[Beast continent]

Stepping into the training hall she was told Darganth, Jennia, and Allaire would be, Serania immediately felt a shock-wave wash over her. Shielding her eyes and letting the dust cloud pass, she looked up only to see that she had walked in on Jennia and Allaire sparring.

Standing still and watching for a moment, she saw Jennia's vastly smaller than normal form fly back after Allaire suddenly conjured an aura avatar just before the two clashed.

Shaking it off and rolling back to her feet, Jennia didn't hesitate and dashed forward again. Conjuring multiple sharp rock formations from the ground and puncturing Allaire's aura avatar's legs with them, she reached back with one of her forelimbs despite still being too far away to reach Allaire.

Interpreting this as a sign that she would grow her body to its true size, Allaire dispelled her aura avatar and let herself drop to the ground. Controlling her fall to avoid the sharp edges below, she aimed her bow upward, ready for the swing of Jennia's forearm she was expecting would pass by above her a fraction of a second later.

When she instead perceived a few dozen sharp wind-blades through her passive domain, Allaire's eyes widened in surprise. Manifesting as many barriers of hard light behind her back as she could before the attack reached her, she could do nothing but brace as Jennia's spell cut through them without problem.

A moment later they also reached her, impacting the armor made from Darganth's scales on her back. Failing to pierce it, they instead erupted on impact and catapulted Allaire through the hall.

As she sailed through the air, the surrounding mana quickly gathered in her path. Gathering massive amounts of air elemental energy to it, it created a hand of dense air that was ready to catch her.

But before this became necessary, Allaire manifested two wings of light on her upper back, catching herself and stabilizing her momentum. Immediately after the gathered mana dispersed again, taking the air energy with it and letting her pass through the spot without trouble.

Shifting her eyes to the origin of this, Serania finally managed to spot Darganth amidst this chaos. Sitting on the obscured observation deck that was on the opposite side of the hall, he was slowly relaxing again after already having prepared to jump up and intervene to prevent any serious harm.

With the spar between Jennia and Allaire transitioning into a phase of less intensity, he finally managed to notice her presence which prompted him to conjure a portal that led to her.

Stepping through it, Serania found herself in a bunker-like structure made from the same mana dense metal the rest of the hall was made from.

“And, how did it go?” Darganth asked interested as she sat down by his side.

“Even better than I had expected. While they were understandably disappointed that I am essentially leaving them behind, explaining the logic behind my decision and telling them about the likely possibility that they can again work with me in the future made accepting it easier for them.”

“That's great to hear.”

Nodding with a smile on her lips, Serania leaned to the side and rested her head on his shoulder. Humming happily as Dargath caressed her hair, the two watched attentively as Jennia and Allaire again started exchanging spellfire.

Looking on impressed as Jennia seamlessly grew and shrank in size to deliver more powerful strikes or dodge Allaire's attacks, Serania found it incomparable to the often mistimed transformations of just a couple of weeks ago.

“You know, I never have been as sure in my decision to continue only as a mage and not also learn aura than now. I already need to train for enough decisions I have to make in a fight, adding the question of whether to conjure an aura avatar and how large to make it if I do certainly seems like one of the more complicated ones to add.” Serania said when she saw Jennia make a mistake and get hit by the full force of one of Allaire's attacks.

Leaning his head to the side with a critical expression, Darganth seemed to disagree with the notion.

“Honestly, it's not as bad as it looks. Yes, aura users and beasts have to get accustomed to using the optimal form for a fight and finding the right moments to switch between them, but with enough experience, it becomes quite easy.

Besides, it's not like they immediately become useless in a fight if they aren't good at it. A beast using its full size in a fight may be easier to hit and need to use more mana to power such large shield spells or to enhance its body but it doesn't have as great a need for it. The increased body mass means that vital organs are protected by more flesh and with that much mass behind each strike it isn't as important to further increase their already great physical capabilities.

Really, the only thing that considerably affects the usefulness of fighting at their full size are the blindspots where a beast's limbs have trouble reaching.” Darganth explained.

“And they already can train in it beforehand. Makes it feel like mages drew the short end of the stick if this isn't even that difficult.” Serania said with a tint of annoyance.

“Well, not all beasts gain the ability to shrink their body before the mythical rank so at least some have to acquire a magic formation to do it. So while yes, mages have it the hardest in that regard, but other beasts, especially beasts from a mythical rank species, and aura users have their own share of difficulties.” Darganth explained

Sensing a surge of mana from the hall, Serania didn't immediately reply and instead looked into the main hall as Darganth also turned to face it.

Immediately they were greeted by the sight of thousands of light spears blinding them as they swarmed around Jennia who had once again turned to her true size. Taking stabs at her enormous form, the comparatively small weapons barely managed to pierce her skin before getting stuck in place where they slowly vanished as their energy ran out.

Allaire was meanwhile using the opportunity to dart around the rock debris-filled training hall, dashing forward with bursts of speed whenever Jennia's claws came down onto her.

Dodging around like this for a couple dozen seconds, by the fifth time she didn't find a new hiding spot that was close enough and was caught out in the open when Jennia's initial swing ended.

Snapping forward with one of her heads, Jennia didn't worry about striking the ground and impacted it in full force. Throwing up a dust cloud as her head cracked open the rocky floor, she ignored the dizzy feeling this head was experiencing and turned two others to look at the consequences.

