Chapter 51: Level Up! [3]
Alden finally let himself fall, dropped onto the Dragon’s back and just lay there, staring up at the mountain sky, breathing.
"Finally."
His face was a collection of bruises, cuts, dust in places dust didn’t need to be, clothes torn in at least three spots he’d discovered so far.
Then warmth spread through him from inside.
The bruises faded, cuts sealed. The deep ache in his shoulders and ribs and everything else simply drained away, replaced by something clean.
He sat up and looked at his hands and flexed them.
"...Did I just heal?"
He touched his face and pressed on a spot that had definitely been bruised moments ago.
’Is this another Soul Rendering effect?’
He pushed himself off the Dragon and looked at Flamestone.
"Alright. Let’s go help the oth—"
Two enormous figures were already coming toward him across the slope.
Glacius at a walk, frostfire burning steadily. Pyrion trotting beside it, white flames swaying.
Both of them looking like they’d had an easy afternoon.
Alden glanced past them at the Thunder Ape.
It was face-down in the crater Glacius had made, half-buried in the broken ground, not moving. Cracks spread outward from its body.
He looked at Glacius and Pyrion.
"...You guys already finished it?"
Glacius threw both fists into the air.
"ROOOOAAR!"
Pyrion launched itself into a full spin, flames flaring bright.
"Awoo! Awoo!"
Alden stared at them for a second.
Then the grin came out.
"You absolute legends."
He walked forward and threw his arms around all three of them at once.
It was objectively a ridiculous image. Pyrion fit comfortably. Glacius was several times Alden’s size and barely noticed the contact. Flamestone had eight legs, mandibles, and a body the size of a small house.
Alden stretched anyway.
"You guys were incredible."
Pyrion pressed its head against his chest.
"Awoo~"
Glacius made a satisfied rumble deep in its throat.
"Rrrrgh."
Flamestone clicked its mandibles with obvious pride.
"Chk-chk!"
Alden let them go and stepped back, looking at Flamestone.
"Alright. Now that the fight’s done—" He rubbed the back of his head. "Let’s think of a better name for you. Something cooler than Flamestone. Maybe something that actually—"
[Warning!]
[Once a Soul is Named, its name cannot be changed.]
Alden went completely still.
He turned slowly toward Flamestone.
The giant spider was looking at him. It’s eyes, forward, waiting for him to speak.
Alden’s face did several things in rapid succession.
"...Uh."
He scratched his neck.
"So. About that." He cleared his throat. "Looks like I can’t change your name. It’s locked in. Flamestone is, uh." He gestured vaguely. "That’s you now."
Flamestone’s mandibles dropped.
Its entire massive body seemed to slowly sink downward, like something essential had left it.
"..."
For a moment, the mountain was quiet. Then:
"Awoo... heh-heh." Pyrion’s flames were doing something suspicious.
Glacius had one enormous paw pressed over its mouth.
"Rrrr... hah!"
Flamestone’s eyes rotated toward them.
"CHK?!"
Pyrion immediately started bouncing in a full circle around the spider.
"Awoo! Awoo! (Flamestone! Flamestone!)"
Glacius lost the battle with its own expression and let out a deep rumbling laugh.
"RROAR— ahaha!"
Flamestone’s body began vibrating.
"CHKKKK—!" It lunged.
Pyrion shrieked and bolted. "Awoo!"
Glacius opened its arms in what might have been a welcoming gesture or might have been a challenge, and Flamestone barreled into it while still trying to track Pyrion its eyes.
All three of them disappeared into a churning chaos of white fire, cyan frostfire, and eight flailing flaming legs.
Alden watched this from a safe distance.
"...They’re getting along well." He rubbed his forehead.
"I’m fairly sure Flamestone doesn’t agree yet."
He turned toward the Thunder Ape and walked towards it.
He crouched beside the enormous body and put his palm against its arm.
"Let’s see what you’ve got."
SWOOOSH.
Black smoke erupted outward and coiled straight into his palm with unusual speed, like the soul had been waiting.
[DING!]
[Soul Successfully Extracted!]
[Beast: Thunder Ape — Rank A]
[2× Bonus Active!]
[Thunder Ape Soul Fragment ×2]
[Thunder Ape Blueprint: 0% → 10%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+4,750 EXP × 2 = +9,500 EXP
Level Up!
Level: 24 → 27
EXP: 31,920 / 35,000
Combat Power: 88 → 97
Rank: D++ → C
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Alden looked at the rank.
’C.’
He looked at his hand. At the forest ahead of him. At Glacius, Pyrion, and Flamestone still running chaotic laps around each other in the distance.
He smiled.
"Let’s keep going."
_________________
The 2× bonus ran out eventually.
Alden didn’t stop.
For three days, the Reserved Beast Forest became exactly what he’d come here for. Him and his three beasts moving deeper, hunting everything above A-Rank that crossed their path. Every fight gave him fragments, every fragment grew Blueprints, every Blueprint inched toward something locked that he hadn’t seen yet.
By the third day, he was standing on another Dragon.
His hand came down on the scales.
Black smoke flowed.
[DING!]
[Soul Successfully Extracted!]
[Beast: Dragon — Rank A]
[Dragon Soul Fragment ×1]
[Dragon Blueprint: 19% → 20%]
[New Concept Unlocked!]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+1,800 EXP
Level Up!
Level: 31 → 32
Combat Power: 134 → 150
Rank: C → C+
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He opened his Soul Library and looked through it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SOUL LIBRARY
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Wolf: 30 Fragments
Blueprint: 94%
Giant Spider: 5 Fragments
Blueprint: 74%
Owl: 100 Fragments
Blueprint: 100%
Firefly: 73 Fragments
Blueprint: 97%
Dragon: 10 Fragments
Blueprint: 20%
Polar Bear: 1 Fragment
Blueprint: 39%
Thunder Ape: 8 Fragments
Blueprint: 15%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He looked at the Dragon row.
It was already ten fragments and twenty percent done.
’The higher the rank, the slower it fills.’ He already knew this. ’Ten A-Rank fragments for twenty percent. I’m going to need a lot more before the Supreme Concepts unlock at ninety and one hundred. And about five more fragments to forge a dragon as well.’
Then his eyes found the notification still sitting in the corner of his vision.
[Dragon Blueprint: 20%]
[New Concept Unlocked!]
The Soul Library numbers stopped mattering.
His eyes lit up.
’Forget everything else.’ He closed the library and opened the Dragon’s page directly.
"Open Dragon’s Concepts."