Back downstairs, Kieran went out into the garden with excitement. He wanted to try out the abilities of his crystal seeds, the garden of his house was quite large, and his father had set up many thick wooden poles to serve as a striking dummy.
His father was part of an expedition team, and even though their cultivation level was only Bronze rank, he could still make enough money to feed his family.
Going on an expedition through the rifts could be dangerous, but as long as the team did not overestimate themself by entering rifts above their rank, the risks were measured.
He looked down at his hands before focusing on the two crystal seeds inside his spiritual world. His sight was on the wolf transformation crystal seed.
'I'm going to try the wolf transformation first.'
A simple thought was enough to activate his crystal seed. It was as simple as moving one of his arms. It came instinctively.
An illusionary seed appeared above his head as an unknown energy passed through his body. Fur started to grow all over his body, then his bones started twisting in different directions, his mouth stretched out before transforming into a muzzle, and a long tail grew down his back. He bowed to the ground before finding himself on his four limbs.
Kieran’s figure disappeared to make way for a black wolf with dark green hues on his fur. Feeling the changes happening in his body, a feeling of euphoria filled his mind as he tried to move when he stumbled forward and found himself face down on the ground.
He got up slowly before shaking his head, his gaze scanning everything around him as if he was checking that no one was present.
"Fortunately, no one is home. Otherwise, I won't stop hearing about it."
After several tries, he began to get used to his new body by accelerating his walk more and more until he finally started to run.
A striking dummy appeared in his vision. Concentrating on it, he decided to make a try, twisting his body to the side. He quickly changed direction, rushing towards the striking dummy, once close to him, he jumped into the air, swinging his claws on the wooden pole, leaving a shallow mark on it.
'I can move faster and more freely in this form, but the striking power is not really strong.'
He inspected the mark he had left on the striking dummy, this kind of power was not very high among the abilities granted at the awakening, but the mobility in this form was very satisfying. After several tests on the striking dummy, he canceled his wolf transformation to try the giant transformation. The illusory seed above his head disappeared slowly.
As his body regained human form, Kieran noticed that the transformation had torn apart his clothes.
"My clothes..."
With a thought, he collected the pieces of clothing scattered all around him in his spatial gem before taking out wide clothes from it and dressing with them.
"I'm going to have to buy shapeshifting clothes when I have saved up enough nova credits. My only choice right now is to use the spatial gem every time I use and cancel my transformation. I should configure the aurora collar so that with each transformation, it removes or puts my clothes back on me. It will avoid embarrassing situations in the future."
The aurora collar allows great freedom in its functions which could be personalized according to the desires of its user. It was possible to make the windows of his aurora collar visible to allow other people to see them or to modify the call settings so that no one could hear what he was saying thanks to a conversation through the thoughts and many other functions.
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As long as a person was interested in the functions that he could add or modify on his aurora collar, it was easy for him to get lost for days or even weeks just with the basic functions.
When he was about to try out his second crystal seed ability, several notifications appeared one after another on his aurora collar, catching his attention.
"Huh? Why am I getting so many messages all at once?"
Opening the messages on his aurora collar, several messages appeared in front of him with all the same points in common.
[Recruitment - Blades Vitality Guild
Recruitment - Midnight Foxes Guild
Recruitment - Red Shadows Guild
Recruitment - Crescent Nightmare Guild
Recruitment - Wind Rage Guild
Recruitment - Beasts Knights Guild
Recruitment...]
"Are these..? Guild recruitment requests? Do the guilds already know that I've had a double awakening?"
While he was thinking about this possibility, he opened the first recruiting message.
[ Recruitment - Blades Vitality Guild
Mr. Arvost, it is with great honor that our Blades Vitality Guild would like to welcome you.
Our guild has several buildings suitable for training the abilities of cultivators as well as several veterans available 24/7 to allow you to develop in the best possible environment.
Our guild is also very free with its members, allowing them to go inside the rifts when no mission is assigned to them. Of course, if you choose to join our guild, the contract will be much freer for you. Only an exclusive contract with our guild for a period of 50 years will be requested, but in exchange, our guild will do its best to allow you to reach the rank Silver in the next ten years...]
Kieran stopped reading the message at this point.
"A 50-year contract? And I'm only going to reach Silver in ten years? Does he really think I'm going to accept this kind of contract? It's not even one of the best guilds inside the city of Ozryn..."
He opened the following recruiting message only to find the same contract template. After several minutes of scrolling through the long recruiting list, he found no guild that had real notoriety in Ozryn. All the guilds that had sent him a recruitment message belonged to guilds at the bottom of Ozryn's ranking.
"Are the big guilds not interested in a double awakened, or is it the grade of my crystal seeds that makes them hesitate?"
*sigh*
"I'll think about that later. For now, I still have to figure out my abilities."
He closed his eyes, concentrating on his spiritual world. The second crystal seed appeared above him as he slowly activated the giant transformation, his size quickly increased from a height of 1.75m to 4 meters high, his clothes were dilated to the point that some parts had torn.
The feel of this form was no different from his normal form, but he could feel an immense force running under his skin. His muscles were bulging, and his skin was thicker than before. Heading towards a striking dummy at a speed lower than the one he had in his human form, he closed his hand in a fist before exerting all his strength against the striking dummy, his fist plunged into it, forming a deep hole.
'This form has a higher power than the wolf but no mobility. I feel like I have two abilities at opposite ends. How will they interact when I use them together?'
While remaining in his giant form, he activated his wolf transformation ability again. Two illusory seeds floated above his head.
His body changed again. He started twisting before he completely transformed into a wolf. His size was far higher than using the wolf transformation alone. He had now become an imposing wolf with a height of 2.5 and a length of 3.5m, and his muscles had become much thicker than before.
Crouching at a distance of 20 meters from a striking dummy, he used all his strength on his hind legs before rushing toward the dummy at high speed before lifting his huge claws and slashing forward.
*crack*
A sound echoed around the yard as his claw smash destroyed one of the dummies. Happy and excited at how his two abilities reacted with each other, he started throwing himself on a dummy one after the other.
Unknown to him, Ryan was still in his chamber, watching him through the window with his hands clenched tightly into a fist.
Several minutes passed as he was lost in his feeling of using his abilities.
"Stop it!!"
Suddenly a loud voice echoed throughout the garden, waking Kieran from his excitement. Looking around, he could only see pieces of wood chips scattered everywhere.
Turning his head towards the voice, he found his father, Davis Arvost, approaching him.
His father seemed to be in his mid-thirties. He had an imposing build measuring 1.84m, black eyes, and black hair with some green hue that looked a lot like Kieran’s.
A frowning look was on his face.
"Looks like you had a lot of fun with my practice dummy, and how about some practice with your old dad now?"
'Ah! I'm screwed!'