However, after a full minute, when Bea’s prey would usually already be dead, the Vespirae was only slightly sluggish.
‘What’s going on?’ Kain could sense that it was still in the red-grade so a higher level that Bea should not be the issue.
The only feedback Kain received from Bea was that something appeared to be fighting her.
This had never happened before. Usually, once Bea successfully enters the body, the infected are completely helpless.
This was the first time Bea was being restrained by a creature at the same level.
“Change of plans, Bridge. My contract is having trouble dealing with it. I’ll use the mist to obscure its vision so that Lady can deal a finishing blow.”
Bridge nodded. After all, with the mist’s assistance there was not much risk to Lady, and they needed to deal with this wasp.
Lady slowly approached, while Kain concentrated the mist around the wasp and directed Bea to expend all of her remaining spiritual power on impeding its senses.
Snap
“Move back quickly!” Bridge yelled.
At the last moment, the wasp dodged Lady’s attack, causing her to snap at the air, before turning around to stab at her.
Kain quickly concentrated the mist in front of Lady so even if the stinger was launched it’d hopefully miss.
“Bea I said to focus on impeding its movements!” Kain screamed in frustration. However, it seemed as though with each passing moment Bea was losing energy while the wasp was recovering.
Desperate, Kain crudely channelled all of his spiritual power into Bea hoping to boost her abilities.
“Bridge! Send Lady again now!” Kain yelled at Bridge, not confident that Lady would listen to a command from him.
Crack
For a moment the remaining sum of both Kain and Bea’s spiritual power was able to restrain its movements, allowing Lady to land a crushing blow to its head with her claws.
Kain didn’t receive a notification for the kill and the number of hunted red-grade spiritual creatures for his mission also did not increase. Therefore, Kain realized that he or his spiritual creature must be the one to deal the final blow to earn GP
The moment that it died Bea said that whatever was fighting her split also slowly lost its strength and disappeared.
Kain slowly walked to its corpse, remaining on the lookout for any other sudden attacks, while Bridge and Lady also stood guard from a distance. Kain grabbed the corpse and quickly left the clearing with Bridge to their mounts a short distance away.
He had completely exhausted his spiritual power and didn’t want to risk another attack.
When they rode a safe distance away, he stopped to examine the body.
Even before Bea advanced, she had no trouble restraining red-grade spiritual creatures, now they rarely survive more than 20-30 seconds.
He needed to figure out why this Vespirae was so resistant to Bea.
He thoroughly examined its body and even directed Bea into its brain, now that it was dead she had no issue exploring.
However, she didn’t note anything different from usual. Whatever was resisting her had already faded.
Maybe she could have found it while it was still alive, but once it was dead the trail went cold.
Kain was reluctant to leave a field of spiritual plants alone. Especially, since he was going to enter college not only as a beast tamer but also as a Planner, they may have unexpected uses.
However, while he was unable to figure out an effective method to dealing with the Vespirae he didn’t want to put himself and Bridge in danger.
There was one more reason why he wanted to risk going into the field again, and it wasn’t only due to his greed. Looking at Bridge, it was also obvious that he had the same thoughts as Kain.
“My grades aren’t as good as yours so I can’t be sure, but towards the middle of the field did you see…”
“Yup.” Kain confirmed.
Legacies are more likely to awaken an affinity not only due to their genetics but also due to their status and connections that allow access to the extremely rare few existing materials capable of boosting their children’s chance of awakening.
Although even the most effective of these spiritual plants may only result in a 10% greater likelihood of awakening an affinity, it was still that slight likelihood that people pay millions of celestial dollars for.
As orphans who were always skeptical of their chances of awakening, they, and likely the others in the orphanage, had long memorized the few things capable of increasing the chances of awakening.
Celestiviolets are the lowest quality and most common of plants with such an effect, although still rare. However, it’s because they used to be more common that they were given the honour of being named after the empire. Much of the progress in the early years of the empire was based on this low-grade flower and its ability to slightly increase the chances of awakening.
Although excessive removal of it has caused it now become extremely rare.
If an individual has an affinity, it increases their sensitivity during the Affinity Ceremony to the pull, causing a modest increase in their chances of sensing their affinity egg, even if the pull is nearly undetectable.
It has also been reported in rare cases to cause a slightly higher chance of awakening an affinity related to plants, which are usually at least C-rated. It is a decent affinity to have, especially when the majority of those who do awaken will only have a grade of D or lower.
The patch at the center of the clearing had 6 of these precious and rare flowers. Both Bridge and Kain wanted to obtain them for their younger siblings to use.
Although not enough for all 9 children of the orphanage, the youngest 3 had at least another 10 years before the ceremony, by that time Kain and Bridge should have the connections to buy more. Especially since they are attending a top 5 college.
Their shared sense of responsibility as older siblings would not allow them to give up such a golden opportunity.
The chances of any other members of the orphanage having an affinity are very low, and they only have each other to rely on and look out for their best interests.
If he could increase the number of beast-tamers coming out of the orphanage, then the entire orphanage, both current and future members, would benefit.