Inside the Amarach forest, under the cover of the night, a figure was hurriedly moving. His steps were silent and quick as he moved through the night like a shadow. The figure was clad in tight-fitting leather armor and a bow was strapped on his back.

After moving for some minutes, the black figure stopped in front of a wooden cabin.

The cabin was old and dilapidated and looked like it could crumble at any time. However, despite its appearance, the cabin still stood tall, stubbornly withstanding the torture of time, and continued to give shelter to countless adventurers wandering through the dangerous forest. 

CREAK.

As they heard the groan of the door of their shelter, Blake and his companions stopped whatever they were doing and turned their eyes toward the door.

"Oh, but look at who is back." Rin snickered as she saw the figure of Bel standing behind the door. "You actually managed to survive and come back."

"I bet he hid like a rat the whole time," Ali said as he too eyed the pensive-looking Bel.

"Shut up," Bel said as he glared at Rin and Ali. "I am not in the mood to listen to your bullshit," Bel said as he stopped paying attention to the two and looked at Blake.

"You, how dare you talk to me like that?" Rin said and grabbed the hilt of her sword, seemingly ready to fight Bel.

"Rin calms down, it isn’t the time for this." Blake finally said.

"Tsk, you are lucky Blake is here, otherwise…" Rin said as her hand left her sword.

"So, Bel, what did you find?" Leila asked as she looked at Bel curiously. "The forest was pretty noisy while you were out there." Looks like there was a big fight.

As Leila said that, five pairs of eyes eagerly looked at Bel, hurrying him to tell his story. Even Rin stopped staring daggers at him and looked at him with some eagerness.

"You are right, there was indeed a big fight. But things are more complicated than you think." Bel said with a sigh.

"Oh, what happened then?" Blake asked.

"This is what happened…" Bel said and he started to narrate the event he witnessed.

As they listened to him, the expressions of the five gradually changed. 

First, they were curious when he talked about Leo. 

Then they were astounded when he recounted the fight between Leo and the wolf pack. 

Finally, their faces were filled with disbelief as he told them how Leo dealt with the Fog snake and the Umbra panther.

"So, you are saying that there is a weird winged lion out there who killed three of this forest's strongest beasts one after another. Also, that beast is still a rank D beast. And finally, from the way you are speaking, it seems that he did that quite easily." Blake said as he took a deep breath to keep his calm.

"You understand that I can’t just believe you right. " He said, his tone clearly showing his distrust.

"I can understand," Bel said. He too, despite having witnessed Leo’s fight, was still having a hard time believing everything he saw. 

He wasn’t even sure if his team could manage to reproduce the same feats if they were in Leo’s position. With the power of their team, they could certainly beat any of the beasts Leo killed. However, they wouldn’t be able to do so without paying a certain price.

That was because any beast with the king title was a tricky beast to deal with and was many times more powerful than other beasts of the same rank.

For example, the snake king fog maze and poison were enough to make any rank C unwilling to face him. Or the umbra panther sneak attack. They were things that made those beasts difficult to deal with. However, Leo just shrugged them off as if it was nothing.

"Bullshit." Bel woke up from his thoughts as he heard Ali cursing angrily. "Do you think we are kids to believe such a story?"

"He is right. You should have come up with a better story if you wanted to fool us." Rin said as she looked at Bel with contempt.

"You two are really idiots." Leila suddenly said.

"Huh, don’t tell me you actually believe his nonsense," Ali asked as he looked at Leila, surprised and annoyed by Leila’s reaction.

"What is there to not believe? " She said as she threw a nonchalant glance at Ali. "The Lion Bel talked about is certainly a beast with a high-level bloodline. Normally, it can swagger as it wants in such a low-level area. Still…."

"It is hard to completely believe Bel’s story, right?" Blake said as he looked at the hesitant Leila.

"Yes, even for a bloodline beast, its power is a little off the charts. Even if it was a legendary beast, it shouldn’t be this powerful as a rank D. And I doubt it is." She said as she too still held some reservation about Bel’s story

"How?" Ali, Rin, and the midget asked. 

For them, if it was a legendary beast that Bel saw, everything would be more clear. 

However, Leila was saying that even a legendary beast shouldn’t have that much power. They were surprised as in all the stories they heard, Legendary beasts were already depicted as invincible existences. 

Why was Leila saying the beast's power was too much then?

"It is tiring to work with idiots," Leila said, her gaze turning even more disdainful.

"Don’t go too far, Leila," Rin said as she was unable to stay calm as she was constantly ridiculed by Leila.

"I guess I won’t lose anything if I teach you a thing or two," Leila said a strange light shining within her eyes.

"And here she goes again." Blake sighed as Leila seemed to enter a weird state.

