Author’s Corner: Okay, so the plan of early sleep backfired. Enjoy the chapter! 50th chapter, 500 followers, and top 100 stories on RRL! All happy benchmarks.

On my way to the armor shop, I decided that the next element I would focus on cultivating would be water, due to the slime that had become my ‘animal’ companion. No matter what, having a high Water Affinity would be extremely good for me right now. As such, I began devoting a bit of my concentration to cultivating water mana while I walked.

It wasn’t much later that I had arrived at the designated armor shop. Inside, there were several different types of armors, ranging from medieval knights, scale armor, flak jackets, and some more advanced tech armor. Thankfully, I didn’t see my old snake scale armor here, or I would have had to accuse them of stealing it from me.

Though, their prices were a bit… expensive. Maybe I had just been spoiled with my old armor since I had provided the materials for it, but even an armor of similar quality would cost me roughly twenty silver now. I was sorely tempted to just forget about armor and use my aspect spell to defend myself. Then again, for now that was my only real choice.

With a sigh, I left the store and went off to find another terminal. This time, I asked about the planet I was on, and if there was a nearby hunting ground suitable for leveling up. What I learned was the planet’s name, Gallen 4, and that there was a level forty hunting ground outside of the city. Level forty.. No wonder the armor was so expensive.

“What are the available methods to level up?” I asked the terminal in resignation, knowing that I could not do so the old fashioned way while I was here.

“The most common way to level up is to defeat enemies, taking in a bit of their essence after they lose a battle. You may also level up by increasing your own ability through training, improving your life skills, or various obscure methods such as absorbing the energy of certain powerful objects.”

That last one is pretty much up to luck. Looks like it’s training for me. Though, what level have my birds gotten to from training in seclusion this entire time?

“Is there a way to measure the level and skills of an animal companion?” The terminal should be able to answer this, so I might as well ask while I’m here.

“The Identify software for a companion, priced at roughly five silver, is capable of determining an animal companion’s approximate level. Skill levels must be evaluated at a trainer, or by having the companion bracelet upgraded to more accurately read the mana of external sources.”

I gave another tired sigh. “How much is that upgrade?”

“One gold coin.” I swear, I almost coughed up blood when I heard that. I didn’t have half of that amount, and would likely not be getting it in the near future, either. Thankfully, I still had plenty to get myself a hotel room for a while, and hope that training my affinities would count as training to level me up.

But first, I went to visit a trainer, following the map I had gotten from the terminal. It may have just been an idle curiosity, but I wanted to know how high Yin’s Wind Affinity and Yang’s Nature Magic had gotten. After that, I still needed to go see if my Technomancy was high enough yet to create the interface in my head that could hold Celeste.

So, first stop, a beast trainer! When I arrived there, I found a single stall with a fairly attractive human woman standing behind the counter. She had all the right curves in all the right places, and a fairly revealing outfit to show them. “Hello there.” She smiled over at me. “Looking to get a new beast, or have one appraised?”

I blinked, a bit stunned there for a moment before pulling myself together. Women really know how to use their assets to bring in business… “I’m looking to get my birds appraised. I want to see how close they are to evolving, and heard this would be the right place to find out.”

The woman nodded her head, smiling a bit wider. “Yup, this is the place. Just bring them on out, and we can get started.”

I nodded, remembering finally that Yin and Yang were both in my grove still, and retrieved them right away. They appeared as a stream of light emerging from my chest, and each took shape on my shoulders, claiming their usual perches. Well.. at least I’ll be able to tell the two of them apart after the evolve.

“Oh? Lovebirds, huh? Not a very common choice for people looking for combat pets. Still, looks like you’re a druid, so they can be trained just like anything else. Their usual noncombat status actually lowers the requirements for evolution a bit.” She looked at the two birds, smiling as she explained. “Now, let’s get started with this one.” She pointed to Yang first, and her companion bracelet lit up. A deep male voice, like that of a butler sounded out from it.

