Chapter 209 No Pain No Gain (Unedited)
The silver-haired boy looked at the option 'Eject Serum' in front of him in the screen-touch hologram. He looked at his contract beast one more time before selecting the option. A red light radiated in the incubation chamber in front of him, then various robotic hands came out and started ejecting the evolution serum.
He started looking at Sheru, and his whole body was shaking. The serum was changing his body; this process continued for some time, but nothing significant has happened till now. It was then that he heard the sound of bones breaking, and the black coat made up of metallic furs started to separate from his body.
Many wounds appeared due to the violent changes happening to the body, which woke up the beast from the dose of anesthesia.
The pain it felt made it cry in agony; it felt as if multiple insects were eating its flesh. It tried to escape or move, but its whole body was shaking. The loss of control over its own body made it unable to stand. Escape from the chamber was a different matter, but when his mind cleared, he saw Rishi looking at him with a worried look.
This cleared his mind, and he understood what was happening.
The pain increased with time, and the body of the creature shrank from its original five meters to half its original size. It cried as its bones twisted. Its claws separated from its body, and blood flowed out of the paws. This continued for a few minutes, during which multiple thoughts of giving up came to his mind, but he steeled his will and didn't lose hope; he didn't want to remain weak.
After some time, cracks started appearing in the area around Sheru, from which strange golden energy descended. It fell on the half-dead Sheru's body. This continued for a while, during which Sheru was able to catch a glimpse of a faint design, and patterns started appearing over his completely pink body that had shed skin and fur.
The pattern became clearer with time. First, the patterns on its paws, which now looked like mystic runes, started solidifying before shining in a golden glow. This sent a jolt of pain to Sheru, who cried in agony. The pain was somewhat less than before, but it started increasing as more and more runes started appearing. Sheru cried; his whole body twisted and turned, trying to invade the phenomenon, but the pain it caused only increased.
The feeling was as if someone were cutting his flesh with a sharp, hot sword and creating these runes. Rishi looked at the runes and knew what they were. They were 'Runes of Evolution." They had appeared at the time when he was giving the Beast Cultivater exam, and they were responsible for the mutation that happened at that time that helped Hansi's third contract beast evolve directly into an Epic Grade Magic Beast from a Common Grade Magic Beast. It was a different matter that he needed to feed her multiple elixirs and items with a dense ice and fire essence to make her slowly evolve into an epic-grade beast.
A trace of joy appeared on his face before it turned into worry. He knew that mutations were not always beneficial; sometimes they were completely useless or, in rare cases, even harmful. Mutations represented differences; they separated an individual magic beast from others of its kind. While some mutations were useless and changed the hair and eye color, some added elements, limbs, or wings. Despite numerous research and studies, no one understood for certain what the mutation phenomenon was or what it represented.
The process continued for a while, where Sheru somehow held himself awake; he had heard from Rishi that getting unconscious increased the chance of failure when evolving. He didn't want to waste this chance and leave everything to fate, so despite feeling conflicted and in a state of unbearable pain, he tried to remain conscious. After a while, its whole body was shining in a golden glow due to the "Runes of Evolution' shining all over it, and it thought that everything was over and it would soon succeed. A fist-size stone tile appeared above it. "This? How could it be here?" A hint of confusion appeared in Rishi's eyes when he saw that it was the rune that he had gotten from his clan. From what he knew, it was one of the tiles that his clan had found in a secret realm. His heartbeat rose as he saw it shining in a golden glow. He clenched his fists and said, "What is happening?" This evolution was getting out of hand.
He had his fingers crossed, hoping nothing bad would happen to the 'Rune' and Sheru. He still remembered the warning of Uncle Kabir, who repeatedly said only one thing: "No matter what happens, nothing should happen to the rune, and return it as soon as possible. It is a secret treasure of the clan." He took a deep breath. He felt a chill all over his body. He didn't know why, but he could sense that things were getting out of control and that something bad was about to happen.
He had only thought about it when he heard a cracking noise. He first believed it came from Sheru, but when he looked at him calmly, licking his wounds before looking at him as if asking what happened, a bad feeling emerged in his heart as he slowly looked above and saw the stone tile that was shaking. Multiple cracks were formed in it, and then what he had feared happened: it blasted into pieces. "No," he said, his eyes almost wet.
