Before the students dispersed, Kael raised his hand.
The field went quiet.
"One more thing before you leave."
He looked across the assembled students — the ones who had fought, the ones who had watched, all of them.
"Six months from now, this academy will hold its final assessment of the year. Unlike today — that assessment will have observers."
A shift in the crowd. People straightening.
"The top four academies from Gold Sand Kingdom will send representatives. They will be looking for talent to recruit — students they believe have the foundation to develop further under their programmes."
He paused.
"This is not guaranteed for anyone. It is an opportunity. Whether you earn it depends entirely on what you do between now and then."
He looked at the field — the marks from the fights still visible in the ground.
"Use the time."
He turned toward the academy building.
"Top three — report to the academy office to claim your prizes. Dismissed."
The three of them walked toward the academy building.
Around them, students were moving in groups — some already talking about the six-month assessment, some still processing what they had seen on the field. A few looked at Qalish as he passed. Not the way they had looked at him before — not dismissal, not contempt. Something quieter. The particular attention people gave to things they had underestimated and were now recalibrating.
He noted it without reacting to it.
"Top four academies," Aiden said.
"Six months."
"Yes," Qalish said.
"You're thinking about it already."
"I'm always thinking."
Aiden looked at him. Then at Ailyn.
"Is he always like this?"
"Yes," Ailyn said.
Aiden exhaled. Kept walking.
The academy vault was a room Qalish had known existed but never had reason to enter. Stone walls, controlled temperature, shelves organised by rank and category. A staff member at the desk checked their assessment results on her Monster Watch and confirmed the prizes without ceremony.
"First place — two A Rank materials from the rare section, one S Rank Blood Stone, fifty thousand gold. Second place — one A Rank material, one A Rank Blood Stone, ten thousand gold. Third place — one B Rank material, one B Rank Blood Stone, five thousand gold."
She gestured toward the shelves.
"Take your time. Call me when you've decided."
Aiden and Ailyn moved toward their respective sections. Qalish went to the rare A Rank shelf.
Stormfang Core. Thunderstrike Crystal. Both confirmed in the vault.
He found them without difficulty — the Stormfang Core sitting in a sealed case, dense electrical energy visible even through the casing, the kind of weight that suggested something compressed rather than just heavy. The Thunderstrike Crystal beside it — pale, fractured along internal lines from repeated lightning exposure, the energy inside it unstable in a way that wasn't dangerous at rest but would be when released.
Both of them. Here.
Foxy's Evo 4 materials — in one place, accessible now. The vault had them.
He set both carefully in the collection tray.
Then picked up the S Rank Blood Stone.
It was heavier than its size suggested — the same quality as the Unknown Stone had been, that particular density that said something was stored inside it that had no business fitting in that volume. The surface was dark, almost black, with a faint internal luminescence that shifted when he tilted it.
S Rank. The highest rank of Blood Stone produced in the kingdom's recorded drop tables.
And still — not something people fight over.
He had read the academy's general materials index on Blood Stones months ago. Rare, yes — the drop rate from A Rank bosses and above was low, the extraction process from the core material difficult, the total number in circulation small in any given year. A genuine rarity on paper.
But the market told a different story. Collectors did not hoard them. The wealthy did not outbid each other for them. The nobility did not send retainers to acquire them the way they sent retainers for cultivation materials or rare skill scrolls. Blood Stones sat in auction house lots and moved slowly, bought mostly by low-rank Tamers who could not afford anything else and were willing to gamble on a small chance.
The reason was the mechanic.
A Blood Stone awakened a passive bloodline trait in a Monster — but the trait that awakened was drawn randomly from whatever the Monster's own bloodline contained. S Rank Blood Stone did not guarantee an S Rank trait. Nothing about the Blood Stone's own rank controlled the result. The outcome was entirely inside the Monster, and the outcome was random. A high-rank Tamer with a top-tier Monster had no reason to risk it — the odds of pulling something useful were not in proportion to the Blood Stone's price. A low-rank Tamer with a common Monster had nothing to lose.
Rare. But not coveted.
For anyone else, this S Rank stone is a gamble with bad odds. For me — it is something different.
The system will not let the outcome be random.
He pocketed the Blood Stone and moved back toward the desk.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Outside the vault, in the corridor, Aiden and Ailyn were comparing what they had selected — Qalish caught fragments of the exchange without paying full attention to it.
He opened the system.
[ System Notification ]
[ Shop Lv.2 → Lv.3 upgrade available. ]
[ Cost: 5,000 MP ]
[ Current MP: 18,120 MP ]
[ Proceed? ]
18,120 MP. After the vault selection — the gold was separate, the materials physical. MP unchanged from the assessment result minus what he had already spent.
5,000 MP for the upgrade. Leaves 13,120. Enough.
