Capítulo 18: Evolution?

Ark felt both relief and horror at the same time, he felt relieved since he would be able to live, but then again someone with that much power could easily kill him if he or she wanted to. So Ark would be at their complete mercy. This, however, wasn't Ark's immediate concern since he couldn't stay awake anymore. All of this fighting and healing had drained him, he couldn't even stay awake for 5 more seconds, so he just drifted off.

....

After having seen this epic showdown the rest of the people present were absolutely astounded, this was their first time seeing magic after all and seeing someone being split in half, most of them became a bit sick after seeing this, some even started screaming. What they all had agreed on though was the fact that this new world was no joke, not at all. This world was dead serious, and if they didn't get serious themselves they'd die.

One of the teenagers stood out a bit from the rest though, both figuratively and literally speaking. He didn't get as stupefied and horrified as the others, while the other had marveled at their statuses, he had noticed this hellhole of a battlefield already. He also stood a couple of feet outside of the rest of the group, it was quite obvious that he didn't fit in with the rest of them. He wasn't bad looking though, so most people would think that it is a personality issue, which it kind of was. But that didn't mean his personality was necessarily bad.

This young man was about 1,82 meters tall, which was kind of tall considering his age but nothing special. His appearance was a bit lackluster if you would try to compare him with someone like Ark, but he was kind of handsome nonetheless. His eyes were dark brown while his hair was just black, if he stood in a crowd he wouldn't even stand out that much, if we're not talking about this crowd, since in this one he literally stood outside of the group...

What had stupefied all of them, even more, was the fact that all the "demons" that was going to attack the wolf had suddenly been ignited, and then turned to dust in less than a second. When they had finally managed to react there stood two men in front of them. These men seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, they looked to be very old, probably in their 70's or 80's. These two men also came clad in gray robes, on the left side of the chest on these robes there were sat some medals of honor, so it was quite obvious these people had lived in some sort of military environment. If it wasn't just something that looked the same of course.

When Annette saw these men she knew she had guessed right this time, and that was because these two men in front of her were court magicians! Court magicians were basically magicians or wizards who had enrolled into the kingdoms army, where you could rank up by participating in various wars or complete certain tasks to gain prestige or fame, you could also, of course, earn money! Magic was naturally more expensive than other professions since you would often need to buy magic crystals of different variations. Especially if you don't have that much Mana since you would be useless if you didn't complement your Mana with an outside source. But if a mage decided to craft and engrave using magic crystals he could earn ludicrous rewards, since it was very sought after.

This was naturally very hard and not just any mage or wizard could do it, that's why there were still few of them. Everyone knew that some monsters would drop a monster core when they died, but what they didn't know is that you could actually do the same with humans. This was only something that some mages who wandered on the path of darkness did though, since it was highly illegal and very unethical. The mana crystals that were created by humans were easier to absorb for humans though since they were purer, and since the energy came from a human, to begin with, it was easy for most to integrate with. This was also highly unusual though since it was quite horrible when you thought about it.

"Master Edward and Master Lewis, the heroes have been successfully summoned!"

Hearing this the old men looked quite pleased and also a little relieved since they would probably be blamed if anything were to happen.

"Welcome, future heroes!"

"My name is Edward and I will now take you to the castle to meet with the king!"

Hearing this all the teenagers straightened out their backs a little and one of them stepped out to say something.

"Will we be offered an explanation there?"

"Of course!"

Hearing this they all relaxed a little bit, all but one. When master Edward was just about to use his last Mana to teleport all of the teenagers to the castle Annette whispered in his ear. She had told him that one of the students supposedly didn't have a useful status as of now, there were certainly some very powerful skills there, but they couldn't be used. After hearing this Edward suddenly appeared in front of the teenager who stood out a bit from the rest. Edward hadn't teleported there, even if it looked instant, it wasn't completely. Edward was a master of the wind element, and when you reached a certain level you could manipulate the wind to such extreme speeds that it seemed instant in short distances.

"Are you Leo?"

"Yes, why?"

"Is it true that your class is the legendary [Androxia]?"

"Yes"

"Then, unfortunately, we can't take you with us to the castle!"

"Why not?"

"Because even though it was the class of a legendary hero in the past, it only worked because that hero had a contract beast that was strong enough. But times change, and it can't be used anymore, so I'm sorry!"

Having said this Edward turned around and activated his magic, and suddenly Leo was the only one left there. Everyone else was gone. Leo didn't know this but the class that he had gotten wasn't very usable nowadays. And that was simply because it was a lot harder to get a good contract beast now compared to then, and the class wouldn't be any good if the beast wasn't good, and it couldn't just be some decent beast either. So Edward was being honest with what he said earlier. Leo was very dumbfounded right now, he would have never thought that he would just be left alone here, in the middle of the woods, they could have at least let him into a town or something.

When he was in the middle of thinking he was suddenly brought back to reality by a blinding light coming from behind him. Since he had been so absorbed in his own thoughts and feeling bad for himself Leo had completely forgotten about the wolf that had been battling earlier with a demon. And now that he turned his eyes to look at it, it was shining very brightly, and glowing with white light. He could also see that the silhouette of the wolf was changing rapidly, it seemed to be growing bigger, it had actually been quite small before considering how powerful it was, but now it had already grown to about 2 meters in length and about 1,5 meters in height, but it wasn't done yet.

After a short while, the white light had gradually subsided. When it was completely gone Leo could see a wolf laying on the ground. This wolf had some beautiful cyan coloured fur as well as some nice chain patterns that were crisscrossed across its body. These chains were red and blue, creating a beautiful contrast on top of the wolf's fur. The wolf had grown to 2,5 meters in length as well as 2 meters in height. It looked incredibly majestic and even a bit ethereal. Seeing this massive change Leo was a bit dumbfounded, he didn't think that the wolf would be able to change so much in so little time.

Leo stared at the wolf a little bit before he was startled, the wolf had suddenly opened its eyes. What was weird was that Ark's eyes had gone back to being silver, but this time they seemed to glow more. Leo even thought that Ark's eyes resembled the moon, shining in the dark night...