Owari got up early as always and had to wait for Noel to wake up. Then he had to wait until she was satisfied with lying on him before he could finally get up. By the end he thoroughly smelt like her much to her amusement. He didn’t mind it and he was much calmer than last time. He smiled and kissed her goodbye before going off to visit his tamed beasts. He needed to give them attention sometimes.

“Mirra, same as always I see.” Owari chuckled at the tree. “Shrink.” He called. Soon Mirra started to shrink until it finally reached the size of a person. “Not enough yet huh?”

Owari had made a plan for Mirra. It took too much energy for it to fight for itself. So instead he planned to have it evolve so that it can shrink and lighten its weight. Then he could have it turn into a very dense and powerful sword for him to use. Of course his eventual goal is to make it so it doesn’t have to lighten itself, but that would require strength that goes beyond just superhuman.

As for its other traits he was evolving it towards, that would be it’s apples. He was having it evolve to ripen them faster so the period of time it would have them would decrease and the amount it could produce per season would increase. For now it could produce two harvests of apples. One of which would be ready around the end of July.

After finishing his checks on Mirra, Owari went over to Fang’s living space. It was a house sized plot of land. It would dig mud tunnels under it and close them leading to endless fun. That is when it wasn’t training using the techniques Owari thought up for it. He walked over and the big guy came up from under the ground in much the same way a dog would pop its head out of water.

“You’ve gotten bigger, and stronger.” The salamander was now the size of a small car, it was already too big for this enclosure. He’d have to get a bigger one. “You should try evolving some kind of defensive attribute next.” Owari guided it, he didn’t control Fang’s evolution as much other than some guidance.

He pulled out a fish he bought on the way here and fed it to the salamander. It was a rather good fish and Fang seemed to enjoy it. Owari went out and asked if the place had a bigger plot of land available and was in luck as they did. He checked it out and rented it out for Fang. This one was about the size of a basketball court. Such places were rare as the city mostly had houses and shops lining the streets. Places like this were expensive to keep running and so they charged a decent amount. Luckily Owari didn’t value money outside of using it for what he needed.

Next he went to a different rental service and visited Hebi. It was currently swimming around in a large pool. “You’re close to growing a fourth head. Once I feed you some more do you think you’ll manage to do so?” He asked, and the snakeheads all nodded in unison. One thing about hydras was that they grew smarter for every head they had. Currently it has the intelligence of a child, but once it has nine heads it will be like a genius chess master. Owari rubbed the heads of the hydra in turn and then left. Hebi preferred solitude more than any of his three main beasts.

Owari made his way to the warehouse with the spiders. He went inside and brought out some food he had bought along the way. He would feed them about once a week. They ate slowly and mostly spent their time still. Once he started having them produce silk he would need to spend more money on nutritional food, but for now he could let them grow.

Next he made his way to the Orion Tradecenter and talked to Tristain about the workers. He found out that they would be ready in two days and he was glad Owari stopped by. Luckily they knew Owari would be in town around this time because it was about time for the contract to expire and he’d need to bring them all the maps and the data on the beasts he killed.

Owari left and went home after that. There was no reason to stick around, he’d be seeing Tristain again the next few days. Instead he slowly put together all of the information he collected during these few months and compiled it into a neat and easy to understand pile of papers. There were actually quite a few. He packed them into boxes filling up six chest sized boxes. He planned on packing them onto the back of the cart and bringing them over tomorrow. He already received his pay, he had checked the bank. It was a sign of the trust they had built up with one another.

The next day was rather by the books. Owari brought in all of the information he had collected throughout the last three months and handed it over. There was a commotion when they found out he had so much, but in the end that mostly just meant he had done a thorough job so they couldn’t really complain. Though it did mean a lot of work for them. It was the next day when things got interesting for Owari.

“So these are the ones you picked out?” Among the thirteen people in front of owari were people of varying ages and gender. There were a few people who were barely adults, some aged adults, and even an old woman.

“They’re all trustworthy hardworking people with good work ethic.” Tristain complimented them. “Especially Ethel. She’s actually more of a veteran. I’m not sure why she agreed to move jobs.”

