Chapter 32

Earth
Spectre Base, Canadian Rockies
August 16, 2019
05:00 PDT (08:00 EDT)

Rather than being awoken by the alarm, I was instead awoken by a combination of the alarm and a very loud, high-pitched barking, the latter of which was directed right into my left ear. I shot up off the bed which caused the alarm to shut off, with Vixa ceasing her barking shortly thereafter.

Realizing we weren’t under attack, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, before looking back to the bed. Vixa was now standing, though she had her tail tucked between her legs and was visibly trembling. Sitting back on the bed, I lifted her up and pulled her into my lap. “Sorry about that, Vixa. It was just the alarm.”

Still trembling slightly, she looked up at me and cocked her head.

“It’s a loud noise to wake me up in the morning. Without it, I would probably sleep half the day away,” I told her softly while petting her back. “Did it hurt your ears?”

She made a soft chirping sound that sounded very much like a confirmation.

“Alright, I’ll check later to see if there is something else I can use to wake me up in the morning. Or turn the volume down.”

I sat there just petting her while trying to wake up a bit. After a few minutes, she began purring before falling asleep, which meant I was stuck there. I wasn’t in a rush to do much today, so I retrieved my phone and took a look at our team page. While Sonja had some designs for a team logo, she still hadn’t gotten around to giving them to me so I could get that sorted.

Scrolling down, I tapped my name to take a look at my stats, which made me notice that Abi had reached level twenty-one. I knew she was going to level late last night, but I didn’t feel the usual sensation when I was out with my friends, so it must have happened while I was asleep. Thinking about it some more, I realized that it was delayed a few hours because of how much mana I was using while in the dungeon.

Precognition and Mana Shield were probably my two most-used abilities, though the former was both expensive and reduced my mana regeneration by a little over seventy-five percent while active. That affect is probably what led to Abi leveling several hours later, since I consume mana faster than I generate it as long as Precognition is active. For now, at least. If Abi wasn’t transporting the dragons and their eggs, Precognition probably would’ve been much higher than it currently was.

I continued looking through each of my friends profiles, seeing how much we had progressed in a short four days. Thanks to my mom, all of us were all incredibly overpowered, though I knew it probably wouldn’t remain so for long. The dungeons we were going through now were pretty much kiddie dungeons compared to what was in store for us at the higher levels.

Anja’s profile had me pausing to take a longer look than the others. Each person’s page shows the cumulative amount of attribute points they have, and Anja had the least out of any of us at one hundred fifty-one attribute points. The highest was Mason with over double the amount of attribute points with three hundred twenty-eight, while the next lowest was Sonja who still had over thirty more attribute points than her twin. Hopefully she will get lucky sooner rather than later.

Eventually my stomach started growling, loud enough to awake Vixa once more.

“Hey, girl. Have a good nap?”

She yipped and proceeded to rub her head against my chest before disappearing. When she reappeared, she was standing in front of her food and water dishes. I could see that the food dish was empty, which meant that she probably ate as soon as her breakfast was deposited into her dish. Wanting to make sure it worked properly, I walked over to the dishes and looked at the display. Last night there was an arrow beside 06:30, but now the arrow had moved to 12:30, indicating the next feeding time. I could also see a bit of residue in her dish, so I was satisfied that the feeder was working properly.

Turning around, I went to the bathroom and relieved myself before undressing and taking a shower. After toweling myself dry, I walked over to the closet and grabbed a clean set of clothes, dropping the towel and my dirty clothes into the hamper. Exiting the closet, I could see that Vixa was back on the bed while she groomed herself.

“Hey, Vixa, Wanna go for a walk?” I asked once I was dressed.

No sooner had I finished talking, than there was a popping sound and Vixa appeared at my feet. Her tails were just as active as they were when I picked her up last night, a clear sign of excitement.

“Alright, c’mon,” I said, leading to the door.

Vixa left my room as soon as there was a small enough gap for her to fit through, but she waited for me on the other side. Closing the door, I began walking towards the cafeteria, Vixa following dutifully beside me.

Upon arriving at the cafeteria, I looked around but didn’t spot anyone I knew. It was likely that some of them had already eaten, but I told my friends they could sleep in if they wanted to. Walking over to the buffet line, I gently tapped on Sonja’s shield, not wanting to wake her if she was, indeed, still asleep.

[Hey, Jonny. What’s up?] she sent almost immediately.

