"You're all wondering why I took so long to tell you about it right? Well, there's no real reason actually. I just figured it would be more dramatic to tell you now. And you had way too much stuff to do before anyway... And I did offer to tell Freya about it, but she refused so..." Muku explained himself with a little smile on his face.

"Wait, no, I didn't refuse that! I refused to be told about the ranking process, which I'm only finding out now involves one's mindsc... Oh, so that's how you took it. But you can't blame me for that! You were totally unclear!" Freya defended herself.

Her defence became weak for a second then she realised that Muku intentionally made it vague.

"The technicalities don't matter. What matters is that you technically refused!" Muku refused to back down.

"What do you mean by saying that the technicalities don't matter before hiding behind a technicality?!" Freya exploded in frustration for the first time.

Muku really made her want to punch him. It was fun when he behaved like that with the others and not so fun when it was she who was suffering.

"Hahaha. Emily pay up! I told you that I could get Freya to lose her composure" Muku suddenly laughed while holding out his hand to Emily.

"What? What do you mean? We made no such bet" Emily asked confusedly.

"No. But if I had suggested it, you'd have chosen to stand with Freya right? So let's just take it as if we did make the bet. For that reason, pay up you sore loser!" Muku reasonably explained a completely unreasonable situation.

"What the hell do you mean?! What kind of logic is that?" Emily also lost her cool.

"Haha! Elsa, pay up!..." Muku continued.

".... I honestly wonder what they see in you" However Elsa refused to play along as she replied with a deadpan expression on her face.

"That's enough horsing around. Can we get back to business now?" Layla chimed in before Muku continued down his suspiciously bipolar-like path...

Like how could someone switch between serious and unserious so quickly without being bipolar?

And this wasn't a situation so serious that he had to do that. So, he was either bipolar or just liked messing with peo... Oh wait, it was Muku they were talking about. The jerk, pretty much lived for messing with them.

"Tsk. Fine. What do you want to know?" Muku asked in a completely unwilling voice.

"Right. I want to know what happens to our domains and domain armour when we reach R5" Layla asked a question, completely disregarding Muku's unwilling expression.

"Oh, that. Nothing happens to them like in previous Ranks. They even become stronger, which is quite obvious really. However, unlike before, when you could use your domain and domain armour together. You cannot use your Avatar with either of the two. The reason is that it takes everything you have to deploy it. Plus using either against an opponent using an avatar is quite dumb and won't work out for you unless you're a lot stronger than the opponent. Which would defeat the whole purpose of using the roundabout method when you can squash them faster with an avatar" Muku explained clearly.

"Oh okay. I guess that makes sense" Layla replied.

"Yeah. If you were paying attention when I took on my giant form. You'll realise that the form actually originated from my domain armour. It's basically one's domain armour expanding and taking a new form. So, it's impossible to use your domain armour at the same time since you're already using it. I actually think it's already impressive to use one's domain and domain armour at the same time since their origin are almost the same. No wonder it's so hard to do earlier on..." Muku said more on the subject.

"Wait... I just remembered something" Hope suddenly spoke with a somewhat confused expression on her face.

"Yes?" Muku signalled her to continue.

"You said that an avatar looks like a person's spirit beast right? Then why does yours look like your armour?" Hope asked.

And with that question, the others remembered that it really was so. They had seen Muku's avatar quite a few times over the last month. And it really looked exactly like his armour. It was just as creepy and scary-looking.

"Oh, that. It's a funny story actually. My spirit animal is actually a dragon. But when I created the avatar. The weird armour appeared above it and morphed the form to look like it. As for why and how. I have no Idea. But I don't dislike it. It looks quite cool and unique. Which is something I'm always willing to accept" Muku replied without a worry in his voice from the weird occurrence.

After all, way too many weird things had happened to him because of the armour. So he figured he might as well embrace it since there was nothing he could do about it.

Like, he literally couldn't free himself from the armour. So freeing his avatar was out of the question for the time being.

Not to mention that the absurd concealment ability was transferred to his avatar as well, so it wasn't all bad.

Sure, a concealed giant was still very much noticeable just from its size alone. But it did make his moves a lot harder to read in battle, which was always a plus.

"Oh, okay. If that's how it is. And I have to say. Your nonchalance really amazes me. I don't know if I'd be so calm when there was such a weird thing on my body which was significantly affecting my life" Hope replied with admiration in her eyes.

To her, only her brother could be so calm in such a situation.

"Well, I wasn't so calm in the beginning. But I realised that not being calm wasn't doing me any good so..." Muku explained with a wry expression on his face.

His younger sister's admiration always caught him off guard. It was like, no matter what he did she would admire. Like he could literally just chill and do nothing and she would find something to admire about that.

"Well, even then. Not many people can so easily let go" Hope continued.

"Okay, okay. That's enough admiration for now. His head is already big enough. I have a question too," Emily interrupted.

They had seen way too many of these admiration sessions between Muku and Hope. And she didn't want to sit through another one.

"Okay. What's your question?" Muku replied.

"Umm. What if my spirit animal is a beast with a different element from mine? Like what if I do the thing and find out it's a whale or something? Would that affect anything?" Emily asked her question.

The others also listened intently, after all, it affected them too.

"Hmm. A very good question. And I'm not sure actually. But from my experience. That shouldn't affect anything. After all, I've only seen Raya who is a light, darkness and space Dragon. Then there's the Earth Dragon which is technically not a real dragon but a dragon nonetheless. Anyway, neither were metal dragons nor did they have the metal element. However, my dragon avatar came out as a metal dragon. So it's safe to assume that the original beast's element doesn't affect yours at all. So even if you get a whale, it would probably be a flame whale when it becomes your avatar. Though I doubt you'd get something which isn't in line with your element to a certain extent..." Muku explained as clearly as he could.

"Oh, okay. Thank you. That really puts me at ease" Emily replied gratefully. A happy smile danced on her face.

Elsa's eyes narrowed a bit as she looked on. She realised that this might be the reason why the others loved Muku. Despite being quite unreliable at times, he was super reliable when it mattered.

That couldn't be the whole reason, but it should be part of it....

"I have a question..." Layla who had another question spoke up.

"Shoot" Muku replied.

"Right. What about people who have two elements? How do their avatars come out? So they get two avatars for each element, do they have two spirit beasts or?" Layla asked.

"My, my. You always ask the deep questions huh? Well, lucky for you. I happen to know the answer to that since I also have two elements. Otherwise, you'd be on your own. Anyway, it's really not an issue. The reason is that one gets one avatar which can switch between the person's elements. And I suspect that if you can manage to combine the elements into one, then your avatar will be much stronger than before. However, I haven't been able to do it yet. It should be easier for you since you have some experience in that area. In fact, I might need to ask for your help on how to do it if you ever achieve it" Muku replied while sucking up to Layla at the same time.

But he really believed what he was saying. Between the two of them, Layla really had the better chance of successfully combining her elements.

After all, that's exactly what her shadow charged ice was. It was a combination of two elements, which everyone knew.

And honestly, thinking of a giant pitch beast capable of ignoring your defence was quite chilling.

Muku was glad they were on the same side. R5 Layla with her shadow charged ice giant or whatever it will be, wasn't someone he wanted to mess with...