“I just wanted to get out of those stuffy factories. Working the same job for some massive corporation where they don’t care about the individual. Just the numbers on the spreadsheet.” She was an older woman with greying hair, however she still had a youthful face and she showed no signs of weakening.

“I can’t say you're wrong.” Tristain wasn’t in charge of that branch of work.

“Of course I’m not.” She scoffed. “Anyway, I knew they said you were young, but I wasn’t expecting this.” She looked over at Owari with interest.

“I admit I’m young. But don’t think you can take advantage of it to cheap out on work or anything.” He addressed everyone.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Ethel immediately responded. “You can call me Granny, everyone else does.” She held out her hand which Owari took.

“My name is Owari. You’ve got an interesting nickname.” Owari never really knew his grandparents so it was an unfamiliar term to him.

“It just stuck.” She laughed carefreely.

“Well it’s good to have you onboard Granny.” Owari used the term somewhat awkwardly, he wanted to get used to it.

“Seems you aren’t all that used to the nickname. What did you call your grandmothers?” She was curious about the kid in front of her.

“Never met them.” Owari shrugged. Everyone in the room was shocked. He hadn’t met any of them? Were they all dead or did his family cut contact? They all had questions but nobody voiced them. “Anyway that isn’t important. I want to sign over the beast contracts with everyone here. And before you get all excited and think you can make a run for it with my spiders, my mark is only going to be dormant. I can break your contract at any time.” Owari warned.

“Is that even possible?” Ethel was shocked.

“Of course, why do you think those companies trusted you with their beasts? Although the prerequisite is that I have to have more mana than you. Though considering I’m a mid gold rank hunter I’m pretty confident in my ability to overpower anyone here’s mana.” Owari flashed a smile. He was using his rank as a deterrent. He even took out his hunter's license to prove his rank.

“Impressive.” Ethel didn’t fully know the implications of such a feat, but it was indeed impressive to be a gold rank hunter regardless of age.

“It’s more than impressive.” Tristain said from the side but didn’t elaborate.

“Now then let’s begin signing all the documentation and transferring the beasts over.” Owari quickly led them inside the warehouse which he had slowly updated with all kinds of workstations. This would allow them to work with the spiders more easily. They were designed so they would work with the spiders even after they grew. One good thing about magical beasts used for this kind of thing is that they never grow as powerful as their wild cousins.

Owari introduced them to the spiders they’d be working with. Nobody balked at them and they all soon signed all of the necessary paperwork and everything went smoothly. Owari gave them some special dyes and gave them an instruction manual he had made after testing it with one of the spiders. Their goal was to teach the spiders to dye the silk as they make it so it would be more natural in color. He gave the pre-trained one to Ethel so she could share the experience it had and watch over the others to make sure they do it right.

Soon enough Owari was able to leave everything to them. He could still sense some vague things from the spiders. The only thing he could tell was if they were taken out of the building which they would warn him about so he could instantly break the bond they have with their temporary masters. It was quite convenient, though it had cost him more than he’d like to have bought the method of doing this.

As for where the silk would go, 50% would go to the Orion Tradecenter to export, while the other 50% would be sent to various local tailors and some would even be stored for later sale. He had a warehouse already set up for the business. He had also taken the time to submit all of the proper paperwork to have his business recognized as a legal business.

It wouldn’t be making much profit for a while, but it would eventually make it’s due. Owari was sure it would eventually make enough to be worth the effort. He didn’t actually care too much if it worked out well, as long as it didn’t lose him money. It was more of a hobby than anything. He wanted to see if he could properly run a business. It was out of curiosity after dealing with so many externally run businesses.

After finishing all of that up, Owari went back to his place. He planned on going to see Noel tomorrow. He was going to go into the forest for a training excursion. He wanted to reach high gold rank, but he would need to find a high gold magical beast to fight. His main method of growth and the only one that would allow him to grow as quickly as the real geniuses was for him to fight against stronger enemies and forcefully grow to survive.

The next day he visited Noel as planned. It was a very standard meeting. She was also planning on going out soon though not for as long as Owari might be gone. The only difference between this meeting and the ones before it was that this time he got a kiss goodbye. He was surprised since it had been Noel who initiated it despite being outside. She seemed to be getting more bold and confident. Owari just smiled and made his way out over to Lance and Rebecca’s that day to tell them he’d be gone.

