"A werewolf as you first encounter with a cpytic is definity a tale worthy bragging about!"
Bitting of the end of the potato fry in her hand, she turned towards Lucas, a table distance infront of her and remarked.
Her words caused Lucas who sat facing her to grin," Trust me I understand and I want to but...."
Relaxing the back of his head on the large chair he continued in a rather dark tone,"...I remember it clearly holding back!"
Currently both Luacs and Rin where in a restaurant as he recounted the tale of when he and Ren had faced the abnormal werewolf, months ago.
"Holding back..." Rin questioned with uncertainty.
"...how so?"
Lucas sighed and answered in a rather detected manner,"I remember in the finally second when we were assurance of our victory, it suddenly burst fowards as with increase speed and....."
"And!" She encouraged in anticipation.
"..Well..." Luacs paused and observed how flustered she was getting clearly a reaction urging for him to continue.
One could barely boast of making a saint flustered and he was currently one of the few who could.
".....well..." He smiled causing the feelings of suspension in Rin to grow astronomically high.
As a matter of fact she was so flustered she had to grasp her right hand to prevent her from gripping Lucas collar to violently pressure him.
"You enjoying this, aren't you?"
In a voice full of agitation she questioned luacs, who currently wore a mischievous grin.
She hated to admit it but his tale was interesting and as someone who never let anything interesting out of her grasp she wanted to hear the full story but the vampire, seen to have awakened his teasing nature as he purposely slowed his pace to increase the suspense.
The feeling was like a day with slow Internet.
The irritation, agony, anger but also helpless of having to simply wait for the video to load.
It was a major mood change for her and she mostly broke her phone during those days but unlike the phone, Luacs wasn't replaceable so she had to grit her teeths and resist the feeling urge to break the boy into pieces.
Laucas ignorant of her dangerous thoughts, chuckled inwardly and decided to end her suspense.
"Well I got knocked out, so the rest of what happened is unknown to me."
It was a lie of course, he had seen the werewolf display of strength,his speed and so much more.
He clearly remember being knocked out by the cloaked figure.
He remembered the intense pain he felt as
his back crashed into that cafe that night.
He remembered Ren's speech and standing up for him but because he still didn't trust Rin that much he decided to leave them out and end his tale by saying he was knocked out.
"Oh!..." Rin excalmied in disappointment and took another potato fry from the red food container placed in the middle of the table.
Munching on the fry in dejection she sighed and muttered," That was pretty anticlimactic!"
Luacs nobbed but that was only in appearance.
Sure both him and Ren had lost back then but at the end of it all no lives where lost especially considering the fact that, the werewolf had been a devil class or even higher.
As far as things where he was pretty satisfied with the conclusion back then.
He would have wished to kill the werewolf but that was for their next encounter which he was sure would happen in the near future as now he was just getting to know his new teammate, even if the level of trust he felt towards her was low.
"Park Ha-rin!" He remarked resting his arms on the table.
Rin still dejected by how disappointing his take was turn her gaze towards him indicating she was listening.
As expected of a saint, her gaze was intense but Lucas kept his composure with he had built from years of interacting with Frey and Vana.Keeping his gaze focused on Rin, he began abliet in a rather stiff matter.
"I'm sure as a veteran,you have worked with many teammates so I'm sure you might have noticed both I and Ren are a bit stiff around you. I can't say the same for Alicia since she hasn't yet met you but I just want to ask..."He stopping to gauge her expression, which was now a neutral one before he continued," ...you aren't like Frey and Vana.... right?"
"What do you mean?" Her tone suddenly grew meaningful as she asked with a rather stern look in him with her ancient gold eyes.
Luacs realizing his question had been too vague for Rin, decided to be more precise.
"Ampathic, uncaring, ruthless,cynical, morally grey..you know edgy and being all I've lost my humanity bull crap!"
There was a bit of sarcasm mix in but as far as things went Rin seem to get want he getting at so she nobbed and rested her chin on her left palm.
-------------------
The term of losing ones humanity was a term Park Ha-rin felt was wrongly used for most of the time.
