This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

The System didn't answer Kain directly, but suddenly projections of all of the past evolutions Kain had created in the Simulator appeared before him.

"Filter out all of the past evolutions that aren't for Lumifin." Suddenly the crowded description screen filled with the profiles of a myriad of creatures only had 2 profiles, and the glass container which showed the simulated results of the evolution had two creatures within it—Gloomtail and Glimmerfin.

"Can you place a projection of the original Lumifin next to the two evolutionary forms?"

Looking at the three creatures side by side, Kain tried to find any meaningful connection between the three forms.

However, finding a connection, especially to the Gloomtail was difficult.

Without question the unevolved Lumifin was the most aesthetically pleasing, while the Glimmerfin looked like a bloated, too bright, version of Lumifin.

However, Gloomtail could only be described with one word…UGLY. Kain had already seen it before, but its grotesque appearance was still very shocking the second time it appeared before him.

Its body was even more bloated than the Glimmerfin and swollen in unnatural ways that gave it an almost cartoonish appearance.

Unlike the almost mirror-like appearance of Lumifin's silver scales, the Gloomtail was a sickly gray, with patches of jaundice yellow. If Kain had seen a fish that looked like this back on Earth, he wouldn't have dared to touch it for fear that it was suffering from some kind of contagious disease.

Unlike the Glimmerfin that was too bright, and the Lumifin that had flashes of light flickering through its scales and on its fins, the uneven and ragged scales and fins of the Gloomtail were barely illuminated. Its fins also appeared tattered and worn, with frayed edges.

The eyes of the Gloomtail were small and beady, set deep into a misshapen head. The eyes looked perpetually disoriented, like the Gloomtail was forever lost in a haze of confusion or fear. They were very unlike the lively and playful eyes of its predecessor Lumifin.

However, as Kain was forced to examine the creature for a longer period he discovered something interesting. A pattern of curved lines, barely visible, weaved across its fins.

The dark, almost imperceptible lines were occasionally broken in some parts and not continuous, before they ended abruptly two-thirds of the way up the fish's fins. The lines loosely resembled interlocking spirals arranged next to each other, composed of the fish's scales.

Kain looked to see if these patterns were also on the Lumifin and…they were! The spiral pattern was still not super obvious, but the pattern was more clear on the Lumifin since there were no large breaks in the lines. However, they extended across nearly the entire body of the fish.

Starting from the center of the fish's forehead, its scales were arranged in a spiral, with each new scale in the pattern growing in size until the midsection of the Lumifin where the spiral pattern stops and all scales are uniform in shape and placement until the tail. The arrangements of the scales are what caused, when examined very closely, the appearance of lines in a spiral.

Faint spiral patterns originating on each fin were also visible.

The scales were mostly silver, but their shiny mirrorlike quality caused it to glisten with hues of deep blues, greens and gold as it moved and light reflected across its surface.

Kain then looked at the evolutionary form that was closer in appearance to the Lumifin, the Glimmerfin, to see if this pattern once again changed.

Similar to the Lumifin, the barely noticeable spiral pattern extended from the forehead, but this time they ended at the head and did not extend into the midsection. The patterns were also present on all of its fins.

"These markings are probably the key!" After making this discovery Kain chose to pursue this direction of searching for an evolutionary form for now instead of focusing on amplifying the water-attribute.

The markings were the most prominent on the Lumifin, slightly fainter and covered less area on the Glimmerfin, and extremely faint. And the most limited in area on the Gloomtail. Perhaps a reduction in the markings is an indication that Kain is moving further away from its next ideal form.

He should instead be pursuing how to make the spiral pattern cover more of, if not all of, the Lumifin's body in the subsequent evolution.

But how can he enhance a physical feature during evolution? It's not like enhancing a spiritual creature's affinity for an element. What kind of materials would even be used?

Also, what are these markings indicative of? Light-attribute strength?

The patterns are the faintest on the Gloomtail, which also is the form with the weakest control over the light element. Its ability to manipulate light is frail and unreliable; any attempts at using the light element are characterized by dim, erratic flickers that would barely cut through the dark.

However, the Glimmerfin, with probably the most abundant amount of light-energy available at its disposal, also saw a reduction in the size of the pattern.

Could control be taken into account? Because although the Glimmertail has a lot of light-attribute energy, its control and ability to utilize that energy is quite low.

Maybe an evolution that favours better control over light-attribute energy is the next evolutionary step? Maybe this is another case where improving the proficiency of a light-attribute skill is a necessary condition to successfully evolve?

However, as Kain continued to look at the patterns, he couldn't help but feel as though that hypothesis wasn't quite right. He recognized this spiral pattern, although he couldn't place it quite yet…

But he was sure that this pattern was the key to unlocking the next evolutionary form, and his gut was telling him that enhancing the Lumifin's elemental control was not what they were connected to…

Zzz Zzzz

Unfortunately, before Kain could continue down that line of reasoning, the day's events finally caught up with him and he ended up falling asleep in place. The System promptly ejected his consciousness from the Laboratory as Kain's snores joined the chorus of those from his peers.