The Rise Of Calamity

"Ladies! There is no point in arguing! While you two are arguing over some stupid crap, there are others uncovering treasures and finding a way to close the crack. Let's get moving!" Croloe cut us both us, unwilling to watch this go on as both of us argued while others stole the treasures he so desperately needed.

"Sure" I replied without even thinking about it, making Laila, even more, agitated even though she agreed with that Croloe was saying.

Since she couldn't really say anything afterward, she chose to pout silently as we moved through the swampy jungle.

'Why do I always feel like I have to deal with idiots?' I sighed before changing my focus from the two idiots back to the Lion that Croloe was riding.

Right now, both me and Laila were traversing the jungle environment by jumping from branch to branch, and while I was quite used to the experience, Laila wasn't and had to get used to the feeling of landing and jumping as fast as possible while also calculating how far you will move with each jump, how your jump will affect the branch you jump off of, and how stable your footing will be when you finally land.

However, even though I would love to say a lot of crap about her, she was getting used to it really quickly which must have been a mixture of experience and power level. She is considered a genius after all.

Choosing to ignore what she did, for the time being, I looked down and scanned the lion that was also moving through the jungle with ease.

Due to the ground under us being muddy and wet, moving on it would have become a pain in the ass to anyone who could not walk on water or surfaces that were similar. At the same time, due to the size of the lion, it would have immediately sunk a whole foot down if it were to step on the mud, so therefore it had chosen to jump from the base of one tree to another in quick succession.

Scanning through his body, I found that it looked mostly normal, or normal to a beast's standard other than the fact that it had some kind of soul contracted imprinted into its soul flame.

While the beast might have been a mostly physical one using pure mana to strengthen it, unlike other beasts that used mana to strengthen their bodies, it seemed capable of using soul energy if it hadn't already used it before.

The main thing about beasts is that they can't use soul energy as well as us humanoid species' do. Instead, they would accumulate a certain type of mana within their body and use a genetically transferred technique that would enhance their bodies the same way a giraffe would learn how to walk.

An example of this would be a beast with a fire affinity using a fire body art to enhance its body and cleanse itself from impurities. The same thing can be done with water, ice, earth, and even air.

Yet, not only did the Lion not have an affinity therefore probably giving it a basic art that most beasts can use no matter what affinity they have, it seemed like he also had a soul-body art where he would use his soul energy to enhance his body, a bit like what humans do to get the same result.

After jumping from branch to branch for a while without a certain sense of direction, I finally descended down to eye level with the lion and spoke out, grabbing his attention if it wasn't already on me before I had spoken,

"Yo"

"What is it you want to ask?" The lion got straight to the point while a glint of curiosity also flashed within his eyes and his soul flame flickered with the same emotion.

"Well. What I wanted to ask was actually about your body refining art." I said, making even the lion look at me weirdly while Croloe's expression expressed even more confusion than the one he had shown when I first spoke to the lion in front of him.

"You do know that it is an unspoken rule to not speak about one another's body arts, right?" The lion informed with a tone that told me he was not certain if I knew anything about the beast's world of things or if I was simply clueless.

"Not very unspoken anymore is it now?" I chuckled while the lion frowned.

Right before he was going to repeat what he had said earlier, I waved my hand at him and finally spoke in the beast tongue to make sure that Croloe wouldn't know what I was talking about.

"Well, I can see two active cultivation channels within you so I just wanted to ask about it" I smiled aloofly as if I was unaware of the emotions that must have been spiraling within the lion right now, yet even though he couldn't actually see my smile, he knew I was trying to play innocent and act like I didn't actually know what the words I said actually meant.

"You do know that my master can understand everything I say, right?" He asked, this time actually implying something rather than saying it.

"Because of the soul contract, right?" I asked just for him to nod his head.

"Let's be vague about it then. Does the soul contract allow him to force you to do things?"

"No..."

"Are you going to tell me about your body arts or?"

"Sorry, but the body arts I use are something I am unwilling to uncover about my family and species."

"So you chose to become a slave?" I asked out of the blue, catching him off guard yet keeping him just in the right area of his mind for him to answer my question honestly and properly.

"No, I didn't"

"So they forced you?" I raised a brow.

"Well, technically no. I was given off by the elders of my tribe to the humans as a cub. Eventually, I become Croloe's 'tamed' beast and he had decided to take good care of me therefore I did not reject or resist the soul contract when it came."

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If you liked this novel, check out my other novel!

Immortality System: The Rise Of The Last Human

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