I remembered him well enough. He was the elf that destroyed half a dozen cities before going back to his own world. Not because he was forced to return, but because the portal he'd used to get to our world was collapsing. Once we were able to translate the things he'd said we knew just how insanely outmatched we really were. After all the desperate fighting we found out that not only was he not the strongest elf, but he was just one of many clan leaders.
One of the cities he'd torn through was close to where my family lived at the time. So naturally every able bodied man, and woman was sent into the battle. Including my birth parents. I didn't remember my parents since I was so young when it all happened, but I still felt their absence growing up. Just a clan leader was considered a tier-less beast.
All archaics were considered beasts in the eyes of humanity. Only the four greats, and their disciples were thought of any differently. Classic military propaganda. Only those raised up by the military were worth anything in the eyes of a militarized society. Factions were beginning to form outside of the military now that there were other planets to colonize, but earth would belong solely to the military alliance until something major changed.
Change wasn't going to happen in a day. It never did unless it involved a lot of death.
"Did you ever get results on that info I had you look into?" I glanced up from my watch.
"Yeah," Ethan looked up from what he was reading, "It's not a complete portfolio, but you were right. About three months ago all the nature conservation efforts suddenly started showing results. Not just in plant life, but rare animal fertility. The events aren't limited to a single area, and its just a slight increase in effectivity so no one has noticed a connection between them, but our world has gotten a little healthier."
"Somethings spreading out the localized mana I've been releasing to improve the whole world steadily," I sniffed the air, "That would be why despite all the mana I put out in this area. The mana here is still thin."
"You really think there's one last magical beast hiding somewhere on earth?" Ethan frowned at me, "They've searched this entire world thousands of times. Top of the mountains to the bottom of the seas. Where the hell would it be hiding?"
"Somewhere humans can't go," I glanced down at my watch.
"Where?" Ethan let a hoarse chuckle burst out, "The center of the earth?"
"Maybe," I'd always felt the mana draining away, but I thought it was just dispersing normally.
If it was being spread evenly across the world than someone was definitely controlling the flow of mana. To disperse it evenly like this would take unbelievable skill in mana manipulation. The task itself was simple. It was the sheer scale that took the impressive amount of skill. That pretty much guaranteed that whatever this creature was, it was on the tier-less level.
It terrified me to think of such a monster lurking somewhere so hidden that no one had found it yet. If that being decided to side against us. I didn't even want to think of what would happen. My wings twitched as I pulled myself into my room, and closed the door slowly. I might be able to bridge the gap between me, and tier five beasts with my venom.
My venom got stronger with my body. I didn't know what having a level two venomous skill meant really. It wasn't a skill I looked forward to leveling up. Leveling up my skills meant using them. Savannah brought me meat a few hours later, and I scarfed it down. I'd wasted to much time today to go myself.
I decided on going to town to look for one of those devices. The scanner that ranked beasts. It was a simple device that scanned their energy levels, and the concentration of that energy to rank the beasts. Knowing would be half the battle as we grew stronger as a team. My instincts were pretty good when it came to this kind of stuff so I figured I'd be able to tell at a glance which beasts I could defeat.
Maybe I'd even be able to tell how strong they were compared to myself. That would be an interesting eventuality. I'd have to face more beasts before I could figure out if my instincts could tell me anything about the beasts I was facing. There were always at least three outings to beast planets in a year. They were weaker planets that were well regulated for students to explore.
It was rare for a stronger beast to appear. We'd already gone on one outing. That left two more this year. Then they'd finish up the year with the inter academy tournament. The academy that won the tournament got the best funding each year so the better a school preformed the better every member of staff in that school got paid. Simple calculated risk, and reward way of doing things.
If you wanted a raise you had to make sure that you trained your top students well. The top student would get their own separate bonus of a million credits. Everyone would be clawing through each other for that kind of money. Someone always ended up in the hospital ward. Some years students would even kill each other.
I probably wouldn't be here for that whole mess so I chose not to think about it. I didn't know how Savannah, and Ethan felt about it, and I didn't want to ask. There was a good chance we'd be getting split up soon. The tournament could still be in their future, but for me competing would be a nightmare. Holding back against that many strong opponents would be asking to loose, and I didn't like loosing.
"I really don't know what I'm going to do," I sighed as I settled in to sleep.