He left the next day towards the mining forest nearby. He wanted to pierce deep into the territory of the magical beasts this time. As he made his way there though he found he was being followed much to his annoyance. It was a group of three, and they were all just as fast as he was. They showed no signs of slowing down. Owari considered what to do, they didn’t seem to be trying to hide. When he looked back they were all wearing cloaks and hoods to hide themselves. However he knew who they were. It was Howling Wulf, he recalled the time he had first been hunted by one of their members. He had used the exact same style of cloak.

Owari wondered if he should just head back, but not only was it not his style, they would just keep coming back. Owari went straight for the place he had killed that first member. He always hid his cart there and he thought it would be ironic to fight there again. He ordered Fang and Hebi to ignore the enemy for now and wait. He also noticed that there was a vehicle with a trailer big enough to fit a few magical beasts hooked to it. He would need these two to hold off the enemies magical beasts.

When he arrived at the location he turned around to see three people all walk out from behind a tree. “You should have turned back.” The one in the center position spoke as he took off his hood showing a handsome man in his twenties with brown hair. He pulled out a long sword from under his cloak.

“I’m glad he didn’t.” A woman’s voice came from the right person who uncovered her face to show a pretty girl with red hair and a freckled face. She gripped a spear in one hand and pointed it at Owari.

The third member silently kept his cloak on without showing his weapons. Owari guessed he was an assassin type who used hidden weapons and instantly upped his wariness towards this one. As soon as the three had ‘introduced’ themselves three beasts also came out from the other side of Owari, flanking him. One was a large black wolf with red eyes, another was a panther with white fur, and the last was a lizard with metallic steel-colored scales.

Owari didn’t waste words, he immediately used the improved phantom step to flash towards the spear woman while drawing his sword. She spun her spear and intercepted his fast swung sword, her spear flashed silver as it struck Owari’s blade. Owari’s swing barely slowed, however she had redirected his strike. Before she could celebrate her successful parry he punched her in the gut with his absurd strength causing her to start uncontrollably coughing. Before he could take advantage of this however, the man with the longsword had arrived using his own movement technique.

Owari dodged the first swing, however the man kept swinging. He seemed to have a technique like Owari’s blade swarm stream. However he needed to take advantage of the double edge nature of his blade and dark mana to achieve this effect. It was clearly an imperfect version of the blade swarm stream. To prove this Owari dodged each strike. A tilt of the body here, a duck there, a back step after. So on and so forth he dodged each attack.

As he dodged he suddenly swung his sword and knocked a group of needles from the air using his moth wing strike’s wave of wind to throw them off. Next he suddenly jumped back and did a backflip dodging an attack from the man while also dodging a group of three razor-sharp beams of silver light that came from the woman who had flanked from the side. As he landed Owari used the phantom step to jump up onto a branch above to get a breather.

The man however did not seem to want to give him this chance and rushed after him using his own movement technique. Owari jumped back and fell towards the ground. However at this moment the woman shot another group of three beams of silver light at him. Owari did his best to dodge the attack by shifting his weight but they still cut open his arm, flank, and leg.

Owari landed and ignored these wounds and rushed the woman. She laughed as she assumed his wounds would slow him down and raised her spear to pierce him. As she stabbed forward using a piercing mystic art for good measure, Owari’s body flashed blue as he stabbed forward as well. He used his left hand to knock the spear off the path to his heart. His hand was cut up and the spear still blasted through his gut, but he also pierced the woman’s head.

The two others seemed to be shocked by this, but they both started to laugh darkly. They thought they killed Owari at the cost of only one member. Of these members, the woman and hidden man were low gold, and the swordsman was mid gold. They wanted to ensure Owari’s death, after all he had basically humiliated them three times. When he killed their representative, when he killed their gold rank talent, and when he refused their offer to join them publicly. Everyone who knew the insider information of the Howling Wulf agency was aware of what Owari had done. Even if they didn’t know who he was they still knew someone had spat in the Howling Wulf Agencies face.

Owari however was obviously not dead. His body continued to radiate a blue glow. He used his steel fang to cut the shaft of the spear down so it was lodged in his gut. Then he smiled and used phantom step to approach the hidden man who was shocked. He immediately responded by throwing out a number of needles that were surrounded by white light that shot at Owari fast. He got his head and heart out of the way of them but his chest and stomach were pierced through.

