Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent! - Chapter 180

Chapter 180: The Promised Rewards!
“As promised, your Variant class beast cores!”

Professor Will produced two beast cores the size of his head from thin air — he had taken them out of his spatial storage.

“Normally, we reward students with beast cores of equal rank to the student, but since you both earned joint first but are currently different ranks, we thought it only fair that we reward you both with D- rank beast cores.”

He explained to the duo, who nodded their heads at his words absentmindedly, both sucked into their own thoughts.

However their thoughts were drastically different.

‘I can’t believe I’m already making progress towards Variant class before even reaching D tier!’ Mira thought to herself.

‘What am I supposed to do with this…’ Alex thought, unsure how to react.

While Mira was ecstatic with her reward, Alex was conflicted.

If this were presented to him a few months ago, or before he had entered the Primordial Expanse for the second time, then he would have had the same reaction too.

But after coming into contact with the truths of his talent [Soulforge], he had already made the decision to only absorb soul orbs from that point onwards.

This left him with his conflicted feelings at the prospect of being rewarded a beast core…

Sure, he was happy that he was rewarded with something so precious by the school, but it wasn’t even useful to him anymore.

‘Maybe I should sell it? No, I can’t.’

At first, he considered selling it for a quick buck, but not only would that reflect badly on the university if he sold the gift they had graciously given him, but it would be such a waste of such a rare resource!

‘Maybe I should give it to Mira…’

This seemed like a much more plausible option, and it was one that would win him some more favour with his girlfriend.

‘But how would I explain to her my reasoning for not needing it for myself? Should I tell her about my Soulforge talent?…’

Alex’s thoughts led him to a very difficult juncture. He had a decision to make regarding this reward.

But even more importantly, he had to make a decision on telling Mira about his talent.

How would it affect his relationship with her? How would she react when he tells her about how it seems to be of an even higher rank than even S+ rank?

How would she react when she finds out it lets him produce one of the most precious resources in the whole universe? Or the fact that he was a literal walking factory producing it whenever he kills beasts?

All of these were questions that Alex didn’t really want answered, as he didn’t want to jeopardise his relationship with her so early on.

‘No, I shouldn’t tell her just yet. She has secrets of her own that she hasn’t told me, like her last name, ‘Mistborn’. I don’t know the story regarding that, but I could tell that it didn’t bring up pleasant memories when the drone revealed it.’

In the end, Alex decided against telling Mira about his biggest secret.

He had no clue what the effects of him telling her would be, and he wasn’t willing to risk it, for now.

“Well, take your rewards before I start having some ideas of my own for them!”

Seeing their lack of action, Professor Will urged them on with a light joke.

This jolted them both out of their thoughts, and they reached out in unison to grab a beast core each from Professor Will, thanking him profusely.

“Don’t thank me, you two earned this through your own efforts. No go, run along, the day has just started and I’m sure you two don’t want to be held up here any longer.”

With the procedures done and over, Professor Will shooed the two of them out of the room, but not before telling them to conceal their beast cores somehow.

This place may be one of the safest and most civilised places in the federation, but that wouldn’t stop any greedy onlookers from giving some petty robbery a try after spotting the two of them boldly walking through the city with Variant class beast cores in their hands.

Both Alex and Mira put their newly gained beast cores in their spatial storages, and Professor Will led them to the same elevator that brought them up to floor 512.

“Remember, don’t show them in public, or else you’ll be in for a rude awakening.”

He left them with a final reminder / warning, before the doors closed and the elevator whizzed down towards the ground floor at terminal velocity.

‘I can tell these kids will have a long road ahead of them.’

Professor Will thought to himself.

Alex and Mira were two of the most promising students he had seen during his tenure at Capital Prime university, and it was already astonishing that they had both turned up in the same period of time, as geniuses like them didn’t come around often.

The only people Alex and Mira reminded him of were the Principal and the most elusive ‘strongest’ person in the federation.

This just went to show how highly he thought of them…

***

Back at Alex’s dorm, Alex sat down opposite Mira in his training ground.

Mira looked excitedly at the large beast core placed in front of her, not noticing Alex’s look of contemplation as he stared at his beast core.

“Shall we start absorbing them now?” Mira asked, still not looking at Alex.

However, the moment she did look up though, she was perplexed.

“What’s wrong, Alex?”

Mira asked, with concern evident in her tone.

Seeing that she had noticed his mixed feelings, Alex didn’t keep silent anymore and spoke.

“Mira, I need to tell you something. Before you make any decisions, please listen to me.”

‘What…’

Mira started to get a little worried as she heard Alex’s serious tone of voice.

She didn’t know why, but she felt nervous listening to Alex speak like this.

This was the first time she had heard him be so serious with her since they both confessed their feelings to each other.