This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange - Chapter 804: 804: Eve and Queen's Evolutions

Chapter 804: Chapter 804: Eve and Queen’s Evolutions

Naturally, after seeing her evolved form, there was no way that Queen would be letting him get any rest. Not to mention, he was too excited himself to go to sleep. He will soon have 4 blue-grade contracts once Queen evolves and then takes a few days to herself to breakthrough!

Most fourth-years at Dark Moon outside of those in the top 5, don’t even have that many!

Kain’s consciousness exited the System’s Lab and returned to his home. But this time with 3 new objects in his possession.

He stepped out into the back yard pitch-black sky dotted with stars. The inner barrier while the outer perimeter was a faint curtain farther off. He followed the stone path to the very edge of the manor’s inner array, where he was beyond the line of sight of the house from most windows. The light of evolution, especially at night, was like flashing a flashlight straight into sleeping eyes—too close to the house and he’d wake everyone. More importantly tonight, the dual arrays would keep prying senses from noticing what he was about to do.

Queen pulsed in his star space—impatient, bright—while, deeper still, a quieter presence stirred: Eve. He felt the usually dormant presence for the first time in a while. Their thoughts were a huge contrast. Queen was all eagerness, her thoughts like tapping fingers in impatience. Eve was the steady heartbeat under it all, silent but central.

“Alright,” he murmured. “Let’s make this right. There’s no way my second contract should be my second weakest.”

He picked a clearing near the artificial lake, far enough that the light wouldn’t spill directly onto the manor windows. The ground here was firm and level—packed paths he’d worn himself during evening walks.

Kain set down a compact kit: three crystal vials from the lab (Aurelian Photophyte Bloom, World Tree Proto‑Phloem Vesicles, EPS Quorum Matrix), a sealed flask of Evolution Catalyst he’d purchased from the College (a reagent that loosens and temporarily destabilizes the target’s genes so the evolutionary base materials provided can get to work), and a blue‑grade spiritual core the size of his head (a high‑capacity “battery” that supplies the raw spiritual energy the body burns during evolution so the process doesn’t fail). He’d gotten one larger than average in case the dual evolutions of Queen and Eve needed more spiritual power for fuel.

From his ring, he drew the amber—its captured beetle a dark silhouette in honeyed gold—and laid it reverently at the center.

Vespid guards rustled in agitation at the edge of the clearing but kept their distance. He gave each of them a smaller blue-grade spiritual core to hold. Based on past experience, once Queen evolves, the remaining guards will also evolve without any need for their own evolutionary base materials or a catalyst, whereas all future offspring will just be born in the more advanced form. Considering most of them died during the National Tournament, only 5 guards needed to evolve, and the changes in Queen and Eve would affect the eggs in her hive that had yet to hatch.

Kain exhaled once, then gestured Queen to go next to the materials he set up.

For a breath she only hovered, taking in the lake light and the tools, before her attention fixed on the amber with a hunger she tried and failed to hide.

“Easy,” Kain said dryly. “Drink this first.”

He cracked the seal on the Evolution Catalyst. A clean, sharp scent—like rain on hot stone—bloomed. He tipped a measured portion into a shallow crystal basin, then added the materials gotten for EVE: a ribbon of pale green‑gold bloom, the faintly luminous vesicles like dew, and the clear gel of the EPS Matrix that beaded and held together. A gentle swirl, a touch of spiritual power to fold the mixture without agitating it, and the fluid settled into a pearly, life‑rich solution.

“Here,” he said.

She took the mixture, antennae trembling, and drank. This way the catalyst and the evolutionary base materials for Eve and herself would be delivered at the same time to the bacteria in her abdomen. The catalyst sank through her in visible waves—her thorax flexed, then steadied, her DNA loosening, ready to be rewritten.

Light began to be emitted almost instantaneously. Swallowing up the amber now held by Queen and the blue-grade spiritual core in its light.

It was like a star igniting, a pure white brilliance that grew greater until his eyes burned.

Kain shielded his eyes with a forearm but kept his senses open. He felt it split along two clear tracks: Queen’s body hardening and her life‑energy swelling toward healing, command, and hive control; and Eve deepening at the core—its life‑coding clamping down on reproduction, energy metabolism, and long‑term stability inside her.

The cocoon brightened again, reached piercing white, then steadied to a steady, merciless shine—and held.

