As the bear’s paws neared Richie, Richie suddenly turn into black mist. The bear’s paws passed through the black mist, as the black mist flew near the bear’s head as Richie’s form reappeared.

“What happened?”

Aeron said in surprise, he had thought nothing of the monkey’s color other than they were natural, but he had neglected the fact that these monkeys might have skills with the exception of the standard Martial Monkey skills.

This was the first time Aeron had seen a monkey use its mana related skill with the exception of Arthur and the silver monkeys, of course he had seen the other monkeys use [Empowered Strike] but this was normal for Martial Monkeys to have.

As Richie reappeared in front of the Bear’s surprised head, Richie formed a knife hand before brutally piercing the bear’s eyes using [Empowered Strike]. The eyes were one of the most well-known weakness possessed by beasts.

“Kiii!”

Richie kicked the bear’s head as he landed on the ground, Richie looked visibly exhausted. Unlike Arthur and the silver monkeys, Richie and the other monkeys had far less mana capacity. Shifting skill were especially draining compared to other skills, even High-Grade Beasts used shifting skills sparingly unlike their other skills.

Thud

The Brown Bear fell down as Richie landed down, although Richie looked visibly exhausted, the joy and excitement were still apparent from its face. Martial Monkeys were very different from normal monkey beasts, as most monkey beast didn’t have the thirst battle that they possessed. Although this was so, the battle intent wasn’t very obvious when they lived in a peaceful environment, unlike their High-Grade Beast cousins, the Savage Baboon. As their name suggested, these beasts were born to fight, they would not allow any other beasts inside their territory even if they were Monkey Type Beasts. In fact, Aeron would know later on that some Monkey Kings even failed to subdue the Savage Baboons.

“Was that [Shadow Shift]? No no, [Shadow Shift] uses shadows as a medium, then it should be the elemental skill [Dark Shift]”

Aeron thought out loud as he tried the guess the skill Richie used, Arthur could write on the ground but was still limited by his words, thus there were still some things that Arthur could not accurately relay, skills were one of them. As Aeron had no way of translating beast language, he could only teach Arthur words with examples like gestures and objects. Aeron had especially taught Arthur the names of the beasts he knew about while using [Mana Shaping], this was to give Arthur an accurate image of the beast’s form. Skills were a bit more problematic, as such making Arthur translate the skill names into words was not yet possible.

As for elemental skills, these were skills that uses specific elements. Every human has a different affinity, be it in weapon, element, or even beast type affinity.

“Richie good job!”

Aeron said while Arthur also nodded like a superior commending his subordinate, which garnered a more emotional response from Richie. Aeron just thought it to be natural, this was the same between Arthur and him. If other people complemented Arthur then Arthur might just ignore the person altogether, but since Richie still had a connection with Aeron through Arthur, his complement was answered by a grateful nod. Anyways, the battle had really surprised Aeron, even if Richie didn’t use [Dark Shift] to quickly finish the battle, the Bear would’ve still been defeated after a few more exchanges.

“Richie rest for a bit”

Aeron said as he unsummoned Richie to the pet space, using the [Nurture] skill had a better effect on mana recovery as Aeron had discovered recently. All he had to do was hold a mana stone as he activated the [Nurture] skill on Richie. He had discovered this function when healing the silver wolves, of course he didn’t have a lot of mana stones so this method wasn’t very economical, but he just considered this as a compensation to Richie.

Aeron also asked Arthur to get the strongest brown monkey to show its mana related skill, if it had one. And as expected the brown monkey had learned a mana skill, but different from the black monkeys, the brown monkeys had learned a body reinforcement skill, which improved their strength and stamina. Unlike the shifting skills, body reinforcement skills could be used continuously because it only takes a small amount of mana to activate and maintain.

‘The king, the knight, the assassin, and the infantry, now I only need the mage to complete the set’, Aeron thought laughingly about the type composition of the monkeys under Arthur. This time he named the strongest brown monkey Alexander, which it happily accepted, as for the other monkeys he put the naming aside, for now. There were a lot of them, and he didn’t want to name them with haphazardly thought out names, although he wasn’t great at the naming, he still wanted to think a bit before naming the monkeys, and now wasn’t the time.

“Alright, let’s continue!”

Aeron said, this time he had Richmond lead the Black Team to scout. Their exploration continued on.

“Black Bear?”

Aeron thought for a bit, now that he knew that the color of the beast might have some significance to its ability and not just a natural color, he had to think things through before fighting it.

