Seed of the Sovereign

Luke left the Phlego fortress with his a packed up bag on his back.

He held the bronze spear on one hand and the spear looking stick that was transformed from the golden spear was tied to his back.

"Here we go..." He muttered to himself moving towards the thick forest.

On entering the Dural forest he noticed that the surroundings were unnaturally quiet, but it didn't surprise him.

This was how it usually was for the outskirts of the forest, after all, the beasts couldn't cause a ruckus so close to the Phlego Fortress else they'd be killed.

The real danger would be deep in the dural forest. Luke wouldn't have to go too deep into the forest, but he hoped that the stronger beasts wouldn't be out on his path yet.

A few minutes after Luke entered the forest, his sharpened hearing picked up the sound of light steps behind him. Something was tailing him.

He was walking on the main road that had been cleared by the Phlego clan for their usage so he didn't expect to be found so early.

Were the beasts already moving out this fast?

He shook his head and continued to move like he didn't notice anything.

He knew that this beast was likely a mundane one since he could actually detect it. Awakened beasts had their hunting abilities sharpened—he doubted he'd be able to pick their steps even with his superhuman hearing.

Since that was the case, if the beast decided to leave him be he wouldn't chase the matter. After all, his goal was to leave this forest as soon as possible. But if the beast decided to attack him... Well, he couldn't be blamed when dinner served itself to him.

And it seemed lady Luck found him pleasing to the eye.

A few minutes later, deeper into the jungle. Luke was crouched while drinking water from the stream he'd luckily found when he heard a roar behind him.

He looked back with calm eyes as he saw a huge wild cat leap towards him with it's jaws opened.

The cat had followed him for a while, watching to see if there was anything abnormal with this human. It's instincts warned it that something was wrong but it couldn't just leave a free meal. After watching for a while and seeing the human walk and act normal, it decided to make a move.

But even then, it couldn't be reckless. It chose this moment when the human had let it's guard down to attack so as to end him in one go.

Unfortunately for the cat, Luke was expecting it.

Whilst in mid air, the wild cat saw the human react at an insane speed, taking the spear that was beside him and positioning it before it.

It's eyes widened but it was to late to change anything. It landed on the spear, impaling itself into it.

As the light faded from the eyes of the cat, it's last thoughts were those of regret and grievance.

Regret that it hadn't ran away the moment it's instincts had warned it about this human.

Grievance that this weird human was so powerful but decided to act like a weakling to fool mundane beasts like it.

It wasn't the cat's fault that it thought like this.

Awakened seeded didn't just do things with raw power, they used techniques. Systems that humans and humanity had worked on for centuries.

Techniques allowed humans to use aether with more finesse instead of just brute forcing it, manipulating it to fit their specific needs.

Techniques were one of the reasons that humans could rise up so fast to match their invaders and keep their world. Because of their importance and value, emphasis was placed on them and techniques for everything—even movement speed had been made with many made available for public sale.

To the Phlego clan, a common movement speed technique wasn't worth much so all their members used one.

The animals in this jungle had evolved to using movement speed as a way to sift the strong humans from the weak.

Unfortunately, it had met a mad human today.

If only the cat knew that it wasn't that Luke wanted to fool it but that he really didn't know any technique, maybe it might have been more frustrated.

It wasn't Luke's fault, the hateful assailants had raided everything and burnt all they couldn't take. If it wasn't for the fact that his spear was considered useless to them and that it was fireproof he wouldn't have gotten it either.

And the techniques were useless to those who hadn't awakened their seeds so he couldn't have gotten them prior.

Luke stood over the corpse of the dead cat, looking over it. He'd have loved to eat it, but he couldn't. He'd have to go bleed it, remove it's hide, dress the carcass and go through so many more stages just to turn it into actual meat. Unfortunately, he needed to leave this forest as soon as possible.

The animals were moving faster than he anticipated. If he delayed he'd be swarmed by them, and even worse, the awakened beasts at the depth of the forest might catch up with him.

Since that was the case he decided he had to move. And now, since the blood of the cat would definitely attract new beasts.

Moving through the forest, Luke encountered more mundane beasts—wild wolves, wild cats and even carnivorous plants that were enhanced by aether but he ended them swiftly.

Still, he noticed that as he got deeper, the strength of the beasts increased. First it was just a marginal increase in the strength of the mundane wild beasts but as he got deeper into the forest, he eventually had to face unawakened aether empowered beasts. He could only grit his teeth in hope that he'd be able to cross through the forest before the stronger awakened beasts came out.

Unfortunately, as he went deeper into the forest, his luck finally ran out.