CH-3
Author: Nexus
last update2026-06-30 06:06:56

Prince's hand shot out before Patrick even finished talking. 

The grin on his face stretched so wide it looked painful, tugging with greed and the possibility of a future.

With the SSS class dragon beast, he could earn that amount of money in just a few days without even breaking a sweat.

To Prince, this was perfect. He was walking away with an SSS class dragon beast, the ultimate symbol of power that would cement his place as the family's golden child forever. 

"I can't believe he actually did it, trading a dragon for a mangy cat!" The crowd gossips in light whispers, slight chuckles tore off through their lungs at irregular intervals.

"What did you expect from the talentless trash? He doesn't have the brains for real power anyway."

"Honestly, it's probably for the best. That dragon would have eaten him alive by sunset, besides, that's a whole lot of money, for someone destined to be useless, you don't expect them to know the true worth of things."

Their voices layered over each other in cruel waves, some covering their mouths like they were being polite while others just let their disdain hang in the air like poison.

Mr. Henry stepped forward with heavy, deliberate steps, his walking cane striking the cobblestones and his face carried that particular expression of disgust he reserved just for Patrick.

"At least trash like him knows their place, taking what suits him and nothing more."

The crowd cheered like trained dogs, eager to validate the bitter old patriarch.

However, Patrick ignored every single word.

He didn't flinch at their sneers, didn't stutter at their harsh comments, didn't stumble under the weight of their mockery.

 That pathetic version of him was dead and buried.

 He crouched down slowly and the small gray cat looked up at him with those amber eyes that held something ancient inside them, something that had been waiting patiently for a very long time.

It didn't resist when he reached for it. The cat simply allowed itself to be gathered into his arms with quiet dignity, like it had already decided this was where it belonged.

Patrick bit the tip of his finger, pressed the welling drop of blood to the cat's forehead, and felt the contract seal between them like a door clicking shut after being left open for a century.

He walked out of the awakening hall without looking back once.

The beast training center sat on the eastern section of the city, and that was where he was going to train his beast.

Even before entering there, he had already heard the stories of how deadly the place was for lower ranked students, the administrator tried to warn him but his lips raised with a smile. 

"Don't worry about me, worry about the bullies instead!" He replied.

Patrick found an empty training room at the far end academy, away from the morning crowd, and shut the heavy door behind him.

He set the cat on the floor and opened the spatial pouch.

Two thousand beast evolvers lined up in neat rows, each vial pulsing with concentrated liquid aura that cast blue light across the walls. He poured every single one into the stone basin in the corner, watching the liquid pool together into something that hummed with barely contained energy.

The cat walked to the basin, lowered its head, and drank.

 It consumed the entire reservoir with steady, unhurried focus, like something that had been starved for far too long and was finally getting what it deserved. The room began to vibrate with a low frequency Patrick felt in his teeth, the pressure climbing until the air itself felt thick and hard to breathe.

Then the cat went still.

For one suspended moment, nothing happened.

Light erupted from its body, clean and blinding, cracking the stone floor and sending pressure rolling outward that rattled the walls. When it faded, the cat looked exactly the same, same gray fur, same amber eyes. But the air around it had changed completely, carrying a weight that made Patrick's skin prickle.

C rank.

He smiled because it was exactly what he expected.

The beast hadn't been weak. It had just been starved, waiting for its true master to return and provide the fuel it needed to awaken what had always been sleeping inside.

And when the beast upgraded, so did his body.

Heat tore through his veins without warning, rebuilding the weak frame of this body from the inside out. 

He felt more strength flooding his muscles, more power settling into bones that had been ground down by years of neglect. His initial power was gradually coming back, not fully, not yet, but enough to feel like himself again instead of trapped in someone else's shell.

When Patrick opened his eyes, the world looked different.

He could see more details in the environment than before, microscopic fractures in the walls, faint trails of residual aura, the way energy moved through the air in invisible currents. Everything was layered and readable in ways ordinary vision couldn't access.

He turned to look at his cat and his sight shifted automatically. He could see the anatomy of his beast, the glowing network of channels beneath the fur, the dense core pulsing with power that had no business sitting inside a C ranked body. He knew instinctively that he could see other beasts the same way, their weak points, where defenses thinned, where to strike for maximum damage.

The founder's vision was returning piece by piece.

Just then, the heavy door swung open.

A group of students walked right in without bothering to check if the room was occupied, talking among themselves until their eyes landed on Patrick and the small gray cat beside him.

 They stopped short, expressions shifting from casual expectation to open contempt within a single breath.

"What's a pitiful F ranked beast tamer doing here?" the one in front growled, looking at Patrick like something stuck to his shoe.

They were the four machetes of the golden day academy, led by jarden, an A ranked from one of the most powerful families in the city and they had ordered anyone below a B rank never to step foot into the training center.

They did it just so that they could enjoy the place for themselves, the dense aura and better equipment, and nobody complained because the consequences weren't worth it.

Patrick straightened, dusting off his knees like they weren't there.

"I apologize," he said, but there was nothing apologetic in his tone. "I don't know of such a rule."

The words were right but feeling behind them wasn't. It sounded almost close to mockery but they didn't think that Patrick, a pathetic F ranked would dare play dirty tricks with them.

They looked him up and down like he was an animal not worth bidding on. 

His face wasn't familiar and his aura barely registered compared to theirs. 

'He has to be another useless new student who thinks they can just walk in anywhere without needing permission.' They thought with their faces twisting into disdain.

They flashed their ranks to intimidate him, tugging their uniforms just enough to make the badges gleam. Most of them were B ranks, shining with that particular smugness that came from being above average in a place full of powerful children.

Then their leader stepped forward and tapped the emblem on his chest, his A ranked badge glittering under the ray of the morning sun.

Jarden was one of the most powerful in the academy and a year his senior, with enough backing and talent to do almost anything he wanted without consequence. 

The crowd outside had started growing as it became day, the place was beginning to fill up with students coming for morning training, and word traveled fast.

Everyone is shocked when Patric does not even shrug.

Under Jarden's A class aura pressure, which leaked out on purpose to make the air thick and heavy, Patrick didn't flinch.

 His shoulders stayed relaxed, and not even his breathing didn't change.

 He simply broke eye contact and he continued training, adjusting the cracked basin like the most dangerous student in the academy had suddenly ceased to exist.

Whispers grew as watchful eyes widened with shock and astonishment. No one had dared to ignore Jarden, if not because he was an A class, because of his family background. 

"Did he just ignore Jarden?"

"Is he tired of life?"

Jarden's face flared with rage. His smile evaporated as genuine fury bled through his facade.

"Are you mad?" He growled, voice dropping into something darker.

Patrick glanced at him with that unreadable expression.

"No I am just training," he responded with so much calm that made Jarden's face turn purplish.

Another ripple of gasps moved through the gathered students.

The 4 men gang got angry, bristling at the blatant disrespect. 

Their beast flared and their aura exploded outward, even the students that weren't close could barely breathe from the thick smug of aura that encased them almost instantly. 

"He's completely insane."

"Nobody talks to Jarden like that and lives."

"That new kid has no idea what he just walked into."

They stared at Patrick like they were watching a dead man, waiting for the moment when it all came crashing down.

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