He confirmed.
[ System Shop: Lv.2 → Lv.3 ]
[ Cost: 5,000 MP ]
[ MP: 18,120 → 13,120 MP ]
[ New function unlocked: Bloodline Template ]
[ A template that is locked onto a Blood Stone before activation. ]
[ Fixes the bloodline result — no longer random. The trait awakened will belong to the chosen bloodline. ]
[ Fixed price: 10,000 MP per template. ]
[ Awakening rate remains determined by Blood Stone rank: ]
[ F — 1%, E — 5%, D — 10%, C — 15%, B — 20%, A — 30%, S — 50%, SS — 60% ]
[ Partial awakening produces a partial trait. Additional Blood Stones fed to the same Monster accumulate toward 100%, at which point the full trait stabilizes.]
A template. Not a choice from a tier — a single option, locked to the target Monster by the system's compatibility scan.
He had been expecting a catalogue. The system had given him something narrower and more specific instead. One template per target. Whatever the system identified as the closest match to the Monster's existing bloodline — that was what it offered.
And the awakening rate — fixed by the Blood Stone rank, not negotiable. The S Rank in his pocket would take Foxy to fifty percent. Half the trait. The rest would have to be built up with more Blood Stones over time.
It was a system designed around patience.
He opened the catalogue view to see what was listed.
[ Bloodline Template — Catalogue ]
[ Available for purchase through this system. ]
[ Compatibility scan required to view the specific template matched to a target Monster. ]
The system was not selling him flexibility — it was selling him the best available ceiling. Every Blood Stone he used would carry a Legendary template, no matter which Monster received it. The market's low-rank Blueprints, the gambler's tools, the things sold to farmers and low-rank Tamers hoping for a lucky pull — none of that was on offer here.
Only the top.
Of course.
He closed the catalogue and sat with it for a moment — the scale of what had just opened settling into place.
For Foxy — S Rank stone, fifty percent at first activation. Half the trait. The rest, later.
For Rex and Aria — if Aiden and Ailyn wanted it, if they trusted him enough to accept it without knowing how — the same mechanic. Template from the system. Blood Stone from whoever owned it. Partial awakening now, full awakening over time.
The market would keep selling Blood Stones at the same low premium it always had — because the public mechanic had not changed. A Blood Stone was still a gamble to everyone except him.
That was the advantage. That was the secret.
He closed the system.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Aiden was leaning against the corridor wall when Qalish came back out, arms folded, the easy posture of someone who had been waiting without minding it. Ailyn stood beside him — quieter, watching Qalish with the particular attention she reserved for moments when she had already decided something was significant and was simply waiting for confirmation.
"You're making that face again," Aiden said.
"The one where you've just found something and you're deciding how much to say about it."
Qalish looked at him.
"Blood Stone," he said.
"I have something I can help both of you with," Qalish said.
He paused.
"But it cannot leave this group. Not to anyone. Ever."
Aiden looked at him. Then at Ailyn. Something passed between them — the kind of exchange that didn't need words between people who had known each other long enough.
"Blood Oath," Aiden said.
Not a question. A decision.
Qalish looked at him.
"You don't have to —"
"We want to," Ailyn said. Her voice was calm. Final.
Blood Oath was not something taken lightly in Crystal Galactic. It was a binding made through the Crystal itself — a vow sealed at the core of an Awakened's power. Break it, and the Crystal would fracture. An Awakened without a Crystal was nothing — no contracts, no Monster, no path forward. Their Monster would be severed from the bond and either die or return to the wild, depending on what it chose.
The cost of breaking it was everything.
Aiden placed his hand over his Crystal. Ailyn did the same. The light that came was quiet — not dramatic, not ceremonial. Just the particular glow of a Crystal acknowledging a binding made with intent.
"What we hear from this point — stays here," Aiden said. His voice had shifted — still him, but something underneath it that hadn't been there before.
"Sworn."
Ailyn's Crystal pulsed once. Aiden's did the same. The glow faded.
Qalish looked at them.
He hadn't asked for this. He had given them the choice to walk away. They had chosen differently.
He would not waste that.
He chose his words carefully.
"My talent," he said.
"The one I've mentioned before. It's time I explained what it actually does."
Aiden looked up sharply.
Not the look of someone hearing about a talent for the first time — the look of someone who had been hearing about it for months, and had just realised Qalish was finally going to tell them what it was.
Ailyn's posture did not change. But her attention sharpened in the particular way that meant she had set everything else aside.
They have been waiting for this. Both of them. Since the first time I mentioned the talent — maybe earlier than that. They have watched me do things an F Rank Awakened should not be able to do, and they have heard me brush past it by calling it "my talent," and neither of them has asked a single question.
The questions have been there. The questions have always been there.