Planning to wait for the dust to settle when she noticed that she couldn't see through it, her eyes grew wide in surprise when she felt Allaire's feet suddenly landing on her neck. Focusing the attention of all six other heads onto the one that had struck out, she saw Allaire running along the length of her neck.

Starting to lose her footing as Jennia shook this neck in an attempt to throw her off, Allaire managed to leap toward her back in the last moment before she slid down. Sailing through the air, she conjured a curved ramp of solid light at her landing spot.

Landing in a sliding movement and gliding a short distance over her back, she smoothly jumped back onto her feet and started running.

Not needing to turn around to know that Jennia's heads would attempt to catch her, made a bright flash of light explode behind her back. While this didn't fully stop one of Jennia's heads from shooting after her, it threw her aim off slightly.

Through this and the help of her passive domain allowing her to sense its exact trajectory, Allaire managed to drop to the ground at the perfect moment.

Calmly watching Jennia's head pass over her, she burst forward in a flash of light as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Sprinting on with another of Jennia's heads hot on her tail, her lips curled up into a smile when she sensed it stop abruptly. Slowing down shortly after she turned around to face Jennia who was trying to stretch her neck to still reach Allaire.

“I assume you agree I won?” She asked with a teasing grin, upon confirming that Jennia couldn't reach her.

Instead of answering, Jennia just clicked her tongue in response and transformed into her humanoid form, suddenly leaving Allaire to plummet to the ground.

Nonetheless having no trouble landing gracefully, Allaire offered Jennia a friendly hug that the latter accepted with a smile.

At the same time, Darganth and Serania rose from their seats. Walking out into the hall to get to Jennia and Allaire now that their spar was over, Serania used the opportunity to continue from where they had paused before.

“You mentioned beasts of mythical rank species’s separately just now, are they really that different?” Serania asked.

Needing a moment to think back to where they had left off, Darganth nodded a moment later.

“Mythical rank beast species can barely be compared to those of the other ranks, so yes. And while the lifespan and sizes are the more obvious ones, this is more connected with the fundamental difference between the two.

In essence, a mythical rank species and its powers are quite similar to aura users and mages. But instead of using a universally available system, they have one that is innate to their species but it extends all the way into the mythical rank all the same. Of course, there are still significant differences, but when viewed from the perspective of a practitioner they are remarkably similar.

Part of that is that just like how mages and aura users need to thoroughly understand augmentation and infusion respectively to enter the mythical rank and use the power gained through it, these beasts need to have a fundamental understanding of their species's and consequently their

own physical and magical nature.

Beasts that evolve into a mythical rank species instead gain that understanding during their evolution, making it easier to both reach the mythical rank and get accustomed to its power afterward.”

“You're talking about the mythic rank, what did I miss?” Jennia suddenly said to insert herself into the conversation.

“Not much, I was just surprised that a mythical beast species has it differently when entering the mythical rank.”

Chuckling amused, Allaire nodded in agreement to the sentiment.

“Wait until you learn that they can't even all trace their lineage back to mythical ranked beasts, that was the real shock for me.”

Hearing Allaire's words, Serania abruptly turned to her with an expression of disbelief.

“They what?” She asked stupefied.

“I see why you were so amused.” Allaire said to Darganth in response to Serania's expression.

Rolling her eyes at Allaire's light laughter, Serania turned to Darganth with a raised eyebrow.

“What do you hope I say, she's right. It's rare but it does happen.” He responded with a shrug.

“How?”

“There's actually two different ways for this, with the main difference being whether the result is an already existing mythical species or a new one, but the fundamentals are similar and the short answer for both is simple, luck.

The more common of the two cases works on a similar basis to how a legendary species often evolves in multiple, completely unrelated planets and even universes. Just like these legendary species's exclude a pull that steers evolution to create their kind, mythical ranked species also influence the evolutions of beasts but both weaker and only locally. Though, when I say locally it is only relative as that influence can still extend across not just universes but even multiverses and reach the entire reality it exists in.

And while the pull of all the legends of different species overshadows it during the evolution to the mythical rank, resulting in an already existing mythical species rarely getting new branches this way as that legends pull will often be weaker, this pull has next to no effect on anything below that.

As an example, let's take a species of first rank beasts that evolved from birds and have the fire affinity. While little, they have similarities to Phoenix’s and if the latter already exists, maybe even in that universe but on another planet, they can fall under that pull.

Over the coming generations, whether they stay as firsts ranks or not, there will be slight shifts in their appearance every couple of generations, slowly making them more akin to a phoenix. There are a few ways to accelerate that but they aren't necessary and don't matter much for the overall process.

Because either way, after enough generations have passed, the first child of the group will be born as a phoenix. At first, it might just be one or two every generation and it might never reach the point that every child will be a phoenix, though it can, but at that point, a mythical species has been created.”

Staring at Darganth as he explained and blinking in shock, Serania was too shocked to react before he started the second part of his explanation.

“As for the rarer case, the creation of a new mythical species, it can happen due to mutations during the evolution. Often these are even caused artificially or at least by outside influences, but even without it, every evolution has a miniscule chance of resulting in a species whose potential reaches a higher rank. And this can also be the mythical rank, despite the differences between its species's and beast species's of lower ranks.”

“I think I got a headache memorizing all that.” Serania murmured, finding no other way to express the feeling of having a part of how she believed existence worked flipped on her head.

“Well, we've already trained a couple of hours anyways, so spending the rest of one of the last days before we leave the beast continent leisurely doesn't sound like a bad idea.” Darganth said in response.

“A great one actually.” Jennia said in agreement.