"I would like to buy one of each," Rudra said determinedly.
"Okay. I will pack them up for you." the scarred man said as he took out two small cylindrical containers. As he was about to pick the eggs, Rudra interrupted him.
"Wait! Can I pick them up instead? I will just choose them and you can pack them up. I won't touch any of them so you can be assured that I will not damage them." Rudra said.
"Sure kid. Go ahead."
Rudra examined the eggs carefully without touching them until two eggs caught his eye. One was a caterpillar egg whose greenish-yellow shell had wave-like patterns. The second was an ant egg which formed a constellation-like pattern with brown and black spots, or at least that is what it felt like to Rudra.
The scarred man chuckled as he packed them up, "If you want to hatch them, the procedure is very simple. Just take them home and supply them with your Mental Energy, just like you would do for a contract."
"It will take a few days but they will hatch successfully as long as you keep supplying them with energy every few hours. These beasts can technically eat anything, but the Ant-type beasts will be biased towards meat products while caterpillar-type beasts will prefer leafy vegetables or other plant-type food."
Rudra paid the 200 Base Credits and carried the two containers carefully in a bag the stall owner gave him. Since he had spent all his money on these eggs, he had to walk all the way home to his apartment. Fortunately, he had already stocked groceries and vegetables for this moment, so at least he would not go hungry.
After coming back home, Rudra placed both of these eggs in two large bowls that he had lined with cloth rags beforehand. These eggs now represented his last hope, so he would not spare any effort he can make to ensure that they hatch in prime condition.
For the next few days, Rudra spent all his time at home. He would meditate for a few hours and collect enough mental energy, then insert them into the eggs carefully until he had emptied 70% of the mental energy he had collected. Then he would once again sit for meditation and collect mental energy.
Apart from the time he left out for eating and daily hygiene, all of his time was spent in meditation and taking care of the eggs. He even stopped sleeping, as meditation could replicate the effects of sleep to a certain extent.
Finally, the day came when the eggs he was taking care of started to hatch. Rudra waited patiently on the side as this was a process the beasts had to do on their own if they wanted to be healthy. Slowly, the two larvae emerged from their eggs and flopped on the rags that covered the bowl.
Rudra wasted no time and immediately sent a mental energy strand toward both of them. They had zero intelligence or self-preservation at this moment after hatching, so it was the best time to form a contract with them.
As he expected, the larvae were newborns and already used to Rudra's energy from before they hatched, so the link between him and the larvae was established almost instantly. Just as the link finished forming, mysterious energy seeped out from the Cardholder Book in his mind and went towards the two larvae.
Rudra didn't make a move to stop this. He had read about this process; this was the way Card-Type Tamers turned the Tamed Beasts into cards. Just as he had thought, the two larvae were turned into cards that flew toward Rudra and assimilated into him.
Rudra sat down and went into a meditative state in a practised manner. He mentally projected himself into his mental space and examined the Cardholder Book. As he expected, the two cards were placed in the slots on the very first page of the book.
"All right. This is the moment that will determine my future." Rudra thought as he took out the card for the card for Mutated Caterpillar larvae. He found that the information about the tamed Beast was written in a quantified form on the card.
[Mutated Caterpillar (Larvae state)]
Rank: No-Grade
Rank Progress: 0%
Physical Stat: 1
Mental Stat: 0
Energy Stat: 1
Skills: None
The details were easy enough to understand. This was one of the minor benefits of being a Card-Type tamer, you can view the Stats, Skills, Rank, and Rank progress of your tamed beasts in quantified form instead of just feeling it out and giving an approximation.
However, this benefit was an inside joke amongst the tamers, as Card-Type ones were also the ones that could not help with their beast's growth despite such precise information.
Throwing out these distracting thoughts, Rudra focused his attention on the card. He gathered all the mental energy that was floating freely in his mental space and made it gather around him. Since he could not summon the beast in his mental space, Rudra tried to infuse the energy directly into the card.
However, just like many others before him, he was faced with failure yet again. He didn't lose hope and tried to infuse the energy in many different ways. He tried brute-forcing the energy into the card, surrounding the card with mental energy until it was almost as if he was trying to drown it, slowly sending the energy into the cards in tiny wisps; none of them worked.
Tired of all the failures, he tried summoning the larvae to the real world and feeding it the mental energy that way. However, he could not even maintain the summoning for even ten seconds before he ran out of mental energy. Yet, when he checked the card, he found that the Rank progress had not even reached 0.2%.
Rage started suffusing Rudra's mind after these constant failures. He placed the card back in the cardholder book holder and threw the book to the floor of his mental space.
"Arggghhh!!!!" he screamed in anguish and despair. It was official, he would never be able to become a powerful Beast Tamer in his life. He would probably have to rely on his step-sister to gather a few Common-grade beasts and be satisfied with doing some low-level jobs with their help.
With the feelings of frustration, self-loathing, and anguish enveloping him, Rudra just wanted to lash out to relieve himself. His attention went to the Cardholder book that was lying on the floor of his mental space like garbage and a wave of rage bloomed inside him.
"Why did I have to Awaken to this type of trash power?!!" Rudra screamed mentally as he gathered his remaining meagre mental power in a ball and sent it hurtling toward the cardholder.
To his knowledge, no one had ever intentionally tried damaging their source of beast-taming powers ever, so he didn't know if doing this would take away even his qualification as a beast-tamer. But at this time, he was too enraged to care the slightest.
But to his surprise, nothing of that sort happened at all. As soon as the mental energy ball touched the book, it was absorbed by it instantly like a dried sponge absorbing the water around it.
Rudra was shocked on seeing this. Nothing he ever heard about beast taming said anything about a phenomenon like this. Was this secret of Card-Tamers that he had unlocked, or was he just a special variant?
Rudra wanted to send more mental energy into the book to see if this phenomenon is replicated, but he found that he had already exhausted the mental energy available currently.
Rudra retrieved his perception back to the real world and started meditating with renewed vigour. In a few hours, he had again filled his mental space with new mental energy up to its current capacity.
Rudra sent his perception back into his mental space and rejoiced at the thick stream of mental energy that was floating around in his mental space. He went up to the cardholder book and placed it back on the marble pedestal. He was treating it with care as it had now given him new hope.
Gathering a chunk of mental energy, he sent it steadily to the cardholder book. To his delight, the cardholder book created the phenomenon again and the mental energy Rudra sent to it was completely absorbed.
Rejoicing at this discovery, Rudra gathered all of the mental energy he had now and sent it to the book. It absorbed the mental energy at a steady pace until Rudra was left with 20% of his maximum mental energy.
At that point, the book trembled slightly and a momentary flash of light emerged from the runes etched on its cover. The next moment, a large amount of information was suddenly transmitted to Rudra's mind.
Rudra stayed quiet as he digested this new stream of information. Once he was done comprehending the information, a single sentence emerged from his mouth.
"This is amazing!!"