Owari ignored this and used dark steel fang as the man lifted up a pair of short swords. His sword spit the man’s swords and neck cutting his head clean off. After that Owari wasted no time and rushed the final man. The man swung his dark light enveloped sword at Owari. A black wave rose up and tried to swallow Owari. But he swung his blade and used screeching wing to split it into pieces.

He continued his rush undaunted. The man swung his sword normally this time, he had used a lot of mana so far and wanted to conserve it to try and outlast Owari. However Owari slowed down suddenly as he neared the man by deactivating the phantom affinity. As he did he tilted his head where the attack was aimed. The sword swung into his forehead shallowly, then split diagonally across his eye and through his cheek.

Owari swung his sword the next moment and used dark steel fang just in case to cut the man’s head clean off. He wanted to waste no time in an endurance battle. He was currently dying after all. As soon as he killed the last man he rushed to his pack and pulled out two vials of medicine and downed them. These were blood clotting medicines that would stop his internal bleeding for a time. Then he pulled out three small pills and threw them down his throat. These pills were meant to speed up blood production and would make up for all the bleeding he had done and would be doing.

After that he checked in on Fang and Hebi only to see that of the three beasts they were fighting, the wolf was lying injured on the ground and the other two fled as soon as their masters died. Owari didn’t bother focusing on this. He made his way over to the three beasts. He was originally planning on killing the wolf. However he noticed that the wolf held no hostility towards him. It even seemed grateful.

Seeing this Owari walked over to it and branded it with his beast taming brand. It easily accepted and he was able to see why it was so grateful. It had been abused and mistreated by its previous master. Looking through some of its further back memories he realized this was a common occurrence among the Howling Wulf Agency. What those people didn’t know was that even if the beasts couldn’t fight back or refuse their orders, they could do the bare minimum within the orders they’ve been given. Only by treating your beasts with kindness could you gain their loyalty.

Owari had no time to revel in victory. He had Hebi carry him back and load him on the cart. Then he had Fang drag the cart back to the city as fast as he could. The other two beasts stayed back for now as they would only slow them down. They were both gold rank beasts, Hebi was almost mid gold, and the wolf was low gold rank so they could take a mid gold rank if necessary.

Owari continued to take blood clotting medicine all the way back. It was a wonder drug, but not perfect. One side effect was that if he didn’t get treated quickly then he would die from clogged arteries. It was a race against time. As Fang neared the town, Owari crawled onto its back and did his best to stay sitting. He had it ditch the cart and run to the gate as fast as possible.

When they approached the guards stopped them. Owari flashed his ID. They let him pass after seeing him covered in blood and pale as a ghost and Owari laid on Fang’s back as it gingerly carried him to the nearby emergency service building. Owari crawled off his salamander’s back and stumbled his way into the emergency room.

“What’s your emergency?” The woman behind the counter asked.

“Internal bleeding.” Owari answered as he propped himself against the counter.

“Alright. I’ll let them know.” The woman knew this was serious based on Owari’s appearance and immediately clicked a button under the counter indicating a high priority injury had occurred.

Not even a minute later a man walked out of the back doors and after seeing Owari walked over and lent him his shoulder. The two made their way to a nearby room. Owari got undressed and showed his wounds. He had numerous holes in his chest and stomach, as well as a spear shaft lodged in his gut. The man smiled wryly.

“I’ll put you under and deal with all of this. Take this medicine.” He handed Owari a pill which he took immediately, he was exhausted and wanted to pass out, but his instincts wouldn’t let him.

“How long will it take?” Owari squeezed out through the pain. His lungs were half-filled with blood and it felt like he was suffocating.

“Not long, it’ll just be us injecting a few high powered medicine into you.” The doctor reassured him.

“And the cost?” Owari asked as he started to get drowsy.

“Don’t worry about that for now.” The doctor tried not to agitate the patient.

“I’ll pay, I just wanted to know a bit if possible. Looks like I’m out though.” Owari passed out as soon as he stopped talking. The doctor looked at Owari like he was a freak as soon as he was asleep. The medicine he had given him could knock a horse out in an instant if they took it. Let alone an injured human.