CHAPTER 51: ALTERED TESTING CENTRE

Soon, the commotion surrounding the events in the Beast Exchange hall died down after Cassandra made her entrance, and stance on the matter clear.

Nick, as the one at the epicentre of the whole thing, was naturally reimbursed by the Beast Exchange hall for the damages caused both to him, through their lies and attempts to scam him, and most importantly, his loss of profits he would have earned by selling them a pristine Mutant Lamboda Beast corpse.

In total, he received a neat 70,000 credits in compensation, which he was extremely pleased by, as it was double what he would have most likely gotten by simply selling the Lamboda Beast’s corpse!

With this, he had gained most of the credits he’d spent on acquiring the information of the Lamboda Beasts in one go!

His worries of not leaving enough funds available for Luna were now completely washed away, as he had no need for them at the moment, and with his intentions to continue hunting the Lamboda Beasts until he could no longer gain any more Soul Seeds from them, there was much more credits to come!

However, Nick was most happy to see Marco’s dreadful expression after being fired from his job, while at the same time being barred from ever working in the same industry again!

Not to mention the hefty fines he had to pay directly to the Federation as his actions directly negatively affected them too — it hurt their business and reputation to have people like Marco scamming clients left and right.

After all, while they might have a monopoly on the Beast exchange in the Beast Domain, people could still simply take their beast corpses with them through the teleporter and exchange them directly with third party exchange centres themselves, skipping the Federation as a middle man.

If things like this occurred more often, the Federation might quickly start losing customers to these third party exchange centres!

After dealing with all of that mess though, Nick made his way back through the teleporter.

He was both tired from his battle with the Lamboda Beast, and there was one thing he had been dying to do ever since he killed the Awakened White Ox...

It was all find and dandy seeing his Soul Star gradually fill up and increase with higher ranked Soul Seeds, but seeing how much strength Nick actually had now was in an entirely different realm.

His physical strength had reached a point that he never thought he’d achieve this early on in his career, and so he was dying to test it out.

***

’I can’t believe that little maggot has actually managed to somehow find himself in the good graces of that bitch.’

In the testing room of one of the more prominent Altered testing centres on Terminus, Beast Slayer ran on the increasingly accelerating treadmill, thoughts still on Nick despite returning to the Federation.

He was still unsure of what to take out of the whole situation, as this was the last thing he had ever expected to come out of his curiosity, wanting to find out who it was in the War Beast Sanctuary that was from Terminus just like him.

Although, there was still a small doubt at the back of his mind on whether it could be Nick or not, as even though he was 99% sure it was him, he had never come across him outside of the Beast Domain.

However, his thoughts quickly turned away from Nick as he observed the score displayed on the virtual screen on a wall nearby after it slowed down and reduced to a complete stop.

The number displayed was a shining ’35.2 BF’ which left a smirk of pride hanging on his face.

Of course, this pride was well earned, as rarely any Altered reached such a figure. Only those who strive for a Soul Star completely filled with Radiant Soul Seeds could ever dream of reaching such a figure.

BF, or Battle Force, was what the Federation used to determine someone’s level of strength.

It was an extremely well rounded method as it combined almost every physical function of one’s body. Strength, speed, reaction speed, muscle density, bone strength, bone density, organ strength... and so on.

Naturally, Soul Seeds boost all of these functions equally, with the maximum limits for each level of Soul Star already being determined.

For those at the bottom who ascend to the next layer of the Beast Domain with a measly Mundane Soul Star, achieved by only filling up to the max with 500 Mundane Soul Seeds, they can only feel shame in themselves, while only achieving a measly 8 BF in physical prowess at maximum.

This was pitifully low, and it essentially crippled their foundation and chances of reaching higher heights in their future.

After all, once one completely fills their Soul Seed and chooses to ascend to the next layer of the Beast Domain, there is no going back. The decision is irreversible.

As for those who choose to ascend with an Awakened Soul Star, they have it a bit better, having a ceiling of 15 BF, which was neither high, nor low. They were considered the majority, the average.

Most people who enter the Beast Domain choose this option.

As for those at Mutant Rank...

Their ceiling was much higher, reaching as high as 25 BF! Only those who strive to keep increasing their strength and further hunt in the second layer of the Beast Domain choose this option, as it creates a stronger foundation for them to do so and gives them an easier time against the much stronger beasts in the second layer.

And finally, at the top with those who choose to ascend with a Radiant Soul Star, they have a staggering 50 BF!

Such a figure itself is already staggering. To put into perspective just how crazy such a figure is, the average, unaltered human who never enters the Beast Domain has around 1-2 BF at most, while top athletes from the era of the 21st century would have had 3-4 BF at most!