Su Yao strolled along the street, turning a corner when she suddenly caught sight of a slogan on a billboard.

“Awakening Trainer… Guarantees completion of initial awakening within the promised timeframe… or full refund…”

She stopped, tapping the screen.

The screen changed, displaying a company that looked highly reputable, along with a list of trainers.

Each person had an extremely high approval rating and an impressive resume.

Their job was to charge exorbitant fees and train those who wished to awaken their abilities.

Judging from the advertisement, these trainers had a good track record.

Their students had participated in various competitive events.

—Some relied on their spirit bodies, others on their awakened forms, and some used both—all achieving excellent rankings.

The only drawback was that the highest ranking achieved by these students was only A-class.

And the trainers themselves were also only A-class at most.

Su Yao: “…Because S-class individuals wouldn’t become trainers, right? They don’t need the money?”

Xingqi Liu: “Actually, most S-class bloodline holders don’t have fixed occupations; it’s not just the trainer position that lacks S-class individuals.”

Su Yao silently opened her brain computer, looking at her friend list and finding the name of a certain prince.

Since her engagement to the Crown Prince, she had obtained contact information for other royal family members.

However, they all had multiple accounts, likely managed by their AI assistants.

Su Yao tentatively sent a question mark.

Half a minute later, the other side sent a business card, with the concise message “Add this number” below it.

Su Yao added the number and immediately received a message.

【You Speak Human?】Prince?

【You Speak Human?】Dating and sex are fine, but I decide what happens.

Su Yao replied with mixed feelings.

【Hold On, Don’t Block Me Yet】I want to ask you something, but it’s unrelated to what you said. You’re not my type, thank you.

Dillon’s message came quickly.

【You Speak Human?】You like the Kyle III type, I get it.  A two-meter-tall, thorny rose of a man, right?

【Hold On, Don’t Block Me Yet】…Are there thornless roses? I just like pretty faces and bodies, what’s wrong with that!

【You Speak Human?】Okay, okay. Anyway, the one you like is me in a different form.  It won’t be 100% similar to the real thing, so rounding up, you still like me.

【Hold On, Don’t Block Me Yet】Look at my nickname.

Dillon sent her a smiling emoticon.

Then he directly sent a voice message.

“You’re entering the pre-awakening stage. Don’t deny it; I can smell the change.”

A laughing male voice came through the brain computer, “Were you going to ask about this?”

Su Yao was startled, “The Crown Prince has also been in my presence, and he didn’t sense any… changes in me.”

“You’re disappointed?”

“I don’t care whether he knows or not, but I’m curious why you can detect it, since you’re both S-class.”

“He doesn’t like you,” Dillon scoffed. “He’s unwilling to carefully sense your aura. Believe me, if he had even a little fondness or curiosity for you, he would have noticed. My mother always said that in exploring our abilities, subjective will is extremely important.”

Su Yao fell silent.

In her past life, as a child, she had visited a relative in a sanatorium. That relative had lost control during awakening, transforming into a mindless beast, confined to a cage ever since.

After that, like her parents and many other nobles, she was unwilling to risk attempting awakening.

Perhaps it was this mindset that prevented her from ever entering the pre-awakening stage.

Someone wanting to awaken might not necessarily awaken.

But if someone doesn’t want to awaken, it’s highly likely they won’t.

This is the influence of subjective will.

“Whatever your pre-awakening abnormalities are, if you want to fight, go fight; if you’re in heat, go have sex; if you’re hungry, eat your fill; indulge those feelings, surrender to instinct, and you’ll get closer to awakening.”

Dillon said, “However, for you, the downside is that after entering your awakened form, it will be even more uncontrollable, and I might have to fish you out of a sanatorium.”

He paused, “I’m not joking. I myself, and those around me, have had similar experiences. In that state, your mind is like mush. You might want to sleep with everyone you see, you might want to kill and eat them, or all three.”

Su Yao couldn’t help but ask, “Sleep with, eat, and kill all at once?”

Dillon: “…That’s just an example. Everyone’s situation is different. If you really have that ability, go ahead.”

