Chapter 33:
The Beast Synthesis and Creation Wing of Astral Star University was a stark contrast to the golden, airy grandeur of the Star-Palace. Here, the air was pressurized and sterile, smelling of ozone, antiseptic, and the faint, musky scent of dormant biological matter. The walls were made of white pearlescent alloy, embedded with sensors that monitored the flux-density of every individual who entered.
Roman walked through the heavy decontamination gates, his new "shrouded" aura making him feel like a ghost in the machine. To the sensors, he was merely a talented student with a slightly elevated soul-frequency. But internally, his Spirit Sea was a swirling vortex of indigo and white, held back by Dean Malakor's indigo seal.
He entered Laboratory 4-B, a room filled with twenty shimmering synthesis pods. Each pod was connected to a central terminal that flickered with complex genomic strands and flux-resonance charts.
At the front of the lab stood Professor Aristhine, a woman whose movements were so precise they felt mechanical. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and her eyes were hidden behind a multi-lens magnifying visor that clicked and whirred as she scanned the incoming students.
"You are here because you believe you can play God," Aristhine began, her voice like a scalpel cutting through the silence. "You are here because you think beast taming is simply about catching a creature and commanding it. You are wrong. Taming is the end of the process. Synthesis is the beginning. If you do not understand the marrow, you do not deserve the soul."
Roman took his station at Pod 7. He noticed that the Rank 3 petite girl—whose name he had learned was Mina—was at Pod 3, humming a tuneless song as she poked at a holographic DNA strand. The twins were nowhere to be seen; they had likely chosen Research or Command as their secondaries.
"Before you can create, you must learn the tools of the forge," Aristhine stated, waving her hand to activate the terminals at each student's station.
The screens erupted into a dizzying array of data. Aristhine began to walk through the equipment, her lecture a relentless stream of technical jargon.
"The Flux-Centrifuge," she pointed to a spinning silver cylinder, "is used to isolate the primordial essence of a beast's blood. If you miscalculate the rotation by a single hertz, the essence destabilizes and turns into a caustic gas. The Resonance Chamber is where the soul-seed is incubated. It requires a steady output of your own flux. If your spirit fluctuates, the beast emerges malformed—or worse, it emerges as a mindless 'Void-Husk' that will try to consume your arm before it dies."
Roman listened with a level of focus that bordered on the supernatural. His new green eyes, enhanced by the Azure Dragon's energy, didn't just see the screens; they saw the flickering refresh rates of the holograms and the subtle vibrations of the machinery. He wasn't just learning; he was mapping the room.
"And finally," Aristhine said, tapping a large glass vat filled with glowing blue fluid, "the Amniotic Matrix. This is the womb of the future. It uses refined nutrient broth and compressed flux to knit together bone, muscle, and spirit."
She turned her visor toward the class, the lenses clicking as she focused on Roman.
"Most of you will fail this department within the first month," she said flatly. "You will find the mathematics too dense, the flux control too demanding, and the emotional toll of failed creations too high. To ensure you aren't wasting my time, we begin with the basics: Observation."
Aristhine flicked a switch, and a series of small, transparent containment cubes rose from the floor in the center of the lab. Inside each cube was a different low-level beast—creatures that were common in the Federation but possessed complex behavioral traits.
"You have been assigned a specific species," Aristhine announced. "Your task for the next seventy-two hours is to study their behavioral patterns. I do not want a list of what they eat. I want an analysis of their Soul-Frequency Modulation. How does their energy change when they are hungry? When they are threatened? When they are bored? If you cannot read a beast's mood, you will never be able to synthesize its spirit."
Roman looked at his terminal. His assignment: the Crystalline Weaver Spider.
It was a Rank 1 beast, barely the size of a human hand, with a body made of translucent quartz and eight spindly legs that glowed with a faint violet light. It was currently sitting in the corner of its cube, motionless.
"Begin," Aristhine commanded.
The lab fell into a studious silence, broken only by the scratching of digital styluses and the soft hum of the containment fields.
