When Owari woke up he was in a hospital bed. He was currently clutching his Haori like his life depended on it. He vaguely recalled someone saying to throw it away and then he freaked out and woke up mid-surgery. He told them if they tried it he’d kill them even if it meant dying. Despite this they thought he was just hysterical. He then proceeded to throw off three doctors with ease and grab the coat. He refused to let it go after that even though he passed out shortly after.

He could give a crap less if they called the police on him or charged him extra. They had no right to throw away his possessions. He got up and put his coat on. As soon as he did so the doctor he saw last night walked in and balked at Owari who was wearing the blood-stained Haori.

“I told you it was important to me. Next time don’t try to throw away a gold-ranked hunter's stuff.” Owari chuckled as he saw the doctor.

“Right.” The doctor felt quite stupid. He had originally been angry after being thrown off of Owari. But as soon as his items were collected everyone was shocked to see he was a mid gold-ranked hunter. It was at that point they realized why he could throw them off with such ease despite his injuries. In truth they were lucky he didn’t do worse considering how important it seemed to be to him.

“So what about the cost?” Owari asked before being given a stack of papers. It detailed his treatment, as well as the total price. Seeing that he owed tens of thousands of credits, Owari just shook his head. He only had a few thousand left. “I’ll need to pay in installments. Once a month should do, how much and for how long?”

The doctor and Owari went through some options and Owari would be paying in monthly installments of a few thousand credits for the next ten months. Though he could just pay it off earlier if he got the money. After that Owari left and noticed it was noon which meant a full day had passed. He didn’t bother staying in town and immediately headed back out. He thought of telling Noel, but decided it would needlessly worry her. He had almost died after all. He figured she’d probably do the same in his situation. Besides he can always tell her when he comes back. She’d probably be on her outing by this point anyway.

Owari justified his actions to himself and made his way to the forest once again. He arrived late at night and called out to his two remaining beasts to return. They would probably be back around morning so Owari took this chance to rest. His body was still in recovery mode and had expended a lot of energy to heal itself even with all those medicines. Luckily they had noticed his eye was damaged and gave him something to restore it. Owari had forgotten about it due to the internal bleeding. Just like how he forgot he had been impaled.

Feeling his face Owari noted that he had a new scar, it ran from his forehead and through his right eye and down to his cheek. There was no way he was getting away with not telling Noel about that one. He chuckled to himself when he thought of that and finally drifted off to sleep. He had a pleasant dream that night and woke up early as always.

When he woke up Owari finally got a chance to look at his new tamed beast. It was a large wolf the size of a truck, it had jet black fur and red eyes. It looked rather sinister actually. Owari didn’t recognize what type of wolf it was. Based on the black fur and dark attribute it could be from a number of species, but none he knew were this big. It may even be a mutant. Whatever the case the Howling Wulf Agency would probably recognize it so bringing it back to the city would make for quite the reaction. Though Owari didn’t really worry about that. Nobody could prove he stole it.

The wolf sat down and looked at Owari with fear clear in its eyes. It was grateful to him for freeing it from its old master, but it wasn’t sure if he was any better. It was quite clever, but not nearly as smart as a person. Owari looked at it closely and called it over. The wolf stood up and walked closer, lowering its head. Owari reached out and pet it gently.

“No need to worry, I’ll treat you well.” Owari shared some memories of his to let it see how he treated his other tamed beasts. He was a strict but fair master.

Owari pet it and looked at its wounds. It was quite injured. It had a bite mark in its leg from Fang, and a few gashes on its side from Hebi’s wind and water bullets. He carefully applied some basic herbal medicines he had leftover to the wounds and patched them up with some bandages. After that he told it to wait here with Fang, he would take Hebi to explore with him since he needed some more food to evolve.

Owari and Hebi made their way through the forest swiftly. Some might think Hebi being made of three serpents fused together would slow it down, but the opposite was true. It was much faster than an ordinary serpent. It used the outer two heads for stabilization and as secondary motion, while the central head did most of the work. It also used its tails to help propel itself forward giving it an extra boost. The result was a very fast three-headed serpent. It had also grown to be about as big as a car. It would only get bigger from here.

Owari jumped across tree branches and between trees while Hebi slithered just as swiftly between them. They were able to go much faster than if Fang had come with them. Owari didn’t really worry for the two’s safety. He had them hold up inside a cave which Fang sealed up. They could go out and hunt whenever they felt like it and hide in safety whenever needed.

