After reading about the druid Green Cessation and their relations with their animal companion, I skipped to the end of the diary.

Eventually, The Lightborn created the Heralds of All guild so they could expand the influence of the new gods. Of course, the guild's name changed later, but that's irrelevant. Saint Valentine heralded the predatory healthcare system we know today. What's the opposite of irony? It makes sense for a man like that to create something just like him.

It doesn't say where my grandfather ended up, just that he retired, but Aurelius is a different matter. He is being "detained" for his own health. Okay. My brain isn't itching more than before I started this, so I'm good. I go to my garden and see Rob smacking away at that safe. I gave him a book on lockpicking, but that didn't work, so he's using ol' reliable.

I round up my beasts and head out to find master Giles.

~

About a third of the institute is various terrains, but that's not where master Giles is. He has his own private abode. I found out after giving up and messaging master Wang about his address. They both live in the same district, where all the rich people who don't live in skyscrapers live. Master Giles has vines and other vegetation coating the walls surrounding his land. A blue-furred monkey wearing an apron and wielding garden shears gives me a nod as it walks past me and starts trimming some hedges. I don't know what that thing is. It's not in my [Lexicon].

[??? ? ???]

Cool. I buzz myself in and take in the atmosphere. The home is in the middle of his land, and the surrounding area is filled with trees or other simulated terrains. A lake with an island has a gazebo with a single occupant. A brown and yellow rooster riding a yellow ox trods past me. They both look at me before looking away in unison. The rooster clucks, and I swear they start laughing. They continue on their way.

I head toward the structure on the lake, walking on the lake's surface with my boots. Something huge slithers under the water but leaves before I could get a better look. Master Giles is watering some potted flowers, whistling a tune I don't recognize.

"Master Giles."

"Oh, Ellis. Help me finish up here, and we can begin."

I pull out the mana organ and start watering the plants. I recognize some of them from one of the new additions to my [Lexicon]. These plants are poisonous.

"Hehe, like them? I use them to make certain medicine. I'd grow them in my herb garden, but they'd hurt the ground."

"What kinds of medicine."

"Well, this one would cause humans to defecate themselves to death, but for Big Yellow, the ox, it's a mild laxative. This one is a sleep aid for Little Blue. You might have seen him on your way in."

I was tempted to ask if those were nicknames or their actual names, but I decided to keep quiet and finish watering the plants. [Floral, Fungi, & Everything Else that will Poison you.] has all these plants and their effects, but they don't mention the medical uses of these plants. I note these things down as he talks about each plant as he gets to them.

~

After finishing, master Giles takes a seat on a bench and gestures for me to come over.

"What level are you, and what rank is your class and taming skill."

"One hundred, C, and B"

"Hmm, did Wang tell you to stop leveling?"

"Yes."

"Well, that doesn't apply to your beasts. Messing with essence is human exclusive, at least so far it is. I can see your beast's level and rank, so the first thing would be getting them up to one hundred."

"I have a question."

"I'm listening, my student."

"I heard from a student named Heather about a hidden function with beasts regarding ranks. Something about getting stronger."

"Ah, Heather is one of my students. She's been with me for over three years now. You might run into her if she remembers to visit her master. What about that function?"

"All my beasts started at rank F and are now at rank C. They skipped rank E or D. Will that lock them out of the hidden function?"

This is something that's been weighing at the back of my mind. Rob skipped rank D while my other beasts skipped rank E. Flash Gordon doesn't have a rank, so I don't know where he stands.

"Hmm, we'll fix that later."

"How?"

"After getting them to their evolution at level one hundred, we'll reset them to level fifty with some herbs and spices. It'll be inconvenient, but that should work out that discrepancy. The number of evolutions has to equal the rank. F is 0, E is 1 so on and so on. Artificially requiring another one will put things back into place. Doing this more than once per beast might affect potential, so keep that in mind."

"I see. Thank you, master Giles."

"But first, we'll get your beasts to level one hundred. Let's see you and your beasts in action."

~

I'd thought master Giles would have a fracture on site, but we had to walk to master Wang's house and occupy his fracture instead. Master Giles explained that master Wang has a zerg fracture, meaning that he has a pocket dimension that'll almost infinitely spawn monstrosities. Master Giles doesn't like the idea of people going into environments and killing the inhabitants for profit. He can accept that death is necessary for life, but it still doesn't sit right with him. Zerg fractures are different since they aren't environments but battlefields. The creatures need to be culled, or else the safety of the people living in the city and the surrounding lands are at risk. Zerg fractures are unstable fractures that reach a new equilibrium. Usually, unstable fractures shatter, causing the inhabitants to become free in our world.

"I'm going to speak to Wang. It might be helpful if we combined some of our lesson plans. This dual custody system might not be beneficial without a proper schedule. However, today you aren't the focus. I've seen your beasts during the tournaments, so I have an idea of their strengths, but I want to see more."

"Does that mean I'm not fighting?"

"No. Your beasts are your strength as much as you are their strength. We aren't here to see them fight solo, so why would I take you away from them."

We meet master Wang in front of the room where he stores his fractures. He looks master Giles in the eyes and looks at my beasts before looking at me. He notices that Khan is wearing armor.

"Did Giles give you that?"

I nod.

"One second."

Master Wang walks away and returns five minutes later, holding a long strip of cloth.

"Where is your sword?"

