The next few days went with similar training. Some amount of understanding had to be built before they would go do some easier missions for actual experience.

Kaden was sitting in his room after a day. He had been spending most of his free time to try producing that personal mana system he needed. He did already have good idea since he had been using the way he had discovered already back in the forest. What he needed to do was to make use of the method in an effective way and not a jury-rigged mana system like he had.

Sun was going down and, while Kaden was frowing at his formation structure he had been constructing within a crystal, he suddenly felt as if something came to a halt. Some kind of serenity, moment of clarity. He felt as if his mind cleared and things seemed sharp.

“What is this?” Muttered Kaden as he stood up and looked around. He glanced at his unfinished formations, but it was not some enlightenment of sudden inspiration. “Thats not it. What is this? My thoughts feel clear. My mind seem faster and more precise.”

Then it dawned on him. He inspected his core. That was it!

The core was slightly leaking out higher quality mana than he had before! Yet, most of it seemed to be around the now stilled core as if a cloud or more like bubble.

“My core has finished its upgrading process!” Kaden rejoiced in his mind. He would have screamed out loud in joy, if he didn’t want to keep things secret. “I have done it! This is must be a high beast core!! I am now past the common weakling stages! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Still, he took a few half deranged dance steps.

“Why is it doing this?” Kaden eventually stopped to examine his new greater and better core. It was entirely opaque, but scintilated with colors, mostly between yellow and red. Yet it was surrounded by that bubble of mana and the core itself was unusually inactive. Some high quality mana was leaking out, but with closer inspection it was from the bubble. “What is this?” He thought and tried to interact with the bubble.

Then it burst!

Flood of mana was released. The core was basically pulsing more and more mana, wave after wave, and it was spreading into Kaden’s body. The higher quality mana basically pushed out all other mana, as if washing his body of any impurities.

Pain! He felt like his body was burning. Mana flooded everywhere and its tendril like streams burrowed into his flesh like insects. His flesh and bones madly absorbed it all! Kaden lost any sense of his surroundings and could only concentrate on what was happening.

“Was this another problem upon advancing?!” Kaden lamented in his mind and tried to ignore the pain and see what was happening. “I had hoped it was over once core finished upgrading!”

Mana from the core seemed endless. Kaden could see his body tear itself apart slowly and then put itself together again. What was this this process? He noticed he wasn’t actually losing anything or anything going permanently broken. Instead his flesh was… changing.

Then with a bit more of observation, he realized what was happening!

“Beasts evolve when they reach higher level!” Kaden thought. “Dire beasts are just strong animals. High beasts will start to have magic related parts, Lower Cari are already very different from ordinary beasts.”

He momentarily inspected his body. “I am evolving!”

Kaden did not know, if it was a good thing. He was not sure how he would end up! A monster? Would his plans crumble, if he was not able to live along humans? All the potential resources would be lost just after he gained them?

Yet, there was no stopping the process. The pain was abating, but was still there. His body was growing stronger and able to handle all that mana! His mind had already received some of that mana and it had become clearer. Beasts also grew more intelligent as they grew. His quicker mind went through the possibility that he should not have touched the mana bubble, but then just as quick he understood that it was going to burst soon regardless what he did to it.

There were also images and feelings flashing in his mind. It was impossible to specifically concenrate on any of them. Could these be new knowledge being unlocked from what Anuu left him? They felt familiar.

Then these thoughts were interrupted! He could almost hear cracking sounds from somewhere. They were not actually audible, but rather directly from his mana sense. With the release of all the high quality mana, quite a bit of it flooded through his mana channels too! It was too much for them to handle and they cracked open!

This caused enormous pain to Kaden. His channels were shattering! “No! My mana channels are being ruined!”

Yet, after a moment of despair and thinking his human type cultivation was about the be crippled, just like his flesh before was torn apart and then put together in stronger form, same happened to his channels! The holes and cracks were filled along with much thicker walls. Soon after Kaden’s mana channels suddenly were able to handle the flood and not break!

While mana channels did indeed grow by breaking slightly and leaking mana inside their walls, it was clearly not like this. That was like comparing minor scratches and wounds to your flesh and blood vessels bursting apart completely!

What level could his mana channels be considered to even be now? He had before been measured to be at mid stages, but the actual strength at limit? Kaden decided he was probably now advanced stage. At least strictly speaking. The durability and volume was probably beyond what humans had, though.

With closer inspection he could see glowing web of lines all over his body. They were not anything yet, but now that his body had unusual amount of high quality mana, he could see what he guessed to be his future innate formation.

Kaden did not know what exactly they should look like, but he was pretty sure his was going to be extremely odd. He had seen some depictions of them that were evenly distributed across a person’s body. His was almost like layer after layer lines surrounding his core and its channel ball and only some distance away it started to resemble those depictions.

