Minutes after the signal to advance a level came from Rory's room, Vicente walked in unaccompanied and immediately found his friend standing there, feeling the changes he had undergone.
"Congratulations on moving up a level, hehe. Now we'll be able to hunt pentagrams without reservations." Vicente approached Rory with a smile on his face before patting the redhead's shoulder and giving him a hug.
"Thank you. And yes, I'm looking forward to it." Rory smiled genuinely, finally overcoming the anxiety about his breakthrough that he had been feeling for the last few days.
"When do we leave?"
Listening to his red-haired friend, Vicente walked over to a sofa in the room. "At dawn. It's not good to venture into unknown territory at night. But after that, we'll go straight to our destination. We're not that far from that area anymore."
Rory sat down on the bed in the 30 square meter room, decorated with few things since it was a simple place. "How do we proceed with the pentagram hunt?"
Magic pentagrams were important for people who could awaken their magical powers and for some types of magical beings. They stabilized the mana in these beings and gave them abilities. But that was the most superficial part of this vital element of the magic world!
If analyzed more deeply, Magic Pentagrams would not be seen as mere tools that were mainly useful to humans. They were magical essences of different kinds of beings that could be found all over the realm.
In short, any being that didn't need to absorb pentagrams to strengthen itself could produce these essences in its body.
So, a certain magical beast could generate a pentagram and develop it as it grew stronger. This pentagram would naturally have characteristics associated with the beast that generated it, and its level, represented by its color, would be equivalent to that being's magical refinement.
This didn't mean that a first-level, red, pentagram would necessarily be formed after the beast matured into a 1st-stage beast. That might happen to some, but some beings could finish forming their first-level pentagram when they were already in the 2nd stage.
Even though there were several levels of magic, it didn't mean that there were the same number of different levels of pentagrams!
In any case, any magical being that didn't need to absorb pentagrams to stabilize its power, be it beasts, vegetables, or even minerals, could generate this type of essence.
Usually, those who generated pentagrams were magical beings, organisms with magical metabolism. But a stone or a river could also produce these essences under certain circumstances!
For example, any Magic Gem was capable of generating pentagrams that were similar to the power of the person who absorbed it. But gems were not living beings.
Why could they produce pentagrams?
The answer to this question was related to the origin of the pentagrams, the elements.
Normally, the elements in nature were scattered chaotically, so they couldn't come together to form these unique essences.
What happened was that it was only inside living bodies that these elements were refined to the point where a transformation took place, and these special essences were produced.
But certain areas of this vast realm, under certain circumstances, could meet the requirements to create a pentagram over time!
Because of their special spiritual nature, Magic Gems could fulfill these conditions 100% of the time.
But these conditions could be fulfilled by different things.
A stone with the simple ability to absorb mana could, over countless years, one day give birth to a pentagram. A river could exist for millions of years, and then one day, something happens, and suddenly, a pentagram is born.
The possibilities were endless!
Because the formation of these non-living pentagrams was so special, they were the most valuable to magicians.
They didn't come from living beings, so they would never have anything in them that would make it difficult for magicians to absorb them. At the same time, they were much purer than those produced by living beings and had the same characteristics as those produced by Magic Gems, that is, of developing together with the one who absorbed them.
But they were also scarce, and neither of the two young men expected to find one along their path now.
Vicente answered his friend's question. "The book we got from Defiant Tyranny will take us somewhere. I don't know if it can help us get pentagrams, but I intend to follow the path to the end before I go after my second pentagram.
But before we go all the way, I want to hunt the pentagrams for at least half of our men. We can't underestimate that area.
If even The Rocky Gorge has a 3rd stage beast, we can't rule out the possibility that Alpine Woodpecker Forest has something like that as well."
"Then I'll do the same," Rory said. "If we don't find a creature that's very compatible with me, I'll leave it to hunt for my pentagram after we reach the end of that map."
A magician would always use the word 'hunt' to refer to the search for pentagrams. After all, most of them were created by living beings, many of whom could move around freely.
So, 'hunting' wasn't entirely wrong, even though some pentagrams were created by immobile living beings or even by non-living beings who were also immobile.
Hunting pentagrams was like looking for a wild animal and then taming it.
One would have to find it by its tracks, chase it, and finally conquer it. But even after that, one would still have to overcome the creature's remaining wild will and dominate the pentagram until it was integrated into one's being.
Because of this, beings of this group's race saw this process as a hunt, a hunt that could make them stronger or kill them.
Just as it was dangerous for humans to hunt wild boar on Earth, it could be dangerous for magicians to hunt pentagrams in Polaris Realm!
Magicians like them wanted pentagrams, while on the other hand, the living beings capable of generating these essences would protect themselves, and not only that, they would try to destroy and devour their enemies, something that could also make them stronger.
Because of the importance of the subject and the danger involved, the two young people talked about it seriously, without joking about the situation, just because they were talented and strong for their age.
"All right. Let's focus our efforts on helping our men get the ideal pentagrams for their talent level." Vicente commented before getting up to go back to his room.
"Get as much rest as you can. We won't be able to do this for a few days starting tomorrow."
"Okay. You should do the same, Vice."