For starters not all individual on the planet was human. Vampire, elves, demi humans and finally human.
The world had a total of four races meaning the concept of losing ones humanity was extremely vague.
As a matter of fact modern humans could hardly be called humans because of a single reason.
Mana.
Mana has matatued humanity to the extent, the average modern human even whiles unawakened was significantly stronger than those in the old civilization.
"I do understand what you mean!" Rin sighed shifting her gaze to the enormous ice tree standing tall in the distance.
"Modern transcendant in my eye's are too..."
She grinned and added,"..edgy!"
Fundamental speaking human transendents where still humans just at the stage before the transition into Gods.
Thus the name transcendant because they where about to transcend into goodhood.
"Through the law of equivalent exchange one has to give someone to gain something!"
"Equivalent exchange....?"
The term was familiar to him but he still to keep the conversation going.
Seeing his interest, Rin too another fry, chomped on it in delight and began," you must have heard that ranking up changes after the saint rank."
"Yes I do know of it but how does exactly does it change and how does it relate to my question?"
"I'll get to!" Rin muttered bring her hands over the container,
this time taking two sticks of fries.
Playing with the fries between her right fingers she took another bite.
"...the world run with this equivalent exchange. A brief meaning would be something cannot come from nothing. For instance mana is needed to create and manipulate attributes."
Lucas nobbed in argument. The relationship between mana and attributes was basic knowledge.That same knowledge was why awakeners on the first and second stage preferred reinforcement compared to using attributes in real combat.
In a fight between awakeners mana conservation was an atmost priority.Most awakener in the early stages of awakening didn't have enough matter to sustain them in long draw out combat so reinforcement which required less mana was mostly favoured than just bombarding the opponent with attributes.
Sure not all early awakener followed that rule. People like Ren, Alicia where famous for having astronomically levels of mana compared to their peers.
Lucas too had a high mana capacity but he still lost to Alicia in that category.
"Another example will be Sir Reinhart of the Knights of the round, who possessed the affinity,[daylight knight] which enhanced his physical and mana capabilities during the daytime but depower his abilities by 50% during the night."
"50%!" Lucas couldn't help but excalmied loudly. No matter how busted such an ability was, he just found the price a bit too unfair.
"What if the sun disappears wouldn't he be weak forever?"
Rin chuckled at his words and answered.
" ..The keyword is daytime."
"Oh!"
It was times like this he remembered the sun was there to indicate the daytime but what truly classified as daytime was determined by time.
"Now that you have an understanding of the equivalent exchange, it's time to relate it's to you question."
Luacs remained silent and waited for her to continue.
"For a saint to become a transcendant they must fulfill two conditions. One...."
She received her right thumb and said,".....need a true name solidify their existence in the world!"
"I didn't understand!"
Rin seeing the uncertainty on his face paused and decided to take a little detour.
"Becoming a transcendant causes one to deny their existence and transcend into a higher being this causes an added effect of erasing them from the world. A true name however acts as a nail that embelled them in reality, preventing them from being forgotten or taken out of the material workd"
"It could be the name of a god,a demon, a famous hero of legends as long as that name has left its mark in the world be it friction or history, a saint transitioning into a transcendant can mark them with said name as long as there is a level of compatibility."
"What of the second condition?"
Luacs inquired fascinated by the new information he had learnt.
His curiosity seems to soften Rin expression as she took another bite of her fries and continued.
"After obtaining their true name, the second condition is to receive a defect or as they say lose their humanity!"
Shrugging her shoulders by how cliche transcendent could be she continued.
"The defect could be the negative traits of the character they obtained their true name from. So whiles I wouldn't call transcendents being who have lost their humanity I will say...."
She threw her gaze at the distance ice sculpture and sighed.
"...they are eccentric and individuals to say the least."
Ending her words she turn to face Lucas who stared at her with a deadpan expression as he muttered.
"Nice lore dump but my question remains unanswered!"
Realizing she had expected too much from a kid as delusional as luacs she and face palmed and kept her words brief.
"No! I'm not like them!"