This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange - Chapter 648

Chapter 648: Chapter 648: Censored
It was strange, how quickly life tried to return to normal.

After the dramatic exit from the relic, the reunion, and the cryptic send-off by Vice Chancellor Darrow, Kain and Serena found themselves—somewhat awkwardly—resuming the routines of daily academy life. Classes restarted, professors resumed handing out assignments, and the topic of conversation across the College had already shifted to the upcoming re-rankings.

Despite everything, life returned to normal.

What hadn’t returned to normal, however, was their ability to talk about what had happened.

Kain hadn’t been present for the relic’s speech on the mental restriction on discussing the inheritances, and discovered the limit the hard way.

He’d tried to explain the inheritance trial to Bridge—just the basic framework of the ‘Quiz Game’—and immediately felt a wall slam down inside his own thoughts. Not a mental block, not quite. More like a presence pressing gently but immovably against his ability to speak.

Words simply… didn’t form.

Bridge had stared at him for a good five seconds before joking that Kain had either forgotten how to speak or suffered brain damage from too much recent excitement.

Serena, when questioned, had quietly confirmed the same restriction.

” Relic said that we can’t talk about it,” she said flatly one evening as they sat across from each other on the stone ledge behind the east dorms. “Not to anyone not involved. Even to each other we can’t disclose the details of our inheritances.”

Kain raised an eyebrow. “We can talk a little. About the surface level, at least.”

“A little,” she admitted. “But if I try to talk about what is actually included in my inheritance…”

She trailed off. Kain noticed her knuckles tightening slightly against the stone.

He exhaled through his nose. “Yeah. Same.”

They spent the next hour comparing the edges of what they could discuss, trying to find the seams in the silence.

While they couldn’t speak of what happened inside their respective trials or their inheritances, to anyone that didn’t stop them from learning about what happened to others. Or rather, it didn’t stop Serena.

Her family connections gave her access far more information than Kain about what went on in the Imperial Court. Cassian had survived the Verdara relic. Soreia had not. The official reports listed her as lost or presumed dead.

But, rumour as it, something about Cassian had changed. He was colder now, more reclusive. Serena said whispers in the court spoke of sudden hostility—specifically toward the Eyeris clan. No one knew why. The Eyeris had influence, but even they had begun to feel the Crown Prince’s displeasure. Political pressure, property seizures over supposed tax evasion, stalled favours…

“He’s pushing,” Serena had said flatly. “But even as Crown Prince, there’s only so far he can go. The Eyeris clan is old. Their roots are deep. And this country as a whole relies to heavily on their gifts to determine its future actions.”

Kain could only nod, not fully understanding the world of the nobles. More than the changes in Cassian. He cared more about his own changes—including his sudden ‘super strength’.

Thankfully, Serena obtained the Thar’Ameth inheritance and was looking for the answers for him…although so far there wasn’t much success.

Meanwhile, he also focused on unlocking the breadth of what the Earth inheritance had given him.

Pangea, nestled deep inside his star space, was now evolving rapidly. And the World Tree—towering and golden—was the epicenter of that change.

To his shock, the World Tree, while not much of a fighter, held immense knowledge. Libraries worth.

Scientific data. Research archives. Dissertations, white papers, experimental findings. All drawn from Earth—but not the Earth he remembered. These weren’t the works he had access to as a college student. These were the findings of scientists that were kept secret from the masses and the sudden boom in research during the last days of humanity, when their backs were up against the wall.

Thought-transfer chambers, memory-encoded bloodlines, photosynthetic human tissue, and more. Technologies so advanced and strange they felt like bad science fiction—except they were real. Entire fields he didn’t even believe were possible now appeared to be quite far a long in their conception before the Earth was destroyed. Entire fields he had no idea even existed.

And the System now had access to all of it.

Some discoveries were immediately practical.

Others? Deeply concerning.

Still others… tempting.

Aetheric Mind Mesh: A newly developed experimental material that allowed simultaneous group cognition sharing over long distances.

Floral Nexus Array: a massive terrain-locked structure that accelerated natural evolution over time by artificially and repairing DNA in a non-random manner that favored beneficial mutations.

Kain bookmarked dozens in his mind to check out later, and maybe even develop in the real world.

Another change was that he now had enough Source Points—thanks to the inheritance—to introduce multiple intelligent species to Pangea.

He could birth civilizations.

Literally.

But he hadn’t… yet.

Because while the World Tree was ready, the rest of the planet was not.

Aurem wouldn’t tolerate it. Nor would the oceanic tyrants, or the other apex predators of these forests. Kain could introduce sentient life today and it will likely get eaten by tomorrow.

He decided to wait.

Wait for Bai Lian.

Hopefully, the so-called ‘Steward Protocol’ would do as described: she would awaken, and she would guide them.

Another new event was that, due to his performance in the first few trials that the College could see, he got a decent amount of school credits to exchange for Evolutionary Base materials…or perhaps the teachers just wanted to invest in him since they thought he’d likely represent the school again.

So, due to the (suspiciously) high rating for his performance in only a few trials, Kain had enough to exchange for evolutionary base materials compatible with Queen.

Unfortunately, the Simulator ran several times and he even enlisted the help of VERA to help him narrow down the best materials, located at the College and on Pangea. But the best output wasn’t that impressive:

★★★☆(3.5 stars.)

Kain stared at the rating for a long time.

Good.

But not great.

Not like the OP 5-star ratings of Bea and Aegis.

He wanted more for her. And so her evolution was put on hold.

But there was another contract that quickly garnered his attention instead—no two contracts. After the inheritance integrated with the System, it seemed to have quietly received a boost.

Meaning that System Profiles of Vauleth and the unknown creature born from his fifth star were now available.