The Director was about to respond when a sharp knock interrupted their conversation. Without waiting for an answer, Prince Julius strode into the office, his presence immediately commanding attention.
"Ah, I was beginning to worry," Ignatius straightened in his chair. "How was the investigation?"
"I found him… Unfortunately, I couldn't take down the mercenary." Julius shook his head as he leaned against the Director's desk, exhaustion evident in every line of his body. The recent pursuit had clearly taken its toll.
"I had the complete advantage in power, but when it came to escaping, he proved extraordinarily skilled... I tried following him through the abyss, but there were too many creatures. I ended up wasting energy without achieving anything from there."
With a gesture that spoke of pure frustration, the prince hurled a blood-stained backpack onto the desk. The impact resonated through the office with a dull thud, the considerable weight of its contents making the solid wood creak.
"At least I managed to wound him significantly," he continued, his eyes gleaming with the memory of combat. Golden light flickered across his irises as his Qilin stirred beneath his skin.
"He might not survive. I tore off another arm and a leg during our confrontation."
The prince straightened. "But using the abyssal power from the start was barely enough for him to escape. He invoked the abyssal vein again, they undoubtedly can control it. The small surge of abyssals attacked me while ignoring him..." His fingers clenched into fists. "He replaced his lost leg and hand with scorpion appendages almost instantly and ran."
"The mutation capacity of abyssal beasts..." the Director began to mutter, but Julius cut him off with a sharp gesture.
"This wasn't a simple mutation." The prince's voice carried an edge. "It was as if the beast was part of him at a deeper level. The way he manipulated those appendages... too natural, too controlled."
"And the normal beast, the hippogriff?" the Director asked.
"I destroyed its form," Julius responded, bitter satisfaction coloring his voice. "My wolverine followed the mercenary while I used the qilin. It was a relatively easy battle, but the beast fought to the end."
His expression darkened.
"By the time I had defeated it... the mercenary had already tricked my beast and escaped quite far. When I caught up, part of the griffin had already regenerated in his body, so he used its wings to move faster and reach the abyss."
The Director and his cousin listened intently to the story. The girl, especially, seemed fascinated by the pursuit's details, her eyes never leaving the prince as he spoke.
"What's in the backpack?" his cousin finally asked, her gaze fixed on the bloodied object.
Julius pushed it, causing its contents to spill across the desk in a cascade. Dozens of cores rolled across the polished surface, some still stained with dark crimson, others emitting a faint, pulsing glow in the fading light.
"Why risk so much for this?" The Director picked up one of the cores. "Surely they could obtain many others more easily in their territory. Apart from generating random eggs in the controlled veins, cores are practically useless once the beast dies..."
"Maybe they're not so useless." The prince's voice dropped lower, heavy with implication.
"Maybe there's something we don't understand but they do. What if it's not the quantity that matters, but the specific type? If they've discovered how to hatch them, if they're from specific creatures that help them..." His eyes narrowed. "Like the one from the mercenary infiltrating us."
His words fell heavily in the room, each syllable weighted with unspoken threats. The Director observed the cores scattered across his desk with renewed concern while the prince cousin began collecting them, her movements precise and methodical.
The setting sun filtered through the office windows, making the cores gleam with an ominous light. What had seemed like worthless remains now represented a potential threat none of them had considered.
What if it's not coincidence? What if they're collecting specific cores to facilitate their mass infiltrations?
"We need to investigate this further," the Director began, but the prince was already walking toward the door, his Qilin's light casting elongated shadows.
"I'm already doing something about it," Julius paused in the threshold. "For now, I need you to complete the paperwork for the extra guards, and you, dear cousin, keep watching our friend very carefully."
The door closed behind him with a soft click, leaving the Director and his cousin contemplating the situation, silent witnesses to an approaching war that was taking an unexpected turn.
Ren's muscles screamed in protest as he settled into his bed.
Every movement sent waves of pain through his overtaxed body, reminders of Lin's particularly brutal training session.
He took the recovery pill she had given him, feeling the familiar warmth spreading through his limbs as the special medicine took effect. The constant ache began to fade, replaced by a gentle tingling sensation that promised relief.
The mushrooms in his hair pulsed softly as his gaze drifted to the two cores resting on his nightstand. The mantis and hydra cores glowed faintly with the mana he had invested in them.
His trunk caught his attention, specifically the two eggs hidden within. The Ambush bug egg especially... he could sell it. There were always buyers interested in rare eggs, and though bugs weren't popular, their rarity guaranteed a good price if he was patient enough to find the right buyer or collector.
'But finding it already transformed was too lucky,' he thought as his mushrooms' glow momentarily distracted Taro. 'It could be useful later...'
His eyes drifted to where he kept the abyssal shadow stalker core. Though he couldn't use it yet, (his knowledge didn't cover abyssals) perhaps when his spore increased in rank there would be interesting possibilities.
Bronze rank with two beasts... He could become strong enough to defeat beasts with real cores when he reached that level. The thought made his heartbeat hasten with anticipation.
Could he obtain more cores in the future to produce more eggs? Transform them for use or sale?
The mushrooms pulsed insistently, reminding him of reality: first, he needed to become stronger.
Dealing with bronze-rank beasts was too dangerous at his current level. Luck and knowledge would only take him so far, he needed real power to back up his plans.
"Hey, Ren..." Taro's voice pulled him from his thoughts.
His roommate sat cross-legged on his bed, surrounded by books and notes from Wei's class. The flickering candlelight cast dancing shadows across his unusually serious expression.
"Do you really believe my beetle can evolve beyond bronze?" Taro fidgeted nervously with his pen. "Truth is... I've tried not to get my hopes up, but..."
He paused, searching for the right words in the dim light.
"You always surprise us," he finally continued, voice thick with emotion.
"With your knowledge, with your predictions... Now if even those cores transform into eggs, I won't be able to help it anymore. And now, with my beetle's cultivation, I..." Tears began forming in his eyes…