Minutes passed. The blue core barely visible at the edge of the intense light, began to pale into a grey colour and spider web‑like cracks began to appear all around it, its power bleeding into the cocoon of light

A few moments later the feedback reached him. Just as Bea’s growth always sharpened his mind and thickened his resistance to mental attacks; Aegis’s advances made his physique feel sturdier; and Vauleth’s every breakthrough seemed to increase Kain’s resistance to elemental attacks (particularly fire)—this time he felt younger, cleaner, as if a few years had been handed back and any hidden sequelae from past fights had been washed out of his muscles and organs.

Then the surroundings changed as well.

Hive‑Field, the skill the system had named. A proto‑domain—unfurling before the cocoon of light even dispersed, a newborn ‘domain’, even simpler and weaker than the fledgling domains witnessed in the National Tournament, draping over the surroundings like an emerald haze, while the light still hid Queen’s silhouette. Although he couldn’t see his contract, in his bones he knew: the evolution had succeeded.

Just as the light around Queen began to dim, at the perimeter of his vision five pinpoints of white light turned on—the surviving guards triggered by their mother’s ascent, each cocooning in its own light of evolution.

But despite the spectacle, Kain barely glanced their way; his focus tunnelled on the green haze enclosing him.

It was definitely not even a fledgling domain yet. But he was intrigued on the relationship between the X-grade of this skill and its ascension into what the System called a ‘proto-domain’.

Kain had long been puzzled by the System’s ratings for skills. In all honesty, some of his contracts’ SS or SSS skills felt stronger than the X-graded ones. But perhaps what made a skill in the higher X-grade was its potential to serve as the center for the development of a domain.

Kain thought of the X skills his contracts currently had…

Vauleth’s X grade skill-Draconic Apex boosts allied dragons/fire-types and crushes enemy morale by forcing a pecking order on any draconic or fire-type creature that comes near and reduces their strength in his vicinity due to mental pressure from him. Unless they are mentally strong, weaker creatures, may not be able to put up a fight against him even if their lives depended on it.

But the X skill didn’t receive a proto-domain tag from the system…what’s the difference? Kain thought hard.

Perhaps the System only applies a proto-domain tag when a skill anchors its rule to space—a defined area with an edge—so that everything inside (creatures, energy flow, even non-living matter) follows that rule. Vauleth’s skill doesn’t involve any laws binding to space. That’s why it isn’t tagged. If Vauleth can realize a law that can be applied to a space—turning pecking-order pressure into a zone with fixed boundaries—Apex could evolve into a real domain core later.

Bea’s X skill Pale Thought Field could cross that threshold with a little nudge as well; It was easy to envision this skill becoming a full domain.

Aegis’s X skill Abyssal Foundation… Kain frowned. On paper he’d liked Aegis’s SSS and SS skills more than that quiet X‑grade passive shield skill. But what was a 360 shield that spontaneously reformed, stored energy, and retaliated on its own if not the beginnings of a geological rule that didn’t need to be sustained by Aegis consciously? Similar to how a complete domain can also completely run on its own without costing the energy of the spiritual creature…

It seems like the X wasn’t always about immediate damage the skill can give but rather how likely a skill “can become a self-sustaining law.”

Bam

The coccoon around Queen completely dispersed, allowing him to finally see her and breaking his thoughts.

Light vented upward in a pillar that struck the inner barrier and blossomed harmlessly across it, a ripple of dawn in reverse. The shell peeled itself back petal by petal and fell to dull crystal dust that the breeze whisked into the grass.

Queen flew forward, taller, her carapace a deeper green with veining that caught the light like amber.

“Congratulations,” Kain said softly.

She chittered and dipped her head. The guards, who had quickly finished evolving themselves, broke formation with a soft, collective buzz—a salute without words. Across the clearing, trampled grass righted itself and surged a shade greener. A cracked plant that was knocked over by one of her guards completely healed itself and was even stronger now.

He opened his System interface long enough to confirm the reality matched the simulation. Diamond quality. Skills as expected. Hive‑Field (Proto‑Domain) registered; Eve’s Sovereign Mandate, etc.

“Good,” he said aloud, mostly to himself. “Now you’re no longer behind the others. Heck, you may even quickly surpass them to become my first contract with a domain…”

Queen drifted to him and bumped her head against his shoulder like a cat. He reached up and stroked between her antennae absentmindedly, already thinking about the intense training he was going to put each contract through to turn their X-grade skills into domains.