Growth and loss

Guilmon's vision blurred for an instant, and he found himself in a jungle.

"Where is this?

Wizardmon, where are you?"

The empty-headed Guilmon rubbed his head and shouted for Mo Yan.

"Guilmon, you're now in the Wild Jungle, a place created to train you."

Mo Yan's voice reached Guilmon from every direction, filling him with wonder.

"The Wild Jungle?

How do I train?"

Guilmon tilted his head, his oversized head full of questions.

Guilmon's thoughtless questions left Mo Yan utterly speechless.

They're both Dragon-type Digimon, so why does Guilmon's brain seem more like a decoration?

Could this be the legendary trade-off of intelligence for combat power?

After composing himself, Mo Yan decided not to give Guilmon a special explanation.

Mo Yan cleared his throat, then said, "Welcome to the Wild Jungle. Here, you can unleash your natural instincts as a predator to your heart's content."

Perhaps pleased with his own progress, or perhaps searching for a certain feeling, Mo Yan sounded rather like a host.

Fortunately, everyone present was a Digimon, so no one felt awkward.

In particular, Guilmon couldn't understand what Mo Yan meant.

"The Digimon participating in this training session are Dracomon and Guilmon.

The objective of this training session is hunting.

The reward and punishment system is as follows: any Digimon that fails to complete the hunt within the allotted time will enjoy a full minute of electric shocks.

Participants, please unleash your wild instincts and show your prowess as apex predators!"

Mo Yan seemed to be treating this training session as some sort of variety show. Either that, or he was giving free rein to the nature of one of his DigiCores.

Otherwise, there was no explaining his unusual behavior.

Still, who knew which kind of Digimon had such a pronounced taste for tormenting others?

This also offered a glimpse of why the Four Holy Beasts hadn't chosen to specialize their Twelve Digicores.

Before completing his final transformation, Mo Yan needed to keep learning to grasp the natures and instincts of twelve different kinds of Digimon.

If Mo Yan hadn't possessed a special method to dispel the effects of this experience, which bordered on a fractured psyche,

then these Twelve Digicores might have dragged him into an endless abyss, splitting him into twelve different Digimon.

Then, after countless years, drawn together by their shared origin and an instinctive desire to become one,

they would fight one bloody battle after another before merging again, bringing the being named Mo Yan into existence once more.

But would that Mo Yan still be Mo Yan?

Of course, Mo Yan had never considered that possibility.

As far as Mo Yan was concerned, he would certainly succeed.

It was only a matter of time.

Within the Wild Jungle,

after a period of adjustment, Guilmon slowly unleashed his true nature.

Those were the natural instincts of a vicious dragon.

Ferocious, cold, and bloodthirsty.

With an overwhelming desire to fight.

His golden draconic eyes and pupils narrowed into slits proclaimed just how dangerous the instincts he had unleashed were.

"Grr..."

Guilmon lowered his body, his large nostrils beginning to sniff here and there.

The many scents permeating the air flooded into his nostrils, painting a picture of his surroundings.

Elsewhere, Dracomon, who had received a small portion of Mo Yan's will, slowly flexed his limbs a few times.

As though adjusting to this body, Dracomon moved somewhat slowly and awkwardly.

But soon,

after briefly familiarizing himself with his body, Dracomon began his hunt before Guilmon did.

Unlike a battle between fully grown dragons, this was a contest between young dragons.

It had begun.

The wild instincts of dragons, the innate intuition of predators.

At that moment, both young dragons brought them fully into play.

Searching for scents in the air...

Picking up traces of what might be prey...

Stepping softly, slowly exploring likely routes...

A battle of wits and courage between predator and prey, and mutual misdirection between predators.

An exciting yet tedious contest played out within the Wild Jungle.

Once he saw Guilmon and Dracomon settle into their roles, Mo Yan left an alert mechanism in place and stopped watching.

After a moment's thought, Mo Yan raised his hand and cast a spell.

A radiance flashed, and the ice encasing Impmon slowly vanished.

Another flash of white light healed the injuries Impmon had suffered from being frozen.

Once freed, Impmon neither shouted nor voiced any accusations.

He simply sat down silently in front of Mo Yan, opened his palm, and conjured a flame tinged with purple.

As magical power poured into it, the Dark Night Flame quickly swelled to the size of a basketball.

Looking at Impmon's impassive expression, Mo Yan couldn't help chuckling softly.

Mo Yan had once worn that same expression.

So instead of saying anything, he quietly watched Impmon's movements.

Sure enough,

this time, Impmon successfully dispersed all the magical power within the fireball.

Still silent, he made no unnecessary movements.

Impmon merely stared intently at Mo Yan without a word.

"Clap, clap~

Not bad. You mastered it so quickly. You've got real talent."

Clapping lightly, Mo Yan freely praised Impmon.

"Can we start the next step?"

His voice indifferent, Impmon asked Mo Yan what came next.

"In such a hurry?

Don't you want a break?"

Recalling his own past thoughts, Mo Yan spoke unhurriedly.

"No! Need!"

Impmon continued staring at Mo Yan, his tone stiff.

"This time, you don't need to disperse the magical power. You need to sense the magical power inside.

Then compress it."

As he spoke, a flame rose from Mo Yan's palm. He gestured for Impmon to use the method he had taught him to sense how he compressed the flame.

Through his senses, Impmon could feel the magical power within the flame in Mo Yan's palm continually gathering together, no longer spreading outward.

That was because magical power entered a released state when used, which was also a diluted state.

Extracting magical power that was spreading outward was several times harder than gathering and compressing it.

That was why Mo Yan had placed the magical power compression challenge after the extraction challenge.

Yet as Mo Yan compressed the flame in his palm into a tiny crystal-like form, sweat once again beaded on Impmon's forehead.

The composure Impmon had struggled to maintain now threatened to crumble.

"This... I... you...

I'm only a Rookie Digimon, and you're asking me to go that far? You're deliberately making things difficult for me!!!"

Clenching his fists, Impmon could no longer bear it and roared at Mo Yan.

"Is it really that hard?

Back when I was still KendoGarurumon, I completed this challenge despite not being a magic-type Digimon.

What I compressed then was lightning."

Flickering lightning appeared in his palm as Mo Yan looked at Impmon, his voice gentle but firm.

Hearing Mo Yan's words, how could Impmon fail to understand his meaning?

The Dark Night Flame appeared outside his gloves, somewhat out of control, revealing his turbulent emotions.

Closing his eyes, Impmon recalled what he had come to understand while frozen.

When he opened them again, he had already suppressed his tangled thoughts.

This was a kind of growth, and also a kind of loss.