Chapter 146 – Beast (Part 1)

Even as I was leaving Denmark, Odin"s words kept spinning around in my head.

"Don"t you think the two worlds keep overlapping?"

If that absurd speculation turned out to be true, many things could be explained.

Arena and our world.

The two worlds, through the examinees, are starting to influence each other.

Strong examinees like Odin have important posts in Arena and are influencing the current way of thinking.

And what about our world?

All sorts of different country"s organizations are vying for businesses related to Arena.

That essential cause was the exams.

The main principle creators of the exams were G.o.ds and angels. There was no way they didn"t antic.i.p.ate this happening.

If that was the case, then what was the point of these exams.

And what about me?

Not just electronics, but I could even transfer living organisms back and forth between the worlds. What is the meaning behind my existence?

I am who I am now due to my rapid growth. If me walking the path of the exams was an arrangement of the G.o.ds, the meaning of my growth became much more profound.

All of a sudden, I felt as if the burden of completing all of the exams had fallen on my shoulders.

"Is this what"s known as an overinflated sense of ident.i.ty?"

I quickly shrugged off that thought.

Having a question without an answer and aching over it. What"s the use of doing that.

Having returned to Korea, I called 3rd secretarial Lee Jung-shik of Jinseong group.

-How can I help you?

"Would you be able to procure me a wild beast?"

-…… by wild beast you mean……

There was confusion mixed in with secretary Lee Jung-shik"s voice. Well, that was the expected reaction.

"Tiger, panther, you know something like that."

Even after I said it I felt embarra.s.sed of myself and continued on to say.

"No need to go to extra lengths for it."

-If you wish to attain a beast, you will have to contact some dirty markets like Russian poaching organizations.

"There is no need to go that far……"

-It"s not like we have no strings to the Russian mafia, so I will try to contact them.

"Yes, please and thank you."

-I will bring you news quickly.

It was like this before too but nowadays the secretary has become very sincere towards me.

"Has Chairman Park Jin-seong made him pledge his life to me or something?"

I thought that was probably the case.

Before, when things went awry with the blue house official secretary Kim Byung-ho, it seemed to have bothered him deep down inside.

Going forward I"m sure my thinking won"t change but the better he takes care of me, the more thankful I would be towards him.

A few days had pa.s.sed since then. I got a call from Jinseong group.

But the person who called was none other than Chairman Park Jin-seong.

-Have you been well?

"Yes, it hasn"t been that long since I last saw you."

-Right? Anyway, our talks that day didn"t go so well but don"t feel bad.

"What do you mean, feel bad. I"m just sorry I couldn"t be of help."

-Well, anyway, I"ve called because of the thing you asked for.

"A beast?"

-You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, don"t you think it"s a bit much?

"Probably, huh?"

-Our Jinseong group has a reputation to uphold, I can"t procure a protected animal for you, but I"ll get you a male and female pair of hunting dogs.

"Hunting dogs?"

-Yes, you"ll be surprised when you see them. They"re a very rare breed.

I thought it over carefully.

No matter how good the breed was of a hunting dog, it couldn"t beat a beast like a tiger.

Eventually I shook my head.

"No, that"s alright. If it isn"t a beast, there"s no point."

-Tsk, really?

"It wasn"t something I needed so desperately so it"s alright."

-If you say so.

After finishing the call, I had to think more about the skill..

How much use will an animal training skill be to me?

"Should I look over the skill before I decide?"

I summoned my board.

"Show me the animal training skill."

Then the words wiggled and changed.

-Showing all a.s.sist skills related to animals.

*Entry level 1: Tame one animal (-100)

*entry level 1: Increased endurance for 60 seconds (-100)

-Remaining karma: +10,000

"There"s only two related skills."

On top of it, the second skill of animal strengthening wasn"t something really liked.

Having a separate endurance time. That meant every time I fought I have to use the skill.

"Hold on, I have skill synthesis, don"t I?"

First of all, IF I wanted to train animals, then the animal training was is a skill I had to have.

Should I just get the animal training first and then try to synthesize it with physical strength buff?

Then wouldn"t it maybe create a synthesis skill that gives my animal a physical strength buff?

"Let"s try it."

If I try and it doesn"t work I could not waste more karma and give up there.

Even if I fail I"ll just be using 100 karma which wasn"t a big deal. That much was just the price of gum to me.

"I"ll get the animal training."

Pat!

A light shot out of the board.

-Animal training (a.s.sist skill): you have attained entry level 1. If you say "skill verify" you can check all the skills you have.

-Remaining karma: +9,900

"Nice."

And now I synthesized the skill.

"Skill synthesis."

-Select the skill or item you wish to synthesize.

*Items used for synthesis become used.

"I"ll try them in order."

Since it didn"t cost any karma to try to synthesize.

"I"ll synthesize spirit summons Sylph with animal training."

-Synthesizing spirit summons (Sylph) with animal training (a.s.sist skill).

-Synthesis failed.

"I"ll synthesize spirit summons (Kasa) with animal training (a.s.sist skill).

-Synthesis failed.

