Chapter 169: The Intent To Create (Bonus)
Hayley shook her head with an amused smile.
Ethan’s nature wasn’t hidden from her or any other members of the guild.
And everyone knew the stories of the prideful creatures that roamed the skies of a distant continent, beings with the power to make even nature tremble.
Even though Ethan could not directly compare in strength to someone like Marvin, perhaps that inherent prideful nature of dragons was why he’d never go down on one knee.
The matches finished, and the pack members began moving closer to the family house.
Then Hayley suddenly yelled out. "Everyone! Remember this guy?"
She nudged Ethan by the elbow, gesturing toward him with a grin.
Ethan leaned toward her slightly and said in a low voice, "Uh, Hayley, what are you doing?"
One of the wolves from the crowd squinted at him, then said, "Is that not Ethan?"
Another wolf’s eyes widened with recognition, and an excited grin spread across his face. "Wait... it is!"
Ethan had joined most of their clan dinners as a child, but that wasn’t the reason they remembered him so clearly.
They remembered him because after dinner, most of these wolves played what they called the Prey Game.
It was exactly what it sounded like. Werewolves chased anyone who wasn’t part of the pack for the fun of it. They hunted Ethan down to corner and scare him half to death.
And then, right after traumatizing him, they would carry him around on their shoulders, cheer for him through the rest of the night, and feed him endless bowls of ice cream.
Hayley looked at the gathered wolves and said with a grin, "I know it’s been a minute, but once a prey, always a prey, right?"
There were loud cheers from the crowd, and a few of the wolves immediately began shifting into their wolf forms.
Marvin, alongside the other branch heads and a few of the older adults, simply shook their heads. Some looked amused. Others just sighed.
But they all turned and walked into the large mansion, leaving the younger generation to play their usual game.
Hayley said to Ethan, "This is for letting that seat I saved beside me at dinner grow cold. And don’t even think about flying."
Ethan sighed. "I genuinely hate you, Hayley."
"Nope, you don’t." Then she leaned even closer and pecked him on the cheek. "That’s for good luck."
Ethan shook his head.
Then he turned to look at the werewolves gathered before him, all of them in their wolf forms now, waiting for the chase to begin.
A smile formed on his face.
In truth, he wasn’t even thinking about fleeing via the levitation spell. If anything, a good part of him wanted to prove to these werewolves that it wasn’t going to be like before.
Right then, Percival walked up in his large white wolf form and crossed his massive arms over Ethan’s shoulder. "Since Hayley already set this up, I guess I’ll be playing the role of your guard once more."
Ethan lifted his head to look at Percival for a moment. After his transformation, Percival naturally stood taller. Then Ethan turned back to the wolves and said calmly, "I don’t think that’ll be necessary."
Percival laughed, his voice deeper in this form. "There are about thirty of them, buddy. You sure?"
Ethan’s eyes took on a peculiar reddish-amber glow, and reptilian slits appeared in his irises as he stared at the gathered pack.
"Yeah."
Hayley glanced down at her watch, then looked back up with a grin. "It’s thirty minutes till midnight. Game ends when the prey is boxed in and scared, or when it hits midnight. Ready?!"
Percival removed his arm from Ethan’s shoulder and stepped aside.
Hayley raised her hand, then brought it down sharply.
"Go!"
Ethan grinned, then he blurred out of sigh.
WHOOSH.
The wolves roared in unison and surged forward, chasing after him as a pack.
And with that, the night passed with the chaos of the Prey Game.
——
The next day arrived, and despite it being the weekend, guild activities continued without pause.
Percival in the main guild room with Aliyah, recounted the events of last night’s dinner with animated gestures.
He was telling her all about how Ethan had impressively outrun the entire pack of wolves, keeping his pace until the very end when midnight struck.
Aliyah listened with an amused grin, shaking her head at the mental image of their guild master being chased through the Arcorys compound by thirty werewolves.
Meanwhile, Ethan was in a different part of the guild building.
The room he occupied was a large space dedicated to storing the guild’s tools and weapons. It wasn’t fully furnished yet, but it was slowly taking shape.
In one corner, the specialized Morphweave uniforms designed to accommodate werewolf transformations, hung on racks.
Wilson’s katana rested on a weapon stand in another section.
A few other items that weren’t particularly special filled the remaining shelves and tables. Ethan had moved them from his basement at the manor just to give this space some sense of purpose.
It was a far cry from the true vision he had for a fully equipped guild armory, but it was something.
On one side of the room, Ethan had set up a workstation.
The body of the Aranchras lay spread across a large table, dissected into multiple parts. Each section had been carefully separated: the torso, limbs, head, and segments of its natural body armor.
The mana core that had been extracted from the creature’s chest had been severed into smaller pieces using precision tools.
And each fragment was in a labeled container on the table.
Ethan stood over the dissected corpse, wearing thick protective gloves, and his eyes glowed with the patterns of the Eyes of the Sage.
While examined a section of the Aranchras’s bone structure, his right hand held a pair of surgical tweezers, gently lifting a thin sliver of the creature’s carapace to inspect the underside.
The SR-grade blade the Aranchras had used during the fight rested on a separate table to the side, within easy reach but not interfering with his current work.
As a magi-engineer with SS-tier talent, Ethan could comprehend the fundamental structure of materials at a much deeper level.
His understanding extended beyond just surface composition, and he could perceive the molecular arrangements, the flow of mana through different substances, and how those elements interacted with each other.
Using the Eyes of the Sage to examine the Aranchras’s corpse, he discovered something fascinating.
Microscopic crystalline formations were embedded within the creature’s bones and carapace.
They were nearly invisible to the naked eye, but under the magnification of his enhanced vision as a ranger, they became clear.
These crystals vibrated at specific frequencies that phased matter in and out of sync with normal physical reality. And these were what allowed the monster to shift between tangible and intangible states.
The crystals vibrated at frequencies
Ethan had considered that creature’s phasing ability was too useful to let go of just like that. If he could extract these crystalline formations and integrate them into something else, the applications would be incredible.
And for now, all he could think about was how to transfer that capability onto a weapon or another item.
As he was focused on continuing his study of the body, the door to the room opened.
Ethan paused and turned his head to see Percival walk in, with Bettie behind him.
She wore casual clothing and her expression was a mix of nervousness and determination.
Ethan stopped what he was doing immediately, then pulled off his gloves and set them on the table, before turning toward her with a smile.
"Hey, Bettie."
Percival glanced between the two of them. "I’ll leave you two to talk."
He gave Ethan a brief nod, then turned and walked back out of the room, closing the door behind him.
—
A/N: Bonus Chapters for Last week’s 150 PS goal, complete✅