Long Tian smiled when he heard her name, glad that he had managed to keep his secrets.
However, his smile froze when Long Rue just stood there smiling looking at him.
"Hey, are you not going to make the Spiritual Promise too?"
He asked her, which caused her to twitch her mouth.
"Have you really made a promise that could kill you expecting me to do the same, and did not even put in your promise the condition for it to work only if I also promised to follow the agreement?"
She asked, looking at him as if he was a moron.
"Huh, wait, are you going behind on your word?"
Long Tian asked frowning.
"No, silly, what do I have to gain by going against the one who will be my master in the future. I wasn't going to make the promise because it does not make a difference. But if you truly want me to do it, then here it goes."
"Igra Long Rue nefastus nar. I will not reveal to others anything that I see Long Tian doing in the sanctuaries that I think can be prejudicial to him without his permission."
She finished and looked at him, asking a little exasperated.
"Satisfied?"
"Yes, now I know that we can work together."
He responded with a smile.
"You are really naive."
She said while sighing before thinking a little and speaking again.
"If you are going to be my master, you absolutely cannot be this naive or this weak. You somehow have a sword that surpasses the limit of the sanctuary and almost lost against a beast that was only a bit stronger than you."
"You fought without using any decent tactics and didn't use any of the Martial Arts that the clan taught you."
"This would normally be corrected after you ascended to the second sanctuary, but there is no harm in gaining experience now and improving upon it later."
She declared.
"I will be training you from now on."
Long Tian heard that and was dumbfounded. One moment she insulted him, the next she was saying that she would train him.
But thinking about it, Long Tian only had to gain by learning under her. She was clearly much stronger and more experienced than him, and he had a tournament to fight in 3 months.
It would probably be extremely hard to reach the top 10 just by training alone, as he obviously would not use Supreme Beast Souls in a public tournament for everyone in the sanctuary to see.
"Alright, should I call you teacher or something?"
"That won't be necessary. I am going to assume that you already maxed your Super Points, right?"
She asked, looking at the two giant corpses that were near them.
"Yes I have, but I still need the beast essences."
She looked at him a bit surprised. Although Beast Essences could heal, the effect was much inferior when one completed the Gene Points, so nobody at their level really caries them around.
"You don't need them for healing, with your fitness and beast souls, not even that Dragon would be capable of injuring you."
She explained to him, thinking he was trying to be cautious.
"I know that, but I have my own uses."
He said, and she looked at him, waiting for him to explain.
Seeing him in silence, she sighed and said.
"Alright, keep your little secrets. Just be careful not to be too kind and give away things that you need to others, even if you feel indebted to them."
She finished and went to sit on a trunk, to wait for him to absorb the essences.
Long Tian just stayed silent and went towards the lion, cutting open its chest before retrieving the essence.
He decided to absorb it inside the beast to not let Long Rue see his strange method of absorption. Although he did not know if she had already seen it inside the Dragon, it was never too late to start being careful.
He took over an hour to finish it.
He left the lion's body and saw that Long Rue continued sitting there, eyes closed, not even reacting to him. But he knew she was awakened, as she maintained a meditating posture.
He then went towards the gorilla's body.
He barely had to cut anything in its injured chest to reach the heart.
The Dragon's essence was entirely black and 1 meter in size, the spider's was like wood and 30 cm and the lion's was entirely white and 35 cm.
The essence of the gorilla that he was seeing in front of him was gray and black, the color of the fur of the gorilla. It was 60 cm in diameter.
He simply put his hand on it and started absorbing. He had been gaining SEP constantly from the lion and had discovered that one Super Gene Point granted 0.5 SEP. Which was extremely good.
He knew that ordinary beasts gave 0.0001, primitives ten times that, at 0.001, mutants gave ten times that again, at 0.01, and he had only consumed one to reach the 3.2 SEP that he had before.
But now, just from the lion, he had acquired 50 SEP, with 50 more from the gorilla, he would end up with 100. He had been wanting to buy a lot of things in the shop and would finally be able to.
Over an hour later, Long Tian, standing on the already dark space that was the heart of the gorilla, finished absorbing all the essence.
He jumped out and landed outside, seeing that the forest was already dark. But he did not have any trouble seeing in the dark, partly because of his fitness and partly because of that transformation from when he gained the Supreme Beast Soul from the lion.
As soon as he landed, Long Rue stood up and opened her eyes.
"Let's go back."
She said, but Long Tian shook his head.
"I want to see what is above that mountain."
He said while pointing at the massive pillar in the center of the ring. The thing could be seen even with multiple massive trees around them, as it occupied an entire section of the sky.
"'That mountain', is a nest, a place where the sanctuary generates Gene Beasts. With so many super beasts coming out of it at once, it must be deserted right now. We can come later to have a look, now let's return so that I can think how I will report what you did today."
Long Tian saw her summoning a wing that did not come from a flying squirrel and disappear.
He sighed and could only summon his wing and start flying back to the shelter.
As he passed the first mountain ring, he could see many beasts climbing it with surprising speed. They were returning to the first ring now that the commotion had ended.
The sheer number of beasts surprised him. This would be a good spot to hunt in the future after upgrading the refinement art.
He continued flying and left Ten Rings Mountain Nest after 10 minutes, due to the massive speed of his super wings.
Returning to the shelter took another 10 minutes.
He landed outside the shelter and walked all the way back. Entering through the north gate and going towards his apartment in the shelter.
He felt Long Rue's presence disappear after he entered his room and another presence appeared in the end of the corridor, observing his door.
'Well, at least inside here I can have some privacy.'
He then took a bath, put his clothes to wash and went to bed, deciding to think about what he would do tomorrow, together with Long Rue.