“So,” Su Yao pondered, “in summary, it’s about finding the boundary, right? Indulging the bestial nature, but not letting it completely overwhelm humanity.”

“Yeah, that’s the ideal state. Most people can’t even do the former, because not everyone can have a ‘beastly nature’ corresponding to their bloodline. It depends on temperament, will, feelings… many things. And of the remaining few who can awaken their beastly nature, they can’t perfectly control it.”

Su Yao considered this, “What did you mean by ‘for you’? Am I different from others?”

“Honey,” Dillon said languidly, “Most people who can awaken their beastly nature rely on their spirit body to bear the abnormal impressions it brings. You can’t condense a spirit body, which means you’re more likely to go insane.”

Su Yao: …

She had indeed forgotten that.

Her past self had tried to condense a spirit body.

The royal family had sent someone to subtly express the Crown Prince’s needs in this regard.

—The Crown Prince could already achieve deep awakening and trained frequently. To resist the bestial influence of awakening, his spirit body bore a heavy burden.

While currently stable, there was still a risk of losing control.

Therefore, he needed comfort from a compatible partner.

Their compatibility was over 50%, making them more efficient than divine healers.

But if she wanted to do this for the Crown Prince, she had to materialize her spirit body externally, otherwise it wouldn’t work.

The recipient of the comfort didn’t need to be able to condense a spirit body, but the reverse wasn’t true.

Her past self had tried several times without success.

Of course, it wasn’t easy, and she was busy after inheriting the title, so she didn’t have much time to practice every day.

Su Yao thought for a moment, “Speaking of which, Your Highness, you’re also single. Has anyone comforted you?”

“Of course, there are specialized divine healers serving the royal family and the great nobles. Their special abilities allow their spirit bodies to comfort most people, without needing genetic compatibility. Otherwise, unmarried people wouldn’t dare to train.”

Su Yao knew this.

Not only the royal family and nobles had this treatment, but there were also professional companies outside, where anyone could hire them for a price.

However, the royal family’s divine healers were relatively stronger.

Because their clients were either A-class or S-class.

The companies serving the public rarely needed to deal with such high-level clients.

“So if I want to try awakening, I should book a divine healer in advance and have them on standby, is that right?”

“Yes,” Dillon said without hesitation, “But it’s best to have a team, because our Olay’s divine healers don’t have any S-class ones. So if you go crazy, one person definitely won’t be able to subdue you quickly.”

Su Yao scoffed, “I thought with a divine healer present, I could be calmed before I went crazy?”

Dillon: “…It’s hard to say. Everyone’s situation is different. Once you enter a state of unconsciousness, you might strongly resist other people’s contact, unless it’s a similar being. It’s much better with a similar being.”

He paused again, “I mean a completely similar being, not those feline creatures of the same family as you. You understand? Your race is currently the only one of its kind in the universe.

So the first step for the divine healer might not be to directly comfort you, but to relax you first, otherwise they can’t continue. In short, it’s better to condense a spirit body first.”

Su Yao: “I tried before, but—”

Dillon chuckled, “Oh, what were your thoughts? The responsibility of being the Crown Prince’s fiancée? When you still had illusions about him before you realized what he was? My dear, I said subjective will is important. If you use that as motivation, you’ll find it hard to succeed.”

Su Yao was speechless.

He seemed to make a lot of sense.

Su Yao: “So what should it be?”

Dillon sighed, “It’s not about a specific goal. Even if your motivation is ‘I want to become stronger’ or ‘I want to alleviate the negative effects of awakening,’ it might not work. At least that’s what I think.

The key is to feel the spiritual power, then understand the spirit body, and the connection between you and it. It’s you, yet not entirely you. That’s different from awakening.”

There was a lot of relevant information and practical advice online, but if that information was useful, there wouldn’t be so few people who could condense a spirit body.

It was rare to have an S-class expert sharing their experience, so Su Yao listened attentively.

“You need to understand what it is. Of course, this isn’t easy. Some people can grasp it quickly, while others find it very difficult to understand.”

