Nyx heard Victor's words and reacted with joy. She continued rubbing her tiny head against his cheeks.
"Easy now. Go to my core for the mean time, make yourself at home. I have something to do."
Victor chuckled softly. Nyx's six eyes lit up as she immediately vanished from his shoulder.
'…Hm?'
Sensing something odd, he looked inside his core and couldn't help but snicker inwardly.
Nyx was running around his core, making webs all over the place as if she was building her new "home".
'She sure is a lively one…'
Letting her be, Victor returned his focus to the present. He took out his emblem and saw that he still had five minutes left.
'I can still pick another Common-grade beast. But…'
Victor knew what kind of beast he wanted for his second slot, but he was thinking about another important matter before he decides to continue.
"Mirage, what's the minimum core quality to be able to contain a forbidden-grade beast?"
Mirage, who had been silent for a while, replied.
[A Sovereign Core is enough.]
"What if I want more beasts other than the forbidden-grade beast in that core, will it still be enough?"
[If that's the case, you would need a Heaven Supreme Core. It can allow you to store one forbidden-grade beast and two beasts below forbidden-grade at the same time.]
Victor raised his brows. "Even heaven-grade beasts?"
Mirage scoffed.
[Why not? A heaven-grade beast is nothing compared to a forbidden-grade beast.]
"Is that so…"
Victor thoughtfully nodded. He didn't think the gap between the two would be that big.
No wonder why there had been multiple sightings of heaven-grade beast in history, but no forbidden-grade ones.
Regardless, that was just a question he asked in a whim. He had already obtained the answer he wanted from Mirage.
He can indeed have two more beasts besides the forbidden-grade beast in his first core, so long as its quality was Heaven Supreme.
Before he left Mirage be, he asked one more question.
"Do you think it's possible for me to upgrade my core to Heaven Supreme Core in the Realm Grounds?"
[Nonsense.]
Mirage replied lazily.
[Set your ambitions higher, master.]
That answer was enough for Victor. It wasn't just possible, it was more than possible.
As for how difficult it would be…
Even though Mirage didn't mention it, he had a feeling that it wasn't going to be a walk in the park.
'Not like that would stop me…'
Victor mused, shaking his head. The first mission he took as an assassin was dubbed as impossible, with a 99.9% death rate.
He gambled with his life—thinking that he was entering the gates of hell. But in the end, he returned safely without a single scratch on his body.
After that mission, he realized a fact: difficulty only mattered to ordinary people.
But to people like him, they were nothing.
'… Or so I would say, but hubris is a dangerous thing.'
Victor pursed his lips. Even if he was confident, he still needed to make some preparations.
After all, a man dies from his pride first before what comes after.
***
When Victor was researching last night, he came across some incredibly vital information.
One of them was different types of magical beasts in a combat perspective.
Magical beasts were categorized to different types according to their specialties: attack-type, defense-type, and lastly, support-type.
The Shadow Crawler was an attack-type magical beast. It was the typical kind of beast with strong attack skills but weak endurance and durability.
To cover for its weakness, Victor planned for his second pick to be a defense-type magical beast.
He repeated his actions from earlier.
He went to each display case of his choices and appraised the beast inside, hoping for a mutant one to appear.
As luck would have it, another one did appear.
***
[Name]: Darkscale Scorpion
[Gender]: Male
[Attribute Type]: Darkness
[Description]: A mutated variant of a common dark-attribute beast.
[Skills]: [Sting], [Defensive Curl], [Adaptive Scales]…
***
Unlike Nyx, this mutated beast had only one extra skill.
Victor nodded in satisfaction. Nyx was a special case—a mutation even amongst mutations.
He wasn't expecting another one like her to appear.
'Adaptive Scales… I haven't heard of such a skill before, I wonder what does it do?'
He briefly wondered.
An ordinary Darkscale Scorpion only had [Sting] and [Defensive Curl] as its skills, but this mutant variant had one additional skill.
He would have some time to test it out later anyway, so he kept his curiousity to himself for now.
He opened the display case from the top and saw that the Darkscale Scorpion was already waiting for him.
It was looking at him with awe and joy.
The instant the display case opened up, the Darkscale Scorpion sent out a wisp of its soul origin.
Victor didn't reject and absorbed it with his finger. Once the process was over, the Darkscale Scorpion jumped to his hand.
The Darkscale Scorpion held his finger and coiled around it, forming a protective stance.
"You don't need to show your loyalty…"
"Since you're so protective, I'll name you Sentinel."
Victor mused, rubbing its head with his other finger. He made it return to his core since his time was running out.
Inside his core, Nyx was making her new home. But suddenly she paused on her tracks as she felt a new presence.
The Darkscale Scorpion, who was suddenly teleported, panicked when he no longer saw his master.
But his attention was put elsewhere he felt as if he landed on something sticky.
He looked below and saw that he was covered in sticky webs, clinging to his lower body.
Then, he felt a sudden chill surge up on him.
Nyx looked at her hard work, torn and stepped on like junk by Sentinel. Its six eyes opened at the same time, unable to believe what she was seeing.
Sentinel realized what was happening quickly. He scoffed and looked at Nyx arrogantly, as though saying 'so what?' with a smug face.
Nyx trembled…
As for what happened afterwards, Victor would only know after a while. He watched the timer on the emblem slowly run out.
0:05…
0:03…
0:00…
Once it did, he vanished from the Colosseum.