Surprised that the 5 F+ ranks didn't die, Alex closed in with his fists ready to finish them off, but Rowan held him back.

"Don't. They're already out of the fight, let this be a valuable lesson to choose who they follow wisely." Rowan saved the five from dying to Alex's fist, but in his own hands lay Crimson who was barely grasping to life.

The battle was already over.

Crimson and his gang had vastly overestimated themselves, or maybe they just underestimated their enemies.

Either way, they were now at the mercy of Rowan and Alex, and thankfully for them Rowan was in a good mood due to all the loot he was looking forward to, so he let them live.

"I know you were confident in your ability to kill these guys even in a 1v5, but if you underestimate your enemies like these guys did, then you'll end up like them one day." This was a valuable lesson for Alex, and he knew Rowan was right.

Just like how he was surprised that his attack that one shot Joanne, didn't one shot those five guys, although some of them were close to death.

"Should we check the bear for a soul core then?" Now that the nuisances were dealt with, Alex was eager to find out whether this beast had a soul core.

"Gladly!"

Grabbing his sword and plunging it deep into the bear's skull, Rowan used his strength to pry its skull in half and a shining white light came through the gaps, which only meant one thing.

"We're in luck!" Rowan exclaimed excitedly and Alex, just as excited from the side, spoke.

"So uhh, continuing from earlier before we were rudely interrupted, how do we split the loot." Alex asked awkwardly. He knew Rowan was the strongest out of the both of them, by far, and since he contributed the most to the E rank fights so he had the right to decide who gets what.

"How about this, since we both contributed equally to killing the E rank bear, if we are lucky enough to get E- rank cores from both the raccoons we killed, you can have those." Rowan was being very generous with Alex, which was almost suspicious to him.

Alex looked at him with a questioning gaze, "I don't get it. First you hold yourself back in those fights, which I presume is to test me on how I'll do. And now you're being so generous with the distribution of loot when you don't have to be."

"It took you long enough to ask." Rowan said with a smirk.

"I'm from the federation, just like you. Right now I'm on a mission my Professor gave me and I just so happened to cross paths with you.

I won't sugarcoat it, I plan on recruiting you to my university, If you are willing to accept. The rewards for recruiting new and talented students, or genius students in your case, are very sought after. I can tell you that giving you those two E- rank cores would be nothing compared to what I'd gain by recruiting you.

But, if you don't wish to accept that's fine too. The price of friendship is well worth the two cores anyway, treat it as a gift from me."

With Rowan revealing his background, Alex felt like most of his answers were questioned. And he appreciated how honest Rowan was with him regarding his reasoning for being so generous with him.

His only remaining question was…

"There are universities for Awakened?"

This time it was Rowan's turn to be surprised.

'???' 

'Just how rural is this kid? He doesn't even know about the universities?'

'Then again he did say people like him rarely make it back from the Primordial Expanse.'

"Universities are places where new Awakened like you and me can learn a lot more about the Primordial Expanse and our powers. Not to mention the rewards you can earn through the rankings and recruiting new students. There are many techniques you can learn to enhance your powers, teachers who can help you hone your sense etc.

Many Awakened all across the Federation yearn to join a university."

To Alex this all just seemed like another distant dream to him, just like how he used to dream about leaving his desolate home on the asteroid and making a new and successful life for himself.

'No, I can't keep thinking like this. How can I forget I'm also an Awakened now. My life's already changed!'

"Wait, you said new awakened like you and me… How are you so powerful if you're newly awakened?" 

Rowan heard Alex's question and didn't think much of it, "I'm still only in my first year of university. I've only been in the Primordial Expanse for a year and a half by now."

'That's quite a long time, no?'

"I've only been here a little over a month…"

"..."

There was silence throughout the area from this point.

Rowan looked so dejected he didn't even want to speak to Alex anymore.

'He reached F+ rank in a little over 6 weeks, I can't believe it… He'll surpass me soon enough. I have to work harder!'

***

After the duo dealt with the bear corpse and extracted anything remotely useful, they next went over to the two raccoon corpses.

Thankfully there hadn't been another situation like the one with the Crimson gang, but the way they dealt with them probably deterred anyone from trying anything anyway.

As it turned out, the duo were getting suspiciously lucky with their loot, both of the raccoon corpses had an E- rank beast core buried in their skulls, much to Alex's delight.

Unfortunately though, the two F+ rank beasts that Alex had killed earlier on had nothing. But Alex was satisfied with what he had anyway.

'2 E- rank beast cores, and 4 soul orbs. I'm eating good tonight.'

Alex had always been a foodie. Just thinking about the delicious and exotic meals he could buy with those beast cores made him drool, but he knew better than to use them for that.

He would only waste gold coins on such luxuries.

"So, what's the name of this University you go to." Both Alex and Rowan had smiles on their faces as they eyed their loot with glee.

"It's called Capital Prime University. It's actually the number 1 uni-" 

BOOOOOM!

Before Rowan could trail off into how great and powerful his university is, he was cut off by a sudden loud noise and an explosion far off into the distance.

Just as sudden as the explosion came, the barrier surrounding the city fell.