“Arthur, see if the bear is a Mid-Grade Beast, probe it for a bit before returning, if you think you can kill it quickly then do so, but if it’s not a Mid-Grade Beast and just near one then don’t touch it, report to me immediately” Aeron ordered.

“Kii!” Arthur replied as it quickly vanished into the trees.

Mid-Grade Beasts weren’t really a threat to the monkeys and with the help of Arthur and the silver monkeys even a Mid-Grade Bear wouldn’t last long. As for the possibility of the black bear being a High-Grade Beast the scouts would’ve noticed it.

Roar! Boom! Boom! Boom!

‘It seems like the battle already started’ Aeron thought, a bit disappointed, there was a chance the bear was a beast nearing Mid-Grade which he would happily add to his pets, but since the fight seemed serious that possibility was already nil. Of course, he wanted to see the battle, but unless he was forced to, he wouldn’t want to be near it. Mid-Grade Beasts were much faster than Low-Grade ones, and him, a Level 2 Tamer would easily be caught by one. The Dire Wolves were an exception as he was forced to face them at the time.

Arthur returned, dragging a massive bear with it, the bear was probably 7 meters tall. Unlike Low-Grade beasts, a Mid-Grade beast might have a chance of bearing a beast material, this was the case for peak Mid-Grade beasts. This was because a peak Mid-Grade beast or a beast on the cusp of evolving into a High-Grade one would have already formed a base core. A base core is as its name suggest, a core to be used as foundation. This bear seemed like a peak Mid-Grade Bear, if that was so then he might be left with a whole set of bear fur, as Bear type beasts would almost always choose Demon Beast evolution. This bear had probably finished fusing the core to its skin which prompted the color change. This was also true for his black and brown monkeys, as for Arthur and the silver monkeys they were special cases.

“Nice”

Aeron didn’t know how but Arthur was able to kill the bear cleanly. The bear was bleeding from its mouth which should mean that blow was either inside the mouth or some hit that was able mess the bears insides up. Also, this bear would probably be his first meat source since going here.

“Alright, Gwaine and Percival, bring your team and bring this bear to the base, put it in the storage room before returning” Aeron ordered as they continued their exploration.

“A bear sleeping in a cave?” Aeron said as Arthur relayed Richmond’s report. They had already killed more than a dozen bears, as Aeron felt like he was going to level up after a few more kills. This was the advantage of continuous battles, but this speed was only because he had been killing level 5 beasts with the help of his pet. But cross level kills were almost impossible for other people except for those geniuses, doing so continuously was even harder. This was only possible to Aeron with his army like pets, of course there might also be people out there capable of doing this feat. Just like the Governor of Isa, a Necromancer known for his ability of raising Undead Titans as not all Necromancer was able to do such thing.

“Arthur, check it out” Aeron said.

“Kii!”

Not even a minute passed, Arthur had already returned bearing good news.

“You mean It’s a peak level 5?!” Aeron asked with excitement, if this was so, then he would meet his second pet, people might think that he was a coward for not taking risk like taming Mid-Grade beasts instead of normal ones, but he didn’t care. This was even so because nobody knew his secret and most people only knew that he had a Martial Monkey.

‘It’s not like I’m one of those protagonists in novels hahaha like there’s actually people reading what is happening to me?’ Aeron mused for a bit, in the past, he had always fantasized about traveling back through time and redoing his life. As for fantasizing about traveling to different world, it wasn’t something he was really into. This was because he could imagine the things he would be doing when redoing his life, but entering a different world meant a very different mindset.

“Bring me there”

Aeron brimmed with excitement as he pulled his thoughts back to the bear, there was no fear or anxiety as he knew there was no danger in taming a Low-Grade beast even if it was almost a Mid-Grade one, its soul might be a bit bigger but that would be it.

ROAR!!

As Aeron and his monkey neared the cave, the bear noticed their arrival. This was also because Aeron had no plans of hiding their presence as they made their way to the cave. But different from the bears he had encountered, the bear only had 1 arm while one of its eye sockets was hollow, if it was a High-Grade Beast or a Mid-Grade beast with a base core, then it would have regenerated its missing body parts. Although it looked less threatening than the bears he had fought, this bear still brimmed with power, what was weirder was the way it was walking like a human and the length of its remaining limbs which were about a quarter longer than a normal bear. Aeron surmised that the bear had probably been walking this way for a long time because of its missing arms, it might also be because of this that it had develop longer limbs. Of course, it might just have been born with longer limbs.

