It didn’t take long for the four of them to arrive at a large area where Gale was training, and it was a pretty expansive room that was circular. Apparently, it was created specifically to train beasts that were capable of flight, and somehow, they’d managed to have it so that Gale could use it for himself.
However, Osho didn’t get much of an opportunity to inspect the place when something small and fast zipped across the room and slammed into his chest before he could react, throwing him to the ground as he grunted.
’Osho!’ A young, cheerful voice sounded in his mind as Gale nuzzled into him happily.
Osho chuckled and immediately moved his hands to stroke the bird’s feathers.
’Yeah, missed you too, little guy.’ He replied. Unsurprisingly, Gale was also capable of vocalising his thoughts through their bond to a limited extent.
After a few seconds, Osho got up with Gale in his hands and inspected the bird. They hadn’t actually ’seen’ each other this past month and only spoke via their bond, and even that was during certain occasions.
Gale had gotten bigger, that’s for sure. The bird had gotten as big as an adult goshawk back on Earth and then some. Moreover, his wings had probably grown the most. If Osho wasn’t wrong, their wingspan easily went over 170cm, maybe more.
He wasn’t staying on Osho’s shoulder anymore, that’s for sure.
’Lots of good food! Very big now!’ Gale said with some pride. His vocabulary, unsurprisingly, needed work, but it was already quite impressive, considering his age.
Also, as he held him, Osho couldn’t help but marvel at just how sturdy Gale felt. One wouldn’t typically attribute high durability to a bird, but Gale was truly an outlier and through his surprisingly soft feathers, Osho could feel muscles that were taut like steel cables, ready to explode with extreme power at a moment’s notice.
As for his Aura, the undertone was still green as not much progress had been made on that front. However, the stability was apparent, as back then, one could easily tell that Gale had just broken through, but now, the bird was a full-fledged Apprentice.
Before they could continue their reunion, though, a voice caught their attention.
"Osho, do you know your way out?" Mrs Jane asked and Osho blinked before nodding. He’d forced himself to learn the layout of the base in case he needed to traverse it on his own, which had come in handy a few times.
"Go out towards the entrance and wait there, I have a few things to discuss with these two." Osho spared a glance at the other two. Simon just kinda stood there awkwardly while Haggai was still typing on her tablet.
"Alright." He decided not to make a fuss and just went with it, turning and stepping out.
Once he was out of earshot and his Mana sense was unable to reach them, Mrs Jane asked directly.
"So how was it?" Hearing this, Haggai finally stopped her typing and looked at Mrs Jane with a deadpan expression.
"That bird is a monster." Mrs Jane’s eyes widened a fraction. She’d been expecting something, but not that.
"Its rate of improvement is nothing short of astounding. From the beginning to the end, it has nothing but shattered our expectations over and over again. Whether it be its Physique, Mana control, Affinity, intelligence, resilience, and so on. It excels in every category and experiences an extreme speed of improvement when placed under pressure. But the most notable area is his response to suppression. Moreover, its rate of improvement isn’t just incremental, it’s exponential. Take a look at this." She turned her tablet to Mrs Jane who scrutinized its contents closely.
On it was a graph. The beginning of the graph showed a somewhat gradual and normal improvement. However, as the line progressed, it suddenly jumped up without warning.
"This graph details his rate of acclimation to being under conditions where his abilities were suppressed and his overall condition was cut down to a limited level due to outside forces. As you can see, his acclimation rate is, while decent, nothing too groundbreaking. However, he suddenly receives a spike in his resistance to said outside forces. It was so extreme that we constantly struggled to find new ways to keep suppressing him and ensure the training was actually effective." When she heard this, Mrs Jane was genuinely surprised. Gale was certainly special, she’d seen it with her own eyes. But with what she was hearing, and how Haggai was essentially info-dumping on her with what she decided to translate as excitement, it seems that Gale was doing something truly incredible.
"At first, I thought he responded this way to all forms of external stimuli, but I soon discovered that wasn’t the case, as while he does possess innate resistances to a plethora of outside negative forces to the degree of it being baffling, it comes nowhere near to his natural response to any form of suppression. Upon closer investigation, I came to the conclusion that an effect of his Bloodline is the cause, and it isn’t to a small degree either. If I’m not wrong, Gale experiences an almost conceptual level of resistance when it comes to being suppressed. As for why this may be, the most likely reason is how closely linked the Bloodline is to the sky and freedom. It naturally detests any form of restriction on itself, and if said restriction is detected by it, it will automatically act to resist it until it no longer becomes an issue." Now Mrs Jane was truly stunned.