…
At another location in the shelter, inside a structure that was different from the ones that housed the apartments.
In a small room with a wooden bed, laid an unconscious beautiful woman.
She had short hair that reached her neck. She was dressed in a clearly new military uniform that had three silver lines on the shoulder.
Suddenly, she woke up with a gasp and started coughing while looking around frankly.
"Huh, how did I end up in the shelter base."
Then, the door opened, and Jiang Xue entered almost running.
"Captain, are you okay??"
She asked with clear concern on her face.
"Jiang Xue, what happened and how did we return to the shelter?"
Qin Ling asked while standing up, surprised that nothing hurt.
"We were saved by that mysterious person that killed the Dragon. After you fell unconscious to the spider, I caught you and ran in his direction."
"He killed the spider and gave its Beast Essence for you to consume and heal."
Qin Ling was extremely surprised by this development. Not for him killing the spider, but the beast essence part.
"Who was him? I need to repay this debt no matter what."
"I don't know captain, he just called himself LT and said that he helped us because we were military."
Qin Ling was once again surprised. But this did not feel right, while the people of the alliance did not outright hate the military. Saying that it was a loved institution would be a lie.
After all, every single person, no matter the gender, had to serve from their 20th anniversary to their 25th anniversary. And the wars that the alliance was fighting in were definitely not defensive.
So this man was either a military and decided to help them because of the connection. Or he just wanted to be left alone and was willing to spend an entire Super Beast Essence just to not have to answer any questions.
Either way, he had saved them, the minimum that she would feel is gratitude.
"Alright, we will probably not find anything under that name. He does not want to be found either, so remember to try and not bring problems to him when you write your report."
She said, orienting Jiang Xue.
"About that captain… Lieutenant Qin wants to talk with you. And I also had to report everything that happened with the team during our expedition."
Qin Ling heard that and sighed.
"It's alright, you did the right thing Jiang Xue. I will talk with the Lieutenant and organize the proper compensation for the families of the people in the expedition team."
She said while standing up. Making no comments on the fact that she was clearly bathed and was in new clothes, underwear included.
…
Long Rue was in her room, looking at a holographic screen that was showing her finished report about everything that Long Tian did in the sanctuary today.
Direct verbal reports to the patriarch or anyone for that matter were rare. People who were qualified to hear about Long Tian's business in the sanctuary were all extremely occupied.
So she was just writing her report that would either be analyzed by elder Kang, or by a Virtual Intelligence, to see if Long Tian could have failed the test in some way.
Now, her version was extremely modified and if they had some way to know what he did without her report, she would be in extreme trouble.
But she felt that it should be okay. It was not like she was betraying the clan per see.
She was protecting the Young Master, allowing him time to grow, and also, in some ways, serving him as she was told to do, even thought it was only supposed to start in the second sanctuary.
She had thought a lot about this punishment and had realized the patriarch's intention.
Long Tian was clearly different, the potential he showed was extremely shocking. So by tying her to him in such a way, he secured her future in the clan.
After all, once she left the first sanctuary, her position in the clan would fall significantly, as would her access to the council and other resources in the clan.
She would not be helpless, as her talent was very good and her direct family was influent in the clan, but it would still be a downgrade.
But by following Long Tian, she would have direct access to someone that had very high chances of entering the council in the future.
This was her evaluation before today. But now, she started thinking about it differently.
What Long Tian showed today was unprecedented, something that she had never heard of.
Acquiring 100 Gene Points from a single Gene Beast, beast souls one rank higher than the beast killed, even surpassing the limit of the sanctuary.
And the fact that he got a beast soul from every single beast he killed.
She had not seen those beast souls, but just from the fact that he got one from the first beast he killed every time, she could infer this without much difficulty.
And even if it wasn't 100% of the time. The average drop rate of beast souls was 3%, with 30 beasts generating 1 beast soul if one was lucky.
So anything above that was revolutionary.
So, as she started to make sense of Long Tian's potential, she realized something extremely shocking. She could not see his limits.
Talent in the alliance is divided by several criteria. But normally it is tested in specific machines that require the presence of people that are in the fourth sanctuary at least.
These results are then ranked, grouped together with other results that generated similar effects. That's what she knew about these tests.
The highest rank in the alliance was Rank 0, at least that she knew of. There were rumors of higher ranks, but nothing had ever been confirmed.
These people are guaranteed to become Gene Generals. They are simply better in the sanctuary than lower talents. Their Gene Journey is smooth and does not take as long.
The talent of Long Tian, tested at birth, was Rank 1, not the highest possible but still something that the Long clan considers as standard for its descendants.
But talent does not have anything to do with Gene Points or beast souls, these are concepts that are considered equal to everyone.
Now, Long Tian has broken this concept. She truly did not know where he would stop, or if he would stop.
Rank 1 talents can reach Gene General rank with some investments, but from there, one is entirely dependent on their own efforts.
The seventh sanctuary is ultimately the most prized goal of everyone in the alliance today, with less than one thousand people capable of ascending.
But she could not see in her mind Long Tian being stopped by the sixth sanctuary nor by the seventh.
Granted, she did not know what these sanctuaries truly are like but based on the history of others that succeeded in them, she could tell they were not as promising as Long Tian.
In the Long Clan, there have been 2 patriarchs in its 500 years of history. And the current one has been ruling for more than 200 years.
As she thought about what Long Tian could achieve, the only thing she could see was him being the next patriarch. And the more she thought about it, the more excited she became.
Being close to the next patriarch, even as a follower. That would be incredible.
'Looks like I will need to get closer to him and train him to the best of my abilities.'
She thought before sending the report to analysis and going to sleep.