Light seeped into the cave from the hole in the roof signaling the arrival of morning

"Yawwwwn~"

Yu got up with a yawn as he stretched his body, even though he had slept on the rocky ground he felt better than he had ever sleeping on any bed in the hotels

"That's weird, have I gotten used to sleeping on the ground cause of the week in the mansion? Hmm that couldn't be it some of the beds were as hard as rock after all"

Looking over to the snake he notices the light that it had been surrounding was almost snuffed out, anytime now it should be finished

"What is it exactly that it took half a day just to finish absorbing"

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He stared at the snake some more before he turned his attention to the walls, since he had some time on his hands he might as well check out the results of Lyra's battle

He spotted twelve bodies littering the floor, elven of them were normal and there was the large one he helped kill by the lake

'Speaking of which didn't I move that summoning hexagram as I was chanting? I never heard of such a thing being done, I can't even recall the words that I used, though they seem to vaguely linger in my mind'

While recalling the chant he also recalled the unbearable pain, causing him to flinch at the memory

'Whatever let's check out the spoils'

He went ahead and carved out the beast crystal from the biggest one, what he got was a three quarter blue crystal and one quarter brown

"Water and Earth, though it seems their environment was pushing them toward a full water evolution, or could they have retained both elements? Either way it would have been fun to see the end result, but it seems they will never get the opportunity to shine"

Suddenly his Grimoire manifested itself in front of him, then hovered beside his hand that was holding the crystal

"????"

Yu just had an extremely puzzled look on his face as he looked toward the Grimoire that manifested without his consent

'What's going on? A Grimoire can't manifest on its own, why the hell did it suddenly appear? This doesn't make any sense'

Grimoires were tools that bound together the holder and the beasts, they themselves didn't have a conscious that's why he couldn't explain the weird occurrences

He moved to put the crystal on the ground and inspect the Grimoire but it followed his hand and moved with the crystal, he stooped seeing this and the Grimoire went back to being still

"You came out for this?" Yu waved the crystal at the Grimoire but it only followed his hand and gave no other indication of sentience

Seeing as he won't get and answer he stretches his hand holding the crystal toward the Grimoire, this time it remained still and waited for him to put the crystal on its cover, as soon as the crystal touched the cover it was sucked into the Grimoire producing a crisp ring then it vanished on its own

"Uhhh.." Yu was again left with hand stretching awkwardly in the air, by then a frown started to form on his face

"This is happening too often; I really need to start taking a tougher attitude"

Retracting his hands, he summoned the Grimoire which instantly manifested in front of him just like any time before but this time he didn't treat it as a tool but instead started talking to it

"What did you do just now? Why did you want that crystal, and how can you manifest on your own?"

His string of questions seemed to fall on deaf ears, the Grimoire remained floating in the air above him indicating it really was just a tool

'Could it be that it wasn't sentient but something any Grimoire would do under certain circumstances? Whatever that was though it certainly wasn't normal, it seems there is a lot more that is yet to be uncovered about these mysterious objects'

Slither~

The sound of slither came from his back, he turned his head toward the snake only to see it shedding its skin having finished the light from before, it continued to make audibly loud sounds as it grazed its old skin against the ground ripping it apart to reveal its new unblemished whiter skin, its size also seemed to have grown a tad bit, but the most notable change was the flickering markings that appeared on its scales as it moved about

HISSSSSSSSSS~

A high pitched hiss escaped the snake as it lifted its head toward the sky, like a beast roaring to the heavens, except it was really intimidating with how small the snake still was

'This, how.. second stage? I thought it needed a hundred years to get there, no even the second stage doesn't have Runes, just how many stages did it jump??' There was little information Yu could glean on the snake's evolutionary line as even with the Southern Paradise's large knowledge base he still didn't get the name of the snake's species, he had only found some books describing the creature and its long life span, but it seemed to be from ancient manuscripts

'Any beast that has Runes can't be simple, especially one at the bronze rank, it might grow inot something really amazing, still I must take on a tough attitude when it comes here, if I don't show the line now it would be too late when it does grow powerful and willful'

Deciding he would take a stance here and now he waited for the snake to finish its blissful moments and approach him, once it got closer and hissed at him he frowned toward it and said with a harsh tone

"Have you enjoyed your meal? I'm sure eating your brothers share felt quite satisfying"

The snake was puzzled by his attitude, it looked at him perplexed

"Those flowers could help the others with evolution as well, it was quite selfish of you to eat all of them"

Yu knew it was a lie but he still needed something to find fault with it, after all he couldn't just berate it without justification, he was reasonable enough not to make problems out of nothing

Hiissss

The snake suddenly hissed at him and went to the side of the lake, then it waved it tail at him to follow

"What is it?" Yu followed the snake to check its excuse, he saw it peering toward the bottom of the lake so he followed its line of sight, his eyes widened seeing the plants at the bottom of the clear water

'Wait what? I clearly saw it take all the light from the plants, how did that not kill them? Did it just extract the power from it? What the hell was the light really' Yu felt more and more puzzled as he continued to ask himself but a smug hiss woke him up from the loop of questions, turning to the side he saw the snake smugly looking at him as if to say 'What's your excuse now'

Yu frowned at the sight and responded to it with a dead cold tone

"I will admit I have no idea what that light was but I will tell you that one of your brothers had also made use of it, with the plant as well, and you had no right whatsoever to take all of them without permission, it's only fair to ask for permission before you take such valuable treasure, next time you should ask as I won't be as lenient if you are as rude as you are now"

The snake flinched at Yu's sudden response but before it had the chance to respond in any way Yu started chanting before sending it back

"Haah, why did I do that?"

Yu let out a tired breath as he questioned himself, he also felt that he was being unreasonable when he had just said he wouldn't make problems out of nothing, but when the snake was close to him he felt his skin crawling with discomfort as irritation seeped into his mind, he had suppressed it but seeing the snake's smug attitude suddenly pushed his discomfort to the extreme

'Something's wrong with me, i have been ignoring it for a while but my mood has been shifting due to unknown reasons as of late, back at Denatro city and now here too, it's like I'm a completely different person, if I don't get to the bottom of this soon it might be too late when something happens'

He pondered to himself before setting his eyes back on the book, remembering he had yet to check it he called it closer and started to inspect it inside out, but even after looking through every page thoroughly he still didn't see anything different, only the portrait of the snake had changed into the new look

'I'll keep an eye on it from now on, so many things popping left and right that need explanation these days, I really need to get some of these questions answered or I would be buried with unending theories'

He sighed and unsummoned the Grimoire, then he called out the spider and had it weave a rope to the top while he carved out the other crystals from the dead beasts, he had tried giving them to the Grimoire but it didn't respond so he kept them and disassemble the corpses of all twelve beasts, keeping the teeth and nails to be sold as they could be used in forging, but while he wanted to separate the innards to sell them to apothecaries he didn't know where to start so he just threw them with the rest of the stuff

By the time he was done the spider had already finished making the rope up, so Yu prepared to hole up everything to the surface in groups

'Since I will be at it for a while why don't I let the fish out into the lake, im sure it would enjoy some time out, plus I don't get to spend much time near bodies of water this clear'

So he did so and then looked to the top of the cave

"Time to head out"