Starting Plans and Evolving Beasts

Eyes shining with brimming ambition as he thought of his future plans, Torus couldn't help but to feel excited at the future that awaited him. 

With the future planned out, all Torus had to do now was to complete the steps required beforehand. Currently, he is setting up his plans for the future by starting the process of forcefully evolving Fifth-Grade Ferocious Beasts into the Fourth-Grade. 

However, with the limited energy he currently had, Torus realized he wouldn't be able to do so for every beast within his mindscape.

Instead, Torus decided he should focus his efforts on only a couple of Ferocious Beasts of each species, the ones he found had the most potential. So, Torus' gaze slowly shifted, his focus changing from the newly evolved Fourth-Grade Hell-Hound, to a specific Fifth-Grade Hell-Hound. This specific Hell-Hound was the one with the higher fire-attribute to his converted energy. 

This was the Hell-Hound Torus was currently most interested in, wondering what changes would occur in it with its evolution.

Not only that, but Torus also wasn't fully convinced that his hypothesis of what impacted how a Ferocious Beast evolved was correct. 

He could only tell with more testing, only with more examples of his hypothesis being proven true could he confidently say he was correct. This was also the last of the Hell-Hounds that Torus planned to evolve, with his focus planning to shift to a new species of Ferocious Beast afterward.

As he looked at the Hell-Hound, Torus couldn't help but to feel his interest completely arising. He was looking forward to what would come about by its evolution, the possibilities within his mind nearly endless. 

As such, Torus wasted no time in reaching out, his hand gently palming the top of the Hell-Hound's head, his eyes closing in concentration. As he did so, the process of flooding the creature with his energy came much more naturally to him this time, his previous experience offering him an idea of what the process would be like already.

With energy slowly flooding the creature, Torus watched with detachment as his energy was slowly rang dry, the only sign of him being affected being the slight strain evident on his brow. 

As he continued flooding the creature with energy, it took no time at all for his energy to fall below a quarter of the halfway point it was at before, and Torus still had seen no signs of evolution. 

At the sight of this, Torus felt a slight pang of worry arise within him, as the previous Hell-Hound had shown signs of evolution by this point.

However, Torus didn't let this affect him, continuing to flood the Hell-Hound with energy. His persistence soon bore fruit, with the creature starting to follow the same pattern of lengthening fur and a snarl appearing once his energy was only about a fifth of what it once was. 

It was only once he had sapped every last drop of energy contained within his God Seed that the creature finally completed the process entirely.

This left Torus exhausted, his figure collapsing to the ground as he rested in a pile of his own sweat, barely able to stand. 

This was the consequence of using too much energy, it would leave one barely able to move as exhaustion overwhelmed their senses. However, this was where Torus shone compared to others, this state lasting for no more than five minutes before he had seemingly regained his breath, slowly sitting up as he looked at the newly evolved Hell-Hound still before him.

As he glanced at the creature however, Torus' eyes couldn't help but to slightly widen. 

Even with the previous evolution making him aware of the extent of evolution that occurred with each new grade a beast reached, Torus was still slightly astonished at just how different the creature before him was. 

Where before, the creature stood at a height of around 1.8 meters on all-fours, the creature was now almost double that size, its once pitch-black skin now appearing even darker as it contrasted with the fur encompassing it, a flaming orange color all that could be seen as its fur was made of literal flames.

Looking at the flaming creature that appeared to come from the deepest parts of hell, all Torus could feel was astonishment, the creature's tongue lolling out as it took a step forward, its tongue lashing out, slathering all across Torus' face. 

The contrast between looks and personality on the creature caused such whiplash to the young man, that Torus felt almost as if his neck had literally snapped.

For a moment, he just stood there, a look of utter dumbfoundment on his face as he looked over the creature. It was only after taking a moment to compose himself, that Torus could finally move on to his true intentions. 

Staring at the creature, Torus only let out a slight shake of his head, one of his hands reaching out as he placed it on the tip of the creature's nose, using the little energy he had managed to regain to stare deeply into it.

As he looked deeply into the creature, Torus' attention first focused on the Hell-Hound's Beast Core, looking at the changes in Its energy conversion. 

As he looked at it, Torus could only slightly shake his head in visible disbelief, the previous flame tint to Its energy now being replaced, the new conversion appearing so bright, the energy literally burst aflame while still within the Beast Core. 

Aside from this however, Torus also focused on the way that this energy was being utilized by the creature. 

As he looked at it, Torus felt some pride overcome him, one of his conjectures actually being proven correct on how the changes brought about by an evolution in grade would show up within the creature. 

While much more visible than he had previously thought, the truth of how this energy was used was simple - the Hell-Hound could now control its body temperature.

However, the maximum temperature it could reach now was much higher than he had anticipated. Heck, even the creature's average body temperature was incredibly high, being so hot that its fur was literally lit aflame. 

The one strange thing about this however, was how little this change actually increased the creature's combat potential.

Sure, the creature would now inflict burns with each of Its attacks, this did little to improve Its base attack speed, or the amount of force it could utilize. However, this only led Torus to the conclusion that these evolutions were not necessarily looking for the best improvement to combat, but only choosing the path of evolution that most matched up to the creature. 

What this resulted in, was creatures like this Hell-Hound being created, where they wouldn't necessarily be the best for combat, but could instead encompass some other aspect.

However, as he looked at this newly evolved creature before then staring at the other Hell-Hound he had evolved, a look of calculation appeared within his piercing blue eyes. 

A craftiness flashed within him, a future evolution appearing within his mind at that very moment. As such, Torus slowly pushed the two creatures together, wishing for them to interact. 

He wanted the pair to end up developing a liking for one another, hopefully allowing for the pair to have children that may evolve in the way he hoped for.

Torus didn't even bother to pay attention to the gender of the pair, only looking at his own interests. However, this was actually another advantage with Ferocious Beasts - they actually had no natural gender, only choosing one once they had found a matching partner. 

This was actually an evolution within all Ferocious Beasts, the purpose being for them to meet another of their species that had complementary evolutions, allowing for each new generation to become stronger than the last.

This was also the reason that, since the birth of Ferocious Beasts, they had gone from what could be considered one of the weakest races, to barely below the peak species. 

Over time, these Ferocious Beasts could even evolve humanoid forms, the more powerful of them proving to be even stronger than their corresponding rank within the other races.

However, this would pose a threat to the ruling species over time, something that they obviously recognized. 

As such, Ferocious Beasts were actually viewed as the enemy of the world, an order being passed down that any that evolved passed the Third-Grade should be annihilated on site. Instead of allowing the species to grow and flourish, the ruling species would rather wipe out any potential future threat to their reign.

This was the reason why very few Second-Grade Ferocious Beasts existed, and any that did were forced into hiding, always fearful of being wiped out by the other races upon being spotted. 

Only once they had reached First-Grade, would these creatures be able to fight off these potential threats from all sides.

Realizing he had gotten lost in thought, Torus once more returned his attention to the present. As he focused on himself, Torus could feel that his energy had slowly grown over time, having now reached just a bit over half-full. 

As he felt this, Torus' focus shifted, deciding now was the time for him to move on to the next group of Ferocious Beasts.

Moving on, Torus would spend the rest of the night repeating the process of regaining his energy before spending it to forcefully evolve a Ferocious Beast, before recovering his energy once more. 

This process repeated about two-three times, with him having evolved three Ferocious Beasts aside from the two Hell-Hounds.

It was only then that he finally felt satisfied, the progress of the night finally feeling as if it was enough.