"Can’t we stop her? The beast isn’t going to wait for us." Bel said exasperatedly.

"You know how passionate she is about these things. Besides, I have no intention to get cursed. You can try it if you want." Blake said as he leaned against a wall and silently listened to Leila.

"Fuck." Bel cursed as he too settled down to listen to Leila.

"To understand what I was talking about, we have to talk about our ranking system." Leila started.

In Aria, everyone wishing to train and gain power has to do so using nature essence or mana.

Depending on their path, they would absorb mana and refine it into various forms of energy be it aura, magic power, qi, ki, or any other that they would then accumulate inside their body and be able to use.

The rank of a being is determined by its energy level, power level. The said power level is the amount of energy a person holds and can unleash through his skills.

That being said, the goal in each rank is to keep gathering as much energy as possible while learning and mastering skills suitable to unleash as much power as the energy you hold allows you to. 

That is the goal everyone will pursue until they hit their limit and need to break through the next rank before being able to gather more power.

However, the limit of power in a rank isn’t the same for everyone. It depends on many factors such as species, potential, bloodline, techniques practiced, skills learned, and many more.

It becomes clear that in the same rank, two individuals wouldn’t necessarily wield the same amount of power. For example, a peak rank E rabbit could at most have a power level of 15 while a wolf of the same rank could have a power level of 25.

"We already know that much. Can you stop wasting our time…… " Ali said as he was feeling annoyed by the unending rant of Leila.

"I’m sorry, you can continue. " Ali immediately apologized as the cold and gloomy glare of Leila landed on his body.

"Humph. So, there are two reasons why I said even a legendary beast should have a hard time doing what your Lion did." Leila said.

Firstly, it is due to the way the beast's bloodline works. 

In the beast world, of two beasts with different bloodlines, the one with a better bloodline will be stronger. The same way, of two beasts with the same bloodline, the one with a higher bloodline will be stronger.

However, there is a third factor that affects the power of a beast. It is the bloodline awakening level. At their birth, only a portion of a beast's bloodline is unlocked.

To awaken more of their bloodline, they have to get stronger. Or, as their bloodline awakens, they would get stronger. It works in the two senses, just that the first one is quicker. 

What matters here is that, the stronger they are, the greater the amount of power their bloodline grants them. 

Let’s say a rank E legendary beast is twice as powerful as an ordinary rank E beast. Then at rank D, it will be four times more powerful than an ordinary beast of the same rank. At rank C it would be ten times and with each rank, their advantages will just continue to increase.

If a team of strong adventurers could kill a low-level legendary beast, a whole army would be needed to take down a high-level one.

The second reason is even simpler. Nature limits how powerful a being can be in each rank. Whether they are legendary beasts or not doesn't matter, once they reach that limit, they would need to breakthrough. 

For example, the strongest peak rank D can’t be more powerful than the weakest peak rank C. Even a legendary beast can’t hold the power of a rank B while being a rank D.

"Did you see why I think the beast you are talking about is weird now?" Leila said as she finally stopped her endless lecture. 

"Yes, not only was the beast, not a peak rank D but the beasts he fought were certainly far from the weakest rank C," Bel said.

"Exactly, it is still possible for him to beat them but doing so with the ease you described is a little too much," Leila said as she shook her head.

"Unfortunately, that is what I saw. Also, you guys are too focused on the beast and forgot he received help from a Catkin. Her power too was far from being negligible. It was her who helped him deal with the wolf pack and it was also her who saved him from the claws of the Umbra panther and held it back for a while." Bel said after thinking for a while.

"Well, maybe you are right," Ali mumbled.

"Ok, but you all are forgetting something." The unnoticeable midget said.

"What?" Bel asked.

"The treasure, what about the fucking treasure?' He said as he glared at Bel.

"There is no treasure, at least not the one we were expecting." It was Leila who answered him.

"Oh!" The midget said his face filled with disappointment.

"There may be no treasure but if we could hunt the beast…" Rin said, the endless light of greed shining within her eyes.

"No matter the grade of its bloodline, we could make it big," Ali said his reasoning too, leaving its place to greed. He could already feel gold coins rolling between his fingers.

"Blake, Leila, you guys understand how dangerous the beast is. Let’s not act rashly. We should retreat first." Bel said as he, better than anyone, understood the terror of Leo. He felt the power within the last attack of Leo and he had no intention to be on the receiving end. Also, that girl by his side was now a rank C, making things even more dangerous.

"Chuckle, I am quite interested in seeing the beast though, it seems to be an interesting study subject," Leila said a dangerous light shining within her eyes.

'Fuck, I shouldn’t have expected anything from this crazy bitch.' Bel cursed as he turned his gaze to Blake.

Their team's destiny was once again in his hands.