[Good morning. Did I wake you?]

[Nah. We got up a little while ago. Anja and I are eating breakfast with our parents and then we’re going to do a little shopping.]

[I just wanted to remind you to bring that team logo you drew up. It seems we both forgot about it the last few days.]

[Right! I came up with another design a few days ago. As soon as I’m done eating, I’ll go transfer it to my phone so I can show you later]

[Awesome. I spoke with Tamara last night. The meeting will be at 13:00.]

[Who?]

[Tamara Ridley, the woman my dad referred us to about the Tame Beast perk. She was there when I went down to get Vixa last night.]

[Oh, right. I forgot all about that. I’ll let Anja and the boys know if you haven’t already.]

[Alright, thanks. I just got up and I’m about to eat breakfast, myself. Have fun with the shopping and I’ll see you guys later.]

[We always do, ] she replied with a chuckle. [Later.]

I had been keeping an eye on Vixa while moving down the buffet line, but either she knew I was doing so, and behaving as a result, or she wasn’t as much of a trouble maker as I had been led to believe.

After loading my plate, and grabbing a mug of coffee, I turned to look for somewhere to sit. Apparently my first sweep of the room had missed some people because Tamara was sitting with her daughter while they both ate breakfast. Rajenni was sitting on Tamara’s shoulder, with Tamara handing it little bits of food every so often.

I started walking over when I noticed that Bria also had a companion sitting beside her, but it was nothing I’d ever seen before. Well, I had seen drawings of them before, but I didn’t realize they were real. Or that they were as small as the one sitting beside her. The small animal had the head, front claws and wings of an eagle, while the rest of the body was that of a lion.

“Good morning,” I greeted. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Good morning, Jonathan, Vixa,” Tamara said. “Feel free, though you may not want to sit next to Thoosa, though. She tends to bite.

“Thank you. I noticed her when I was walking over. I thought gryphons were a myth,” I said as I walked around the table to sit beside her. Rather than follow me, Vixa jumped up beside Thoosa and began to inspect her. Thoosa didn’t seem to appreciate it, as she turned, spreading her wings and began to shriek at Vixa. A moment later she tried striking at Vixa with her sharp beak, but met nothing but air.

“Not a myth,” Tamara said. “There were only a few thousand left by the time a Scyftan science team arrived on Earth over thirty-four hundred years ago, and it didn’t get any better by the time our group arrived. There were less than a hundred still alive and the lack of any abilities meant that they were easy prey to hunters. After discovering them, I stepped in whenever I saw one being hunted, and eventually tamed as many as I could before they finally went extinct in the wild.”

“Those I tamed were moved to North America where their numbers recovered, somewhat. There was more than enough food to go around, so the natives rarely hunted them. This base was mostly excavated by the time North America had begun being colonized, so I moved the gryphons here. You haven’t seen it yet, but there is an even bigger enclosure below the other four where animals that need space are kept. I would have liked the other four enclosures to be just as big, but there just isn’t enough excess mana being generated to support them.”

“Excess mana?” I asked when my mouth was empty. “What do you mean?”

“The fifth enclosure is like the TARDIS; bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, thanks to an Enlarge enchantment carved into the walls,” Bria answered. “Most of the mana generated on the upper levels is transferred down there to keep the enchantment active. There is more than enough to power the one, but we would need a few hundred more people living here to power anything more than that.”

‘Hmm ... that sounds like it could be useful if Abi could replicate it on herself.’ I thought to myself. “Why is Thoosa so small, anyways? I thought a baby gryphon would be bigger than that.”

Bria shook her head, but her mother was the one to respond, “Thoosa has already doubled in size in the two weeks since she was hatched. She’ll be fully grown in a little over two years, and mature in five years, give or take three months.”

“How big do they get? Big enough to ride?”

“Easily,” Tamara said with a nod as she fed Rajenni another piece of meat. “They’re about three times bigger than fully grown male lion and can lift several hundred pounds. The reason they were hunted to extinction is because sheep, goats, and even pigs were easy prey for them. If a family of gryphons was in the area, it was impossible for farmers to make a living.”

“So if gryphons are real does that mean that other mythical creatures like hippogryphs, unicorns, chimera and hydras are real too?”

“Hippogryphs are related to gryphons so they may have existed at one point, but we’ve seen no sign of them. Unicorns are purely mythical, though the other two you listed can be found rarely in high level dungeons.”

