak in the making.

  But something didn't quite fit.

  Why was his grin still widening?

  Wasn't this supposed to be a solemn moment or something?

  Every other maniac she'd met at least faked a bit of reverence, or had she misinterpreted his intent?

  Staring into what she saw as empty space, he moved on to another beast.

  This time an iron ranked Armoured Quadruped, one of the ten or so that he had already killed.

  With a similar motion, he placed his palm on it's armoured plate before the same grin began to tug at his lips.

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  Now fully intrigued, Lena narrowed her eyes and looked at him again, this time fully tapping into her gold rank perception, analyzing him, scanning him, reading him.

  Which sparked a question in her mind after finding no apparent reason behind his actions.

  What in the Ignean realm was he doing?

  For Lena, power had never been the end goal. What thrilled her were the mysteries of Ignea, the strange, the unknown, secrets never meant to be uncovered.

  And right now, the young man before her was dripping with mystery.

  Every moment from him unpredictable.

  Speaking of movement, her eyes widened in surprise, as torrents of thoughts flooded her mind with possibilities.

  Thoughts crashed against each other in a blur before she finally found her voice.

  “I... impossible... th-this... how?”

  And as if in answer to her shock, the golden rune on her hand flared to life.

  Reality ripped open as a majestic wyvern emerged, golden scales glinting under the moonlight, with blade like wings, standing at ten

  meters tall, exuding a regal aura, displaying its stance as a figure of a myth incarnate.

  Yet the moment it arrived, its piercing gaze locked onto the young man—despite the distance, as if he were right in front of it.

  Violet eyes, unreadable with midnight hair, tousled by the wind.

  But the wyvern didn’t see a boy.

  It saw motion.

  A single step, one movement that was perfectly timed.

  Balanced and refined. No wasted energy, no hesitation.

  To the wyvern, it wasn’t just a move.

  It was a memory of its origin, a truth hidden in motion.

  A whisper of perfection.

  Then the images began to form, they looped, merged and transformed into...Flash Step.

  A new skill.

  In celebration to its achievement, an excited roar yet hinted with royal elegance echoed through out the wastelands in celebration of the birth of a new skill.

  Lena who stood beside her beast was now star struck, Her wyvern had gained a new skill which if one looked at it from a beast tamer's point of view was basically impossible.

  Her wyvern, a beast that had unlocked the bloodline of its ancestry: the flood dragons.

  Mythical creatures with unknown potential, yet each advancement brought only a fixed amount of skills, now this had been broken today... but how?

  Gold ranked beasts could only have 8 Skills that were unlocked from their Bloodline, others were just secondary, with each advancement adding an additional two.

  But this....it was unheard of, even overwhelming prodigies couldn't do this. It was a fixed number never meant to be altered and yet it had been changed and the cause of it? One young man's motion.

  And when she looked again, his movements were refined—no trace of the crude swings from earlier, which gave off the illusion he was dancing and if not for her high willpower, she would have been entranced to just watch him move for hours.

  Now, looking at Auron again she couldn't help it, this guy couldn't be called a monster now, he was a freaking legend in the making.

  But legend or not there was something she had to do, but before that her train of thought was disrupted by a yell from the figure she had been watching.

  ***

  Huh... wait...what?

  What do you mean by this?

  You can't do this to me!

  Noooooooooooooo!

  My attributes!!!!

  ***

  Again which emphasized his unpredictability, did he not know of what he had

  just unlocked?

  And what attributes did he speak off?

  He was turning into an enigma shrouded in mystery.

  So when he broke out into a maniacal laugh later, she dismissed it, but one thing she noted was his unnatural love of beast cores.

  Then, she turned, looking at her wyvern beside her, its eyes glinting with excitement of unlocking a new skill—and a hunger. Not for battle, but for knowledge and growth, but with their synced thoughts, it stepped back in Lena's beast space to watch the chaos about to unfold, maybe learn an extra skill from it... if reality could be bended once why not twice?

  If anything Lena had learnt was her saying come true, 'every good forge needed a fire', but Auron was different to say the least, how about we take out the fire and drop him straight into the damn lava! who knew what would happen, and would her other beast unlock skills just from watching him?

  Hahahaha she couldn't wait.

  Now, now where was that corrupted beast?

  Time me to create a little 'coincidence.'