Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Growing Up

Kael opened his eyes one more time to see the morning sky and feel the morning breeze.

Finally, after two years, he had stumbled upon a memory that explained a bit about the type of lionhearts.

Time after time, ever since he started having more and more access to the memories of the primordial lions, he had searched for a way to know more about the powers that lions possessed.

Ever since he saw those exotic appearances those lions and lionesses in Bethel's memories had, he knew that there was more to the lion race.

Added Katari, who was very different from the lionesses in that particular memory. This had confirmed his belief that the lions were divided into subspecies.

These lion subspecies were not as simple as the subspecies he knew of from his previous earth life.

But the memories of the Primordial Lions were truly complete. It contained almost everything that they ever experienced when they were alive.

Because of this, Kael mostly found short memories that involved the Primordial doing mundane stuff like eating, strolling, lazing around, and many other things that weren't really impactful or contained satisfactory information.

'So there are fourteen different subspecies of lions based on the Lionheart type and Katari is a space lion with the space lionheart,' Kael thought.

When Noel was talking to the fourteen different groups of lions, he had purposely mentioned their traits as a way to motivate them for his cause.

His thoughts over these groups were naturally transferred to Kael. Now that Kael knew what needed to be known, a lot of his other plans could be pushed forward.

His lack of knowledge concerning these matters made it difficult for him to take actions that he needed to take. Going forth blindly without sufficient knowledge could be very detrimental to him.

Now that Kael was three years old, he had changed both in appearance and mindset.

Physically speaking, he was quite large. He was now rubbing shoulders with some lionesses, gone was the little cub.

But he was still some centimeters away from being close to the pride leader. In terms of height, he was closer to Uncle.

Now that he was no longer a cub, the mass of golden fur covering his body became more eye-catching. To hunt had become a bit difficult for creatures that weren't color blind.

If he didn't use the camouflage ability he got from Katari, this would have been a major issue. The camouflage ability itself wasn't an actual invisibility technique, rather it was an instinctive manipulation of the space around the user to appear invisible or blend into the surroundings.

Kael had initially wondered how the camouflage ability worked even though he used it too many times. With Noel's memory, this wasn't hard to guess anymore.

His mane hadn't yet grown out but it was almost there. As of now, the mane on his neck was sparse and dark, his muscular shoulders were still exposed. The dark mohawk that extended from his head to the center of his back was enough for him for now.

His claws had already gone full metallic looking, even his teeth. It looked like his whole skeleton was made up of a metallic material that was golden in color.

The change to his bones was not natural but came about after Zabita joined the pride a year ago.

Kael learned after scouring the memories for a long time that the primordial lions didn't always have metallic claws all their life.

For example, in the last memory he had access to, Noel didn't have golden claws despite being fully grown.

Metallic claws were obtained after a primordial lion got the ability of a certain type of lionheart.

Now, any time he bared his claws, they would reflect the nearest light source and garner quite the attention. However, the sharpness of each claw was not to be underestimated.

Kael had now gotten used to the feeling of his claws easily tearing through most things.

One time, he tried to bite the neck of a young zebra to suffocate it. Instead, he ended up tearing the whole throat away from the neck, his teeth were that sharp.

Kael was confident that his bodily weapons were on the same level if not stronger than the pride leader's.

In terms of mindset, Kael had become more mature and goal-oriented. Before he was still learning how to peel away his antisocial characteristics, now he had gone beyond that.

One of the things that influenced his mindset the most was the memories of the Primordial Lions, especially Noel.

Noel was an interesting Lion, even among the other Primordials. He was what the humans of Kael's past life would call a fascist.

Anytime Kael scoured his memories, he found Noel always thinking about how to lead the lion race to conquer worlds. Even when Noel was idling about, he was still thinking about it.

In Noel's eyes, every creature was inferior to the Lions. He saw lions as the de facto nobility of the universe and every other thing was meant to bow at their feet.

Noel was so sure and determined of his ideology that he became a borderline extremist. Genocides and forced slavery were the usual occurrences in his mind at some point.

Unfortunately or fortunately, this mindset had begun to influence Kael's way of thinking.

Although he was not too intent on the genocide and slavery part, the conquering and nobility part was practically part of his existence now.

Whenever Kael looked at anything that wasn't a lion, it was like a nobleman looking at a beggar, though wasn't quite aware of this yet.

"The Conquering? What is that?" Noel had mentioned this right before Kael was pulled out of the memory space.

Shaking his head, Kael pulled himself out of his thoughts. Today was a very special day, there was time to think later.

What was happening today? The pride leader had finally gotten tired of a certain someone and it wasn't Pavel or Kael, it was Burdo.

Contrary to Kael's original expectations, the pride leader didn't end up expelling Pavel.

Over the series of months, Pavel realized that the only way to enjoy the things he wanted was to become the pride leader. But challenging the pride leader was no different from suicide.

Alas, when he looked at Uncle and how he enjoyed a percentage of the benefits. He got to eat well, and there seemed to be some times that he frolicked with a lioness and the pride leader turned a blind eye to it.

All the privileges that Uncle enjoyed could be his, as long as he was subordinate to the Pride leader.

The options remained, either leave the pride to establish his own. This came with a high level of uncertainty.

Or submit to the pride leader and continue living a privileged lifestyle.

Pave chose the second option. This process didn't come about without some ups and downs.

The pride leader had to beat him up a couple of times to let him know the true difference between both of them.

Kael had watched all this play out with his observant gaze, a trait he still had from being an introvert.

Now Burdo, Kael's brother, was completely different. Burdo could be described as someone who had issues with figures of authority.

If Burdo had kept his reserved nature through the years, it would have been fine and there wouldn't have been as much commotion as there is now.

The food, the females, the status, the authority, he wanted it all. He was never hesitant to throw challenging roars at the pride leader whenever he wasn't doing something else.

To Burdo, there was no other option, either he became the pride leader or no one would be pride leader.