Honestly the trip was rather boring for the first few days as Owari went deeper into the forest. It took four days of straight running to reach uncharted territory. Owari frowned as he calculated the time. If he wanted to make it back in time for the day of black sun on the second of July then he would have to be careful about the time he spent out here.

The day of black sun happens every year at the midpoint of the year. For an hour before noon and an hour after there will be a solar eclipse. During this time people fire off fireworks because the effect is quite spectacular in the unique darkness. It was quite a popular holiday to hang out with friends because it happened shortly after school would get out. During the period before and after people would set up all kinds of festival activities. Things like games for winning prizes and food stalls. The usual festivities. Owari intended to hang out with everyone that day, they had already talked about it over the past few months. So to make sure he got back in time he couldn’t go too deep.

Owari spent the next day looking around for anything worth fighting. He found a single low gold-ranked magical beast but Hebi easily dispatched it. After that he ate his fill. He was just a step away from evolving so a few more would push him over the edge. Owari was curious what kind of affinity he would get next. One thing about the hydra that made it incredibly desirable was the array of affinities one could choose from. Owari was quite glad he found this little guy.

Owari spent three days running around before he found something of interest. It was a mid gold-ranked beast of the plant type. However unlike other plant types it was quite mobile. It was an amalgam, a special plant or fungus type magical beast made of numerous smaller magical beasts that come together. This one had a lot of different plants on it. Owari ordered Hebi to fight it. Technically Hebi was of lower rank, But Owari was hoping to push it to help it grow just like how he does. Hebi seemed excited at the prospect.

Hebi first started by shooting a wind and water bullet at it. The two pierced straight through it with ease, unfortunately it had no vital points to take advantage of. Seeing that this wouldn’t work, Hebi turned his body and swung his wind tail with a flash of green sending a wind blade towards the amalgam. It sliced into the amalgam’s chest, but it only cut a few half a meter into the amalgam’s chest.

It was the amalgam’s turn this time as it’s chest opened up to reveal a five-petaled flower with its top pointed at Hebi. A large suction force appeared and pulled in a lot of air towards it. Then the amalgam seemed to fire off a ball of rolling air at Hebi. Realizing the danger Hebi infused his body with dark mana and dodged. Then he shot forward while firing water and wind bullets into the wind flower killing it and removing one of the amalgams main attack methods.

As Hebi approached the amalgam it folded up its chest again and swung both its arms. Whip like vines suddenly extended from the amalgam and tried to whip Hebi. However Hebi didn’t allow this. He deftly maneuvered his heads so the cracks of the whip vines missed his heads. With a hiss Hebi finally arrived at the amalgam and jumped on it. He infused his tails with wind mana and wrapped them around the amalgam's legs slicing them. Then he breathed out a vortex of wind and water which fused together shredding the amalgam’s chest.

The amalgam seemed to ignore its wounds as it reached to grab Hebi. It managed to grab him, however his third tail separated from helping to slice its legs off and sliced into the arm. This didn’t cut through but it did give Hebi’s dark affinity head a chance to bite into the arm and tear it off before tossing it aside. The amalgam seemed to be unable to withstand the constant barrage and fell backwards while unraveling before being shredded. One weakness of amalgams is that it is made up of weaker beasts and thus can be torn apart easily with an area of effect attack like the vortex Hebi used.

Owari walked over and pet each of Hebi’s heads. “Good job, you overcame your species inherent strength.” It wasn’t too rare for a tamed beast to outclass a wild version so long as it’s tamer properly trained it.

Hebi hissed happily, then it began its meal. Even if it was many weak magical beasts there was enough to match any mid gold-ranked beast in mana. Hebi enjoyed its meal and was close to falling into a torpor. Owari and Hebi looked around and found a burrow in an area nearby which Hebi and Owari stayed in. Hebi then fell asleep. He wouldn’t wake up for a few days until his evolution was finished.

Owari went about searching for beast’s to hunt. He found some low gold ranks but he wasn’t interested in hunting them. As he was hunting on the third day since Hebi went into torpor he suddenly felt something was off. The forest was too quiet. There was no background noise like insects and birds. There was no rustle of the bushes from small animals. Owari felt the ground slightly vibrate, he lowered himself and pressed his hand to the ground. It was definitely vibrating from some force, and it was getting more intense.

As soon as he thought so Owari felt a foreign aura in his radius which suddenly flared with immense hostility as soon as it noticed him. It was as if he had done something incomprehensibly wrong to offend whatever was targeting him. He jumped and rolled forward as a loud smashing sound occurred. As he finished rolling Owari took a chance to observe what had happened.

Standing there behind Owari was a towering giant of a beast. It was 10 meters tall and half as wide across. It was standing on two massive hooved feet. It has two long arms that reach from its chest to the ground, one of which was currently embedded into the ground where Owari just was. It was covered in shaggy brown fur. As for its head, it was like a deer mixed with a bear. It has a massive set of antlers that add an extra two meters to its height.

As soon as he saw it Owari felt an overwhelming sense of dread. He didn’t recognize it’s species. He had never seen it before. Never heard a description of such a creature. Yet his instincts screamed for him to run. It was like he was caught in a bog of fear and despair. Something about this creature brought out a primal instinct of terror. It was the most basic feeling that knew he was outmatched.

However he didn’t run like he was told. He forced himself to stay. He wanted to move forward, to attack. But he couldn’t do that. His instincts and desire fought and he could only remain still. During this time of indecisiveness the enemy moved. It lifted its arm which Owari now noticed was covered in a layer of hard keratin, and pulled it back. Then it punched towards Owari at fast speeds, arriving in a split second.

Owari’s brain kicked into overdrive and he used the phantom step to jump sideways dodging the initial strike. However his relatively slow response caused some of the debris kicked up to hit him at high speeds. It wasn’t too bad but he had a few nicks and would probably bruise the next day if he survived this encounter.

As he landed Owari refused to back down. His instincts to survive realized if he didn’t do something he would die. Because he couldn’t run he would have to fight so suddenly his mind and desire and instincts aligned and he suddenly regained control of his body. It was then that his mind caught up with what was going on. He had an idea of what this beast was. It was an apex creature, like a dragon. It was likely very young given its small size and how Owari was still alive.

But it was still something at the top of the evolutionary chain. When a magical beast reaches the apex level it will release an aura that causes lesser creatures to feel primal dread. Hebi couldn’t release such an aura until it became a true hyda, after all if any snake with hydra blood could do it half the snakes in the region would be releasing an apex aura.

Owari immediately used screeching wing to slice at the beast’s neck. However it tilted its head and intercepted the blow with its antlers blocking it easily. Owari used phantom step to rush through its legs and used steel fang to slice into its leg. He managed a few centimeters but this was the limit to his martial arts. Realizing this Owari used phantom step to jump onto the beast’s back and ran along it as it was still leaning forward. As he did so he used dark steel fang to cut into it multiple times.

Blood came out from its wounds, but it was so little compared to the beast’s size. Owari jumped backward and did a backflip to land on a nearby branch. As he landed the beast spun in place and used its arm as a hammer to try and smash Owari to pieces. Owari jumped up and over the attack as it smashed the tree he was standing on to bits. The wave of wind that followed knocked Owari off balance, however he used his wind step to regain balance mid air.

After that he used the phantom step to blast forward and used dark steel wing to try and cut its neck open. However it swung its head and intercepted his strike with its antlers. Both man and beast felt a powerful force go through their weapons. Owari dissipated the force through his body as he was sent flying back, but the beast merely withstood it through sheer physical endurance. Owari used the wind phantom step to suddenly jump forward again and swing once more, however the same result occurred.

Owari rolled on the ground and observed his opponent who also observed him. He held his sword in two hands and used the screeching wing to attack from range. However the beast lifted its keratin-covered arm into the path and it was blocked leaving only a nick on the beast’s arm. It growled low as it started to realize how weak its adversary was. Yet he was able to survive so long. This was unacceptable to the beast.

It leaned forwards slightly and brown light spots started to collect on its antlers before firing off shards of stone at Owari. Owari breathed deeply and used the blade swarm stream to slice all of those projectiles in half. However he was secretly becoming somewhat afraid. None of his attacks worked. Even his most powerful dark steel fang only nicked its antler. He wondered what he could even do to win.

Owari dodged yet another punch with phantom step, however he was running out of options. The beast suddenly roared and Owari became dizzy. It has the kinetic affinity as well! Owari forced his body to dodge the next attack, though he ended up misstepping and rolling across the ground. He recovered quickly and stood back up. Without skipping a beat he jumped back as a hoofed foot smashed into his previous location.

This dynamic continued with Owari dodging and the beast attacking. It would occasionally roar and occasionally fire shrapnel at him. Owari was seriously considering running, but he already burned that bridge. This thing was faster than it looked. His only hope would be to escape into the sky and that came with its own slew of problems like how he would get back down and the numerous sky-dwelling magical beasts that might take offense to his presence.

