The First Store System

“I miss Aakesh,” Lily muttered as she moved away from the gory scene. Her voice contained a mixture of sadness and helplessness.

“Ancestor, you would find him,” A voice rang in reply to Lily’s.

It has been a few decades since Lily entered here, and she had been searching for Aakesh since then.

A few decades earlier,

When Lily had entered the portal with Aakesh, she was comfortably seated on Aakesh’s head. But when she appeared here, she found herself alone in the middle of an unfamiliar area.

[Lily, you are in the system’s protection from now on!]

Only a few seconds had passed when Lily heard a familiar mechanical voice ringing inside her head.

[The system is in a reactive protection mode. The system wouldn’t help you do things, and it will only act when you’re in a life-threatening situation.]

Another alert rang inside Lily’s head as the system informed her of the mode of protection Aakesh had activated.

“Where is Aakesh?” Lily ignored the system’s alert and asked.

[Host is currently battling arrows!]

The system responded and told Lily about Aakesh’s battle with the arrows.

“Can you take me to him?” Lily asked.

Even though she had gotten used to staying alone by spending the entire day in Panagea, barring a few hours inside the store and training, she still had unlimited revivals in Panagea.

She also wanted to help Aakesh in battles as it was one of the reasons behind her excitement for entering with Aakesh inside the portal. But now, they were both placed in different areas.

[No.]

The system refused as teleporting either Lily to Aakesh or Aakesh to her wasn’t possible due to restrictions on space, even for itself. And also, Aakesh had set Lily’s protection on reactive mode, so the system had limited powers and could only act when Lily was in life-threatening danger.

Lily couldn’t help but turn disappointed hearing the system’s response. She then asked why and the system told her the reason behind its inability to do it.

Lily, who was not even the size of Aakesh’s palm, silently moved as she was hidden by the tall grasses and flowers.

The silence didn’t continue for long as it got broken by the sound of heavy footsteps.

Lily looked at the source of the sound, only to find a towering figure coming toward her. The creature’s eyes contained a hint of greed as it sensed the pure bloodline of Lily and wanted to eat her to increase its bloodline purity.

Lily turned around and escaped right away as the creature gave her the feeling of being undefeatable. She wanted to meet Aakesh, and to do that, Lily knew her survival was of paramount importance.

“Hey, system, when will you act?” Lily asked as she ran at the maximum speed she could achieve after all the restrictions.

[Lily, the system would automatically act if any strike is deemed to have enough power to injure you severely, kill you, or if the strike’s purpose is to kidnap you.]

The system responded in its mechanical voice. Lily heaved a sigh of relief since nothing would happen to her, and she would be able to find Aakesh somehow without dying. At the same time, she continued running as the system told her the price Aakesh would need to pay for each time the system helped her defend.

Even she felt the price to be outrageous, so she wanted it to be the last resort.

“Why are you running? My stomach awaits you,” An unfamiliar male shrill voice rang in the area as the creature called out to Lily.

It could sense the power gap between Lily and itself. It knew Lily would never be able to escape from it since she had restrictions on him, whereas it was the ruler, but it still didn’t catch up to Lily in one go, as it felt its blood boiling and unprecedented excitement, chasing its prey.

“My blood boils, seeing you run. Oh, this thrill,” The creature commented again as it continued chasing Lily at the same rate of speed.

Lily ignored the ramblings of the creature and continued running. She could sense that escape from the creature was impossible, but she didn’t want to take the system’s help without giving her best.

While running, Lily suddenly sensed an attack. She didn’t look back but started randomly moving to interfere with the aim of the creature.

“ARGH!”

Lily’s steps came to a sudden halt as the attack never came, but a painful scream echoed behind her.

For a moment, Lily thought that the system had acted, but when she remembered the system’s words, she knew it was not the system.

She still continued running since she didn’t know whether it was a scheme of the creature or not. Her senses didn’t allow anything to sense anything beyond the land she was on.

But since she wanted to know what happened and her curiosity got the better of her, she turned her head around while she continued running.

The scene she saw made her stop in her footsteps.

The creature chasing her was engulfed in flames as it flailed and screamed in pain.

The reason for Lily’s stopping wasn’t the scream or flailing but the flame that had engulfed the creature. She recognized it as she herself was the owner of such a skill.

The flame engulfing the creature was the Epochal Fire, the type of fire she and the Epochal Felines had control over.

The flame engulfing the creature was more destructive than the Epochal Fire Lily had control over, but the intensity at which it burned was nowhere closer than Lily’s skill.

“Ancestor, please forgive me for making you wait for so long,” Not long after, an unfamiliar voice directed at Lily rang in the area.

“Where are you?” Lily asked as she looked around her since she couldn’t guess the source of the voice.

The next moment, a creature severalfold larger than the thing chasing Lily appeared in front of Lily.

The creature looked the same as Lily, but the larger version of her.

“Didn’t Epochal Felines go extinct?” Lily asked as the creature in front of her belonged to the race Epochal Feline. She could sense the familiarity from the bloodline. It wasn’t even anywhere too close to the purity of her bloodline, but it was still an Epochal Feline.