[You have killed an F rank Firestone Ant.]
[1 F rank Origin Crystal has been dropped.]
Rohan glanced at the two notifications that had appeared before his eyes, a little surprised that they were even there.
"I didn't know the Origin Realm itself kept track of our kills." He mused aloud, letting Elane hear his thoughts.
However, staring at the notification gave Rohan a level of satisfaction he rarely ever felt before in his life. This was his first real kill, the acknowledgement of the Origin Realm being the ultimate proof that he had earned the right to finally call himself an Awakened.
At the same time, his thoughts couldn't help but drift back to the fight just now.
More specifically, to the moment his spear had pierced into the weaker gaps of the Firestone Ant's carapace.
At first, he hadn't thought much of it in the heat of the battle. He was far too focused on surviving, too busy trying not to get bitten in half or crushed beneath the thing's body to notice. But now that it was over and there was room to think, the difference became startlingly clear to him.
His spear had pierced through those cracks and joints far smoothly than he had ever expected.
Far smoother than any ordinary spear could have.
'So this is how it feels…'
He glanced down at his F rank Horned Rabbit spear, gaining a newfound sense of respect for it.
Thinking back to his battle against the Yellow Spotted Leopard, the difference between that shoddy spear given by the Association and this F rank Genetic Armament was monumental.
If he were to have used this Horned Rabbit Spear in the fight against the Yellow Spotted Leopard, then he might have been able to seriously injure it! Maybe even killing it was on the table depending on his luck…
"Surprised? Yeah, I get it. Even despite all of our years of development, we still know little to nothing about the Origin Realm or the Status it provides every Awakened. It's truly too magical."
Elane appeared at his side the next moment, Rohan nodding in agreement with her.
The duo took a moment just to stare at the two corpses of the Firestone Ants, reflecting on the past few minutes of intense combat they'd just been through.
"I wasn't expecting two of them."
Elane laughed along, still overjoyed from her first kill. "Yeah, same. My father taught me enough to survive on my own in the Origin Realm, yet we were still caught off guard in our very first encounter with a beast. It's truly different to experience things firsthand, like he's always said…"
A strange sense of melancholy dawned upon Rohan as he watched Elane reminisce. Although her expression hadn't deviated from her joyfulness, he could still sense a faint shift in her emotions when she talked about her father.
Elane didn't wait for the atmosphere to become awkward, heading over to the corpse of the Firestone Ant she'd just killed. Rohan didn't dwell on the sudden shift in the atmosphere, observing her every movement.
"Come on, we still have to collect our loot!" she chirped back at him.
Rohan's eyes lit up as he jogged over to the other corpse, watching along as Elane got to work on hers.
She unsheathed her dagger and began prying apart the ant's chest, until the innards were all exposed.
Not a moment later, she found exactly what she was looking for.
"Gotcha!" She exclaimed.
A faintly glowing red crystal was dug out from what Rohan assumed was the ant's heart, and Elane hugged it tightly to her chest like it was now her most prized possession.
Rohan recognised the item she held at a glance. "An Origin Crystal!"
He wasn't too surprised, just exuberant. It was already known that every beast dropped an origin crystal upon their death, but obtaining one through his own efforts for the first time felt like a special occasion.
A few seconds of a slightly more awkward extraction later, Rohan held an F rank Origin Crystal in his own hand, watching with great interest as the red hues of the crystal bounced off the reflection in his spear's tip.
'This is mine… I earned this with my own two hands.'
Suddenly reminded of something, he looked over at Elane.
"Hey, do you wanna keep continue hunting, or do you want to go back to the city and try out the Basic Origin Energy training manual? Some of the top posts online back at home all recommend this is one of the first things every new awakened should do whenever they enter the Origin Realm for the first time. I was so caught up in the shock of entering this place, and then I fell into things so naturally with you, that I completely forgot about it!"
He focused his gaze on Elane, holding tightly onto his Origin Crystal.
At his question, her eyebrows rose and then fell into a frown of contemplation. She was just like him, too distracted and shocked by her sudden entrance into the Origin Realm that she completely forgot about the one major thing all Awakened did. Though in her case, she had a very valid reason for that, not thinking she would ever be an awakened and all that…
After a few seconds of deep thought, she delivered her answer.
"I think we should continue hunting for now. We're already out here after a long trek over, and it'll be just as long of a trek back anyway. We should just continue to hunt until the sun sets over the horizon and then head back. Does that sound good to you?"
Rohan agreed after a bit of thought. It was early morning when the two arrived in the Origin Realm and around noon by the time they reached the periphery of Firestone Forest, so they still had plenty of time before the sun set. He felt like it was perfectly reasonable to continue looking for more Firestone Ants to kill, since they still had 6 more days of time in the Origin Realm at their disposal regardless.
Time was tight, but a few more hours of productive hunting wouldn't hurt.