Chapter 34: Encounter
Erian suddenly stopped what he was doing and moved some radioactive particles to his ears to enhance his hearing.
There is a fight a few distance away from his cave!
The biggest difference between a normal person and a Variant was the ability to use radioactive particles; nuclear energy. A normal person could have amazing senses but after a point, they will hit a limit. But a Variant could manipulate their nuclear energies to enhance their senses. Erian had learnt that by sending radioactive particles to his ears, he could hear things almost a mile away. He could faintly hear clashes of a fight about three hundred meters away and knew exactly which direction the sound was coming from.
Following the sound, Erian exited the cave and rushed there quietly. Pushing back the branches, he found a forest scene with human figures and a massive growling strange beast. It was unlike the normal beasts he had seen so far.
When he was thirty steps away from the battlefield, Erian jumped up onto a big tree to watch the fight from above.
In the woods, there was an emptied grassy field about fifteen meters long. And in that field, there were five teenagers holding weapons in their hands surrounding a huge strange beast. Its body was about three meters long and looked like a tiger but with huge arms like that of a bear, along with its black shiny hair, if panted heavily as its long bloody tongue dripped with purple liquid, its mouth was filled with huge sharp teeth and its claws were sharp and angled, measured about a meter long.
It was actually a Peak Level-Nine Mutated beast. Toxic Iron-back Tiger, its power was equivalent to a level nine variant. Its massive Jaws contain led poisonous teeth that carried a deadly poison. Once touched, would cause your skin to fester and can only be cured by a single antidote, otherwise, once the poison spread to your heart, even a Titan would lose their life!
Erian noticed that the group of teenagers all had a golden ark symbol on their sleeves, identifying them as students of a school.
The Hall of Golden Ark was a school was a high-school that resides within the town and was definitely a top-notch school. The head master of the school, Goldstine Boneman was a bonafide Titan who specialized in using the Deadly Golden Rod. According to the rumors, he used to be an outer student of the Sky Mountain University, before he left to travel to many other countries.
Upon returning, he founded the Hall of Golden Ark which currently had about ten thousand students
The five people attacking the monster were quite lacking, but had great teamwork, a result of spending a lot of time together in many different situations.
A teenage girl in red, holding a skinny sword and was at the seventh level. She performed several sword attacks on the beast. By her side, there were twin boys with blades who were very bulky and powerful looking. They continuously shouted and ran around the beast in an attempt to focus the attacks on themselves. Radioactive particles thrumming in the vicinity.
Although these three people worked very hard, their attacks were not as effective as the other two in their party.
One of them was an extremely fit young man in black, holding a dangerous looking rod The two-meter-long weapon seemed very heavy. Every time the Toxic Iron-back Tiger was about to attack the others, it would be beaten back by him and left with a bloody wound.
But the one Erian noticed the most was the teenager in blue, he was about sixteen years old, and only had feathered thin blades in his palm. He looked weaponless yet his attacks were actually the most powerful, every flick of his wrist would conjure up a sharp shadow which grievously injure the beast, forcing the monster to back down.
If Erian guessed right, the teenager in blue was a Level Nine expert, and was already able to mix his nuclear energy into his blades and forcefully attack people without them noticing.
The badly wounded monster in front of them was already exhausted, after the poisonous smoke that it futilely blew out was pushed away by shockwaves from the punch of the teenager in blue, the monster turned around and tried to escape.
"Not a chance!" The teenager in blue moved fast like lightning, without restraint, and hit the side of the monster extremely hard.
"Boom!"
After one last growl, the monster was thrown like an old cotton bag by that punch. The beast cried pitifully before it died due to all of its organs exploding.
"Very impressive technique, Clevel." the girl in red swiped the sweat off and turned to look at the young man in blue with envy.
The teenager in blue said calmly: "This is not that impressive. In a couple of years you will match this power easily."
The teenager in black holding the big rod said: "Heh years? I am at the level 8 now, it would only take a couple of months to catch up to you."
"Mmm." The man in blue nodded as if he didn't really mind.
The girl in red made a displeased face, as she heard the arrogant statement of the teenager in black.
The twin brothers suddenly laughed brightly as they harvested the beast, "This time we got really lucky! This beast had actually condensed a Nucleus!"
"A Condensed nucleus?" The blue robed young man and black clothed man seemed surprised.
The twin brothers calmly nodded, "Yes, it is. It seems to have been formed only a couple of months ago judging that it is no larger than a small screw."
Body of a level nine beast could sell for about a hundred silva; hundred thousand bronx. After dividing it five ways, everyone would receive twenty silva . However, a Condensed nucleus from the beast's body could sell for one thousand silva by itself. And even though it was only formed months ago, a pearl the size of a screw head could sell for at least two thousand silva. This was because the nucleus contains massive amounts of radioactive energy which could be used as medicinal ingredients or used for training one's arts. What is a nucleus? It was simply the condensation of a beast's nuclear energy compressed over the ages and richness of radioactive particles in its genes. The result was a stone like organ that formed from layer upon layer of energy slowly wrapping and condensing to become larger and larger.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone