Wolfe was stunned, but combat instincts took over. He didn't waste the miracle. Those few seconds of confusion gave him just enough time to catch his breath.


Without a moment's hesitation, he gripped his Warblade and launched himself back into the fray.


The Direwolf was already a mess of wounds. Wolfe targeted the existing gashes, hacking down like a madman.


Slash!


The beast's other claw hit the ground.


Purple ichor sprayed everywhere, soaking Wolfe and mixing with his own bright red blood.


The Direwolf thrashed and screamed, snapping blindly at the air, its jaws tearing at nothing. Wolfe hopped backward, putting some distance between them.


Blind and armless, the monster was no longer a threat.


Wolfe took a deep, ragged breath. He activated The Art of Cultivation, pulling in the dense Essence from the surrounding air. The energy here was thick—more than double what you'd find back on Earth. Training here meant leveling up fast, but the danger... that was on a whole other level, too.


As his Origin Force recharged, Wolfe gripped his Warblade, channeling power into the steel.


He lunged.


With a burst of speed, he closed the distance to the thrashing beast and drove the blade straight through its eye socket, piercing the brain.


The Crimson-Eyed Direwolf shuddered violently, then collapsed. Still. Silent. Dead.


Wolfe collapsed right next to it, gasping for air. He felt like his battery had been drained to zero.


"Get over here..."


Lucas, who had been cautiously approaching, heard the rasping command. He hesitated for half a second, then jogged over. The Xenobeast looked thoroughly dead.


"Wolfe, that was awesome!" Lucas grinned, giving him a thumbs-up.


"Cut the crap," Wolfe grunted, glaring at him with zero energy. "Check my pocket. Get the medicinal powder and dump it on my cuts."


Lucas nodded. He dug into the pocket of Wolfe's combat suit and pulled out a pouch of yellowish dust. He sprinkled it over the worst of the gashes, and the bleeding began to slow immediately.


"You gonna make it?" Lucas asked.


"I'm fine."


Wolfe shook his head and slowly pushed himself to his feet. He looked at the dead beast, then at the kid.


"That shot earlier... was that you?"


Wolfe stared at Lucas, assessing him with a new kind of intensity.


That last shot had been a total game-changer. If Lucas hadn't blinded the Crimson-Eyed Direwolf at the critical moment, Wolfe would have been turned into wolf chow—literally flattened by those massive paws.


Lucas nodded rapidly, his head bobbing like a bobblehead on a dashboard.


"So, channeling Origin Force into a weapon actually works! It makes the power way stronger!" Lucas sounded a little too excited, considering they'd almost died.


He'd tried it on a whim—pushing the energy from his body into the crossbow. He hadn't expected the result to be triple the stopping power. The bolt had flown so fast the Direwolf didn't even have time to blink before it was lights out.


"You..." Wolfe's eyes were popping out of his head. "You channeled your body's Origin Force? Into the weapon?"


"Yeah. You said it yourself," Lucas said, doing a decent impression of Wolfe's gruff teaching voice. " Channel Origin Force into your weapon! It amplifies the attack!'"


Wolfe was speechless. Okay, sure, he liked to shout advice like that in the heat of battle—mostly to hype himself up—but he didn't think Lucas would actually do it. That was Tier 1 Warrior stuff. High-level skills.


Lucas hadn't even finished tempering his skin yet. Technically, he was still just an Apprentice Warrior.


"Is it... supposed to be hard?" Lucas asked, seeing Wolfe's stunned expression. He'd assumed it would be difficult, but honestly? It had felt natural. Like breathing.


"Cough." Wolfe's face twitched as he tried to regain his composure. "No. Not hard at all."


He gave Lucas a complicated look. "I just didn't expect you to hit the rank of Apprentice Warrior so fast."


When Wolfe had dumped those study materials on the kid, he hadn't expected much. Lucas's Origin Points started at eighteen. That wasn't just low; that was basement-level.


"Haha, well, thanks for giving me The Art of Cultivation..."


Lucas clamped his mouth shut mid-sentence. Oops.


Wolfe clearly hadn't meant to give him that classified manual.


"Wait." Wolfe pounced on the slip-up. "What did you say? I accidentally gave you The Art of Cultivation?"


Panic flashed in Wolfe's eyes. That manual was dangerous. Any wannabe warrior who saw it would try to learn it, but without a mentor? That was a one-way ticket to internal injuries or worse.


"Yeah..." Lucas's voice shrank.


"You can't train without a guide! You'll—" Wolfe started to yell, then stopped dead. His brain finally caught up.


Lucas was an Apprentice Warrior. That meant he'd already mastered the basics of the manual—sensing and controlling the Force.


"I already learned it," Lucas admitted, shrugging helplessly.


Wolfe looked at him like he was a three-headed hydra. "You learned it... by yourself?"


Lucas didn't bother hiding it.


"What are your Origin Points at now?" Wolfe demanded, his voice cracking with shock.


"I think... twenty-nine?"


Wolfe went silent.


A few days ago, this kid was a nobody popping his first Origin Elixir. Now he was an Apprentice Warrior? That wasn't just fast; that was faster than a rocket sled.


Ping.


[Shock from Gordon Wolfe: Credits +10]


...


Lucas's eyes widened as the System notifications scrolled through his mind.


Damn, he thought. How shocked is this guy? He's practically feeding me credits.


"Never mind. Let's talk later," Wolfe grunted, finally shaking off the surprise. "Help me haul the carcass."


Wolfe went to work on the Xenobeast with the precision of a master surgeon. In seconds, he'd dismantled the wolf and stuffed the valuable parts into high-tech compression bags.


They hauled the bulging sacks toward the shimmering Dimensional Rift.