The slime was indeed insane. That was the only way Dean could make sense of its growth.
It wasn't blank anymore. It was petty and now acting on its own.
When he placed it into consideration.
Ying might have been right about it truly. It was working through problems one after the other… even if it was a little late this time.
It was undeniable it adapted to the restriction of the darkness and now, Dean was certain it would never go blind again.
'I wonder if it can copy Hermit's eyes too,' Dean rubbed his chin in contemplation.
Stretching his body, he tried to relieve the small knot he felt in his back after hitting the wall earlier.
The pain wasn't so bad that it was unbearable, but this body was still young and not as seasoned to truly shrug off anything yet.
But when it came to potential. This body might even be better than his original.
Dean started heading to the exit of the cave and away from the smell of wet rock when a familiar screen appeared.
"You sure took your sweet time," Dean teased the system that projected some translucent screens.
[System Notification]
[You have completed self-imposed objectives ]
[You have claimed your first flux core- 500 EXP]
[You have made your first kill in a flux zone -1500 EXP]
[You have defeated an Epic class creature at Aspirant rank alone - 2500 EXP]
[Bonus reward: You have obtained your first points in the re-evaluation -;1000xp ]
[Total EXP gained: 5500]
[Total EXP Available: 6600 EXP]
All through his read of the screens. The wide grin on Dean's face never lost it's light.
Deliberating on what he should upgrade next. Dean thought about his summoner's skill and his general rank.
One of his goals for even giving this entire ordeal any effort was to reach Elite rank.
"Upgrade rank to Aspirant Tier," he instructed.
The system immediately moved into action.
[You have ranked up from Aspirant Tier 6 → Aspirant Tier 7]
[EXP used: 3500]
[Total EXP remaining: 3100 EXP]
Dean felt his body shudder slightly at the upgrade, his mind felt sharper and his eyes even brighter.
He was sure he could find more opportunities to upgrade, but first he had to find prey and keep up with the assigned time of the draft in order not to fall off the wagon completely.
As he read through the screens. He was already at the cave exit when the last notification faded off.
«>«>«>
Meanwhile…
At the clearing camp where registration was initially carried out was like a graveyard compared to the noise that was still coming from zone.
The proctor, Miss Harlequin, stood in front of a monitoring system with her thick hands folded, pushing her heavy cleavage upwards, threatening the integrity of her white long-sleeved shirt.
A black box identical to Dean's was on the table and under her watchful gaze. This box was directly linked to Dean's and monitored Dean's.
Suddenly, the blue crystal inside the box beeped at irregular intervals as if something was waiting to explode.
Miss Harlequin leaned in and placed her pink polished fingers on the box, tapping on the light softly.
"The box is reading something, Diva," a rasp voice came from beside Harlequin.
Agent Keith, a mid-rank member of the W.S.A, directly assigned as secondary observer to Harlequin for safety purposes.
Harlequin turned to face him, rolling her eyes.
"I know," she said.
The only reason he wasn't getting a mouthful was that he called Diva.
"Should it be doing that?"
She didn't answer immediately. Just keeping an eye on the box.
The next stupid question this idiot was going to ask her would leave him in a death chokehold for sure.
She briefly fantasized several ways of ending him. After all, Keith should be well aware of what the device was capable of and those questions were to annoy her as he always did.
The box's function was pretty straightforward. It was a containment seal for unstable familiars, up to sovereign class, while still playing the role of a gauger in this case.
Should this prove ineffective for holding back threats sovereign as expected, then external intervention would be needed.
These were the safety measures for Dean's slime re-evaluation..it was one reason this very flux zone was chosen for this exercise.
Should the box fail and this unclassified slime turned out to be something beyond the WSA immediate control, that was where Leona came in as the second line of control and her Dragon Rhaeys as the third.
But Harlequin doubted it would come so far. In her fifteen years of using this black box for evaluations. She'd never activated the second line.
And just to be extra sure of what she was dealing with. She'd read the file on the last and first re-evaluation before today.
The summoner had been an Elite rank-Tier 5 granted to have experience in dealing with familiars under soft supervision.
But this summoner was a once in a lifetime abnormality. A low-ranked summoner who could pull a familiar that was registered as being of the high-end mythic class.
A familiar so powerful, it was borderline calamity class.
The reality of this kind of bond was that the gap couldn't be covered by any amount of training or supervision.
With such a wide gap in power between summoner and familiar. The summoner's verge capacity would eventually falter over an extended period and leave a drain on the summoner that would slowly erode their mind because of the bond pressure exerted by such a familiar.
What followed was loss of control and a rampaging Mythic class T-Rex that nearly crippled Zhrea from within.
In the end, they contained the familiar and kept the summoner in a constant state of lucidity. They were still alive technically, but were permanently trapped under the WSA's thumb, unable to ever independently summon again as it had been for over eleven years.
The box suddenly pulsed again, snapping Harlequin back.
"Isn't the boy Aspirant rank?" Keith asked. He didn't give up even after she had ignored.
Harlequin looked at him. Her green eyes gave off death stares for days.
"The boy doesn't matter. This whole charade is to know how to place this unclassified."
Keith finally nodded in understanding.
"So we pull him?"
The beautiful, chubby woman didn't answer. It was obvious this bastard was planning for her to be arrested on the grounds of murder.
She simply looked upward as if she could see past the wooden roof of the building they were in.
People could still hear the dragon's growls.
Leona was up there, and she was definitely seeing what they could see down here.
'Not yet,' Harlequin thought.
'The box would hold this time.'
It had to.
A/N: If you're enjoying the story, Please add to library and support with powerstones. I'll appreciate a review as well.
Thank you!