novelraw Chapter 96: The First Evolution
Chapter 96: The First Evolution
"Arghhhhh..."
In an instant, Fly felt a wave of excruciating pain tear through his limbs and bones, as if his entire body were being relentlessly battered by wooden clubs.
"Fly," Cynthia, standing nearby, immediately reached out to support him. Her face filled with concern as she asked, "Are you alright?"
Cold sweat beaded on Fly's forehead. Gritting his teeth, he gave a slight nod.
Cynthia continued explaining, "That's the evolution machine at work outside. Your physical body is transmitting the sensation of pain directly into your Sea of Consciousness. So, even though you are currently in a subconscious state, you can still feel the physical agony."
"It's fine, though. You'll only feel like this when the machine first starts up. Once it begins running smoothly, you'll feel much better," she added.
On the high ground in the distance, a pitch-black crystal orb gradually materialized, slowly enveloping The Roach Matriarch's massive frame.
As the crystal orb fully took shape, Fly could feel his body steadily recovering.
"Cynthia," Muse called out, pulling the joystick on his electric wheelchair to back up a fair distance.
"Understood." Looking at the black crystal orb in the distance, Cynthia instantly grasped his meaning and summoned her own Beast Totem.
Fly's attention was immediately drawn over. Cynthia was Muse's biological daughter and a top-tier graduate from one of the eight elite universities of The Tulip League. He couldn't help but wonder what her Beast Totem looked like.
A faint shimmer of light flashed, and the phantom silhouette of a burly knight clad in black armor slowly emerged behind Cynthia. The black-armored knight carried a silver greatsword over two meters long on its back, creating a sharp, striking contrast with its ink-black armor.
Is that a human? Fly raised an eyebrow, but almost immediately noticed something amiss.
Although the phantom knight was fully armored, there were visible gaps where the gauntlets met the bracers, and its helmet didn't completely cover the eye slits.
However, upon closer inspection, Fly realized that there was neither flesh nor eyes visible through the gaps in the armor. The inside of the armor gave off an eerie sense of absolute emptiness.
It wasn't that the armor was entirely hollow, but he simply couldn't discern what resided within. Fly only felt that the interior of the armor was infinitely deep and utterly unfathomable.
"My Beast Totem is named Wraith Knight. It's a magic swordsman capable of manipulating Psychic Energy. Although it has a humanoid form, it has absolutely nothing to do with humans. Just like your Roach Matriarch, it's a Mythical Species Beast Totem." The corners of Cynthia's mouth curled up slightly as she introduced her Beast Totem with a touch of pride.
In terms of sheer, burly size, this Wraith Knight perhaps couldn't hold a candle to Fly's Roach Matriarch.
But, Cynthia's Wraith Knight Totem could condense Psychic Energy into a physical form and deal direct damage to an opponent's soul. An opponent struck by it might appear completely unharmed on the surface, but in reality, their very soul would be grievously wounded.
Striking lethally without leaving a physical trace, leaving the victim clueless as to how they even died—this was the true, terrifying nature of Cynthia's Beast Totem.
Listening to Cynthia's explanation, Fly nodded repeatedly in admiration. He looked the Wraith Knight phantom up and down, truly sensing its extraordinary presence.
Especially the aura radiating from Cynthia at this moment—it was countless times more powerful than anything Gideon King and his lot could ever muster.
If even Cynthia's Beast Totem was this formidable, he couldn't even begin to imagine just how obscenely powerful Grandmaster Muse's Beast Totem would be.
And the reason Cynthia summoned her Beast Totem was quite simple.
Once a Beast Totem finished evolving, its power would surge dramatically, and simultaneously, its rebellious instincts would skyrocket. A freshly evolved Beast Totem origin was highly likely to lose control and attack its own Beast Warrior.
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Therefore, generally speaking, at the end of an evolution, a much stronger Beast Warrior needed to stand guard nearby to protect the Beast Warrior undergoing the process.
However, this was merely a stopgap measure for immediate emergencies. To truly and thoroughly tame an out-of-control Beast Totem origin, the Beast Warrior themselves still had to take action.
Cynthia lightly tapped the empty air with her finger, and a pitch-black, ethereal longsword instantly materialized before her. She gripped the sword tightly and swung it forward, pointing the blade directly at the black crystal orb on the distant high ground.
With everything completely ready, only then did Muse press the button to initiate the evolution.
Hummm!
Accompanied by a massive humming sound, the crystal orb on the high ground began to slowly rotate. A blinding white light instantly swept through the entire cavern. The glare was so piercing that Fly had no choice but to raise his arm to shield his eyes.
