Damian stood up beside the unusual and playful Monkey Beast that had saved him and was smiling at him.

"Are you willing to help me out and in return, I will give you the body of the Moose Beast over there?" said Damian while pointing at the body of the Moose Beast.

He was unsure whether the beast could understand him and the reason behind saving him in the first place, but without it, he would have no chance of surviving.

The Monkey Beast nodded its head and began jumping up and down excitedly.

Seeing that, Damian let out a sigh of relief and was shocked by how intelligent, understanding and unusual the beast was.

It must have been watching his battle to have been able to save him just as he was about to be hit, which made Damian wonder what it was doing here and whether it was somehow able to track him and follow him.

He was also curious as to what kind of beast it was as with its intelligence, power, growth rate and orange eyes, it was nothing like what Damian had learnt and researched about Monkey Beasts in the academy.

However, for the time being, it was more important for him to scare off or take down the royal academy students, as after he had taken down one of them and refused to hand over the beast core, it was unlikely that they would let him go.

Damian was in a very weak and wounded state, but he was sure that he could muster some energy to provide the Monkey Beast with ranged support and he wanted to make sure to hit the leader of the group of royal academy students with an arrow.

Such a versatile, capable and powerful Soul Spirit would be a great help to Damian and would also assist him in mastering the Earth Element, while boosting his overall power and capability.

"Listen Monkey Beast, if you can understand me, you go and attack them in close combat and I will use my bow to support you" stated Damian.

He found it weird speaking to a beast, but he spoke slowly and made hand gestures to try and make what he was saying easier for the beast to understand.

Looking into its eyes, Damian saw a young, playful and innocent beast, but looking at its muscular physique and sensing how powerful it was, he couldn't help but feel intimidated.

It was a rank 5 beast, but since it had a humanoid physique that was very flexible and capable in combat, while it was also a very intelligent beast that was skilled at combat and quickly learnt from its opponents, so it would be very hard to take down.

The beast nodded its head once again and seemed to be able to understand Damian from his hand gestures and his tone, while it also seemed to be able to sense his intentions.

The royal academy students who were watching what was occurring were confused, amazed, shocked and angry.

They didn't know how to feel or react and it seemed as though Damian had a Beast Pet, which was quite common, especially for royals and nobles who had much more resources and wealth to acquire Beast Pets and nurture them.

As the name suggests, Beast Pets are beasts that were pets to cultivators, but most of the time Beast Pets would have to be weaker than the cultivator that owned them.

Beasts were wild and unless the beast was tamed and nurtured by the cultivator as soon as it was born, so that the beast so the cultivator as their parent and master, then the beast would most likely need to be restrained by force and most beasts didn't have the mental capability to negotiate or communicate with humans.

Most beasts were also very hostile to humans, which made it very difficult, time-consuming and expensive to get a beast pet and nurture them to become loyal, but Damian's Beast Pet seemed to be stronger than him and also capable of understanding him completely.

Beasts could remember basic orders after being trained for years and punished when they fail to follow instructions, while rewarded when they do follow the instructions, however, the Monkey Beast seemed to be able to communicate at a very advanced level, considering that it was a beast.

"How does he have such a powerful and smart Beast Pet, that would be worth tens of thousands of spirit coins and could maybe even be sold for hundreds of thousands of spirit coins if it can continue to get stronger," said the leader of the group of royal academy students.

His subroutines were all slightly intimidated by the appearance of the Monkey Beast and were starting to lose confidence, while the student that Damian had attacked was on the verge of death and if he didn't receive any medical attention soon, he would pass away.

Despite that, the leader of the group of royal academy students was still confident in his own capability and that of his subordinates and the fact that Damian had a powerful Beast Pet, made him want to eliminate him even more.

If Damian was left to live and continue to grow and develop, he would become a major threat to the Royal Academy in the future and may even be able to stand on par with Darren Shan and the rest of the prodigies of the New Era.

Damian had heard of Beast Pets and had seen quite a few around the academy or in the city, but the one's he had seen had mostly been small and cute, or were used for transportation and farming.

Despite not seeing them, he knew that there were some that had powerful Beast Pets that assisted them in combat and even some that had Beast Pets that could fly and were loyal to them.

But those that had them were rare because of the obvious difficulty of acquiring, training and nurturing beast pets, which made being a beast tamer a very lucrative occupation.