The traffic light changed, and the pedestrians stopped at the intersection began to move forward. The dense flow of people swept her along, and a large group of people who looked like tourists approached from the opposite direction.

The street wasn’t wide, and the crowds were thick, almost shoulder to shoulder.

Su Yao subconsciously avoided physical contact, but there were too many people around, and she inevitably bumped into someone’s arm.

The male voice in her earphones became muffled.

“For… listen… you…”

Then it became intermittent amidst a chaotic buzz of static.

Almost simultaneously, she felt like she’d been thrown into a washing machine, spinning at high speed, her insides feeling like they were about to be flung out.

Su Yao’s vision went black. She stumbled a few steps, regaining her balance just before falling.

A wave of nausea surged up.

She gagged twice, taking several deep breaths before recovering, but she found everything had changed.

She was standing in the middle of the road, surrounded by a dilapidated district. The ground was uneven, sewage flowed everywhere, and the air was filled with a pungent stench.

Half of the shops along the road were closed, revealing only crooked signs and rusty roller shutters.  Cracks spread across the scratched glass windows.

The sky was overcast, everything was gray, shrouded in a thin haze.

She checked her chat software window.

—Call ended due to network issues.

There weren’t many people on the street. They gathered in twos and threes at alleyways or shop entrances, whispering to each other, occasionally glancing in her direction.

Su Yao opened her brain computer’s map and quickly determined her location.

This was an abandoned mining planet polluted with radiation everywhere, hiding countless fugitives and illegal organizations. The navigation star map showed a crimson warning symbol.

The entire star system to which this planet belonged was located on the outer edge of the Olay star region, now an unclaimed territory bordering the Selaya Empire.

Meanwhile, those squatting at the shop entrances smoking cigarettes stood up one after another, drawing various weapons from their waists.

These people wore respirators, had dermal implants on their foreheads, and some had mechanical limbs with wires wrapped around them.

They wore thick coats and carried long and short firearms and blades.

The charging grids on the guns lit up one by one, and the muzzles flashed with dazzling halos.

The plasma flow under the knife handles condensed into sharp blades under magnetic confinement, emitting a strange buzzing sound as they cut through the air.

Su Yao looked up.

They were getting closer.

Some looked at her brain computer, others at her clothes, and still others stared at her face, their nostrils constantly twitching.

Su Yao subconsciously retreated.

Those people were initially somewhat cautious, but seeing her reaction, the malice in their eyes became increasingly evident.

【That brain computer looks expensive. It must be worth a lot of money.】

【…It must be escaped goods. We’re so lucky today.】

【I wonder what bloodline she has. Her face is pretty. I’ll get to her first…】

Clear subtitles appeared above their heads.

Because they were standing so close, the constantly changing sentences overlapped.

【She looks like a rich person. Her bloodline level might be high…】

【Even if she’s D-class or even C-class, so what? I’ve killed people before, and this is even more valuable…】

【She looks pretty young. How many rich kids awaken at this age?】

【At most, she has some useless superpower. If it were a powerful ability, she would have shown it by now.】

Su Yao paused.

The subtitles contained many obscene and vulgar words, and their eyes looked ferocious and terrifying, as if they would tear her to shreds at any moment.

But she suddenly wasn’t that afraid.

Su Yao touched the back of her neck, “…Xingqi Liu, are you still there?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Su Yao continued to retreat, while paying attention to the subtitles above those people’s heads, “What happened to the people who bumped into me on the street earlier?”

“All those who had physical contact with you have been controlled.”

Su Yao wasn’t surprised. After all, her bodyguards were following at a distance and must have seen what happened.

She took a deep breath, “I was teleported by someone using spatial abilities. You know where I am, right? How long will it take to send a ship to pick me up?”

“An estimated half a standard hour. Your Grace, the shuttle from Singer-III has already departed. It’s the closest of your planets to—”

Another burst of static.

A sharp pain in the back of her neck, and the AI’s voice disappeared.

Su Yao looked up.

A man in front of her sneered, faint blue light flickering from his exposed palm.