Roman sat in front of the Weaver Spider's cube. He didn't reach for his stylus. Instead, he simply closed his eyes and allowed his "shrouded" senses to drift outward. He couldn't use the full power of the Lightning Stone, but even the muffled version of his soul was far more sensitive than any sensor in the room.
He felt the spider.
It wasn't a "spider" in his mind; it was a rhythmic pulse, like a ticking clock made of glass. He could feel the way its internal flux flowed through its crystalline legs. It was waiting. It wasn't bored; it was setting a trap within its own Spirit Sea, preparing to spin a web of energy that hadn't yet manifested in the physical world.
It's syncing with the ambient flux of the room, Roman realized.
As the hours passed, the other students grew restless. Shane, who had also taken Beast Creating, was sighing and tapping his desk. "It's just sitting there, Roman," Shane whispered. "I've written three pages about its legs, but it hasn't moved in two hours. How am I supposed to find a 'modulation'?"
"Don't look at the legs, Shane," Roman said, his eyes still closed. "Look at the air around it."
Late in the evening, as the artificial sun of Astra began to dip below the horizon and the lab lights dimmed to a soft amber, the Crystalline Weaver Spider finally moved.
It didn't walk. It vibrated.
The violet light in its legs flared, and suddenly, the air inside the cube began to crystallize. Thin, shimmering threads of solid flux began to weave together, forming a geometric web that looked like a mathematical proof rendered in light.
Roman watched with his green eyes wide. He saw how the spider's soul-frequency spiked exactly three milliseconds before the thread appeared. It was a perfect synchronization of thought and matter.
But then, he noticed something else.
Deep within the spider's tiny soul-core, there was a flaw. A jagged edge in the frequency that made the web slightly lopsided. To a normal observer, the web was perfect. To Roman, it was a structural failure.
If I were to synthesize this, Roman thought, his mind racing through the DNA strands Aristhine had shown them, I would need to smooth that frequency spike. I would need to anchor the soul-seed in a way that allows the flux to flow without resistance.
He began to write. He didn't just record the patterns; he wrote a thesis on the biological inefficiencies of the Rank 1 Weaver Spider and how they could be corrected through spirit-merging.
As the class began to pack up for the night, Professor Aristhine walked through the rows of pods. Most students had written standard reports. When she reached Mina, the petite girl showed her a drawing of the spider wearing a tiny hat. Aristhine sighed but didn't correct her—Mina's data-sheet was, surprisingly, 100% accurate.
Then, she reached Roman.
She picked up his digital tablet and began to scroll. Her mechanical visor clicked rapidly, the lenses zooming in and out as she read his analysis. She stayed at his station for a full five minutes, her expression unreadable.
"You are suggesting," Aristhine said, her voice low, "that the basic evolutionary blueprint of a Crystalline Weaver is flawed?"
"I'm saying it's unfinished," Roman replied, standing his ground. "The species has the potential for Rank 3 spatial manipulation, but their soul-anchor is too shallow. They are limited by their own biology."
Aristhine looked from the tablet to Roman's forest-green eyes. For a second, she looked as if she were about to expel him for arrogance. Then, she set the tablet down.
"Your observations are... unorthodox," she said, her voice devoid of emotion. "Complete the full seventy-two-hour cycle. If your data remains consistent, I will grant you access to the Advanced Genetic Sequencer next week. If you are wrong, you will be barred from this lab for the rest of the semester."
"I won't be wrong," Roman said.
As Aristhine walked away, Roman felt a pair of eyes on him. He turned to see Mina, the Rank 3 girl, watching him from her station. She wasn't smiling anymore. She was looking at him with a gaze that was far too old for her petite frame.
"The spider isn't the only thing with a shallow anchor, Roman-chan," she whispered, her voice barely a breath. "Be careful. If you try to fix everything, you might end up breaking yourself."
She then skipped out of the room, her cheerful demeanor returning as if it were a switch.
Roman stood alone in the darkening lab, the Crystalline Weaver Spider watching him from its cube. He felt the Azure Dragon Stone pulse beneath his uniform—a heavy, primordial heartbeat that reminded him of his true purpose.
He wasn't just here to study spiders. He was here to learn how to rewrite the universe.