Chapter 7: First Training Lesson
"You can leave, Lia will serve me the tea." Dylan said to the maid. He was going to talk about things that no one else should know besides the trio so he had to ask her to leave.
"As you say, your Majesty." Maid bowed to them and walked out of the room.
"Okay, I'll start with the basics. There are different ranks of beasts, they are categorized by the color of their cores such as Yellow, Purple, Black, Red, Silver and Golden, where yellow being the lowest and golden being the highest. When you kill a beast, it drops a core. If it's yellow in color you will receive a beast soul and a stats point of yellow rank. These two things are the reason why humans invaded our lands and hunted innocent beasts for their greed." Dylan's voice filled with coldness while saying the last sentence.
Lia poured some tea in his cup and passed him.
He grabbed the teacup and took a small sip. He looked at Rio and said, "Your job will be to save these beasts that are in our protection. A beast under Asura will have our marks on them which are those purple stripes you may have seen on our guards' clothes. You can command them as a lord to fight alongside you."
"Do I need to look for the purple stripes? Aren't all the beasts under your supervision?" Rio asked with a puzzled face.
"We haven't been able to do that yet as there are still more than 70% undiscovered lands. So, there are many beasts who haven't pledged their loyalty to us. Be vary of these beasts as they will attack you, I don't want my little daughter to grow old alone." Dylan said with an amusing tone in his voice.
"If I can't kill the one I have to protect and the undiscovered one might kill me, then how am I supposed to become stronger like other humans?" Rio asked while he saw Lia was filling a cup of tea again.
He thought, "I'll have to take it myself. She didn't even let me have my dinner."
"That's a good question. Just like how beasts drop a core, humans also leave behind a part of power in the form of energy pills before they are sent away by their AI watch. Absorbing these pills will grant you one of their stats points and beast soul of highest rank they possess." Dylan said before taking a sip from the cup.
Layla hovered the cup of tea towards Rio and indicated to him with her eyes to take it.
Rio's eyes widened seeing her serve him tea and a smile bloomed on his face. He took it and said lovingly "Thanks, Wifey."
Hearing him call her "Wifey", the cup from Lia's hand almost fell as she was going to have her tea.
Emperor Dylan was smiling ear to ear seeing his new son-in-law getting along with his daughter.
"But we asuras get our strength from cultivating our body by forming a core near our heart and we don't get stats points when we kill a beast but we do get their beast souls. Do you understand now?" Dylan explained and took a sip from the cup before putting it on the table.
"Yes, I understand now. Like how Asuras make core in their body, humans make a root which helps them absorb the beast cores. But I don't understand these so-called innate talents" Rio asked while scratching the back of his head with a bittersweet smile.
He felt that someone elbowed him on his side. He looked beside him and saw Lia indicating to him to drink his tea that she served him.
"Sorry, I was too focused." He floated the cup in front of his mouth.
*Slurp* *Slurp* *Slurp*
He put the tea cup on the table after finishing it in one go.
"I wouldn't have robbed you of your tea if you drank it slowly." Lia mocked him.
"You won't understand so I'm not going to explain to you." Rio said while cheering in his mind.
Emperor Dylan was happily seeing the love birds interact with each other and when they were done, he decided to answer Rio's question, "Innate talent is something everyone is born with but humans believe only 40% are lucky to be born with it.
Some innate talents are already awakened and don't need any help to be awakened while some never find the switch that it requires to be awakened and stay dormant because they were told they are unworthy since they were born."
Rio's eyes shone as he heard he still had a chance to awaken his innate talent. He was also told he was unworthy because of having no inner talent.
Dylan continued, "These innate talents are also categorized by ranks such as F, E, D, C, B, A and S.
My innate talent as the Emperor of the asura is only A Rank while Lia is blessed by heaven. Her innate talent is at S Rank.
If you had knowledge of innate talents based on human findings then your face would've been filled with astonishment because humans don't even know about the existence of S rank. The highest they have known is A Rank innate talent only."
Rio felt ashamed as he didn't know much about these basic knowledge. He was an orphan until one month ago and grew up by using the inheritance left behind by his grandfather.
"Sorry, my classes will start after a month, then they might teach me these things. Government keeps it a secret from us until we enroll in military school." Rio said with a bittersweet smile.
"Don't worry. Even after you graduate from your school, there will be many things they won't be able to teach you.
It's not like your innate talent is none, you just haven't Awakened it yet.
These innate talents decide your growth potential and how far you can go. However, you also receive a special skill when you awaken your innate talent.
Someone with an A rank innate talent can absorb red cores and receive red Tier beast souls easily but someone with C rank will have a hard time doing it. Not only that, but many fail to ever advance their roots to the red stage in their life. Even among Asuras, if they have lower innate talent they won't be able to advance their cores to red stage or even worse black." Dylan explained.