“Oh,” I replied before shoveling another forkful of food into my mouth.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I would be cross with you, since we had never met before last night,” Tamara said changing the subject.

I nodded and she continued.

“Seotrosses are aggressive animals, though I had built up a modicum of control over them over the centuries. That changed on Tuesday when one of them was more aggressive than usual and wouldn’t respond to me anymore. It ended up tearing apart some of the enclosure before I managed to tranquilize it and move it to its own smaller enclosure. I had hoped that it would listen to me when it regained consciousness, but it didn’t, and began tearing up that enclosure as well.”

“There is something about Seotrosses that people don’t know, since it is very rare that someone is able to scan them. If someone does end up scanning a Seotross, that Seotross will only take directions from them. As such, you are the only one that Orileth will listen to. You may even be able to tame her, but that is a long, long way off.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. I had just learned how to scan so I went through the enclosures and scanned everything in range. I didn’t know that anything was off-limits.”

“Oh they weren’t,” she said. “Every Scyftan on this base tried scanning the Seotrosses down there at one time or another, myself included, but all of their minds had been closed off. The only reason I was cross with you is because of all the extra work you made for me.”

“I apologize, that wasn’t my intention. What do you mean taming her would be a long way off?”

“Gabriel told me why you wanted to meet with me. I can give you and your friends more information about Tame Beast than you’d find online, and help you get started on taming your first beasts. The first thing you need to realize is that there are no shortcuts when it comes to Tame Beast. You can’t find or buy a Tier S Tame Beast Skill Gem and immediately tame a Class S beast.”

“While Tame Beast does have one hundred ranks at each tier, it doesn’t work like other skills that level up as you use them. Instead, Tame Beast will increase by one rank for every day that your tamed beast is alive. If your tamed beast dies before then, you have to start all over.”

“If you successfully keep your tamed beast alive for one hundred days to level up Tame Beast from tier E to tier D, then you need to start all over again, this time with a Class D beast. Each time you rank up, the amount of time you need to keep your tamed beast alive also doubles, so two days per rank for Tier D, four days per rank for Tier C, etc. I think it took Bria nearly twenty years to level up Tame Beast all the way to Tier S, so you can see how time consuming it will be if you want to level up Tame Beast all the way up.”

“I could’ve done it faster but it took me a while to find a Class S beast I wanted to tame,” Bria said. “The fastest you can do it is just over seventeen years and three months.”

“I see. Are there even any beast native to Earth that are above Class D? It seems like it would be impossible to level it all the way up to Tier S without going offworld.”

“A few,” she answered with a nod. “Gryphons are one of them, and some of the larger whale species are Class C, though there isn’t much point in taming the latter. It’s not impossible to level up Tame Beast to Tier S on Earth, it’s just very, very difficult to do so. There are some beasts that can spawn in dungeons, albeit rarely, that you can tame, allowing you to actually remove them from the dungeon. The difficulty comes in getting lucky enough to find a tameable beast, and being able to tame it before the dungeon reaches 0% and everyone gets booted out.”

“Huh. What sort of beasts are there that can be tamed in dungeons?”

“It’s different for every world. Usually they are larger versions of animals that can be found outside of dungeons on that planet, but other times they aren’t. Hydras and chimera are some examples, as is this,” she said putting a cube on the table.

After pressing a button, light shot out of it, seeming to form a portal on top of the cube. A few seconds after it formed, Tamara whistled and a red streak flew out of it. It continued to fly the length of the room before turning around and heading back, where it landed on the floor next to her.

Now that it landed, I was able to get a better look at it. It wasn’t as red as I thought, there being orange mixed in with the red that almost looked like the bird was on fire. It had a small number of feathers sweeping out of the back of its head, but that was nothing compared to its tail feathers. They easily added another three to four feet to it’s already long length, making it seem like it was much bigger than it actually was. Looking into its eyes, I could see intelligence there that wasn’t in other birds.

“A phoenix? You really found a phoenix?”

Nodding she reached into a pouch around her waist. After a moment she withdrew what she wanted and threw it to the bird. As the bird caught it, I could see that it was a small fish. “I tamed her predecessor about nine hundred years ago in a dungeon at the base of Mount Ontake in Japan. Since then I have seen first hand that the myths surrounding phoenixes are quite true. This is the third phoenix to be born from the ashes of another. The first two both died of old age at around four hundred years old, while I accidently got the third one killed while in another dungeon. Fortunately I was able to collect the ashes, so this one could be born. Meet Ashe.”