"Hmph, then I"ll synthesize physical strength buff with animal training."

And then.

Paat!

-Synthesis success. You have attained growth acceleration (synthesis skill).

-Growth acceleration (synthesis skill): accelerate the growth speed of the animal you are raising. The acceleration of growth differs according to level.

*Entry level 1: animal is able to reach the limit of their latent ability.

"Nice!"

Through this, the speed that the beast I raise will grow up will increase.

What would happen if I raised it to mastery?

Incredibly curious, I asked the board.

"Show me the mastered growth acceleration."

-Growth acceleration (synthesis skill): accelerate the growth speed of the animal you are raising. The acceleration of growth differs according to level.

*Master: grow up to 3 times the limit. Applies to animals that have completely matured as well.

-To master will use up 5,400 karma.

-Remaining karma: 9,900

"3 times?"

If I can raise it to 3 times to its current limit that basically means I could turn my beast into a monster.

Think, for example, of a tiger that was 3 times its normal size. At that level, wouldn"t it even be able to hunt a troll?

But at the same time, I was skeptical.

"What use will that be?"

Right.

Even if a tiger grew to three times its size, up against a veteran examinee it wasn"t that much a threat.

Even against martial artists with aura mastery like Cha Ji-hye or magicians, they"d be gone in a blink.

"But I"ve already got the a.s.sist skill so let"s try to keep synthesizing."

"I"ll synthesize guider with animal training."

Pat!

A light shot out from the board.

Success this time too.

-Synthesis success. Animal tracking (synthesis skill) has been obtained.

-Animal tracking (synthesis skill): can order an animal to track. If it smells and object"s scent, the object can be tracked.

*Condition: animal must regard user as its owner.

"Huh?"

A very useful skill.

On top of that there were no levels.

No need to spend more karma to raise the level. Just like the reload or the tracking perception skills, it was set from the beginning.

"That"s pretty good?"

It was possible to track where my target was!

No matter where they were hidden, no matter how far away, I could find them.

"This skill is a cheat."

Those 6 high priests b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. If I could find their clothes or possessions, I would be able to track them down.

"Let"s keep going."

This time I"ll try the teleport and animal training synthesis.

-Synthesis success. Call (synthesis skill) has been obtained. Can summon your animal no matter where it is.

*Condition: animal must regard user as its owner.

A useful skill for someone raising a pet.

This time too there was no skill level.

Outside of that I tried to synthesize the visual buffer and magnums but they all failed.

If I looked at the skills I just got,

-a.s.sist skill: animal training

-Synthesis skill: growth acceleration, animal tracking, call.

Considering I only spent 100 karma, I gained quite a bit.

"There were lots of skills with many uses, should I invest some karma into raising an animal?"

I hesitated because I didn"t know if it would end up just being a total waste.

I asked Cha Ji-hye and unexpectedly she was all for the animal training.

"The animal training skill, as you raise your level, the number of animals you can train increases."

Hm?

Listening to it, it made sense.

"If you lead multiple animals, ones that have become stronger through your synthesis skill, I think you"ll be the only power with an animal battalion."

"That"s true too. Worth a shot then."

"In the Arena, you can find beasts much larger and stronger than ones from our world, so how about you raise your skill level now in advance to prep for that?"

"Alright. I should do that."

I carefully allotted my karma.

First, I put 5,400 karma into the growth acceleration and turned it to master.

I put the remaining 4,500 karma into the a.s.sist skill animal training!

-3,900 karma into animal training (a.s.sist skill) to raise to intermediate level 5.

-Animal training (a.s.sist skill): gain the ability to tame animals. As the level increases, more complicated orders can carried out.

*Intermediate level 5: tame up to 10 animals. (-100)

-Remaining karma: +600

The time flew by like running water.

A relaxing rest period.

For those 100 days, there was no change with the family.

Noona still had no man and mom, who wanted to close the business and retire, continued to fry chicken because she had a lingering attachment to the business and she hadn"t found an inheritor.

Hyun-ji, who had thrown a fit for wanting to start an online shopping mall, at noona"s suggestion (order), was taking a training course on how to run an online shopping mall business.

If she finishes her training and goes into business, noona and I agreed to give her 30 million won each for capital.

(TN: 60 million won is about $53,000 USD)

If she tries and it doesn"t work out, she promised to do as we tell her without a a single complaint.

That was what I predicted would happen. That Hyun-ji would absolutely fail at her shopping mall venture and end up frying chicken.

…… I"ll have to call Chairman Park Jin-seong and plug her into Jinseong group or something. I felt pity for her and the idea that we would try to force her to do something she hates.

Like that, time flew by and the day for the 9th turn exam came.

"Welcome!"

Welcomed the baby angel, full of smirks and smiles.

"Always unlucky, seeing you."

"Being blunt now I see."

"You would just read my mind anyway."

"Feels different hearing you say it out loud though."

"Oh, good. You look unlucky."

"Hmph, weren"t you curious about something? Keep being like that and it"ll make me not want to tell you."

Right.

There was something I wanted to ask this b.a.s.t.a.r.d.