Chapter 16: Forgiveness

Lucian took the necklace from Felix's neck and cradled it in his hands like it was a baby, it seemed he still didn't get over the fact that Sahee died.

His eyes narrowed as he moved them at Felix and asked:

"Where did you get this necklace from, you explained to me that the underground arena collapsed, you couldn't have gone back there to scavenge just so you can give this back to me?"

Felix shook his head as he told him:

"I had a dream about Sahee, but it wasn't a dream you see..."

He started to explain his dream to Lucian and his eyes widened in both surprise and sadness, but then a smile appeared on his face as he said with a weak tone:

"At least she would be able to meet with her parents and the ancestors, this is a nice thing..."

He closed his eyes as his face turned up to the sky and muttered some things that Felix couldn't understand, the necklace in his hands then started to glow with a blue fervor as it transformed into particles of the same color and disappeared.

Felix looked at Lucian who was visibly less angry at him and said:

"My job is done, I will have to go now."

Lucian waved his hand indicating that he wanted to tell him something before he left:

"Even though I still hate you, Sahee told you those things so I will take it easy on you, however, that doesn't mean I have forgiven you!"

Lucian then started walking back to his house while he ignored Felix, Lucian's back was shaking as tears dropped from his eyes to the ground, he quickly left Felix alone disappearing from his sight.

Felix sighed as he watched him disappear and decided it was time to leave as well, the lions were doing patrols around the settlement, and sometimes bursts of hearty laughter could be heard around, it seemed they were taking this as a vacation.

Felix looked around the village for one more time before he left it behind, it wasn't a certain thing if he would ever come back to the village or not.

The travel back to the lion capital didn't take much time, up to 4 days as Felix's body grew stronger and finished devouring the cheetah's Hex energy fully, his muscle, and bones fully absorbed the Hex energy from the cheetah and gained some similarity to the cheetah's but they were also a little bit different.

Felix arrived in the capital and was pretty bored so he decided to go find Lindo, but unfortunately, it was one of the rare times that Lindo was doing a mission so he was pretty much left alone in the capital if he didn't make any new friends.

So he tried to make friends with someone from his guard squad but they weren't that welcoming of him even though he was Lander's protegee.

The lions were innately looking down on all the other tribes and not many like Landers and Lindo would act normally around people like Felix, after all, the lion's pride was inscribed deep in their bones and they wouldn't want to make friends with someone of lower standing than them.

Felix sighed as he left the guard building and decided to aimlessly walk through the streets, he looked around and saw the multitude of races busily making their way around, however now if he looked closely at their eyes he could see that everyone was wary of everyone, they were scared of each other but they didn't express it with their body language, but their eyes wouldn't be able to betray their emotions as they were the gate to the soul.

Felix sighed as he walked back to the training field where he sparred with Lindo, maybe he would be able to increase his breathing technique usage time if he trained some more in it, there weren't that many techniques passed down to him but there were a few that could be very useful for someone like him who wasn't able to use Hex energy and they were:

1st Breath: Disappearance, it was a normal stealth technique and it was supposed to increase the effects of stealth, combined with the footwork technique that Felix knew it would make him pretty much unable to be seen unless he made a mistake.

2nd Breath: Enhancement, this type of breath technique was used to increase the power of the muscles in the body, this would increase the power of the user as well as the sturdiness of their bones, however, this breath could be used to Enhance most Hex abilities increasing their power by at least 50% and innate abilities.

3rd and last breath: Combat, this wasn't a normal passive breathing technique, this was the trump card of the ancestors of the cat tribe, if they used this breathing technique combined with some special battle moves they would be able to create a combo that was deadly to most of their enemies, while the user of this breath kept using it their claws would naturally secrete poison, most cat tribesmen who lived in this world had a gland in their paws that would be triggered with certain breathing techniques to secret poison, however, it was unknown if Felix could do it due to his different anatomy.

Some small tricks could be used with the breathing techniques such as hiding your heartbeat from your enemy or making yourself able to stay underwater for long times by accumulating a huge amount of oxygen in your lungs.

Felix tried to use all of the three main breathing techniques but he failed spectacularly, the only he could employ for a few seconds was the disappearance breath and it made his lungs feel like they were on fire after 3 seconds, even though his body and organs were strengthened due to eating other beings that didn't mean they were especially sturdy.

In terms of strength, he wasn't that high but his battle power was what he made him special, he had no hesitation when it came to killing as if it was natural to him, coupled with his innate hunter instincts it made him a tough opponent in 1v1 situations. The icing on the cake was his ability to revive and take others by surprise.

Felix's body almost fell over from lack of oxygen as it twitched on the training ground, fortunately, there weren't any people on the training ground left as it was around noon, most of the people would train in the morning and afternoon. There was also the fact that they could be on missions.

Felix got up from the ground as the sun bathed him in its heat waves, his fur was starting to stick to his body due to sweat, he was unknowingly sweating huge amounts due to the breathing technique.

He didn't dare to use the technique again as his lungs were still on fire, he sighed as he sat down to rest, he needed to strengthen his lungs more before he would be able to even try to master the breathing technique.

After a few more hours of training Felix became a bit too exhausted to train anymore so he decided to take a rest back at the same inn, he paid the bronze bones got some food from the innkeeper, and then went to rest.

This time he had a dreamless sleep, he didn't even feel it when the sun raised and he woke up.

He stretched his body as the communication stone in his pocket started shaking and bleeping, Felix pressed it and a message could be heard coming from it:

"Sergeant Felix of Lander's unit you have been summoned to the general meeting grounds of the army for your next mission, as a sergeant you now have to prove yourself worthy of the rank!"

Felix was then given instructions on where the general meeting grounds was and since it was an order he had to go even if he wanted to or not.

It took him around 5 minutes to get to the general meeting ground and there he met with a blue-eyed lion woman, she was quite the looker as she wore tight armor that highlighted her curves and her hair was done in a ponytail, she was looking down at him from her seated position, the general meeting grounds were situated around the middle of the capital and on them stood a yellow-colored building of medium size, after Felix entered the building the first thing he saw was the woman who sat behind a purple-colored desk.

The woman's eyes were analyzing Felix slowly before she said:

"I don't see why Landers promoted you for that retrieval and scouting mission, you don't seem that impressive to me..."

Felix looked at her and asked:

"And you are?"

The woman snorted as she caressed her hair and said:

"I'm your superior, Lieutenant Sandora, even though I'm not from your squad I'm still your superior!"

"Anyways, I have a mission here for you, it's a different one compared to your previous one as it's a straight-up battle mission, you have to eliminate a few targets, you can even call this an assassination mission if you want to, I know you, cat tribe folks call yourselves assassins or whatever..."

Felix listened to her and nodded his head as he left, the woman was quite interested in his lack of reaction but decided against commenting again as she waved her hand at him.

Felix's first target would be around 500 kilometers away from the capital in the settlement of a branch of the tiger tribe, it seemed a traitor of the lion tribe took shelter in their settlement and he was supposed to have some crucial intelligence of the tribe in his hands that Felix had to recover or destroy along with him.

Felix sighed as he left the capital and started running at high speeds towards the location of his mission, this would be only the first target but Felix's instincts told him it wasn't going to be an easy endeavor.

With his new body speed, it didn't take him much to appear at the settlement, it was similarly looking to the cat tribe settlement, the only difference was the two sturdy men with striped ears protecting the entrance. Tiger tribesmen!

Both Tigers and Lions were one of the relatively strongest tribes, that was in combat techniques and strength, however, they weren't at the peak of strength as the elephant tribe existed.

Felix's silhouette started to disappear as he used his footwork stealth technique, it was time to start another mission!