Tamara handed me one of the small silvery fish, which I then threw to Ashe. Catching it without issue, she quickly ate it and looked at Tamara for more.

“That’s enough, Ashe,” she chuckled, before whistling again. “Off you go.”

Ashe took off, flying across the room once more before turning and flying through the portal. Tamara pressed the button on the cube again, and the portal closed.

“What is that thing?” I asked, pointing to the cube.

“It’s like the gryphon enclosure I told you about, but on a much smaller scale; one that I can power on my own. With it, all of my animal companions have a familiar home, and I can call on them when necessary. It’s something I cooked up so I wouldn’t have to leave them here on the base when I go somewhere else.”

“So you’re saying that it’s an even more advanced Pokeball?”

“Poke-what?” she asked, looking confused.

“It’s from a Japanese anime, mom. People use Pokeballs to capture monsters, transforming them into energy and storing them until they’re needed. Only one of the monsters, called Pokemon, can be stored in each Pokeball,” Bria answered.

“Aside from not transforming my companions into energy, it does sound very similar. The difference is that once place and activated, I too, can enter the cube where my companions live. I even have a wood cabin in there. It certainly beats camping.”

Laughing I said, “I can definitely see that. You said that you made it, so there must not have been anything like it on the market, either here or in Scyftan space. Have you looked into patenting it? It seems like something that could make you a ridiculous amount of money.”

She shook her head, looking thoughtful. After a moment, she responded, “I have to admit that I haven’t given it much thought. Perhaps I’ll bring it to Mr. Gidres to get his thoughts.”

“If someone is already making something similar, he’ll definitely know. Going back to classes, what class does Vixa fall into?” I asked, looking to the chair beside me where she was laying done, apparently asleep.

“Phenidae are Class S. They’re one of only six other beasts I’ve come across that fall into that class.”

“Really? I wasn’t expecting her to be that high up.”

“Neither was I when I found out that they were Class S. We’ve found that there are four things that go into determining which class a beast will fall into. Those are abilities, intelligence, lifespan and size. Seotrosses have average intelligence, a fairly long lifespan, are very large, but don’t have any abilities, which is why they are Class A. Phenidae on the other hand are very intelligent, have long lifespans, are small, but have some incredible abilities. Scientists believe that sooner or later, Phenidae will be able to communicate with us. How long will that take? No one knows for sure. It could be in a hundred years, or in ten thousand. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

While I would’ve loved to sit there and chat with Tamara and her daughter for hours, they had work to do. My injured sister was still sleeping, so having nothing to do myself, I accompanied them down to the second floor of the base. Once there, I was able to see the damage that Orileth had wrought first hand. There were numerous snapped trees, and, in a few cases, some ripped right out of the ground. It also seemed like some large boulders were thrown around, judging by a few craters in the area.

They wanted to replace the trees and move the boulders back to their original places, so I helped them out. It would have required them to bring in some equipment to move the boulders and remove the stumps, but it was child’s play for me in my Seotross form. It was really cool being able to lift one ton boulders like they were nothing. Stumps and roots were a bit harder to deal with, but with a little bit of help I was able to rip them out of the ground and drop them onto the trailer that would take them to the incinerator.

A job that would’ve taken them the entire day only took a few hours, and soon we were moving on to the smaller enclosure that Orileth was moved to. There was some damage there too, but not to the extent in the main enclosure, so it only took thirty minutes or so to clean it all up. After that, Tamara took a large syringe out of her storage and injected Orileth with it, the contents being a counteragent to the tranquilizer that was keeping her asleep.

[You’re sure this will work?] I asked, glancing over to her.

[Reasonably certain, ] she answered. [Seotrosses assert dominance over each other by fighting. You have an advantage over her by being able to level, so you should be able to win handily. You should also have all the knowledge you need on how to act after scanning her.]

After Tamara stopped sending, I saw Orileth’s eyes flutter open before locking on my form. She quickly got to her feet and roared before beginning to beat her chest with her lower set of arms. I reciprocated her actions, roaring and beating my own chest. Orileth didn’t like that one bit, as she began charging towards me. When she got within range, she dropped down onto her front two arms and then launched herself at me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to dodge it, so I wound up and punched with all my strength.