Chapter 232

Chapter 232: 232

Aisha had no idea that guiding beasts was an extremely difficult, almost impossible feat. Even Guides who had been guiding for several years found it complex and would never dare attempt it.

That was because the chances of failure were as high as ninety percent!

However, academies still wanted to teach Guides how to do it. Why? Because everyone still held on to the hope that beasts living inside contaminated zones could be purified and guided back into becoming normal beasts, paving the way toward a brighter and more progressive future.

Unfortunately, in the thousands of years since contaminated zones emerged in the starfield where Gaia was located, no one had ever succeeded in doing so.

Thus, the only accepted way for Guides to use their guiding abilities on beasts was to subdue them.

But the original owner of Aisha’s body had never learned this in class, having skipped that lesson to attend another class instead.

Yet Aisha felt that there was no difference between guiding Sentinels and guiding beasts. Both were driven mad by the corruption caused by miasmic energy. Moreover, Aisha had already done it before.

When she had experimented on beast carcasses and purified their meat, she had realized that she could also use her guiding abilities on them. However, she had never tried it on a living beast, so she couldn’t help feeling slightly hesitant.

Her palm touched the beast, and the sensation beneath it felt strange. It was like touching a living water balloon, smooth and cool, with a silky texture. A deep, rapid wuumm—wuumm throbbed beneath its skin, as though its body were resonating like a distant cosmic drum.

Aisha closed her eyes and began guiding the tadpole beast.

The moment she did, she felt her guiding powers stir inside her body before finally overflowing from her hands. A bright light flashed from her palms, growing stronger with every passing second until she could feel the warmth radiating from it.

She opened her eyes and glanced down at her hand. The light was blinding, yet the tadpole beast’s enormous, dark body concealed most of it from the spectators. Only a faint glow could be seen around the edges of its body.

However, Aisha had no time to concern herself with what others could see.

Although the guiding energy was flowing smoothly from her palm, she could feel it gradually weakening. A high-pitched ringing sounded in her ears, and before long, a dull ache began spreading through her head.

Aisha frowned.

This feeling was familiar.

If she continued pushing herself, she might end up bleeding from her nose again.

She had already experienced that when she rescued Zenick, and she certainly didn’t want to repeat it here.

But...

Aisha glanced at the enormous creature before her.

She really wanted to guide it.

More importantly, she could feel that she was succeeding.

The beast’s condition was slowly improving, and the energy flowing from her palm was being absorbed rather than rejected. Although she couldn’t explain exactly what was happening, her instincts told her that she was doing the right thing.

Should she stop now?

Aisha hesitated.

She knew that continuing to guide the creature could put her at risk, but abandoning it when she was already making progress didn’t sit well with her.

After all, how often would she get another opportunity to guide a living beast?

Just as Aisha was debating whether to continue, an old man seated among the professors suddenly stood up.

His eyes widened as he stared at the arena, the indifference he had shown earlier disappearing completely.

Initially, he had expected to see a full-blown fight between Aisha and Corwin. However, when he watched the young woman approach the beast and place her hand against its body, he couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed.

Like everyone else, he had assumed that she intended to guide the creature.

What a ridiculous idea!

How could anyone possibly guide a beast and expect to succeed?

Even experienced Guides rarely dared to attempt such a thing, and for a D-rank Guide like Aisha, it was practically impossible. It was like a child expecting a rock to float into the air and transform into a bird simply by wishing for it.

He had thought he had wasted his time staying to watch the match. In fact, he had been considering leaving when something faint caught his attention.

A trace of guiding energy.

The old man’s expression changed instantly.

He focused his senses on the arena, carefully examining the faint energy coming from Aisha’s palm. The more closely he sensed it, the more shocked he became.

It wasn’t merely guiding energy.

It was an astonishingly pure wavelength of energy that flowed into the enormous beast without meeting any resistance. The light itself was almost unnoticeable from where he stood, but the energy it carried was unlike anything he had expected.

The old man stared at Aisha as though he were looking at an entirely different person.

Who was this girl?

And how could someone with such an extraordinary ability be listed as a D-rank Guide?

The old man was no ordinary professor, much less an ordinary dean.

Dean Noah was a respectable Guide who had spent many years working at the academy. However, beneath his seemingly ordinary identity, he held another position that few people knew about.

He was a researcher and an elder of the White Tower.

The White Tower was an organization dedicated to finding talented Guides who met its standards across the planets in the starfield. Those who fulfilled its requirements would be given opportunities to receive further training and development, allowing them to reach heights that ordinary Guides could only dream of.

And Noah had been assigned to Gaia to find suitable candidates and bring them back to the White Tower.

Unfortunately, the past ten years had brought nothing but disappointment.

He had encountered several Guides who caught his attention, but most of them had already been recruited by the Imperial Army, the Association, or the Federation. Meanwhile, those who were still studying at the academy barely met the required standards and could only be observed for the time being.

One of the young Guides he had been watching was Irene Novalis.

With her S-rank classification, Irene naturally attracted attention from several powerful organizations. Although she possessed considerable talent, Noah still needed to evaluate whether she met the White Tower’s requirements.

And now, another Guide had appeared before him.

Aisha Novalis!