Galaxy's First Ruler

Anyone's soul should have shaken in fear hearing Aldrich's words.

There was more?!

There was even more Pain?!!

A lifetime of it?!!!

But not Meuric. He didn't look away from Aldrich's devilish face and stared at him like a child looking at an unreachable jar of candies placed atop the kitchen's cabinet. Aldrich nodded, seeing this, and got to know that his theory that it wasn't Meuric's first time feeling pain to death was true.

As Meuric's wounds healed, he somehow stood up. His fatigue was so much that the Common Ranked Dreamer struggled to even find his footing. But even then, Aldrich didn't give him any SP potion. It wasn't the first time for Aldrich to manipulate minds; he knew what to do and when to do it.

From the way Meuric had been gritting his teeth, it was clear that the 15-year-old boy didn't have any strength to ask anything. But none could run away from their innate nature. Ultimately, his loquacious personality won over his tiredness, and Meuric mumbled out.

"Mr. Tudor… Huff! Was that… also one of your Skills?"

"Yes… But I can't use it often."

"No… No wonder…"

Meuric's face was filled with awe. The way he looked at Aldrich was like a pet looked at its master, asking him to pet its head. Aldrich felt quite amused at this scene. But he had to work on Meuric's endurance, for now, otherwise, the kid would never improve.

"I am hungry…"

Before Aldrich could complete his words, a sound came out of Meuric's stomach.

Gud-duudud-gud

His scarred cheeks gained a pink color enough to not even be masked by his relatively darker skin. Aldrich, halting for a moment, continued.

"… and it seems you are, too. As I can't move, you need to bring dinner for both of us."

Meuric straightened his back as he heard the first task after passing his "test". Even though he was weak enough to fall on the next step, Meuric turned around and looked at the deep dark covering the thick of the jungle.

"But… But what if some beast comes here when I am gone? Only my punch has the power…"

Meuric brought his hand up and looked at his shaking hand as he spoke out in a concerned manner. It seems the doubt about him killing the magical beast had just kicked in. He was about to walk away when Aldrich called out to him.

"Wait! Equip this Item. Consider it as a reward for passing the test."

Aldrich took the Item Sugaar's Disco Ball out of his Inventory, and unequipping it, he threw it towards Meuric. Unlike the Metacreativity based Items, which would have vanished on unequipping, Sugaar's Disco Ball was a reward from RECORD.

Meuric almost stumbled as he caught the ball. And the moment he saw its Rank, his eyes almost popped out. Aldrich could tell that it wasn't like the young Dreamer had never seen a Rare Ranked Item, but the opportunity of having this Item at Common Rank was rare.

"Rare… Rare Ranked Item! Mr. Tudor… No, master, thank you."

'Master? Haha!'

Aldrich laughed inwardly but said nothing. He knew Meuric must have guessed by now that this Mr. Tudor wasn't some no-family-Common Ranked Dreamer. And that was enough for Aldrich.

Meuric played around with the first sized Disco Ball, which was like an oversized marble for him, and went toward the wilderness.

Sigh!

As Aldrich saw the blood-covered Meuric disappearing, he let out a sigh in his mind. Once again, he was alone in this wilderness. And he had many things to do. One of these things was to get the Summon Skill by forming a contract with a magical beast. Otherwise, even if he got all the Mana cores, they would be pointless.

Aldrich didn't want just any beast to be his Summon. He didn't care about forming a contract. Aldrich only cared about the quality, as all the rest could be taken care of later. But where Rare Ranked beasts were dangerous, and Baron Ranked were overlords, Aldrich doubted he would find anyone to his liking. He didn't want much out of a beast. Either it should be mysterious enough to catch Aldrich's eye or it should have a high enough Rank.

Yet, not one of these criteria seemed to get fulfilled on this planet. But Aldrich's thoughts hadn't moved away from him, not yet. He knew there was a beast that was mysterious enough to even baffle him. This beast's exact Rank he couldn't tell, as only Crawlers had Stats over them. The reason he could tell that Boar-Bull-like beast was of Rare Rank was because of the Mana fluctuations.

But from this beast, Aldrich couldn't feel those, too. And the crucial point was that Aldrich didn't need to move for him to get this beast. Because…

He already had it.

Aldrich sent a trace of his Mana into the FIR and took a glass cylinder out of it. There wasn't much light where he was, but even then, one could see a thick liquid in it. And in this thick liquid, there was a small beast, letting out bubbles after bubbles. The beast had a kitten-like figure, six closed eyes, bat-like wings, and two snake-headed tails.

This beast was… Shu.

'He must have healed completely by now…'

Aldrich had put him in a healing fluid after arriving at planet Rosalia. He didn't know what this beast was, nor what its abilities were. But he knew this beast had downed two drops of Volcanic-Blood Amplifier Potion and even then it hadn't jumped out with vigor in the next moment.

"Time has come for you to pay the price of those drops."

Aldrich used the Rumok to produce sound within the fluid, and the beast's eyes snapped open in fear in the next moment. Aldrich let out a smirk and opened the glass container.

The moment blue but almost transparent fluid streamed out, Shu jumped out and ran away, without even letting out any grunt. Its two tails almost coiled around himself to prevent Aldrich from grabbing them, as if he knew Aldrich's state.

"Haha! Where are you running to? You and your soul belong to me…"

Aldrich let out a laugh full of scorn and parted his lips.

"… From the ashes of my Dreams… ARISE!!!"