Kale sighed deeply as his gaze landed upon the third and final glass box, the last test of this evaluation. The world in his eyes disappeared once more. Focusing deeply, he felt no external pressure at this point.
Because he could tell from the reactions of the three test judges that at least two of them were more than eager to take him in as their personal disciple.
Yet there was a great internal pressure in his mind because, to him, this was the most important test, which he had to pass with flying colors. A solemn look appeared on his face as he examined the items inside.
The first item was a living creature bound in strong ropes. It was a Feral rank Red Tail Raccoon; the creature's whole body was brownish-red in color. Its eyes were filled with viciousness. With one glance, Kale could tell that this creature was extremely violent in nature.
Another was a small, sharp knife that looked like a surgical knife but was much wider.
A plant-type greenish beast core, and a pair of heavy pestle and mortar.
His task: to take out the Beast Core from the Red Tail Raccoon's body without killing it.
Now, usually, no awakened beast can survive without the Beast Core. It is the heart of their power. Forget living without it; they would die if that object within their body suffered even the slightest bit of damage.
But this Beast was a special case. In certain scenarios, it has been found that if a Feral rank Red Tail Raccoon could sometimes continue to live without its Core. However, it would obviously return to being a mundane Beast and no longer be an awakened creature.
Unfortunately, for Kale or any other candidate, the exact process for removing the core while preserving the life of the Beast was not mentioned in any detail in any book of the Association's outer library.
Thankfully, Kale did not need to know the specific details, with practically an entire section of the outer libraries' knowledge being reserved in his mind. His knowledge related to countless beasts was impeccable.
Drawing upon that immense reserve of knowledge. All the information related to the Red Tail Raccoon flashed at the tip of his mind. His eyes glinted with understanding.
Axel murmured to himself, 'So, this Beast has a special survival quirk. It can survive up to 60 seconds while its heart and blood have completely stopped.'
'But upon that condition, the Beast's life is mostly preserved by the energy of the Beast Core.'
But if we think about how long it can live without the Beast Core once I remove it, at minimum, it should only be about five seconds,' surmised Kale with a grimace.
Kale's gaze went to the plant type Core, 'After I pull out the Raccoon's Beast Core, I wonder what would happen if I put the Plant Beast's Core inside..?'
However, he shook his head after some careful consideration. The plant energy flowing through the raccoon's body would not match.
The Beast would only die. Thinking for a few minutes more in silence, as he did not touch a single item yet, his eyes flashed as he realized the most optimal method in accomplishing the task, to the best of his ability.
First, he picked up the plant-type Beast core. A burst of retaliation came from the Beast Will within the core; it seemed unlike the Plant Core that was in the previous Pillcraft test. This Beast Will was not so docile and could fight back.
But Kale merely sneered. With one strong burst of his mana, he rendered the fighting Beast Will immobile. It was forced to tremble in fear, no longer able to fight back. Kale then picked up the small cutting knife.
Coating the sharp knife with his mana, he uttered in his mind, 'Mana Enhancement…'
The system obliged, [Skill Mana Enhancement-lv1 has been activated.]
Instantly, the knife's sharpness increased twofold, as did the tool's durability. Holding the Green Beast Core, he cut into it with the mana-enhanced knife. The Plant Beast Will, within shrieked in pain, it fought under the threat of dissipation.
But Kale kept the Will at bay with his mana pressure. The Core started to glow violently; he was actually taking a risk here. If the Beast Core exploded at this moment, he would be done for, which was why he was also making sure to not only force mana inside the Beast Core, but also coat it completely, so that no energy could leak outside.
Clank!!!
After one cut, he made another one; a very small shard of the round-shaped core was now in his hands. Kale's eyes shone with excitement; as expected, he was able to do it in a way that kept the Core from exploding.
The Beast Will was also preserved, as it stayed curled up within the now-incomplete Beast Core.
The small shard that Kale cut out also contained lingering energy within, but it was dissipating. Without delay, he put the small fragment into the stone pestle and mortar. Slowly grinding it to small, uneven crystal powder.
Kale repeated this process multiple times until he felt the amount of ground crystal powder was enough. With that, a little more than half of the Beast Core remained.
The Beast Will was in a blurry state, as if constantly being disassembled.
Unmindful of it, he picked up the small and vicious-looking raccoon. It struggled madly, as it sensed the curse in him. Coating his hand in mana, Kale punched the head of the Red Tail Raccoon.
With a bang, the Beast was turned unconscious.
Removing some of the ropes, while he positioned the Beast properly as if he was about to perform a surgery on it, which was technically true, since he would have to remove the Beast Core from the thing carefully.
Kale grabbed the Raccoon's head once more, pouring a burst of mana into its system, to make it forcefully go into a hibernating state. So that once he started, the Beast would not jolt awake and ruin the procedure.
With the small knife in his hand coated with mana, he expertly cut into the chest area of the raccoon where the core was.
Kale cut through the outer skin, muscles, and blood vessels with one smooth motion. He saw a soft glow within and made the cut widen a bit more. At the same time, he also removed excess blood with a soft cloth.
As the small core was now completely within his vision, he put his bare hand inside, touched it, using his mana, and cut off the lingering connection between the Beast's body and the Core.
A shudder ran through the Raccoon's body, and the creature's heart stopped. Kale examined the core for a moment and saw it contained no Beast Will. His eyes glinted, hurriedly putting that aside.
Pressing his palm on the bleeding wound, he picked up a small amount of the crystal powder ground from the Plant Beast Core. He sprinkled some of it onto the wound. Eventually, with the energy in that powder, the cut wound began to heal.
The rest of it, he fed into the mouth of the creature. The reason he turned the Core shards into a small powder-like substance was that those would automatically melt, and the power would spread into the Beast's body.
This power somewhat stabilized the Beast's declining condition without its core, at least for a few minutes.
30 seconds had passed; in another 30 seconds, he would have to restart the Beast's heart and make the blood flow once more.
With one hand pressed onto the Raccoon's head and another pressed onto its belly. Kale forced his mana inside, traveling to its heart, with gritted teeth and an immense amount of control. He forcefully made blood flow in and out of the heart.
And with the occasional press of his palms on top of its heart. After 10 more seconds, blood began to flow, and the creature's heart started to pump, but there was a problem. It was too slow. The heart was beating too slowly. If the core were still inside, it would not have been much of a problem.
But with the declining condition of the Red Tail Raccoon, it would not live for more than a few minutes unless its heart was beating fast enough.
Kale's expression turned ugly, not because he cared about the life of the Beast, but because he would not be satisfied if he could only do this much, with such advantages on his side. He would be a failure to himself, regardless of any external validation.
Picking up the blade once more, he directly cut off one of Raccoon's bottom legs. Blood gushed out from that leg, but he did not stop the bleeding; instead, Kale directly started grinding the other half of the remaining plant Beast Core, with no mercy for the lingering Beast Will.
Barely making them into powder shape, he poured it all into the unconscious Beast's mouth.
Only then did he move on to tie the Cut off Beast's leg with a white cloth, and he also pressed his hand there to stop the bleeding of the cut-off leg.
He stayed in that position for a minute, and only then did he heave a sigh of relief. The bleeding from the cut-off leg had paused.
The crystal powder of the ground Beast Core energized the Beast's body for a short while, enough to increase the creature's heartbeat, which eventually stabilized the Raccoon's body to a certain extent on its own.
Kale smiled in success. The Raccoon will live, though it won't be able to live in the wild anymore. That was the only caveat.