He didn't know what would happen if the clan discovered it. The item that had disappeared before him was one of the secret treasures of the clan. It was a very rare item that could guide the descendants of the clan in the art of swordsmanship; items like this were one of the reasons why his clan gave birth to so many powerful swordsmen.
"Shit, they all already have a bad impression about me; I am not sure what they will do if they realized that the secret treasure of the clan had disappeared because of me." He wanted to cry, but no tears came out; he looked up and cried as if cursing God "Why does it always happens to me."
He was in a bad mood when he suddenly felt something; as a sword expert, he was very sensitive to Swords and things related to Swords. The thing he sensed was a presence of a high-level Sword Master; he looked at the brightly shining strange symbol above Sheru's body.
It looked similar to the pattern he had seen on the tile; the only difference was that it looked more mystical. He felt as if his Swordsmanship would improve if he was even able to look at it for an hour.
The pattern on the Sword Tile always looked like it lacked a presence and it was diminishing with time, but when his eyes fell on the strange golden pattern that looked like a more refined version of the symbol, He couldn't help but be awed by its presence.
He felt as if he was looking at a Sword Master; he got curious about it and decided to make use of this opportunity. He activated 'Extreme Focus' and started looking at it with full concentration; he was so focused that he ignored the burn and slight pain he was feeling when looking at it.
When he looked at it closely with full concentration, a huge amount of information started entering his head. He was slowly comprehending a higher level of knowledge about Swordsmanship or what true swordsmanship was while he was only able to comprehend very little his mind stored every piece of information it came across.
He was confident in comprehending it slowly, He started using his full force as he was not sure how much time he had till the mysterious symbol disappeared. Only some seconds have passed in real-time but in Rishi's head the time was moving very slowly; he was absorbing every bit of knowledge he got from the symbol.
He also realized that the Symbol was getting brighter and brighter, He also started feeling a burning pain in his eyes, but he held on. He was unsure when such a chance would present itself to him again; his greed had blinded his mind while he was largely resistant to the greed of Money due to his background same could not be said for his greed for power.
He had forgotten that the thing he was looking for could also be dangerous to him, He kept absorbing every piece of knowledge. This process was not like reading a book it was different, It was like writing a report about when looking at a beautiful scene.
There was no information present, but due to having a high level of comprehension of the way of swords he was able to understand many things about swordsmanship when he looked at it, he was merely trying to understand the meaning behind this pattern while looking at it he understood many details he was merely noting them down for in his mind book.
He was consuming a very large amount of Mental Energy in exchange for increasing the strength of his 'Extreme Focus' skill this further slowed down time, and he got more time while he also fully focused on understanding the details a little before noting all important information down. He didn't know what he was writing it was like copying down a foreign language without knowing the actual meaning behind the symbols; this continued before an image of a person appeared inside his head.
He was using his finger to create a symbol on the tile, A mystical invisible energy was surfacing his finger that let him do it. Rishi focussed his all attention on this energy after fully concentrating he saw a faint mystical transparent silver energy, It was when the figure looked at him, and their eyes met.
His eyes were very sharp like a blade of a sword; a huge presence descended on him when he looked at them it was like they could cut him into pieces. When he looked at those silver-colored eyes again, he felt a chill all over his body it was as if a giant sword had hacked at him.
He blurted out and cried in Agony; he woke up and felt multiple cuts all over his body. He activated 'Shadow Walk' and escaped before appearing many meters away; he came out of the shadow and felt a blackout. A jolt of pain rushed through his head; his eyes were burning.
pαndα---noνɐ1,сoМ He activated the 'Regeneration' active skill and felt the pain decrease; after a few seconds, he once again opened his eyes. He was sweating; he was feeling that his eyes has gotten hurt from having a long time of direct contact with the symbol from close.
He opened them again with little pain and saw that the whole world appeared red; he wiped his blood and sighed he was able to see everything clearly. He fearfully take a quick look at the symbol before shifting his gaze, but he soon realized that the symbol had disappeared as if it never existed; multiple questions appeared in his head, but he had no answer for them.