“All the implants in your body will be damaged by my ability, bitch!”

He glared at her with malice, “Trying to call for help? You’ll never leave here!”

Su Yao blinked, “If you retract your ability, I can give you a lot of money right now. You can name your price; I’ll transfer it immediately, as long as you let me go.”

They couldn’t hear Xingqi Liu’s voice, nor would they know her identity.

But they clearly thought she was rich.

The men looked at each other, then burst into laughter.

“Let you go, then have you bring people back for revenge?”

“There are so many young masters and ladies who died here. Don’t you think you’re the only one with some money?”

“Oh, some are made into sex dolls. Maybe you’d prefer that?”

They started using vulgar language again.

Su Yao kept looking at the subtitles above their heads.

Those subtitles flickered and changed, constantly displaying various terrible words.

【Idiot…】

【Be careful not to kill her later. If we can sell her to Jem’s shop…】

【Hope her level is high enough, otherwise, after removing her organs, she might not be able to hold on. Her bloodline level is too low, and artificial organs aren’t that easy to match…】

She hadn’t shown any aggression, and her movements didn’t look like those of someone trained in combat. They increasingly disregarded her.

They even seemed to enjoy toying with their prey.

Good.

Su Yao needed some time anyway.

The words she said earlier were just bluffs. No matter how they answered, she wouldn’t give them a cent.

She had been watching their inner thoughts through the subtitles.

Amidst a slight feeling of fatigue, her senses became sharp again.

Su Yao smelled their sweat and blood.

The strong smell of blood should have made her nauseous.

But at this moment, she felt nothing unusual.

As if many years ago, she had already become accustomed to such a smell.

Like one of her ancestors running on the grassland, biting the throat of their prey, letting blood flow over their lips and teeth.

Or lurking in the sand, watching insects wriggle on pebbles, piercing their shells with their tail hooks, through the membranes and muscle layers.

She continued to let herself immerse in this feeling, distinguishing the various smells under the stench of blood.

—They weren’t suitable food for her.

But.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t eat them.

Something primal told her that she wasn’t that picky, unless there were many choices.

【Let’s cut off her arms and legs first!】

Suddenly, she saw this subtitle.

Su Yao moved.

Sharp blades cut through the air, narrowly missing her, the scorching heat spreading beside her, burning her skin.

The first attacker, a burly and strong man, was like a tower of iron, but his movements were swift and his techniques were extremely sharp.

She dodged sideways and, before he could change his attack, grabbed the cables at the back of his neck.

As he turned to stab her, Su Yao also spun half a circle in the air, landing on his back, her feet on his waist, and biting down on the back of his neck.

Surrendering to instinct.

She heard the sound of bones crunching, and her jaw muscles ached and twitched.

Like a spring sprout, roots sprouted in her gums, blood vessels and nerves seemed to tear, and her teeth suddenly became sharp.

Incisors, canines, premolars and molars—

All stretched out at once.

The serrated canines severed the hard steel cables.

Rough skin, hard muscles, and the spine encased in alloy.

Every part of the enemy’s body shattered like tofu under a knife.

Metal fragments and flesh splattered.

“Olay Kingdom’s media outlets report that the new Duke Su held a banquet at Redian-XIII, attended by several royal family members…”

A fragmented news report came from a nearby grocery store.

News footage appeared on the screen on the wall.

The anchor’s voice was sometimes clear and sometimes blurry as the signal fluctuated.

“Last month, the royal family announced her bloodline…”

“The former Duke Su’s bloodline was S-class Chimera Lion Serpent, the first bloodline inherited by the Su family. Sadly, there were no heirs among the deceased Duke’s close relatives…”

“The current Duke Su’s bloodline, certified upon reaching adulthood, is the Venomous Lion Scorpion, an S-class original bloodline from the old Federation’s prominent Manticore family…”

The spine and cables shattered simultaneously, and splashes of blood stained half of the glass wall red.

Blood flowed slowly down the rough wall, mixing with fat and bone fragments, forming a large crimson waterfall.