When I had woken up, I was feeling incredible, the amount of strength that I felt I had was insane, each evolution increased my strength by a big amount, but this one was on another level. I look around me after stopping examining myself, looks like I was the only one awake right now, I then look at the sky and see that the moon was kind of a third of the way down, but what I really wanted to do was test out my new abilities, I decided to do the tests within the barrier, as leaving it might cause more wolves to come.
The first test I wanted to do was flight, I try flight with telekinesis once again and was surprised that it was very easy now, the amount of energy consumed by flight was also reduced, I was feeling super excited now that flight was not only possible, but also usable in battle and the like, the next test I wanted to do was relating to the humanization technique I learned a while back, apparently it improved since last time, I use the humanization technique and I feel my body changing rapidly, within 10 seconds the technique had been used, the energy consumption of this technique was okay, and I thought that maybe I can hold this form for 24 hours if I used all my energy, looks like I need to get stronger if I wanted to hold it on for longer periods of time or maybe even indefinitely, but now it was time to judge how accurate the technique was to human appearance, I use a light technique to look at myself, what I saw was the human form of a 12 year old boy, but upon closer inspection I saw that I still had fangs, claws, a tail instead of four, fur across my body, whiskers, marking across my body and fox ears, I mean the humanization was way better than last time, but if I don't cover myself I think that it might be discovered, and also it looks like in human age I am 12 years old,
I try to talk and instead of the usual sound I hear when I talk to Nozomi, actual human words exit my mouth, it looks like I can speak to people now, although I still don't understand their language, I remove the humanization technique and I move onto the final test, what on earth was the space-time affinity?
I didn't know how to go about doing this test now, what technique should I use with space-time? Well from the name it was plainly obvious that it had something to do with space time, alright I had decided to use it to teleport myself forward a couple meters, when I try to use it, by instinct I manage to be able to use it effectively, I had imagined myself being brought from where I was to the other location, I feel some of my energy being consumed and it was a success! I had managed to teleport myself a few meters forward, the energy consumption of space-time techniques was the highest out of all of my affinities, I then tried to use space-time techniques as an attack, I look at a tree in front of me and then I imagine the space where it was to vanish, the technique took a surprising amount of energy, it was a pretty big amount, but then the tree had been erased by space time techniques, although some of the harder and more dense pieces managed to stay, it looks like the stronger something is the more energy that I have to use to erase it, well that was the space part of space-time so what can I do with time?
I try to revert time on a rock that I found but I wasn't able to, the energy requirement was staggering and I felt that affecting time would be way more exhausting than space, I had found a worm in the dirt and decided to try and slow down time for it, the energy consumption was pretty big but I manage to make the work squirm slower, although the worm tried to resist the technique, so maybe things can resist these techniques too huh?
I try to revert time on the worm thinking that it may be different for living beings, the energy consumption was big but I manage to make the worm become smaller, I instinctively knew something, this technique would be impossible to use against powerful or old opponents, I likely was able to use it on the worm because it was pretty young and weak, over all the time techniques required a big amount of energy and the usages were limited especially for my current self, and I thought it would be super powerful... well whatever I'll find more usages to it over time.
I decide to wake up the two, since we had rested and I want to get moving as soon as possible, wait, how about surprising them a little? I decide to use the humanization technique before I wake them up, then I go up to Ethan and wake him up, he wakes up while making some noise then gets surprised when he sees me, he instantly gets back and shakes Nozomi awake then gets on guard, I had then removed the humanization technique and started laughing, Ethan looked surprised and mad, then I hear his angry voice in my mind.
"What the hell dude?! That wasn't funny you know!"
"You gotta admit it was at least a little funny, seeing you wake up in such a panic."
"Ugh fine just forget that happened."
"Congratulations Rai on evolving, also please don't trick Ethan again." Nozomi had congratulated me, it looks like she already knew it was me.
"Alright fine, I'm sorry you two, I was just trying to have some fun."
Well now that she mentioned it, I do think that it might've been a little uncalled for especially in such a dangerous place, damn, now I feel kinda bad.
"Ahem, anyways Rai, congratulations on the evolution, it looks like humanization is one of your abilities right?"
"Well yeah. By the way, I'm sorry for playing a trick on you."
"Nah, don't mind it bro, I'm not mad."
I now start using telepathy on both of them, it was far easier now than earlier.
"Well, now we will keep moving to leave the forest, does anyone have a complaint?"
"Well I do have just one small one, I don't have very good vision in night unlike you two."
"Hm, fine you can have this then."
I create an orb of light to light up the place, I didn't make it too bright as that would reveal our location, but it was still pretty bright and may actually reveal our location.
"Rai? Are you sure you want him to carry that? It might reveal our location."
"Being unable to see would really suck, and being dependent on us would probably be bad, plus I am now confident I can take on whatever may come at us."
"Rai, remember what you told me on the first time we went to hunt? 'Never underestimate your opponent' that was what you said."
"Don't worry, I'm not underestimating them."
"Well then, I have no complaints."
We exit the barrier then return to the lake, the corpse of the water drake was floating, it had some of its parts eaten but it was mostly intact, I decide to take its scales to maybe use someday.
"Well then, how are you gonna bring those scales with us, there is a really big number of them and I don't expect you to lug them around."
When Nozomi mentioned that, I had already planned for it, I used the space time technique to store the scales in a subspace, that was pretty convenient but there is a limit to how much I can hold.
"Woah Rai, what did you use?"
"Space-time technique to store the scales, I can't really think of many uses of these techniques though."
"That's freaking awesome! How about you use time to accelerate someone to when he dies or something? Man, I wish I had such cool techniques."
Huh, his suggestion is something to keep in mind, perhaps these techniques are gonna be super strong?
"Incredible Rai! That is super cool!"
Nozomi was amazed by the technique, she really liked seeing techniques like that huh?
We had then continued going on the orginal path me and Nozomi walked, while walking we had been talking, it eventually turned into me and Ethan talking about memories and Nozomi was just listening.
"When I was seven, I remember that I had once asked my dad to buy me an RC car, i kept nagging him on and on until he had bought it, and within the next 3 hours i had managed to somehow break it, I remember that I was crying that the car had broke and from that day he never bought me another RC car, probably for a good reason too."
"The destruction potential of children is higher than a stick of dynamite, but was the RC car cheap or something?"
"I dunno, but judging by the face my dad made when he saw it was broken, it was likely pretty expensive."
"Damn."
We kept talking like that for a while as we walked, until I heard something arrive, when I looked to the front I saw that it was a wolf, but that wolf was unlike any we ever saw, it was a large blue wolf with crystal like ice shards at certain parts of its body, yellow eyes, mean looking fangs and claws and a large swooshing tail, the wolf was nearly the size of a damn tree. Behind it, were a dozen evolved wolves there, all of different colors and sizes, they were going to try and kill us obviously, so a battle between us was gonna begin.