Nelsen appeared later to have a look at Kaden, but accepted Walden’s conclusions about what was Kaden’s condition. As for examining Kaden more closely, Nelsen could see nothing of consequence.

“This is some really dense mana for your stage, Kaden”, Nelsen said. “It is hard to see anything, if I try to inspect you.”

Kaden was slightly concerned about possibility that they would drag him to a higher grade examination tool like when he was first brought in. That one had not been able to detect his core, but who knew if better one would. Luckily this did not happen.

“I sure would like to have a talk with the necromancer”, Nelsen said and clicked his tongue. “They usually mess with other kind of stuff, corpses and souls, but creation of other kind of things isn’t unheard of. I have had to put down a few chimeras over time. Perhaps this was a related experiment.”

There was a moment of silence that Kaden then broke. “I think you will be hard-pressed to find a necromancer that can reanimate themselves after being eaten and turned into beast shit.”

Nelsen snorted. “Heh, that may be the case.”

“Captain, are there any missions coming soon?” Kaden asked. “I have lot of things to do and I feel like I need contribution points.”

“Verdict is the weaker team with less experienced members, but things are being arranged for actual combat experience”, Nelsen answered. “There are some spies to hunt and some internal malcontents to deal with too. I also hope to get you arranged some beast hunting too once team has some more experience. Hopefully all of this can be done before the team is thrown into true test against heretics of Sacronan.”

–

Months passed like they were not even there.

Finally Kaden could truly settle down. Almost every day there had been something new to learn about or finding out about something important. There was no more for the foreseeable future.

Kaden himself expected next big thing would be when he reaches Formation stage. His new mana system he constructed for himself was working relatively well, but there were some problems too. Mostly that his mana channels had grown too big. They had been dragged along with his evolution. Even if his mana system could now gather mana relatively well, it would require far more effort than one usually would need.

Still, Kaden considered his mana system to be a success! Despite everything, it was clearly working better than the one before. It would indeed seem to be the case that his beast type cultivation was making his human side more troublesome. Mana system could be improved, though. He had much to learn about formations! This one was just a first version! He would correct problems and improve as time passed.

As for his core. There were no problems per se, but it was clear it too required far more work to advance than his previous dire beast core. No matter how much he dragged in chaotic mana, it seemed to show no growth. It just absorbed everything like a bottomless pit.

High Beasts were usually the highest stage you would find. Lower Cari were already something you would only find deeper in beast controlled territories. In the wilderness, High Beasts would usually stay in that stage for a very long time, if they even had the chance to reach next evolution to begin with.

Kaden himself was well aware of always growing resource needs. Yet, he felt he was missing something. That he would need to find something specific. He had always trusted these instincts he felt. Whatever it was he missed, he hoped to soon find out what it was.

He was not able to find this from the sources available to him. He wasn’t quite sure where to look. Information regarding how beasts cultivated was either sparse or didn’t get to specifics. Formation stage for humans was to enrich and refine mana and build distribution system across your body. It was likely the same for beasts too. Even if he did not find the actual answer, he could make some educated guesses for what was missing.

One thing he was not missing was metals and materials for his new armor parts that would hide his mutations.

While there had not yet been any missions at that point and Kaden lacked contribution points, Walden helped him acquire the materials by loaning him some points. Though Kaden did pay quite a bit by himself due to wanting to have as little debt as possible.

Technically Kaden could have bought all the materials by himself, but that would have been lower tier materials. Now with help, he would be well set for the future. He got his hands on some mana enchanced metal known as Titanite. It was common for Formation stage weapons and armor. While it was considered more common material, it was still significantly more expensive than any previous materials Kaden had.

It was clear why. The metal had interesting structure. It was like it contained web like structure of mana inside it. Once wearing such armor, Titanite tended to grow stronger with the extra mana available and then weaken once not in use.

Due to this Kaden had to learn the actual method for working with it and even new tools. One had to cut the metal off from any mana sources or it would be too hard to work with. Even then it was tough. Kaden had to secretly release his core slightly to be strong enough. Yet, once he had understood the method, he could easily create boots, a circlet and enhance his gauntlets. He had made quite a few armor parts back in Dashire from normal metals so the actual crafting was not a problem.

With the understanding he had been able to glean from the library, he was able to even carve a basic defensive formation on the circlet. It took only slight bit of extra resources as he had to mend his mistakes a few times. After he had evolved, he found out his hand coordination was better and the formation lines were far less messy. He had also used the measuring tools he had and avoided some mistakes he might have otherwise not been able to.

Also, he had bought slightly more materials than he had needed. He made the blade for his future enchanting purposes. As soon as he finished with it, he hid that within his pouch. No one would see it until they were stabbed with it. Even if it was just a blade now, he did not want anyone to know he even had one. He always used his claws which left behind far different kind of damage.

It was good to be geared up for fighting. There was some of that just like Nelsen had hinted there would be. The first ones were to hunt down some criminals for training. Kaden was well experienced in that matter. These criminals had been chosen by Nelsen himself for the training. All that worship of Jorn and bringing judgement upon wrongdoers and such. Kaden ignored the reasons for the most part.

