This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

After finishing his tour with Benji, which ended on quite a worrying note, Kain returned back to Dark Moon College.

Serena didn't seem to be finished yet with her own matters, so Kain went back alone. Thankfully, the Eclipse Order, as the cradle for the talents of the empire, seemed to be rolling in cash, so they didn't force him to wait for her nor make him travel back to college without the use of teleportation.

However, he supposed this was to be expected. After all, although short-distance teleportation was much cheaper in comparison to long-distance teleportation, they still utilized it for travel between mere floors of a building. Although it likely had more so to do with the medallion + pedestal teleportation mechanism serving as a security checkpoint rather than extreme laziness—right?

Therefore, he was able to teleport immediately back to the college when he wanted. Moreover, now that he was a member of the Eclipse Order, he could also use his medallion to gain access to the College's teleportation array to come here at any time.

Back at Dark Moon College, Kain's life quickly settled back into its usual rhythm. His days were filled with a mix of studying, receiving business updates, research on new evolutionary forms, and entertaining Gabriel. It was a balance he'd grown used to, though it now carried an additional task of frantically studying, and memorizing the content of dozens of textbooks. Thankfully, after advancing to 4-stars and also bonding with a powerful mental-attribute spiritual creature, he found his mental strength to be far above the average beast-tamer at, or even slightly above, his level.

Another new update, and he supposed benefit amidst misfortune, was that Bea had learned a new skill.

Amidst Bea's many skills there was an additional feature of one of them, he'd unconsciously overlooked all this time:

A-Memory Siphon: This ability allows the Sovereign Mindshard to siphon and store the most crucial memories from its victims, transforming them into a reservoir of knowledge and power.

There is a very small chance of Bea developing new skills based off of these siphoned memories.

And it just so happened that a few days after their battle with the aquatic injured mental-attribute spiritual during the orientation, Bea reported to Kain that she'd understood a new skill:

A-Mind Chorus: This skill bombards the target's mind with a chaotic symphony of phantom voices, disrupting their concentration and decision-making. The mental assault causes confusion and paranoia, rendering the target's thoughts fragmented and actions clumsy for a short duration. It is extremely effective on spiritual creatures up to one grade higher, and its effectiveness decreases the larger the level gap.

While travelling through the forest for the orientation, Kain had noted that the ability of Bea to control the movements of spiritual creatures greater than her in level was not great, and often relied on him using his spiritual skills to boost her and fill in the gap.

This skill, while not deadly to higher level opponents, will greatly increase Kain's ability to control them. Moreover, unlike the aquatic serpent, Bea has many splits that could exert up to 90% of her main body's strength, meaning that he could potentially perform crowd-control on multiple blue-grade spiritual creatures even if he still finds it difficult to kill them.

Aside from Bea, Kain also received news that Ferrin—the man he'd helped to form a contract despite lacking an affinity—had shown a surprising development.

Ferrin's spiritual power, originally the bright white characteristic of 1-star tamers, had deepened into a rich red hue, signifying his advancement to a 2-star beast-tamer.

Ferrin had progressed remarkably quickly, likely due to years of accumulated effort before this contract was formed.

However, the real surprise came when Ferrin shared a peculiar sensation: he felt no bottleneck as he continued to absorb spiritual power, and therefore didn't have the sensation indicating that it was time to form his second star.

Moreover, Ferrin described the spiritual energy within him beginning to shift toward an orange tinge, indicating that, despite not forming his second star, he was already heading towards orange-grade spiritual power.

Ferrin was initially confused and worried if there was something wrong, but Kain immediately recognized it as resembling the Southern tribes' approach to beast-taming—not something of concern.

The method of becoming a beast-tamer for Southerners only allowed for the formation of a single contract. However, it accelerated the growth of both the beast-tamer and their spiritual creature, due to the near absence of a bottle-neck until blue-grade, and the closer bond between the contractor and contracted.

This also reassured Kain. He'd already planned to have any other affinity-less individuals he helped to form a contract, to pretend to have awakened dormant southern blood, and the development of Ferrin reassured him that upon investigation it would be unlikely to notice something amiss.

However, when Kain shared these findings with Gabriel, the boy who was constantly clamouring to undergo the procedure right away was uncharacteristically quiet.

"So, this might only let me have one contract, huh?" Gabriel finally said, somewhat despondently.

As a commoner, with commoner parents, he'd always known he'd be unlikely to awaken an affinity. However, despite the low likelihood, every civilian still harbored a little hope that they'd be able to awaken as a beast-tamer—a traditional one with tons of contracts.

However, Kain didn't burst his bubble and tell him that even if he did develop an affinity, it could very well be D- or F-grade and he may not advance high enough to have multiple contracts even with an affinity. Plenty of beast-tamers stop at 1 or 2-stars their whole lives.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

In fact, within Kain and Gabriel's hometown, Brightstar City, most of the adult beast-tamers did stop at 1 or 2 stars, with 3-star beast-tamers taking on prominent roles within the city.

Perhaps residing at a top 5 college accompanied by the talented Serena and Kain, had given the boy unrealistic expectations of how easy it is to increase in strength. But the top 2 students in a year for a top 5 college are definitely not what you'd call the average experience of a beast-tamer…