At another part of the island, in a mountainous region, a humanoid figure leaped at a towering scorpion like beast, cocked his arm back, and delivered a devastating punch to the scorpion's exoskeleton.
"CRACK!" The point the figure's fist impacted on the scorpion's chitin caved in.
"SHRIEIIIIK!" The beast let out an inhuman screech perhaps out of agony, or perhaps anger.
It's bladed tail shot towards the figure at immense speeds, but the figure wasn't slow either, they merely took a wide step to the side to avoid the entire bulging mass of the beast's tail.
"Shiiiiing!" The scorpion's bladed tail cut through the earth like butter.
The figure meanwhile stretching their hand to the side, a long golden spear appeared in their stretched palm as if materializing from thin air.
The scorpion also didn't relent, it's tail ricocheted back at itself, before swinging it again at the figure.
This time the figure blocked it's bladed tail with the shaft of his spear. But they seemed to have underestimated the force behind the attack, as they got sent flying for quite a bit of a distance.
The beast didn't wait, it capitalized on it's advantage and rushed towards the figure while they were still disoriented.
But before the beast could cover even half of the distance, the figure sprinted to clash with it at mid charge.
"Clang!" "clang!" The sound of metal meeting metal echoed through the mountainous region as the figure's spear met the beast's bladed mandibles.
The figure felt their arms trembling with each collision. Sooner or later they won't be able to feel their arms. And they knew it too.
"It's time I get serious." They muttered.
With that said, "Bang!" They took a chance to block the beast's tail, using it as a propeller to get flung backwards.
Once the figure regained his footing, intense golden light appeared out of nowhere, shrouding the figure. Then just as suddenly as it appeared, the golden light suddenly disappeared.
But the figure looked different, and felt different too, than before the golden light appeared.
They clasped the spear in their hand firmly, then
"Whoosh!" they moved way faster than they had been moving before, and launched their self at the beast. But a change occured this time when they clashed.
"Clang!" The figure easily deflected the bladed mandibles that were making their arms tremor before. Not only had their speed increased, but also their strength, reflexes, and awareness.
Now the figure was fighting the beast on equal footing. The only thing they still couldn't quite deal with was it's tail.
The beast's tail could move unpredictably like a spring, as fast as a rail gun, and most importantly, packed enough power to smash the bones of any human below the Theta rank to splinters. Not to mention that the tail was bladed.
The figure could only keep dodging any time the scorpion attacked with it's tail.
They continued to deflect another fleet of attacks from the scorpion's bladed mandibles, and then they saw it, a chance to take the beast out in a sure way.
While the beast had somewhat lost it's balance due to the tail it overextended after the figure dodged, they took the chance to leap onto the beast's armored back.
The spear in their hand spun wildly a over their head in a circular motion, before they brought it down on the beast's exoskeleton, precisely where they had shattered with their fist earlier.
"SQUELCH!" The sound of flesh and chitin being pierced was like a soft whisper in the air.
"SHRIEIIIIK!" the beast screeched, this time definitely from agony. It began to trash wildly, but the figure above it clung to their spear, pushing it even deeper into the beast's body.
Eventually, the beast began to weaken, until it stopped entirely. Only the faint breaths it was still heaving showed that it was alive. But it seemed to have lost a lot of blood, and adding the spear still embedded deep into it's body, it wouldn't take a genius to know that it's days, or rather minutes were numbered.
"Huh!" releasing a short breath, the figure unhanded the spear.
"I've gotten a lot stronger." the figure muttered. "To think I'll be able to handle a Theta ranked beast while being at Eta+." he brushed back his rich silky golden hair.
His swirling golden eyes glinted sharply.
"It's only normal, after all I have an omega ranked physique." the figure muttered summoning his status screen.
====Status====
Name: Alistair Von Drake
Status: Second Young master of the Drake ducal house.
Rank : Eta+
Strength : Theta- →Theta
Agility : Eta+ →Theta-
Stamina : Eta+→Theta-
Intelligence : Zeta
Aether capacity : Theta- →Theta
Luck : Alpha-
Charm : Alpha
Techniques: Aether reinforcement (Master), Golden Drake spear arts (Grandmaster), Dragon dash(Master),....