"On a Conceptual level?" She repeated, almost in a daze. It was widely acknowledged that bloodlines were unique. However, having a Bloodline wasn’t automatically a good thing as not all bloodlines came with powerful effects, and some could be downright detrimental considering the situation.
Unlike many things, there is no clear-cut category which bloodlines fit. Some beasts have them, some beasts don’t have them, and they aren’t a requirement for beasts to become powerful, as there are more powerful beasts within a certain rank that don’t have a Bloodline than beasts that do, and there have been more than a few cases of beasts without bloodlines beating beasts that had them.
In summary, bloodlines were nice, but they weren’t everything, and one could do without them.
However, there were always outliers.
Among bloodlines, some weren’t all that, and then some looked at the established rules of the world, gave them a middle finger and proceeded to do their own thing.
These bloodlines, people speculated, belonged to beasts that in the past, could only be described as terrors beyond human comprehension. And among these types of bloodlines, bloodlines that affected entire concepts would be extremely close to the ceiling of ’That’s just not even fair.’
"Indeed, and its effects are nothing short of astounding. I managed to collect a blood sample from the bird and subjected it to different types of suppression which would have no doubt drawn the ire of that boy had I performed such tests on the beast directly, and to my shock, even while removed from the main body, the blood reacted much in the same way as it swiftly developed a resistance to any form of suppression acting on it. Also, when I said any form, I meant ANY form. The reason I’m so certain it’s on a Conceptual level is due to the fact that to a degree, the bird is building a resistance to numerous laws of nature, albeit at a slower rate than if it’s facing direct suppression, it is still there. For instance, I’ve always wondered why it was so light despite the density of its muscles. As it turns out, the bird can ignore gravity to a large extent. Moreover, he isn’t moored by things such as momentum and velocity. It doesn’t need to fly for a while before achieving its maximum speed as that is too limiting. It doesn’t experience any strain on its body whenever it turns at impossible angles despite moving incredibly fast as that would be too limiting. I can keep giving examples, but I believe you get the gist of the matter." Lady Haggair let out a soft sigh and pulled the tablet back as she remarked.
"I knew that beasts with Legendary potential were outliers, but this is still outstanding." Mrs Jane flinched and her head snapped to Haggai.
"What did you just say?" She asked, but it sounded more like a demand.
The other woman regarded her briefly before answering.
"Right, the initial assessment of the bird’s potential was quite false. I felt as though the Master rank potential tag didn’t match what it had shown us thus far, so I personally did a reassessment, and the result explains a lot more things." Mrs Jane paled.
’... But that’s impossible.’ She honestly couldn’t believe it.
If she was being honest, she too had begun doubting whether or not Gale truly only had Master rank potential. Everything he’d shown them was simply too fantastical for it to be so. However, she hadn’t thought it to be that much of a jump. She’d expected it to be Grandmaster at most, but Legendary? Beast Tamers at that level were, well, legends, and they were quite literally some of the peak humanity had to offer.
So for her to hear that one of her students had such potential? It was just jarring.
Could Haggai be lying? No, definitely not. Why would she? But in that case, didn’t that mean the testing device they used was wrong? But it had never been wrong before. Then again, they had never detected someone’s beast having Legendary rank talent before, and there were stories of devices that weren’t overly advanced failing to accurately detect the potential a beast had if it was too high.
"... So what now?" After composing herself, she asked slowly. This time, Simon was the one who responded.
"The Citadel Lord has already been informed. We are to keep this information under wraps for as long as possible. Moreover, Osho’s protection is now a top priority, even more than it had been before. We feel like there is already a target on his back after the incident with the Harbinger, and that whoever or whatever created it won’t be pleased to let him roam freely." Mrs Jane frowned.
"I understand the reasoning, but we still have next to no proof for such a situation." She offered and Haggai shot her a look.
"Do you believe that?" Mrs Jane clicked her tongue before sighing.
"... Alright. So what is meant to happen now?" Simon and Haggai shared a look.
"Well for starters, you are to act as their bodyguard to a certain degree. During both phases of the exam, they are under your supervision. Moreover, we have numerous agents posted around places the boy will most likely go. So that’s a thing." Haggai explained.
"Also, there is a tracker inside the things they are wearing, so we can keep tabs on their positions at all times. This might seem like overkill, but as they say, better safe than sorry." Mrs Jane nodded gravely. They didn’t need to tell her to act as Osho’s bodyguard since that was her intention from the get-go.
"Well, you should get going, he’s waiting for you." Lady Haggai said almost dismissively, and if one didn’t know her well enough, they’d think she truly didn’t care.
"... Alright." Mrs Jane turned around and left.