The Lupine System-Chapter 136: Lull

Lull

After the trio returned to the cave, the pups which had been cowering before due to Mike’s unintentional bloodlust hesitantly went over to him, but when they saw that he was calm now, they immediately sent back to being the clingy children they were, with their parents paying a bit more attention now as Mike’s accidentally stunt was now etched in their minds.

When they sat, Mike explained everything from start to finish. From how he started spying on the Titanic Corpse Flower to his raid on the Greenback Gorilla Territory. His fight against the chieftain, and then his consequent fight against the panther.

He naturally left out a lot of details, like him gaining levels and new skills, or how he technically should have died against the chieftain and his insane gamble against the panther’s skill that led to the creation of Aura Step.

The duo listened silently, but they couldn’t hide their surprise at his words as, quite frankly, what he said was truly too shocking.

"Hold on... You’re telling me that you spent all that time slowly picking apart an entire tribe of creatures, just to train and draw out their leader?" Theresa asked incredulously.

"... And you won?" Kris added with wide eyes.

"Uh... yeah?" Mike scratched his cheek.

Thinking about it now, it truly was an insane feat. Not just the fact that Mike had fought and killed so many creatures, but the fact that he was able to continue fighting for so long without getting too tired. Granted, his passive skills existed to circumvent just that, but it was still stunning.

"And according to you, the last two creatures were on the same level, if not a bit stronger than the rat king you and Kris killed?" Theresa asked again, and Mike nodded.

"... How strong are you exactly?" Kris asked after a moment.

"... I don’t know." Mike shrugged.

He wasn’t lying.

He didn’t know if he was very strong in the grand scheme of things or if he was even strong in the context of their year.

His instincts still warned him that Kris and Theresa were dangerous enough to make him feel like he could legitimately lose if they fought seriously. So he honestly didn’t know how strong he was since there wasn’t an accurate measurement for such. The most he could do was acknowledge that the current him was miles ahead of the him from the past, which, again, wasn’t particularly accurate.

Kris and Theresa shared a look, and then Theresa spoke.

"So, do you intend to go out again?" She asked with a raised brow.

Mike blinked, then he tilted his head, his ears twitching faintly as he considered the question.

Theresa saw this scene and had to stop herself from reaching forward and touching them. She had to admit, seeing him like this felt.... very fitting.

"I don’t think so..." Mike said after a moment and stared down at his hands, his claws glinting in the dim light.

"I can feel it... All it takes is a little push, and I might lose what little control I have right now." He sighed and clenched his fists, then he looked up at them.

"Actually, I might need you guys to watch over me in the time being. So that I don’t... You know." He asked a bit nervously, his tail stilling behind him.

"... That was the agreement, though." Kris tilted his head, unsure of why Mike was asking this again.

"I-I know. I mean... that was for after things reached their peak. This is for... if things get difficult beforehand..." Mike clarified.

"That’s irrelevant. Even if you didn’t ask, we’d step in if you started acting strangely... Well, stranger than you’re acting right now." Theresa shrugged, and Mike let out a breath of relief.

"Thanks, guys." He said genuinely, and Kris just nodded while Theresa offered a small smile. It’s at that point that Mike remembered something and asked.

"Oh! By the way, what have you guys been up to?" He asked curiously.

Hearing this, Theresa’s smile turned into a smirk.

"Well, I thought you’d never ask." What proceeded was her and Kris telling Mike of their own recent exploits, because Mike wasn’t the only one who had been busy recently.

***

"How are things looking currently?" Back in the ship high above Naraka’s surface, Beatrice asked one of the handlers while she sat in the captain’s seat.

"About 10% of the students have been eliminated thus far. 70% of which managed to activate their SOS signals and get retrieved while the remaining 30% were killed. But, the rate of elimination has dropped drastically, even with the appearance of the variable. So, it appears that a lull has settled for now." The handler answered respectfully, and Beatrice nodded thoughtfully. Seemingly unperturbed by the mention of the deaths.

They didn’t have events like this often, especially for the first years. Still, it was to be expected, as the beginning and ending parts were usually the most chaotic. So hearing that things had settled down considerably wasn’t too surprising.

She was about to lean back into her chair when she paused and suddenly remembered something.

"Right. What’s the progress on the ’bounty’?" She asked with an odd expression.

The handler hesitated before answering.

"... The one known as Mike appears to still be in the event. So either the ones after him simply haven’t found him yet, or he’s far more capable than we give him credit for." Hearing this, Beatrice crossed her legs and rested her chin on her palm, a flicker of interest appearing in her eyes.

It went without saying that the school knew about Namor’s vendetta against Mike. After all, the forums weren’t limited to students only.

So one might ask, why didn’t they step in when one of their students displayed such blatant premeditated intent on another?

Well, there were two answers to that question.

The first was that Eventide Academy believed in strength. A lot.

If Mike was unable to survive Namor’s onslaught, then it was on him. Regardless of who provoked who first. After all, when ability users matured and went into the universe, whether to fight against the Lizardmen or something else, they rarely had someone watching over them to step in if their lives were in danger.

When they said that their experience on Namor was meant to imitate the real world, they weren’t joking. And more often than not, ability users made it clear that they intended to kill others once they were away from the jurisdiction of those in power so that they could act freely.

It wasn’t an act of bias or siding with who came from a more important family. After all, if the role was reversed and Mike said he wanted Namor dead, Eventide would have done the same thing

As for the second reason, well. The higher-ups were curious.

After all, Mike was the only person they’d seen in a long time who got his ability from an ability orb and not from hereditary. What’s more, they’d been observing him since he entered the academy, and they were constantly readjusting their initial opinions of him. From his rate of improvement to the way he used his abilities, they were naturally curious.

As such, they saw this entire ordeal as a way to gauge what Mike was capable of. If he died, then he was just so-so in the end. But if he managed to come out on top...

A nobody with a never-before-seen ability prevailing against the young master of an Apex family who had an offshoot of a known ability that had existed for centuries... now, that would be quite the treat.

As the person who had been in charge of observing and reporting her findings to the higher-ups, Beatrice was one of the most curious ones.

After all, Mike had shown a blatant disregard for her ability despite its failsafes and unique mechanics once before. So she knew that despite his humble background, he was anything but simple.

’What will it be, then? Will you fade into obscurity? Or will you show us something interesting?’ She thought as she leaned back into her seat, her lips curling up into a small smile.

She was curious indeed.

***

After a while of talking, Mike decided to take a moment for himself.

Currently, he sat down cross-legged near the cave wall with his eyes closed. He looked to be meditating, but in reality, he was checking out the system. Specifically, he was checking out something he’d been looking forward to as soon as he got it.

The upgrade to Vitalis Core.

[Ding. Ability (Vitalis Core: B+) has been successfully upgraded into (Vitalis Core: A).]

When Mike learned that the ability was evolving, he was excited inwardly, both because having an ability get upgraded was nice, but also because said upgrade let him realize just how much he’d been underutilizing it compared to his Aura.

He planned on using the remaining days before the full moon to explore the depths of the ability as much as possible, and not just the surface level healing he’d been doing so far.

He looked at the new description, and what he saw made his gasp inwardly.

’This... This is insane!’