Owari was out of options, he had nothing he could do. He couldn’t beat it in endurance, he couldn’t face it head-on, he can’t run, and he can’t even try to do guerilla warfare. Thinking about it he realized if he didn’t figure out what to do, he would definitely die. As he thought this he dodged another punch from the beast. Looking at it he had an idea. The barrier between gold and platinum had some secret to it. He had felt like it was on the tip of his tongue for so long, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. In order to survive he had no choice but to try now.

Owari thought as much as he could between dodges. As he fell into thought his movements were done entirely on instinct. He barely bothered to focus on the fight and merely allowed his natural reflexes to protect him. As he did so he felt an odd sensation. It was as if his technique was melding with him. He slowly became more natural at using it as he stopped focusing so heavily on it. It was then that he realized what he was missing. For so long he had made his techniques second nature to himself. But he never allowed his body to just react. He always calculated every movement.

Now he knew better. As he kept using the phantom step it slowly integrated into his body. He used less and less mana and got more and more effect from the same amount of mana. But more importantly he no longer needed to focus on infusing mana into his body, It became a natural reaction. However suddenly something changed. A snap occurred in his mind as if he had a sudden flash of inspiration.

Owari stopped moving and watched as the beast’s fist came flying at him. He smiled and lightly and gently pushed his body forward. In a flash of black and grey he suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the beast and a slash appeared along its inner leg. Owari swung his sword to get out the numbness he felt. He had moved so fast that it was like instantaneous movement. Because it was.

The snap that occurred in his mind had taught him a new technique he never had memory of knowing yet it felt like he had always known it. It was ingrained in his mind. A magical technique different from martial arts or mystic arts. It required no technique or skill to use. Merely a thought and some mana. This technique allowed him to move between two points at the speed of light. It took some mana, but Owari had plenty to spare after so much time growing it.

Owari smiled. He no longer bothered using this technique. Instead he started to focus on using the dark steel fang. He rushed forward using phantom step and swung his sword at the beast’s chest, splitting it open a bit before using wind step to jump back and avoid the beast’s bite. Owari continued to harass the beast in this manner, jumping in, slashing, and jumping back. Dodging the occasional attack or breaking through the earth shrapnel.

As he did this he allowed his body to use the technique without much thought. He just let whatever happens happen. As he did he felt the moment of inspiration coming and soon another snap occurred in his mind. He suddenly had a flood of information enter his mind which caused him to smile. This was the feeling of growing he had been missing over the past few months.

Owari took a deep breath as he prepared to use this new technique of his. Owari gripped his blade tightly as numerous black lines appeared in the air around him. The beast tried to punch him once again, however Owari jumped back. The hand passed through the black lines and left gashes along its keratin armor. It was as if each of those lines had the sharpness of his dark steel fang. Because they did.

Owari gripped his blade again as he summoned more black lines. This time however the black lines all coalesced into his sword which he swung at the beast’s neck despite the distance. Suddenly the black lines stretched out and reached far enough to hit the beast’s neck. All of the black lines suddenly coalesced at their destination and sliced through decapitating the beast in an instant. It was as if his blade had teleported and cut the enemy.

Owari looked at the headless corpse of the beast as it fell over. He then looked at his sword. He hadn’t expected that move to be so powerful. He walked over and cut up the beast’s corpse. He packed away it’s hide and dragged its meat and antlers back with him. He didn’t care what he would need to get rid of to keep these. It was definitely low platinum ranked. He would definitely be able to pay off his medical bills with this. Not to mention apex beast meat was the most efficient at enhancing affinities. Though he knew he knew the main reason he beat it was because it looked down on him.

Owari stood near his temporary home as he waited for Hebi to wake up. Based on his state he would be awake by night. They would then make the journey back as it would be slower due to the added weight. Owari however was focused on his new method of growing. He used the screeching wing over and over until it became second nature.

Suddenly a snap occurred and Owari was relieved to find he didn’t need to be in the middle of life or death combat to evolve his mystic arts. He held his sword up and suddenly silver energy swirled around his sword. He swung it down causing a line of silver energy to flash out and cut a path through the ground and split through multiple trees. The more mana he poured in the greater the effect. Owari smiled. He was now a platinum rank.

Thinking about it, he was nothing short of a freak of nature. Most platinum ranks were in their thirties or forties, though some people reached such a level by twenty. Yet here he was before even reaching his twenties. Although from this point forward each level within the rank was exponentially harder to achieve. Even for Owari, after all it’s not like mid platinum ranks and high platinum were just lying around. They were beasts you had to specifically hunt down. Owari laughed, he planned to do just that in the coming months.