After a while, the old man left, leaving Leonel to his thoughts.

'It's interesting, I guess...'

??

Leonel didn't expect to be interested in this Hunt. But in the end, the old man had actually managed to convince him. Plus, it would apparently not interfere with his schedule to go back as Damian and the others would still be stuck here for a while longer.

According to the old man, the Hunt had been being planned not just a few years, but decades even. It might not even be an exaggeration to say more than a century, in fact.

'Project Hunt' could be considered to be one of Earth's contingency plans. If Hutch's words were to be believed, it was likely that a similar practice was taken on by the Empire as well.

This so-called 'Project Hunt' was an attempt to raise Evolved Beasts. As Leonel had so unfortunately found out already, humans weren't the only ones who could awaken.

The project itself spent years diligently breeding and cross breeding different species of animals to create incredibly powerful creatures. The hope was that upon the descent of the Metamorphosis, these creatures would awaken miraculous abilities that would allow humans to benefit.

These beasts would become great natural resources. Their meat would be the best tonic for human warriors, allowing them to progress at much faster speeds.

Also, according to Hutch, beasts have much larger Ethereal Glabellas upon awakening. This is not only due to their larger size in general, but it can also be considered an evolutionary buffer to their intelligence. After all, beasts are innately inferior in this aspect. Those who successfully awaken are thus compensated in this way.

The larger Ethereal Glabellas of beasts are considered to be delicacies that can even improve the speed of evolution of one's ability. They're called Beast Crystals.

Thinking back to the octopus stored in the Segmented Cube, Leonel suddenly understood why it was that the latter had wanted the former so badly.

After all of this, Leonel was even more impressed with exactly where these projects took place. When he asked Old Hutch about that, the old man hadn't held back.

A long while later, Leonel finished playing with Tolliver and placed the little guy on the table, turning a serious eye toward the several large pieces of paper laid out before him.

After Leonel learned everything there was to learn about Lesson Three, the next touched on Force Art, and the Lesson after that was titled 'Functional Design'. This Lesson not only taught him basic concepts of design, but, most importantly taught him about drawing blueprints.

Leonel had never taken an art class before, nor was he familiar with calligraphy. After all, this was the 25th century, nobody writes anymore. So the first few attempts he made were abysmal. But, over time, with how high his coordination stat was, not only did he improve by leaps and bounds, his penmanship could even be said to be quite beautiful.

Calligraphy on Earth referred to the writing of characters. In ancient Eastern countries, this was especially important to their culture. However, the West had quite a few practitioners as well.

To Force Crafters, Calligraphy referred to the art of drawing Force Arts. Each branch of Force Art was a unique language with its on unique quirks. A steady hand and a keen eye was, of course, important for all of this.

Thankfully, Leonel's basics were exceptionally robust. Due to the Force Art he had drawn on the back of his palm, his knowledge of Third Dimensional Force Arts was incredible. So, when he moved on to Fourth Dimensional Force Arts as he was now, the result was him improving at unimaginable speeds.

The blueprints before Leonel now were the product of several hours of work. But, he still felt like something was missing. It was an intuition that kept nagging at him. He knew that if he designed his first weapon based on these designs, it would fail.

At that moment, Leonel suddenly slapped his forehead.

'Idiot. Why waste time drawing all of these blueprints in real life when you have your Dream World?'

Leonel closed his eyes and sunk into a state of meditation. A moment later, he found himself in a wide blank space, but there was a bright smile on his face.

A quill identical to the one Montez gave him manifested in his hand. This was the product of a Dream Sculpt he forged.

Then, he began to draw in the air.

The scene was absolutely dazzling. The sight of several layers of blueprints being built atop of each other with glistening transparent lines made it almost feel as though Leonel was playing God.