“Level eighteen. Most notable skill, Nature Magic at Basic Level 8.”

Upon hearing the words, I was a bit shocked again, while the trainer simply nodded with a wide smile. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Now, as for the other one…” She then pointed to Yin, and the same voice rang out from her wrist.

“Level fifteen. Most notable skill, Wind Affinity at 16%.”

For some reason, I felt a bit defeated when I found out that my animal companions were each better than me in their chosen fields. However, the woman’s next words made me pause a bit. “Hmm, looks like she’s approaching the bottleneck. You’ll have to spend quite a bit of effort to get her to evolve with the affinity.”

“Bottleneck?” I asked curiously, having not known that there was such a thing in druid cultivation.

“Hmm? Ah, right. Your teacher must not have told you. Well, the standard cultivating method slows down drastically after 20%, and doesn’t advance it at all after 25%. At that point, the mana being taken in is no longer purifying your own innate mana, and you need to start refining medium grade elemental seeds, then absorbing them into your aura to advance. That should carry you through until 50%, at which point you do the same thing with high quality seeds until 75%, and finally top quality seeds take you up to 100%.”

“So basically, I need Yin to start absorbing mana from medium-grade Seeds of Wind soon, in order for her to be able to reach 30% and evolve?”

“That’s right.” She gave a quick nod. “Though, she might hit the level to evolve before that anyways. It’s pretty hard to get up to 30% in an affinity before hitting level twenty, unless you leave them with a trainer that can stop their level growth while they cultivate.”

I thought about it seriously for a bit. It would really be nice to have a Windslayer pet, honestly. “How much would that cost?”

She grinned slightly at my question. “Well, given her level, I’d say ten silver, plus the resources. If you can teach her to refine Seeds of Wind on her own, that would save you quite a bit of trouble. Otherwise, buying them myself would up the price a lot. As for the time, it would take about two weeks for her to advance from her current state to 30% with my help.”

Why must everything good be so expensive? “Sorry, I can’t really afford that, since I haven’t even been able to refine a medium-grade seed yet. If I can, and am able to teach her how to do so before she evolves, I’ll come back.”

The trainer nods with an understanding expression. “Yeah, it can be hard on lower level people to train up for a really good pet. Most people wait to get their ideal pet until they are able to afford it all in one go, and then leave their pet with a trainer until it evolves to the form they want. For birds, we get requests to evolve them into phoenixes all the time. But doing it yourself is better, I think. I mean, not to belittle my own business or the like, but leaving an animal with a trainer for a long period will really reduce its loyalty towards you. Especially a lovebird like yours, as they are really possessive, and can be quite sensitive towards their bonded partner.”

My eye twitched as I heard that I could have had a phoenix. That was almost definitely a fire type final evolution, and something that I would never get with Yin. “I can see how that would be an issue. Wouldn’t be good to leave an animal with someone, then come back and have it attack you, right?”

She nodded her head again as I said that. “Exactly. There are some species that will stay loyal even if left alone for a long time, but those are typically more of the canine races. A few feline races are like that, but they are rare. As for birds… I’ve yet to meet one personally that was still willing to show the same loyalty after being left alone for a full evolution process.” She shook her head with a somewhat sad expression.

“I see… I’m sorry for troubling you, then.” I was about to turn to leave when I looked back curiously. “What about slimes?”

The woman looked up, raising a curious eyebrow. “Slimes? Well, slimes are typically extremely loyal to whoever’s mana they are composed of at their birth. Taming a slime is much harder than simply creating one, but only certain techniques are able to give birth to a slime. And, if you choose to refine their cores to a higher quality rather than strengthening their slime body, they have the potential to become true elementals.”

That part surprised me, as it was the first I had heard of a slime becoming an elemental. Though, it did make sense. If an elemental’s core was a top quality elemental seed, then a slime’s core could eventually change into it if refined properly. Would I rather have a slime person, or a water elemental?