Today I am answering the smallest version of the question. The rest stays mine.
"You've never said what it does," Aiden said. He said it quietly, almost carefully — the tone of someone who had been holding a question for a long time and did not want to spook it now that it was finally being addressed.
"I know." Qalish said.
"And now you're going to."Aiden said.
"Yes." Qalish said.
Aiden leaned back against the corridor wall. Rex settled at his feet, gold eyes steady on Qalish.
Ailyn did not move. She was listening.
"It's a Monster Tamer talent," Qalish said.
"It can guide the bloodline that is already inside a Monster — use the Blood Stone as a medium, and draw that bloodline out instead of leaving it to chance. What comes out still depends on the Monster. It is not something I pick freely. But the random part — that, I can replace."
That was all he said about the mechanic itself.
He did not explain how. He did not mention the system, the template, the scan, or the tier. What he had given them was the shape of the thing. The detail was still his.
Aiden was quiet for a moment. He looked at Rex. Then back at Qalish.
"Monster Tamer talent," he repeated.
"Yes." Qalish said.
"At F Rank."
It was not an accusation. Just the word — placed the way Aiden placed things when he was looking at them from a new angle for the first time.
The texts were clear. Personal talents began appearing reliably at C Rank and above. Below C, they were rare enough to count as statistical noise. An F Rank Awakened with a Monster Tamer talent was not something either of them had heard of before. They had registered that oddness the first time Qalish had mentioned the word "talent" — months ago, in passing, the way he mentioned everything he did not intend to elaborate on — and they had kept registering it every time he did something that lined up with it.
They had never asked. That had been the choice.
Now the choice was paying out: they were finally getting part of the answer.
"Yes," Qalish said.
"F Rank."
Aiden exhaled slowly. Not upset. Not surprised — not exactly. The sound of someone who had been carrying a small question for a long time and had just been told, not that the question had an easy answer, but that the answer existed somewhere and was going to stay partly out of reach.
"Alright," he said.
Ailyn finally spoke. Her voice was quiet.
"Thank you for telling us."
She did not thank people often. When she did, it meant something.
Qalish nodded once. Nothing else needed saying on that part.
"Guided," Aiden said, after a moment. Returning to the mechanic itself.
"Yes." qalish said.
"Not random."
"And the Blood Stone — still the same item everyone else uses."
"Same item. The talent works through it."
Aiden was quiet for a moment. Then:
"For Rex."
"If you want it, yes."Qalish said.
He looked at Rex. Rex looked back — the same steady presence, the same unhurried gold.
"There's a second thing you should know," Qalish said.
Both of them looked back at him.
"The first Blood Stone won't complete the awakening. Blood Stone rank determines how much of the bloodline surfaces — the rest has to be built up over time, feeding more Blood Stones into the same Monster until the trait reaches its full form. Your B Rank stone will start it. It will not finish it."
Aiden processed that.
"So what Rex gets from the B Rank stone — is partial."
"Real, but partial. The trait will be there. Weaker than its final version. You will feel the difference from what Rex is now, but not the full difference. That comes later, when more Blood Stones have been added."
"How many stones."
"Depends on the ranks you feed him. Any rank works — the percentages stack. The low-rank ones are cheap on the market. Over months, or a year, you reach the full awakening. The rate does not matter. The accumulation does."
"Understood."
He did not hesitate. Whatever doubt he might have had about the mechanic — it was not about whether to do this. That question had been answered before he asked the first one.
Ailyn spoke next. Her voice was quiet but clear.
"And Aria."
"Same. Your A Rank stone starts it. More stones after, over time."
"Yes," she said.
Simple. Direct.
Qalish looked at both of them.
"One more thing," he said.
"Fifteen thousand gold per Monster, that is the cost I cannot avoid. "
Aiden blinked.
"You're charging us."
"Yes."
A beat. Then Aiden exhaled — not upset. Something closer to amused.
"Cheap," he said.
"For what this is — cheap."
"Yes," Qalish said.
"Which is why the number does not leave this room either."
Aiden held his gaze for a moment. Then nodded once.
"Understood."
Ailyn did not say anything. She did not need to. The transfer would come when it was time — and it would come without discussion, the same way it had come for every decision she had made since she joined the group.
Qalish looked at both of them.
"There's a room Aiden has been using," he said. Because he remembered Aiden mentioning it, and because the corridor was not the place to continue this.
"East wing. Rented last week."
Aiden's easy manner came back — but the particular stillness underneath it, the processing, was still there.
"Yeah. Come on."
They moved down the corridor together. Rex fell in at Aiden's side. Ailyn walked with the silent confidence she always carried. Foxy stayed in Qalish's Inner Space — but he could feel her there, alert. Reading the moment the same way she read everything.