Chapter 214: Beast Essence Meter Activated

Tera pushed her hair back and surveyed the farm.

A few weeks had passed, and she was watching the wolves experience their first harvest.

The sight was equal parts satisfying and ridiculous. Grown wolves, the same ones who had spent their lives chasing prey across open terrain, were on their knees in damp soil, yanking tubers from the ground and staring at them like each one was a personal miracle.

A few of them were still baffled no matter how many times Tera had explained how it worked to them.

"It was just sitting there in the ground."

"She said this is what happens when you plant things," the other wolf whispered conspiratorially to the other.

"But HOW?" He shook the tuber at her as if demanding it explain itself. "We put a tiny thing in, and this came out? This is not the tiny thing anymore!"

Tera chuckled, walking up to them. "It just grew."

From the corner of her eye, Tera went still in shock as a wolf bit into the dirty tuber they had just pulled out. Their face had twisted in complete disgust, and their eyes watered as they stared at the plant like it was an abomination.

"What are you doing?!" she nearly screamed, rushing over to the wolf who was staring at Tera with an open mouth filled with starchy pink paste.

"Spit it out! You are supposed to cook it first!"

The wolf turned around and vomited instead.

Another wolf rushed to his aid.

Further down the row, another wolf pulled his tuber out so aggressively that he toppled backwards and landed flat on his back, the tuber clutched to his chest like he had just wrestled it from the jaws of a predator.

"MINE IS HUGE!"

"They are ALL the same—"

"THIS ONE IS BIGGER! LOOK!"

He held it up from the ground, still on his back, presenting it to the sky with the triumphant pride of a wolf who had defeated the earth itself.

A third wolf squinted at his own tuber and turned it sideways. His face shifted through several expressions before settling on delighted horror.

"This one has elder Greymaw’s face."

Every wolf within earshot stopped what they were doing.

The tuber was inspected from multiple angles. It was passed from hand to hand with the careful reverence of an important artefact.

’What the fuck is happening?’

"It has wrinkles!"

"And that lump on the side looks exactly like his forehead!"

"Even the shape of the top is like his head!"

"Do NOT let him see this—"

"Let us hide this one!"

Tera walked up to them to see what exactly they were looking at.

The wolves were huddled together like little children who were watching something so fascinating that they didn’t notice the female walking up to them.

When Tera looked at the tuber, she quickly pressed her hand over her mouth and turned away before the laugh could escape.

’Holy shit...’

The tuber was flat and oblong, wider at the top and tapering unevenly at the bottom like a head that had been sat on. A deep groove ran horizontally across the middle, creating an unmistakable frown line that divided the upper half from the lower with the precise displeasure of someone who had been personally offended by existence.

Two small lumps sat above the groove like heavy, disapproving brows, and a knobby protrusion jutted from the centre that could only be described as a nose that had smelled something foul and never recovered.

The resemblance was so uncanny that Tera half expected the tuber to start complaining about shiftless females.

It really did look like Greymaw.

Tera promptly swiped it from the wolves, promising to preserve it for them. They had pouted, disappointed by their toy being taken away from them, but they had returned to focus on their harvest.

She was going to goad that old man.

Beyond the comedy, Tera felt happy the farm was genuinely producing. If anything, the plants grew faster on this land. Now, the wolves had water, food growing from the ground, and for the first time in years, they were not entirely dependent on hunting for their next meal.

Tera had slightly improved the animal pen too. She had used some broken branches from the storm in her clan’s territory to help reinforce the animal pen.

The female wolves had all delivered by now too, and most of the elders were tending to them while Calis was out with a handful of males to search for more animals to bring.

Things were somewhat stable, and Tera had used every moment of that stability to work on herself.

She stretched out her arm and turned it slowly in the light.

The burns had healed faster than she expected. The system had mentioned her beast stats accelerating the recovery, but the scarring remained. The only issue was that it wasn’t prominent.

She would carry this with her forever.

Tera flexed the arm.

Lean muscle shifted beneath the scarred skin. Her forearm was tighter and more defined than before. Her body had toned even more from weeks of relentless effort. Ever since that attack, Tera had been punishing herself with targeted training every single day.

Running at dawn. Climbing trees until her fingers bled. Hauling logs that the beast males carried with one hand but that she needed her whole body to move. She did every single exercise routine she remembered, and had the system suggest a lot more.

Despite being shiftless, a beast body was amazing. She could do over a hundred reps of every single workout in one sitting now, and she did each set repeatedly. Over and over again.

She not only focused on her strength, but also on her speed, reflexes, and other physical aspects she could tackle.

She wanted everything covered.

This had surprised the beasts, and when her mates asked what she was preparing for, she had only mentioned wanting to get her strength back and grow stronger. Xavi and Ermin didn’t mind this, and they were happy seeing Tera so active and doing something that did not involve running around and endangering herself.

But the system was not fooled, especially not when it noticed an obvious indicator of Tera’s growth.

[All Beast Stats Have Reached Maximum Capacity]

[Beast Essence Meter: ACTIVATED]