[Storm God's Weapon Crystal Ore:
A divine material made from the crystallized essences of gods. When Weapon Crystal Ore is infused with the blood of it's would-be user, the ore will automatically take the form of a weapon suitable to the user and grow along with the user's strength. This particular Crystal Ore is infused with the essence of god of storms.]
"Huh...," Jordie muttered as he examined the quest reward the System given him.
On the one hand, Jordie was given a super powerful, basically cheat-like weapon that will be sure to help him loads in the future in case he gets into any scraps. Hell, he could probably give it to Minos and laugh as his adorable bundle of joy brings down apocalyptic storms upon his enemies.
On the other hand, this crystal ore was a giant "Kill and Loot me" sign for anybody remotely stronger than him...which were a lot of things right now.
"Yeah...I'm gonna claim it and not use until I'm like level...something higher than freaking one," Jordie thought into himself as he added the reward to his inventory.
Jordie was all set to to turn off the interface and take a nap with Minos and the khalkotauroi cow, until he remembered something mildly important.
"Oh right, I need to examine Minos' stats."
Jordie manipulated the interface once more until he got to the main menu screen. On the screen were four options: [Personal], [Partners], [Inventory], [Index] and [Shop]. The last option, [Shop], had a little star on it, indicating it was recently added.
"If it wasn't for the fact that I felt pain, hunger,
and that massive info dump I'm pretty sure I'd delude myself into thinking this was a game...wonder if there were any other "isekaied' fellows here," Jordie mused to himself as he opened the [Partners] tab.
The [Partners] tab opened into another menu that reminded Jordie of a certain game about pocket-sized monsters. In the very first slot was a little pixelated avatar of Minos standing next to his name and level. Clicking on Minos' slot opened up a stat screen that appeared similar to his own, with some minor additions.
[Reward has been sent to host's inbox, please claim at your earliest convenience,] the System announced as Jordie looked through Minos' stats
Jordie skimmed through Minos' stats, not seeing anything too out of the ordinary in terms of his strength, speed, intelligence, etc. But when he decided to actually focus on some of the details, he noticed something rather strange.
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Name: Minos
Classification: Giant
Species: Minotaur
Subspecies: ???
Level: 1
Grade: SS
Status: Healthy (Happy) (Sleeping)
Gender: Male
Attributes: Earth, ???
Skills: Bronze Bull Flame, Giant Strength, ???, [36 locked skills]
Description:
???
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"What in the hell?", Jordie said as he looked at Minos' stats, more specifically, Minos' grade.
From what Jordie remembered of the information dump that the System gave him, Minos' grade shouldn't be naturally possible.
Every monster, from the smallest fuzzball to the grandest dragons, could be divided into a grade.
Weakest to strongest, these grades were: F, E, D, C, B, A and S. This grade is what determined a monster's growth potential.As far as Jordie could understand, two things determined a monster's grade: species and innate potential.
It should however be noted that a monster's species didn't determine the maximum grade an individual monster could have, it determined the minimum. The innate potential however could vary the maximum by a lot.
Using Armor Rabbits and Khalkotauroi as examples, the lowest an Armor Rabbit's grade could be is F while a Khalkotauroi's lowest grade can only be C.
However both species can produce monsters that are of higher grades than their minimum, to a maximum known grade of S. While Jordie hasn't personally seen an S grade monster, the System did include a real world example of a S grade Armor Rabbit absolutely destroying a B grade Earthquake Lindwurm. Those images were repressed alongside the sight of that Dairy Bee attack.
"So I'm basically contracted to the equivalent of a demigod huh? The hell kinda plotline is this?," Jordie muttered in a tired tone.
When Jordie met the Tempest Minotaur and Minos, he didn't expect her to thrust a spirit contract between the two of them. Then again, he didn't expect to run into a mother-son combo in just one day!
"Doesn't this kind of thing usually happen week two or three?"
"Mooowaaah..."
Jordie's grumbling was soon interrupted by the sound of Minos' yawning. As Jordie looked up onto the khalkotauroi cow's back, he saw Minos roll onto his belly and began to crawl...right off the edge of her back.
Minos was now free-falling towards the ground.
"Oh dear gods!," Jordie exclaimed as quickly moved to catch Minos in his arms. Luckily, he got there just in time. Jordie didn't have any time to get up and run, so he had to dive towards Minos' direction arms first.
"Safe," Jordie said in exasperation, "Why'd you do something like that Minos?"
Jordie repositioned Minos in his arms until he was firmly cradling him. The baby minotaur just stared at Jordie, his little tongue sticking out. Jordie could feel he was happy though.
"You're a hell of a danger magnet you know?," Jordie said with a smile as he looked down at the baby minotaur. In the back of his mind, he thought of all the danger and trouble that could be brought down on him if it ever got found out just how strong this baby minotaur's potential was.
Minos just let out a small yawn before going back to sleep in Jordie's arms.
"Needed more sleep, huh little guy? Might as well join you in dreamland," he said while trying to get comfortable.
Just as Jordie was about to fall asleep, he felt something through the bond he had with Minos.
"Huh...sounds a bit different when I'm not the one saying it,"Jordie thought, "...I don't know why or how you got into my life, but I'm gonna be damned sure I'll protect you or die trying."
Determination in his heart Jordie proceeded to close his eyes and doze off.
Unbeknownst to him or Minos, this little moment had an audience of one.