The female trainer smiled slightly, seeing me think about it. “Looks like you have one of your own. Well, a bit of advice. While an elemental is almost undefeatable when in their element, the opposite is also true when they are out of it. Unless your slime is a wind slime or a fire slime, it’d be best to give up on that path.”

I smiled a bit and thanked her for that. “What about an ocean slime?”

“Hmm, those are quite powerful, since their bodies can change size to become as large as a city or as small as the palm of your hand. However, they’re basically just bigger versions of the standard water slime, unless you put it in an actual ocean. Then, they can merge with the water and control it as if it were their own body. If you’ve got a water slime, though, I’d suggest training it to be a mimic slime instead. Those are more versatile, and if they can evolve into a sentient slime, they will gain the ability to practice any kind of magic, just like a normal slime person. Of course, their innate loyalty only lasts until the sentience stage, just like any other creature. After that, they have a mind of their own and can choose who they follow.”

I nodded my head, thanked her and left again. I’d need to train for a while longer, and then get a job so that I could afford new gear before moving out to the hunting ground or buying my way onto a ship. Either way, at this rate Yang would easily evolve before I left, since she only had two levels to go. I’d need to find somewhere to take Yo to level up as well, which would probably be the hard part. Maybe I could have Yo absorb the water mana of defeated monsters to level up?

I thought about it, and that was likely the easiest method to level Yo up. Maybe I could feed him some poison herbs and have him poison enemies to death before absorbing them. At this point, Celeste spoke up from my wrist, breaking me out of my train of thought. “So… Yang is about to evolve and become a sentient race?” She had a somewhat awkward expression as she asked that.

“Probably pretty soon, yeah. Why?”

She coughed lightly, and I could see her cheeks darkening. “You already forgot what happened the last time they thought you would be the same species as them..?”

I blinked, confused for a moment, before I suddenly thought that this was no longer a good idea. “Maybe she’ll lose that characteristic when she evolves?” It was either that, or me shoving a horny bird girl into my grove to cool off.

“Yeah… You go ahead and hope for that....” She giggled cutely, making me shake my head. I shall not be conquered by a bird!

My next stop was an implant store, which also advertised as being a great place to train Technomancy. After all, implants would be practically the same thing as what I’ve done to my eye. Inside the store were various prosthetics, and a few chips and small devices. Each one was held behind a barrier, similar to what they used in the pet store to prevent people from scanning the animals.

“Welcome, welcome!” I heard an energetic male voice from the back of the store, and soon a black skinned, green eyed golem walked out from a door at the back. “Welcome, welcome to War’s Stores. Feel free to look around, and let me know if you are interested in anything.” His granite face twisted into a smile as he spoke, waving his arms around like a show’s host.

Seeing his overly dramatic display, I sighed and shook my head. “I’m looking for an implant that would store a companion AI. Do you have anything like that?”

The man brought his hand up to his chin in thought, and I could almost see the lightbulb go off in his head. “Yes, we do indeed! Right this way.” He led me over to one of the display cases, which held a small computer chip suspended by over a dozen thin wires. “This is the companion implant, able to substitute as a holding station for your companion AI and prevent its loss in case of the wristband being lost or broken. Of course, you’ll still need to purchase any hardware upgrades if the bracelet is broken.”

The two birds chirped up from my shoulder, and I nodded my head slightly. “Is it possible to study the device? I’m practicing Technomancy, and would prefer to be able to do it myself than to let someone dig around my skull, no offense.”

The golem seemed to frown slightly, but nodded. “Hmm, yes, I can understand that. Well, as a standard, it’s 20% of the product’s cost to study it. In the case of this implant, that means five silver. Of course, we can not be held responsible for any injuries done as a result of studying the device. We can only advise you not to tamper with your brain casually.”

Remembering what happened when I tried to upgrade my camera eye, I nodded my head. The cost was definitely worth it for me, even if I had to pay full price and got the implant. By now, a lot of people in the real world would be able to identify a companion AI bracelet, and seeing one on the outside could make people want to take it and study it. That would definitely not be a good thing.