Kael moved through the twilight forest like a wraith, his steps silent upon the damp earth. The doe before him trembled, its instincts screaming of danger, but escape was impossible. The air grew heavy, thick with the scent of iron and inevitability. His eyes—sharp, calculating—glinted with an otherworldly hunger as he closed in.
With a swift, practiced motion, he knelt and drew his blade across the doe's throat. A final, shuddering bleat escaped its lips before the light in its eyes dimmed, swallowed by the encroaching dark. The hunt was over.
But time was against him.
The Butcher's Work
Nightfall brought more than shadows—it carried the whispers of unseen predators, drawn by the metallic tang of fresh blood. Kael worked quickly, his hands steady despite the urgency. Life in District 9 had honed him; survival was etched into his bones. Using the antler as a makeshift blade, he peeled back the hide with precision, setting it aside for later—a cloak, perhaps, if he lived long enough to craft one.
Then, his fingers delved deeper, parting flesh and sinew until he found what he sought. Nestled beside the doe's still-warm heart pulsed a small, verdant orb—no larger than his pinky finger, yet thrumming with latent energy. A beast core. Raw, untamed power. He pocketed it swiftly, the weight in his trousers a silent promise of things to come.
The left hind leg came next—his rightful spoils. The rest would be a feast for the forest's unseen watchers. With a grimace, he turned away, the weight of waste settling in his gut.
The stream's icy bite cleansed the hide and meat of grime. He buried his prize beneath the roots of an ancient oak, a temporary cache. Tomorrow, he would return—if the night did not claim him first.
Back at his shelter, the gnarled branches of his chosen tree offered little comfort. His stomach growled, a relentless reminder of his fragility. He scaled the trunk, half-expecting the eerie gaze of that spectral monkey to greet him—but there was nothing. Only silence.
"Eva... can you help me awaken my mana veins?" He already knew the answer would be laced with frustration.
"I can. Would you like me to give you the information?" Her tone was infuriatingly calm.
Kael clenched his jaw. Of course she had withheld this. Again.
"For a guide, you don't act like one." His fingers tightened around the orb, its surface cool and unyielding.
"I'm sorry if it doesn't seem that way," Eva replied, cryptic as ever. "But I can't change until you clear the trial."
The trial. That damned, enigmatic hurdle. What was it testing? Strength? Will? Or something far more sinister?
Before he could demand answers, agony lanced through his skull. Foreign knowledge flooded his mind—whispers of power, of the intricate web that bound all cultivators. Five torturous minutes passed before the pain receded, leaving behind a chilling clarity.
At the core of every being lay the soul—a resonance core, the bridge between mortal flesh and the unseen currents of the world. Cultivation was not mere strength; it was the slow, perilous art of forging one's soul into something greater.
The path of cultivation stretched across ten daunting stages, each a mountain to be conquered. The first five stages—Novice, Knight, Master, Grandmaster, and Warlord—each contained three sub-stages: Beginner, Advanced, and Peak. These were the proving grounds where most cultivators spent their entire lives.
Beyond these lay the true tests of power. Champion and Herald stood as gatekeepers to higher understanding, each with Early and Late stages. Saints walked with one foot in the mortal realm, while Paragons stood at the threshold of legend. And at the apex, the Transcendent—no subdivisions, no half-measures, only absolute dominion over the forces of creation.
Within the soul churned the Mana Sea, a vast reservoir of power that determined one's stage. Its size marked one's progress along the path, its depth a measure of one's worth in this merciless world.
Two paths existed to expand one's Mana Sea, each with its own perils. Meditation offered the slow, safe route—drawing ambient mana into oneself, drop by drop, a process as tedious as it was secure. The alternative was far more dangerous but infinitely more tempting—beast cores.
Beasts walked a different path than men. Where humans cultivated souls, beasts condensed their essence into cores—raw, violent fragments of their will. To absorb a core was to wage war against the beast's lingering fury. Victory brought swift expansion of one's power. Failure meant a shattered mind and a ruined sea, if one survived at all.
And this gamble came with another harsh truth—beasts were never equals to men. At any given level, a beast possessed greater natural strength, faster reflexes, and more potent abilities. Their very nature made them superior combatants, forcing human cultivators to either outnumber them or outthink them.
The beasts of this world followed their own terrifying hierarchy, each category more dreadful than the last. Wildkin represented the baseline—feral but predictable creatures of tooth and claw. Mystclaw bore twisted, unnatural instincts that defied reason. Runespawn carried ancient, forgotten sigils that pulsed with unknown power.
Tidebeasts rose from drowned gods and storm-wrath, their forms shifting like the tides themselves. Aetherborn existed not entirely of this world, their very presence warping reality around them. Elderbeasts whispered in the dark, their origins lost to time, older than kingdoms.
Celestial Spawn bore the cold touch of the stars in their blood, while Primordials remembered the world's first dawn. Titans walked as living calamities, their footsteps reshaping landscapes. And beyond them all stood the Transcendent—beasts that defied classification and comprehension alike.
Kael took out the core he had collected earlier, it was tim to unlock his conduits, and open his mana veins.