This kind of made sense. Core was indeed the core of his body and its power. It would make sense that it served as some kind central point. Yet, this took his ideas of building cultivation system much further away from what ordinary humans had. Still, now with his increase mental alacrity and this new understanding, he immediately had some ideas! In fact, he believed he would be able to now complete his first true working personal mana system version! One that no one else would even be able to use!

Now the question was what he would end up like. The mana was still distorting some of his inspection skill, but he was able to say that at least he still looked generally like a human. Some external details were difficult to discern.

Kaden could not tell how long the evolution process continued. Over time it became less painful as nothing was being torn apart. All parts of his being were filled with that new high quality mana and eventually could not absorb more and this seemed to create some kind of backwards presure which restrained the core and finally restoring control back to Kaden.

He opened his eyes and found himself lying on the floor, which was blackened and actually sligtly glowing from heat right under him. Some of his fire type mana must have leaked out. Most of his clothes were burned to ashes too. Unsurprisingly the spatial bag was entirely unharmed as if nothing ever came to even contact with it. Yet, Kaden was mostly naked. This allowed him to directly see what had happened!

He looked strange. His skin was was covered in yellowish, almost feather shaped, pattern. Upon touch, Kaden found this pattern to be extremely tough and yet bending under his movements. Some of these patterns were slightly separating from his skin with softer edges, as if a feather had been growing, but did not quite grow into one.

This could be hidden, only his face would look slightly odd with this pattern upon it. Speaking of his face, he did find his eyes had changed in color, but otherwise they worked the same way as before.

There were things that were much harder to hide or ignore. One of them was his hair plume that had grown much larger and basically went over his head and was now more feather shaped. It could not be mistaken as odd hair tuft anymore. Its color was that same flame like color, but much more intense. Surrounding its starting spot, there were smaller ones right next to it that too had formed from his hair.

Kaden had not really brought up the matter to anyone, but he felt great pride for this part of his body. With it having grown into much larger size and being more beautiful, made Kaden not even want to hide it, but he would have to downplay its appearance somehow. Such a shame.

Then there were his hands and specially his feet. His hands now had actual physical claws. Not ones made from mana, but actual ones. He closed his hands a few times and found that he somehow was able to do so without the sharp claws injuring his own palm.

Perhaps word ‘claws’ was not fitting anymore, but ‘talons’.

As for his feet. Kaden took a few steps and his huge talons clicked against the floor. He was certain he could kill people with them. It had technically been possible before. He had been able to form them before from mana, but he prefered to use his hands. It was also relatively difficult to jump on people so he had only rarely even had the chance to use them. Now he had actual physical ones that were even more vicious looking than the ones made from mana.

“These are going to attract attention”, Kaden muttered to himself.

That was his greatest concern. He, in fact, did not mind the transformation. In his opinion, it made him stronger! Yet, he was well aware the his appearance was unusual and that could be a problem. Just like with his beautiful and wondrous plume, he would have to hide the appearance somehow. Yet, how does one hide huge talons? He couldn’t just put them away. Nor did he want to cut them away as that felt somehow shameful to him.

He thought some options and came to think his gauntlets. His hand still fit perfectly in them and once he fired up his mana, his talons were covered in a layer of mana. This was a good thing, they did not grow in size!

“Perhaps I should make some kind of boots that let my talons out from the front. It would seem like its part of the boots?” Kaden thought and looked at his feet. “My plume will stay out! This is a must! That I must not hide, but perhaps something similar. Helmet? Mask? Circlet? Something to make it seem outwards that its part of something yet preserve its appearance as is right.”

Kaden decided he would have to get materials soon for these.

Still, he felt a familiar feeling as if he was supposed to have something more. He had associated that with his claws or talons before. He released more mana to his body and found that those patterns on his skin glowed and seemed to pop out more, but only in mana shape. Even his face seemed to have external layer of mana that kind of resembled a birds head, beak and all.

The entire thing looked more like a mana armor, made from mana feathers and something like bird styled helmet. Kaden could even turn parts of it on and off.

As he was experimenting, for a moment he felt something he had been missing and of which he felt great loss occassionally. The feeling was on his back! Could it be! He quickly looked there!

Kaden felt like he was missing his wings, but even with the mana, he only could feel some kind of mana form on his back, but nothing even appeared visibly.

Disapointment.

He comforted himself with some logic. He now had parts in physical form that had before been only mana. He was hopeful that he would would get his wings later and not feel like he was crippled.

He decided to think other less sad matters. There had been the moment when he felt like he had received more memories. Yet, as much as Kaden wanted to access them, they were like before and were inaccessible to him until something triggered them. These too had to be future matters.

The evolution itself had seemed to take several hours and it was still night. It was time to think of immediate problems.

“Now… what kind of story will I tell to Walden and possibly even Nelsen that they will believe?” Kaden muttered to himself as he started circling around the room. Only noise left was his talons clicking against the floor.