Aeron had Arthur and the other monkeys retreat for a bit, this was so the bear doesn’t get offended enough to think that it was being ganged on, this was to prevent the bear from feeling aggrieved even after successfully taming it. This was according to the teachings of the Ironbull Family, as much as possible, tame a beast alone without company this was even more so if your company was another Professional, pets didn’t have this effect but Aeron wasn’t sure considering the sheer difference in number.

Aeron’s [Tame] skill also needed a distance of 10 meters or nearer to activate, that was 5 meters per level. Aeron slowly walked to the bear, 50 meters, 40 meters, 20 meters, 15 meters, 11 meters. But as he got to ten meters something unexpected happened.

Boom!

The ground boomed as the one-armed bear charged in Aeron’s direction, its speed was unimaginable for a bear to have as it traveled half the distance between it and Aeron in a blink of an eye, luckily Aeron had activated [Tame] immediately as he reached the 10-meter distance. If he delayed for a bit then it might have potentially become dangerous, he had only been surprised by the bears speed but there was still about a 5-meter distance between them, which should be enough to activate the skill before the bear was able to attack him.

Aeron’s eyes suddenly turned blue as a soul string attached between him and the one-armed bear which stopped the bear about 3 meters away from him. Aeron opened his eyes as he landed in the soul battlefield, the terrain took the form of a forest with a sparse number of trees. Just ahead of Aeron was a floating white fireball, but unlike his soul which was the size of a watermelon and could already take his human form, this bear’s soul was only the size of a fist and stayed as is, and could only move slowly by floating around.

This was the difference between a Low-Grade Beast and a newly awakened Tamer, this was also the reason why newly awakened Tamers could easily and safely tame beasts up to level 5. The size of a newly awakened soul was about twice the size of a fist, and could already take human form, while a normal Low-Grade beast soul’s size was a bit smaller than that of a fist. The one-armed bear’s soul already reached the size of a fist because it was already a step away from becoming a Mid-Grade beast.

The fight held no suspense as Aeron easily subdued the one-armed bear, Aeron felt the soul connection form between him and the one-armed bear, he felt his soul grow a bit. The one-armed bear on the other hand, was the biggest beneficiary, as its soul grew half a fist bigger. Aeron also felt something travel from the bear to him via the soul connection.

‘Probably the skill’ Aeron thought as he looked at his Status Plate.

Click Spoiler if Image doesn't show Spoiler: Spoiler

Level: 2

Name: Aeron Ironbull

Age: 16

Profession: Tamer

Innate Skill:

[Mana Manipulation]

Skill:

[Level Up (Anomalous)]

[Bestowal (Unique)] (1/5)

[Tame] (2/2)

[Heal Pet]

[Nurture]

[Golden Monkey King’s Martial Mastery]

[Accelerated Strike]

Pets:

[Golden Monkey King (Infant)]

Level: 5

Age: 1 year old

Innate Skill:

[Mana Circulation]

[Monkey Kings Might (Inactive)]

Skills:

[Monkey Kings Authority] (34/40)

[Golden Monkey King’s Martial Mastery]

[Make Staff]

[Metal Domination (Inactive)]

[Golden Armaments]

[Brown Bear]

Level: 5

Age: 100 years old

Innate Skill:

[Mana Circulation]

[Bear’s Might]

Skills:

[Survivor (Unique)]

[Accelerated Strike]

[Unnatural Stance Mastery]

“WOW!” Aeron exclaimed after seeing the bears stats, not only does it have an additional skill unlike normal bears, this one even had a Unique Skill. It did make sense though, if it were a normal bear, one limb less would’ve resulted in death after a few weeks.

The one-armed bear looked at Aeron in surprise, it was still bewildered by the situation but the soul connection slowly made things clearer. It had also surrendered completely which made things easier for it as it licked Aeron’s cheeks. The bear had to bow down to do this action, unlike Arthur’s intelligence the bear was more simple-minded. It was also at this time that Aeron truly noticed the bear’s true size, it was about 8.5 meters tall as it stood next to him. The Mid-Grade Bear was 4.5 meters tall when crouching and was probably 8.5 meters tall when standing. Of course, Aeron’s bear had longer limbs than normal so it wasn’t that unexpected.

“hehe, your name shall be Ursa,” Aeron elatedly said, even Arthur didn’t have a unique skill, he would probably be content with a normal bear but since he got a better one then he would happily accept.

Grrrrrr

Aeron felt Ursa’s elation as it licked him again. Aeron suddenly remembered his cat in the past as it would usually purr when elated, only Ursa’s purr sounded like a growl but still made him laugh happily too as he wiped the drool from his head.