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"Oh? There is?" A thread of surprise crossed Selene's face. She had never once heard of such a history. And Moira's ears pricked up in exactly the same moment, her interest plainly no smaller. "Then, Head, back when you walked the entrance trial yourself, did you manage to break the three-thousand mark?"
The three-thousand mark stood, in a certain sense, a full tier above everyone else. Even Selene, taken in as Lilith's student and favored as she was, had failed to break even two thousand, never mind three.
"Ahem. All of that is ancient history. There's really no need to dredge it up." Tobias had never imagined Selene would turn the question on him. Couldn't this girl have asked something better? How exactly was he supposed to answer this one?
"What ancient history? For once the two girls have taken an interest. If you're too embarrassed to say it yourself, then allow me to say it for you. Two thousand and ninety." Drake cut in without warning, his face wearing an expression of purest ill intent.
?! Watching this unfold, Tobias's mood curdled on the spot. He had known it. This old fellow harbored absolutely no good intentions.
"Your Head, in his own day, likewise swept his entire cohort of new students. A pity that in the Trial Road's assessment, though he did earn past two thousand points, that made him only a touch better than you, Dawnford girl. He had only just barely broken past two thousand. Never mind the three-thousand mark. The distance still stretched rather far."
"Ah!" Hearing Drake out, both Selene and Moira felt a subtle awkwardness flicker across their faces. Small wonder Tobias had waved it all off as ancient history. Evidently, it was because he himself had never claimed that particular achievement.
"Old Drake. When you keep your mouth shut, no one takes you for a mute." Tobias shot Drake a savage glare. He'd known it. Nothing decent ever left this fellow's mouth. Even so, he pressed on with the earlier thread. "In the assessment of Celestial's Trial Road, cohort entrants whose points broke the three-thousand mark have been vanishingly rare. Even counting Luke among them, a single hand suffices for the tally." Tobias's gaze slid over to Selene, carrying a faint mix of rue and iron-refusing-to-become-steel exasperation. "Lady Lilith is one of them."
Watching that look of exasperated disappointment aimed her way, Selene's eyelid twitched hard. Had the gossip just landed square on her own head? The question had been hers to ask, true, but the one who'd dug up the Head's embarrassing history was Drake. How had she managed to catch a stray bullet lying down?
But then the thought followed on its own: once Luke completed the Trial Road's assessment, he would in all likelihood break past the three-thousand mark as well. Which meant that within their line, the only one still missing this particular achievement... was her?
At that, Selene felt very much as though she'd soon be too embarrassed to show her face to anyone at all.
"Luke still falls a bit short of Lilith, surely." Though she sensed there was something more folded inside Tobias's words, Moira knew nothing of the ties between Luke, Lilith, and Selene, and so she simply spoke her mind.
She had grown up from girlhood on the legends of Lilith, and Lilith remained the idol of her heart to this day. Even with Tobias himself holding forth right beside her, Moira still privately held that the Lilith of that same era outshone Luke by more than a touch.
A pity that she herself had never had Selene's luck or Selene's gift, to be taken in as one of Lilith's students.
"Keep watching, and you'll see." To that, Tobias offered nothing further, only a shrug of his shoulders.
Drake, for his part, watched Tobias with a knowing, thoughtful look, and what he received in return was Tobias's face arranged into an open what-are-you-looking-at. It left the old dragon elder momentarily speechless. With a temperament like this fellow's, how in all the heavens had he ever climbed to Academy Head? There was truly no justice under the sky.
---
Time flowed on. Having resolved the newest wave of mimic fierce beasts to come calling, Luke turned to look behind him, where Guilmon, devolved back down from Growlmon X, waited. "Ready?"
Receiving its answer, Luke drew out the D-Ark once more and performed a Card Slash, and in the next moment, Guilmon's evolution began anew.
"Guilmon, evolve! Raidramon!"
Data in vast volume poured into Guilmon's body, but this time, what Guilmon evolved into was not Growlmon. It was Raidramon.
In the anime, Raidramon was the armor-type beast Digimon that V-mon evolved into by borrowing the power of the DigiMental of Friendship.
DigiMental evolution, the armor evolution, differed from conventional self-evolution. It advanced by drawing on the energy sealed within a DigiMental itself. Compared to the standard route of endless battle and steady data absorption, armor evolution ran far easier on its subject, and the strength that came out the other side was formidable all the same.
That said, borrowing a DigiMental's power placed an enormous burden upon a Digimon's body. Worse, if the compatibility between Digimon and DigiMental ran poor, the evolved form could spiral out of control entirely, turning wild and unmanageable. But if the compatibility ran good enough, the result could bring to bear power standing shoulder to shoulder with the Mega stage. Advantages and drawbacks, both in full measure.
Guilmon could likewise evolve by borrowing a DigiMental's power. Using the Courage armor, for instance, it could armor-evolve into Flamedramon, while using the Reliability armor would armor-evolve it into Depthmon instead.
But the Raidramon that Guilmon had evolved into before Luke's eyes had borrowed no DigiMental's power at all. It had come directly through the trait of the evolution web, and its strength naturally fell a fair measure short of the genuine armor-evolved article.
*「 Raidramon 」*
Race: Digimon, Beast type
Quality: Collectible
Level: ★★★★★ (Five-Star)
Skills: Thunder Speed, Thunder Field, Lightning Blade, Blue Thunder
Thunder Speed: The power of the thunder attribute dwells within its body, letting it launch attacks at an action speed like lightning tearing across the earth. Its own speed is permanently raised by 100%!
Thunder Field: Faint currents of electricity flow across its body's surface, offsetting a measure of the damage dealt by incoming attacks.
Lightning Blade: The blade-horn upon its head, where lightning itself dwells, releases an electric cutting edge charged with the power of lightning. Targets struck carry a set chance of falling into paralysis.
Blue Thunder: Ignites the thunder-fins along its back to release a mighty bombardment fused with the power of lightning. Fully charged, its destructive force reaches three times that of the Lightning Blade, and briefly strips the struck target of its ability to act.
"Armor-system Digimon evolved through DigiMentals vary enormously in strength. But this Raidramon didn't come from borrowing a DigiMental at all. It evolved directly out of Guilmon, so while its strength can't reach anything as outrageous as Magnamon's, it still sits firmly at the front rank of its level."
*「 Guilmon evolution successful. Raidramon's information has been updated. Mana backflow obtained! 」*
Even as Raidramon's information scrolled past his eyes, Luke felt the mana within his body swell by a thread, though it remained far, far from enough to push his level up into the Three-Star Monarch Realm.
Growlmon X's strength was every bit as reliable, its destructive power greater even than Raidramon's. But the operation ahead would be a matter of speed and of timing, and for that, Raidramon's mobility suited the work far better.
Besides, so long as the data had been updated within the D-Ark, Raidramon could switch its evolution straight back into Growlmon whenever the need arose, covering destructive power and mobility in a single stroke. That, precisely, was the advantage of the evolution web.
Plz THROW Powerstones stones.