[F rank Horned Rabbit Spear (Elite) has become F rank Horned Rabbit Spear (Commander)]

Rohan’s smile bloomed.

"It worked! It really became Commander tier! I can hardly believe it... I now own a Commander tier Genetic Armament!"

For some reason, his Horned Rabbit Spear reaching commander tier gave him a bigger rush of excitement and adrenaline than his gene reaching E rank and receiving an elemental property.

To him, his gene reaching E rank was almost bound to happen at some point, only the changes in its properties were the real boon from the Lava Hellebore — but in his mind, Commander tier was much more elusive.

After all, every time he ever had encounters with anything even vaguely connected with the Commander tier, it had always been a step above anything he’d ever experienced before. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

The difference between Elite tier and Commander tier was far vaster than the bridge between Ordinary tier and Elite tier. After all, even Rohan, with only an Elite tier genetic armament to his name at the time, could take down an Elite tier beast solo — though it was one of the weakest of its kind.

Something like that could never happen against a Commander tier beast. Rohan only felt like he was confident in beating one now because his gene was E rank, and Elite tier at that, which naturally put him above 99.9% of his peers of the same rank.

Even ordinary Awakened have a chance of obtaining Elite tier equipment in their lives, but the same couldn’t be said for Commander tier.

When he shared the good news with Elane, she was naturally elated, sharing his excitement for the upgrade.

She wasn’t bothered in the least bit about the gap between he and her widening even further, because she knew that the evolutions to Commander tier weren’t done yet.

"It’s your turn now! It feels weird asking for your Spike Beast bow for the second time in such a short span of time..."

There were still enough Elite tier Origin Crystals left over for one more evolution, with some to spare, and so the choice was obvious.

’It won’t work for my gene anyway, as that’s already E rank. This is F rank Origin Energy we’re dealing with.’

But that did remind him of something. He still had those two E rank Elite Origin Crystals tucked away. Before, he was saving them instead of absorbing them as he had no use for them just yet — perhaps they could have been used in a trade or saved for when he reached E rank.

But now that his gene had preemptively reached E rank way ahead of schedule, there was no need to save them!

Rohan was a big fan of using his wealth instead of saving it for a rainy day — the longer he held onto those two valuable Origin Crystals, the higher the risk of losing them!

Before he accepted Elane’s Spike Beast Bow from her, he took out the two origin crystals and basked in their unique orange hue for one last time.

Elane was startled at first, but then her eyes lit up when she realised what Rohan was doing.

’No way... There’s no way he can upgrade his gene to Commander tier as well!’

But her hopes were quickly let down by Rohan’s next words.

"Relax, I’d need at least another six of these before I can even think of my gene reaching Commander tier."

Still, buying a few more single use Genetic Armaments and going out searching for more E rank Elite tier beasts didn’t seem like too bad an idea...

That would have to wait for their next excursion into the Origin Realm though, if he even decided to follow through with that plan. If he were alone on this journey, then he might’ve decided on that without hesitation. But Elane was also alongside him, and he couldn’t just reduce her to the sidelines while hunting for such beasts.

Not when the whole reason they were rushing through these next few months was to grow their strength as quickly as possible — both of them, not just focusing solely on him.

’Right now the priority should be finding Elane a good gene to assimilate. We can’t keep going on for long without her having one. It’ll drag our strength down too much in the long run.’

It aligned with his current plans anyway. Right now he wanted to focus on hunting down more F rank Elite tier beasts, which should be a peace of cake to take down for the current him, so that he could amass a good reserve of Elite tier Origin Crystals, as well as hopefully obtain a good Elite tier gene for Elane.

Putting these thoughts aside, he suddenly remembered something and his face paled.

"Elane, wait! Don’t take your Spike Beast bow out! I completely forgot that we’re in the Origin Realm, the moment you unregister it from your status and return it to its original form, you won’t be able to register it again until we return to the Federation." He spoke so urgently that he jumpscared Elane, which thankfully voided her concentration in the moment and stopped her from taking the Spike Beast bow out.

Elane understood quickly, but she did look rather disheartened by the realisation.

"Does that not mean that once I absorb a gene, you would no longer be able to evolve it?" She asked.

Rohan’s eyes widened like saucers, never even thinking of this before.

"I... don’t know, I’ve never considered this. As far as I’m aware, my talent only works on things I’ve already absorbed myself, or on items that haven’t been absorbed. Though, I haven’t tried evolving something that somebody else has absorbed yet, so maybe I’m overthinking things?"

Elane gave him a look, as if to say ’Why aren’t you coming to try it already then!?’

"Can I?" He asked, knowing that he’d have to get handsy with her, particularly on her chest...

The heart was the lifeblood of every living being, and considering it pumped all the energy one’s body needed throughout the rest of the body — both blood and Origin Energy — he knew this was the best place to start looking.

’Though nobody really knows where a genetic armament is stored once it’s been absorbed.’