Chapter 50: Investigation
Rohan dug his hand into the corpse of the Spike Beast, searching for its heart like he did with every beast he killed. But he took his time with this one.
In search of finding out the cause of its unusually high intelligence, all the stops had to be pulled.
From time to time he would ppractisecontrol over his Origin Energy by sending it to his hands and slowly letting it exude from his grasp, trying to use the energy to penetrate the organs and get a feel of what was inside.
This was one of the main skills that separated experienced Awakened from rookies like him and Elane. The ability to use Origin Energy externally was of vital importance when it came to control and precision.
One of the main reasons so many people were stuck at the peak of F rank and E rank was because their control over Origin Energy had stagnated, which played the biggest role in advancing to the next rank.
Rohan wanted to start tackling this obstacle early on so that he wouldn’t have such a problem with it once he reached that point himself.
’I have to make it out of this gate, first...’
His mood had taken a toll ever since he and the others realised that something was going wrong inside this gate. The lack of any waystones essentially trapping them inside forever.
Unless they could take the route that rarely any Awakened took in modern times, in low rank gates.
The thing with gates was that they weren’t permanent fixtures that, once they appeared, could never be moved or cleared.
Aside from the huge number of Spike Beasts roaming around in the 100 kilometre large dimension inside the gate, there was also a single Elite beast that lorded over all, acting as a boss of the gate.
Should this Elite be taken down, the gate would naturally collapse on its own, sending every Awakened still inside back to Earth.
This was only really done on higher ranked gates that were deemed too dangerous to keep open — while low rank gates were usually used as training grounds and loot farms, like this one.
Rohan sighed and removed such depressing possibilities from his mind. Until they knew the truth of the matter, he wanted to believe that it wouldn’t come to that.
’Maybe there was some sort of parasite hidden inside of it, controlling its movements?’
Moving back to the topic of what could have caused the Spike Beast’s erratic behaviour, he fell into deep thought.
He had heard of such intelligent parasites before, but they always appeared in much higher ranked gates and were D rank at the bare minimum, so if one showed up in here then they’d have much bigger problems to worry about.
Luckily, or unluckily depending who you asked, there was nothing off about the Spike Beast’s corpse.
Aside from one thing.
’What’s this?’
Rohan pulled his hand out, flicking the blood off as he did so. He’d just caught the Origin Crystal within his grasp when he felt something else stuck to the crystal by a bit of coagulated blood.
"What is—"
He glanced down at the two objects in his hands routinely until his jaw dropped open in surprise.
"Elane! Come look at what I just found."
Elane came running once she heard the tone in Rohan’s voice. His clear joy made her think he’d found a clue to what could have caused the beast’s increased intelligence — or maybe even the destruction of the waystones.
But when she arrived, the situation was the opposite of what she expected.
"Remember our original goal for coming to this gate? Well, at least the trip will be worthwhile if we manage to make it out. Catch!"
Rohan suddenly threw a glowing red object towards Elane, and before she had a chance to figure out what it was once she caught it, a notification from her status appeared before her eyes.
[You have acquired F rank (Normal) Spike Beast Bow.]
Elane blanked. She stumbled back a few steps before falling to the ground in surprise.
"W-we actually got one!" She exclaimed. Her joy was present for everyone to see.
Norm and his group of Awakened watched over from the short distance between them, smiling lightly as they watched the young girl express her joy.
Even despite the situation they were faced with, it was small moments like this that kept them grounded and made them realise why they even came to gates like this in the first place.
Of course, there was some envy here and there, but nobody was going to try and steal a Genetic Armament from the person who’d just saved their asses. Or, they might, but they’d have a hard time trying to get away with it — with Rohan watching over things so closely.
Elane knew this too, so she chose to absorb the Genetic Armament immediately.
The process only took a short few seconds to finish, and the chances of an attempted robbery now dropped to nil.
"No. You got one. It was your shot that took this Spike Beast down, remember. That Genetic Armament rightfully belongs to you alone."
Rohan noticed how Elane often attributed achievements that she mostly achieved herself to ’we’, ’our’ and such whenever she was with him. It wasn’t hard to tell that she felt inferior to him, despite supposedly being the one who had information and knowledge on hand thanks to her father’s training. It would be hard to not feel inferior when he practically steamrolled through every Spike Beast thanks to his Elite Firestone Skin.
But he knew the only way for her to overcome that was to take things gradually — the next big step was getting her own Genetic Armament, and now that had been achieved. ’All she needs now is a gene, and our fighting capabilities as a duo will skyrocket.’
At that same moment, a strange but intriguing thought crossed Rohan’s mind.
’Can I evolve a Genetic Armament and then transfer it to somebody else?’
***
Rohan took a moment to just sit quietly on the ground, looking over the horizon. His mind felt strangely calm. Elane sat beside him, thinking over their situation in her own way. She too looked relaxed, as if they weren’t facing a potentially life-threatening situation.
It would take some time for her to get over earning her first Genetic Armament. Rohan sure knew it would take him a long time to get over his — especially since his was a reward for his efforts.
’Though that paled in comparison to how I felt when I discovered Firestone Skin inside the Soldier Ant’s body.’
Rohan cleared his throat and looked over at Elane.
"How does your shoulder feel? Any better?"
She turned her small face and looked at him.
"It’s only been a few hours, but the pain has subsided a little."
Her words brought a smile out of Rohan. In fact, that had been something stuck at the back of his mind ever since she was injured.
Injuries healed faster for Awakened due to the almost magical effects of Origin Energy, but for F rank awakened like them, it wasn’t much faster than ordinary people — about twice as fast at best.
Though there were rare Healing-type genetic armaments that could speed the process up massively, though admittedly consuming huge amounts of Origin Energy to achieve it.
"Has Norm and his group brought back any good news?"
After finding out what was going on in this gate when meeting Norm’s group, they joined forces in an effort to investigate the cause behind the waystones’ destruction.
If they could get to the bottom of that or, better yet, find an intact waystone, they wouldn’t have to worry about the other problem of the increasing intelligence of beasts.
That’s right, beasts. Plural.
Ever since that first encounter, over the next few hours they came across more and more Spike Beasts acting out of the Ordinary, alarming both groups greatly.