This process lasted for about half a minute before the intense light gradually faded away.
Is it over already? Fly was momentarily stunned, feeling that this evolutionary process seemed vastly simpler than he had imagined.
But, when he turned his head to look at Muse, he noticed a flash of astonishment in the Grandmaster's eyes as well.
"That fast?" Cynthia's beautiful eyes widened considerably, her face plastered with a look of absolute disbelief and bewilderment.
"What's wrong?" Seeing their baffled reactions, Fly couldn't help but feel completely lost.
Did the evolution fail?
"Fly, you might not know this, but the evolutionary process typically takes anywhere from five to ten minutes."
"For someone like you to complete an evolution in just half a minute is incredibly rare."
Cynthia explained patiently to Fly. However, her own heart was like a sea swept by a violent storm, unable to calm down for a long, long time.
"So, half a minute implies..." Fly raised an eyebrow.
"It implies that your Beast Totem is strong—strong to an unfathomable degree," Muse said.
"You can think of the evolutionary process like charging a cell phone. Some phone batteries and chargers just don't have the inherent capacity. If you force them to fast-charge, it damages the battery, reduces the phone's lifespan, and can even cause the battery to swell."
"To prevent such issues, some phone manufacturers cap their chargers at around 20W, making the charging process relatively slow."
"But what if it's a high-performance phone battery and charger?"
"To them, 20W is nothing but a light appetizer. They can easily handle 60W, or even 120W super-fast charging."
"As a result, the time it takes to fully charge the phone is naturally slashed drastically."
Muse used a simple analogy to illustrate the phenomenon for Fly.
Of course, he was a Grandmaster-level Beast Warrior, not a smartphone expert. Whether a 20W charger was due to a manufacturer's technological limits or just pure corporate arrogance and disdain for solving customer problems, was anyone's guess.
Regardless, that was exactly the situation Fly was in right now.
"In other words, an average Beast Totem simply isn't that robust, so its potential must be coaxed out carefully and slowly, and it can only absorb the energy at a snail's pace. My Roach Matriarch Totem, on the other hand, possesses an immense tolerance limit. The evolution machine acted like a bursting dam, instantly drawing out all its hidden potential in one go—and my totem was entirely capable of withstanding the flood." A gleam flickered in Fly's eyes.
That's my Roach Matriarch for you! Totally badass!
But thinking about it carefully, it made perfect sense.
Usually, whenever he obtained the genes of a new insect Beast Totem, he directly integrated them using the Insect Fusion System.
If his Beast Totem's foundational strength wasn't robust enough, wouldn't that be a total disaster?
It probably would have led to a catastrophic failure ages ago, right?
What was enduring a little bit of dormant power now compared to that?
"Exactly." Muse nodded in gratification, signaling that Fly had understood it perfectly. His estimation of the boy rose yet another notch.
Back in the day, when Muse was in university, he had to work part-time to cover his living expenses. During that period, he worked as a Martial Studies private tutor, guiding several high school students.
But those students were either incredibly stubborn or seemed to lack basic comprehension skills. He often had to explain the same concept several times over just for them to grasp a fraction of it. Yet, when he asked them about a problem with the exact same underlying logic, they would start scratching their heads, utterly stumped again. They completely lacked the ability to draw inferences.
Fly, on the contrary, grasped the gist of almost any issue after hearing it just once. He could even summarize and condense the problem in his own words.
Sometimes, the disparity in talent between different Beast Warriors wasn't just physical; it was cerebral.
A kid like Fly was truly a diamond in the rough, immensely teachable.
[System Prompt: User has successfully completed the Beast Totem mutation.]
[New Skill Acquired: Thunder Strike]
The system's prompt echoed inside Fly's mind.
"Thunder Strike?"
Fly was somewhat surprised. So Beast Totems can actually learn new Skills after evolving.
"What Thunder Strike?" Hearing Fly's murmurs, Cynthia looked puzzled. But almost instantly, realization dawned on her.
After a Beast Totem evolved, if one's luck held out, it might awaken a new Skill.
Furthermore, a Beast Warrior typically shared a telepathic link with their Beast Totem origin. Therefore, right after the evolution concluded, the information regarding the newly learned Skill would be transmitted directly into Fly's mind through their mental connection.
Not only did he complete his evolution in a mere half minute, but he also awakened a brand-new Skill immediately after.
Just what kind of freakish monster is this Fly guy!
Cynthia thought to herself.