Yet, there appeared to be quite a few people who didn’t seem like criminals and Kaden could not say for sure why they were the targets. Many of these were not even supposed to be killed unlike the criminals with who they could do as they pleased.

Kaden did not ask questions. He thought it would make him look good, if he did everything without thinking much. As for the answers, he figured himself that they were spies from Sacronan who needed to be interrogated … or just people who someone high up wanted to remove.

There was one time Verdict was hunting down an actual spy and that it was known to everyone. It wasn’t just them, but quite a lot of people were mobilized. Verdict members did get in contact with that spy who was at Formation stage. Even with Walden taking the lead, it was a tough fight and did eventually fail with the spy escaping. At a cost, though. A dismembered arm was picked up from the ground by Kaden.

“Can I take this?” Kaden asked.

Walden who was still pissed about the failure trying to communicate what had happened to rest of the pursuers turned to look at Kaden. “I don’t see why, but sure.”

Walden had been too busy to think why. Soon after the team got to watch as Kaden incinerated the arm and devoured it entirely right there in front of everyone.

To Kaden disapointment, even flesh from Formation stage expert was not truly enough to feed him anymore. Before even someone at Channel Opening was enough to give noticeable boost. He had even started to understand how to add that next concept to Devour, concept of digestion, to it. It was supposed to make the flesh and mana devoured by the spell to be consumed more efficiently and cause far less of the feeling being filled up for too long. Even with that, just like all mana, his core took most of it without any true sign of actual improvement. Even his extremely large channels took only a slight boost. The resource needs at his level had truly increased.

Kaden ignored the grimaces of his team and thought about the encounter. Finally he saw actual true combat by people who should be experts at their level. Even with an elite team fighting against this one person who was escaping, it was not an easy matter.

One couldn’t always be succesfull. Generally speaking Verdict was doing pretty well. Kaden, despite his unusualness, was considered to be strongest below Walden. Easily. Hem and Sari took it easy and didn’t really mind, but there was always competition with Olren.

Competition was not discouraged as long as it didn’t interfere with their work. This seemed to be the case. Olren always competed with Kaden and tried to be better than him. With few exceptions, in cases that Kaden was not just good at like spell casting or subtlety, Olren was not too succesfull. He made his opinions clear that a ‘beast’ like Kaden should obey actual humans.

There were indeed some heated arguments with Walden about it. The thing is, Kaden obeyed orders well and seemed to do his job fine and there was no other problems than his appearance and general unpleasant behavior. There was nothing that Olren could use as ammunition.

Kaden ignored this mostly since he had yet to find a situation where he could silently kill the ‘noble kid’. He wouldn’t waste time arguing with someone who he viewed to be dead person… possibly prey. Does a butcher discuss with the chicken before cutting off its head?

Not that Kaden didn’t practice some killing methods.

At one time, a few corpses floated outside of the city at the slums. From their external apearance like clothes and such, it was clear they came from deeper city. They were some random criminals so no one really cared. Kaden himself didn’t think anyone really even investigated the matter.

With the progress of his formation studies, Kaden had realized if he placed a few temporary seals upon something, the city sewer system formations would identify, whatever it was on, as trash and purge it rather than have it stuck anywhere. It still took some effort to create such simple ‘formations’ out of pure mana. Once time passed they would disapear or by being triggered once. Still it was such a good way to dispose corpses. That sort of trash was not even worth consuming and while at it he could practice.

Indeed, Kaden liked to explore the city on his free time. While doing so he could easily concentrate thinking of his studies. Most people simply avoided him since he looked strange. Despite the odd looks he got, no one really bothered him.

That was until someone suddenly appeared and stabbed him in the back.

Kaden had been calmly just taking a stroll in the back streets of the fourth layer. He had only felt sudden need to move, but since he was suppressing his core, he could not do so quickly enough to avoid it entirely. There was also certain stinging feeling spreading as Kaden seemingly floated to a safe place avoiding another quick strike with his movement technique.

Two attackers. Dark clothes assassins.

Kaden sighed. “Who have I pissed off this time and dares to attack me?” He though to himself as he inspected the wound. Something harmful was clearly spreading and messing with everything it came into contact with. Poison.

He quickly sent large amount of mana towards the wound and blocked the poison from spreading. It took some effort so he also burned the spot too. It stung a bit, but since he had fire affinity, it wasn’t going to be bad. Most of the poison was gone right there and then. The actual wound was still neglible for him. He had been able to move just enough it had not hit anything vital and being cauterized it didn’t even bleed. He would only need to devour some flesh to repair damage and source was available right in front of him.

Kaden guessed it had not been poison intended for someone as strong as a high beast. Beasts often could resist poison quite well with their strong bodies to begin with. Still it was strong enough to deal with someone at Channel Opening. He had been underestimated.

Yet, even with underestimation, someone had wanted to make it certain. The faster assassin was at Formation stage, but the other only advanced or limit Channel Opening.

“I don’t care who you guys are...”, Kaden started as he looked back at the attackers who were still quietly approaching him again.

Kaden had finally released his suppression and his core was at maximum output! He also lit up his plume that swaying up and down like flame in wind. He was quite literally glowing with power as the mana armor surrounded his body fully.

“… but you guys are dead.” Kaden continued after powering up.

It was time to fight.