Unique physique: Star-core physique (omega rank)
–initial ability: Star charged : [You can increase all variable stats by one minor rank.] (Active)
His ability was currently active, and had pushed his strength, agility, stamina, and aether capacity by one minor rank each.
And yeah, the figure was none other than Alistair Von Drake, the original protagonist of shadows of ascension, and also the bearer of an omega ranked physique.
From childhood, Alistair had always been talented, and had always been held at high regards for being a genius.
But it was two years ago that his entire life changed. On his sixteenth birthday when he awakened. He was baffled to see his status screen displaying 'Omega rank' after his unique physique.
After which he relayed the news to House Drake. House Drake kept it quiet for the first few months, and even placed a law of silence on the secret. But one day, news spread from the Darkfell empire that the third prince was useless and awakened a kappa ranked physique.
That was when House Drake saw it's chance, it spread the news that it's heir had awakened an omega ranked physique.
After that, all attention turned to Alistair, be it the other empires, or even the other races, each wanting to get acquainted with him, and see if there was any room for a certain relation.
Alistair got several engagement proposals, so many that he couldn't even count them. There were some from the Human domain, some from the Elven continent, some from the Demon continent, and even from the Merfolk.
Alistair enjoyed the attention and at the same time disliked it. Obviously he liked the attention because of connections, and the engagement proposals he was getting. But he loathed it, because it was due to it that he lost connection with his childhood friend.
Unlike him, she wasn't a noble, but she was talented. She even had a Beta ranked unique physique. All the attention and need for protection against powers that wanted to assassinate him had led to Alistair losing his freedom of movement, and thus lost touch with her.
But she was going to be at this institute, he just knew it. After all, they had promised each other that they would attend the Astral Mystic Institute together.
"Just you wait, Nyla, I'm gonna take first place." he smiled. He couldn't wait to see her face when she saw him.
But before that, he was going to crush everyone at this entrance exam. The exam had been a walk in the park so far, safe for that insidious fog.
After Alistair had broken free from it and saw many aspirants stuck in the fog, he wanted to help them out, he couldn't afford to leave them just like that. But he also wanted to win first place, he debated with himself for a while, before finally deciding.
In the end, he decided to go ahead and win this thing, then come back to save them, no matter what it would take.
--------------------
Meanwhile, back with Damon.
"Are you really sure you want to enter this place? isn't it better to just follow this other path?" Bubbles spoke from Damon's shoulder, his voice mixed with uncertainty.
Damon scowled.
"I haven't even gotten back at you for what you did back in the fog, and now you're doubting like the fog?"
Bubbles stiffened.
They had just reached the edge of a mountainous region. The third part of the stage. It was as simple as they come. All one had to do was pass through the region. Though, the region was riddled with beasts of all ranks.
They were currently in stuck between two paths, one that looked eerie, and the other that looked.... less eerie.
"Well, Alistair obviously took the more eerie one. Now that I think about it, he must be fighting that scorpion." Damon mused. "Or maybe he's even already killed it."
Bubbles scoffed.
"Who cares about that fool? We should have gone with the secret way in the first place, we would have been way ahead of everyone by now."
Damon shook his head.
"Don't you understand?, Alistair must get first place, and become the first year representative."
It was crucial to the story. Damon couldn't guarantee the story wouldn't completely derail if otherwise happened. Plus, there was already that absurdly captivating girl.
He would have to deal with her matter later, but first, "Let's go complete this entrance exam." he muttered going through the exact path the protagonist has taken.
**********
ALRIGHT EVERYONE, DONT FORGET TO DROP SOME POWER STONES, AND DONT BE TOO LAZY TO WRITE A REVIEW.
HERE'S A PUZZLE I'M ASKING AGAIN; IS DAMON AN EDITOR WHO GOT TRANSMIGRATED INTO A NOVEL?
OR IS HE A PRINCE WHO GOT THE MEMORIES OF AN EDITOR FROM ANOTHER WORLD?
WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?