Beast-Tamer: Limitless Evolution

Spiral

"Yup, looks like energy depletion to me."

Osho felt the warm current stop moving through his body as Veronica took a step back and looked at him with a small frown.

She stared at him for a few seconds before speaking again.

"Strange. Normally, having such intense energy depletion should leave you either dead, crippled, or comatose. And if I understood what you said properly, it happened within a short span of time. Quite frankly, your body's ability to absorb Mana should be severely impaired, if not completely gone. But from the test I just performed, you should still be able to absorb Mana just fine, it's just pretty slow at the moment." Hearing this, Osho cringed.

'I nearly went over the line, huh?' He thought as he allowed her statement to wash over him.

Dead, crippled, or comatose.

The consequences of his reckless action were revealed once more, and Osho felt even worse now.

For a bit of context, Ellie had decided to call Veronica and Mateo to inform them of Osho's condition. As soon as they heard, they immediately rushed over, and it didn't take long for the others to come too.

Currently, his friends all sat on a sofa and Mateo was on one of the armchairs while Veronica inspected him, wearing doctor clothes.

Yes, she was a doctor.

Osho sighed and refused to meet her gaze.

He was pretty sure that his survival of what should have been a lethal event wasn't a coincidence. He was certain that it was due to how his ability worked.

He still didn't know all that much about it, but it seemed like it wouldn't draw upon his Mana to the point of it being lethal...

No, that's not right. As things stood, Osho was almost completely devoid of Mana, and some time ago, he WAS completely devoid of it, which should have, as Veronica said, killed him. However, he was still alive and kicking, even though he felt like someone had sucked the life out of him, which wasn't exactly wrong.

Somehow, his ability kept him alive despite draining him of all his Mana.

To be clear, lacking Mana wouldn't kill a person. Humans couldn't use the stuff for thousands of years, so it wasn't like not having Mana meant instant death.

No, the lethal part came from how one lost their Mana.

If it were a gradual process where one continuously let out their Mana while actively refusing to absorb any more, the result would just be them feeling pretty weak. Moreover. This method was quite common as it was used by many to train their Mana and increase their natural capacity.

No, the lethal part came from whether the release of Mana was abrupt. If it were too fast, not only could it severely damage the body, but it would also affect other energy reserves heavily, like mental energy and stamina.

It's due to this that people tend to suffer backlash from using a particularly powerful bit of magic that causes their Mana reserves to crash rapidly. The drop in their Mana is often too sudden for their bodies to handle, causing internal injuries and the like.

Now, one could argue that Osho's drop in Mana hadn't been that sudden. After all, each 'adjustment' to the conduits of the egg wasn't instant, and he still needed time to concentrate on what he wanted to do.

However, it could take up to half a day for an Apprentice rank Beast Tamer to fully release all their Mana safely, but Osho isn't an average Apprentice, moreover, both of his beasts have Mana reserves far above the norm, which translates into his own Mana reserves being a lot more than what's considered normal. So to empty everything in 2 hours tops was still far beyond what was considered safe.

Yet here he was, seeming exhausted, but not in danger.

It truly was a marvel, and Osho wondered how it worked, but he was NOT gonna try it again.

"So... let me get this straight. The lecture you attended managed to give you a eureka moment, making you rush back to your residence to confirm... whatever it is that you were trying to figure out, and apparently, you were so excited that you didn't notice your energy depleting at a dangerous rate?" Mateo, who was usually impassive, sounded extremely displeased.

Osho didn't even have the urge to try and downplay any of it because he knew it was as bad as it sounded. Hence, he could only lower his head.

"Yeah. It was stupid, and I nearly caused a very bad situation. Well, one worse than the current situation." He mumbled quietly.

"You're damn right you did!" Veronica scowled.

"I won't ask what it was that you did due to the agreement, even though I wanna beat the answer out of you, but seriously. It's not like you were thrust into a situation against your will or were taking some sort of calculated risk. You didn't think and almost got yourself killed! What do you think would happen when we invested so much into you and you just died due to your own stupidity?" Veronica was not amicable in the least as she tore into Osho mercilessly.

"What's more, you're only still alive due to blind luck. Do you even know how insane that is? The implications? You almost died due to a stupid mistake and are only alive because you were lucky. I took you for a smart person, but it seems like I severely overestimated your intelligence." Mateo said with a hard tone.

Osho said nothing in response and simply took their harsh criticisms. In truth, their words reflected some of what he was he was thinking as well.

Osho may not look like it. But if he did something wrong, and it was entirely his mistake, he tended to rip into himself more than anyone else.

And it wasn't just a simple mistake either, he'd literally put his life on the line for NO reason, and as someone who had already died once, the prospect of losing his second chance due to a completely avoidable situation was more than enough to send him into a spiral of self-blame.

In fact, it was especially due to the fact that he had died once that he was hit so hard. He knew how quickly it could all be taken away, and he knew how one needed to be as careful as possible as the number of things that could take a life was hard to properly count. Yet he somehow didn't account for his own stupidity.

He felt like shit.

"... I'm sorry..." He mumbled. His voice was barely a whisper, but no one had any issue hearing it, and while he wasn't crying, he sounded shattered.

"... Ah, crap." Veronica finally halted her rant when she took in his expression.

His face was devoid of emotion, but his eyes were wide and unfocused, and it didn't take a genius to realize that he was thinking about many things rapidly, few of them good.

"Ya'll are right. I was stupid... incredibly stupid..." He mumbled.

What would happen to the others if he died? At least, in his past life, he wasn't particularly close to anyone, so his death probably had a limited impact.

But what about the people here? Gale and Bedrock pretty much saw him as their dad, and Ellie held him in as high regard as her dad, if not more so.

Kurt, Sam, and Irene all had a very high impression of him, and as they had said many times, the only reason they are where they are today is due to his efforts.

What about Mrs Jane? She'd been good to him since day one, even before he proved himself to be a capable beast tamer.

Heck, emotional bonds aside, if you look at it from an objective point of view, his death would be one of the biggest wastes in history.

Blossom Citadel was currently on track to become far greater than its current level. If Osho died then that momentum would suddenly halt.

The number of powerful beasts he could create to aid humanity would drop to zero as he would no longer be able to evolve anything.

Stellaris would probably pull back quite a few of the benefits his friends enjoyed unless Ellie revealed that her second beast had legendary potential and all the others revealed they had Grandmaster potential.

His abilities and his future potential would get thrown to the dirt because he made one stupid mistake, and while he understood that impulsivity was just a part of his nature, he still couldn't understand how he had been so stupi-

"Osho!" Osho jolted out of his thoughts and stared at Ellie with wide eyes.

The girl was squatted in front of him with his hand held in hers.

"H-Huh...?" He asked shakily, and he realized that everyone was staring at him with varying degrees of worry, which is also when he realized he was sweating.

And shaking.

"It's okay." Ellie said firmly, refusing to break eye-contact.

"Alright? It's okay." She said again, and Osho swallowed, but slowly, he nodded.