I summon my sword for him with a spray of my blood. I hand it over to him, hilt first. He grabs onto it, and the sword immediately tries to puncture his flesh with barbs, but he seems unfazed by it. He stops what he's doing and looks the blade up and down, running his finger along the barbs.

"This is a decent blade. I only used my body until I learned weapon fighting as a hobby. It looks different from the last time I've seen it."

"Yeah, I can change the shape with some limitations."

"I just added something to you're to-do list, but you're busy with something else. Have fun in the fracture,"

"What was that leaving and coming back thing, master Wang,"

"I wasn't going to be outdone by Giles over here, so I was going to gift you something as well. However, this particular item wouldn't help too much as you already have something similar in the form of your blade. I'll find something else in storage."

I thank master Wang and enter the fracture with my beasts and Giles following behind me. I won't turn down a free rank A item.

~

The first thought that went through my mind when I first stepped foot in the fracture was "dusty."

The ground is gray, and dust gets kicked up with the slightest movement. The sky is black, and a single red sun hangs in the sky, frozen. The land is dark, not from the lack of light but from the colors enveloping this fracture. The gravity feels unnatural. It's heavier the further you get from the ground. Duchess can't fly, and Khan can barely float a few feet off the ground. We are on a cliff overlooking a cloud of dust. A battle is happening just below us. Clashing of metal echoes as cheers and shouts fill the fracture.

"Ellis. Wang and I have different personalities and values, but we have some overlapping ideals."

"What would that be?"

"One would be that we don't need useless disciples."

I feel a foot firmly plant itself on my back as I fly off the cliff. I barely manage to turn and look just in time to see my tamed beasts jettisoned off the cliff after me. I land hard on the ground, almost knocking the wind out of me and filling my lungs with dust. Duchess manages to use her wings to slow her descent enough that she won't get hurt from the fall. Khan Doesn't even hit the ground while Rob scatters into hundreds of pieces.

I knew it was too good to be true. Hey Duchess, how did he kick all of Khan off at once?

[It was a mouse he concealed in his pocket.]

My response is cut short as a man-shaped hyena wearing scrap armor and wielding a spear charges at me. A timely [Telekinesis] from Duchess causes the spear to go wide.

[Gnoll lv 120]

Ah, it's one of the races, like the goblins I found in the [Snowstorm] fracture. I wildly swung my sword and hit a part of the gnoll's neck that wasn't protected by armor.

Critical Hit!

-1472!

The gnoll gets decapitated. Its head falls to the ground as its body still stands. It takes a second for the creature to slump to the ground. They are everywhere. It's a free-for-all in here, bodies are being dropped left and right, and those with a moment to rest are feasting on their fallen kin. Mismatched armor and crude weapons made from simple metals break and shatter, only for the gnolls to use their hands and jaws instead.

The highest level around here is 160, double my beast's current. Rob finally reassembled himself at this point. I could walk up the cliff and confront master Giles, but I think this is a test rather than a betrayal. He could've just killed me.

~

Khan relishes in the chaos of the battlefield. The spilled blood and exposed flesh only awakened something primal inside of him. The dust storm slowly turns into a thunderstorm as Khan swarms the injured and less fortunate. I gave Rob full rein to collect as many bones as he wanted, and I swore his eye sockets changed into hearts. He scurried off into the shifting shadows of the battlefield, cracking and stealing skulls to his "heart's" content.

Duchess stays near me as she isn't used to being contained to the ground. I keep my [Martyr] skill on her as he microwaves the battlefield, earning her as many kills as Khan. Gnolls that get too close to Duchess get trashed around with [Telekinesis]. Sometimes she stuns them with [Interference] and executes with a [Ray].

Flash Gordon also stays near me, scrambling skulls and keeping a watch on my back. I keep the high-level gnolls occupied so one of my beasts can finish them. I start being a bit more commanding as well. I talk Rob off roaming duty and make him dig a deep trench. Then he uses his infinite ammo [Bone Shot] to spread damage across the battlefield. The gnolls don't have ranged weapons. They either have to throw spears or try to jump the gap. Any gnoll that gets too close to the edge gets dragged down by Duchess and radiated at the bottom. The rest of us would fight on the flanks without the trench. Duchess can influence only so much of an area.

Hours pass and Duchess and Khan are getting tired. I'd [Martyr] their exhaustion, but it comes back faster and faster each time. It feels like the more we kill, the more gnolls there are. They'd pick up weapons from a dead body when theirs would break or refuel mid-battle with quick cannibalism.

They won't relent. If it wasn't for the fact that they'd just as likely attack us as each other, we'd be overwhelmed already. This is the longest I've gone in battle. My hearts are pumping strangely. I don't know If I like this feeling yet, but it's new. It's not the gratuitous violence or bloodshed but the fact that I must constantly fight to keep my beasts and myself alive. They can only hurt me if I [Martyr] for one of my beasts, and I'll always try to do that for them.

What feels like another half a day passes before I see master Giles again. His brown and yellow rooster has him firmly planted in its claws as it flies master Giles around like a propellor hat. Master Giles is bald. Wouldn't that hurt? The sight distracted me long enough to get an axe embedded into my shoulder. It didn't actually do anything, but still.

"It looks like your beasts are making good progress. Do you have a skill that boosts experience? Never mind, it doesn't matter. You can leave the fracture if you want to. Wang has his routine for you anyways."

I check my beasts and myself's situation. Tired, hungry, low on resources, and chugging mana potions. Fighting without rest. Also, they are level 93.

"We can stay a while longer."