Chereads / Apocalyptic Apex Predator / Chapter 20 - The Little Pup That Could

Chapter 20 - The Little Pup That Could

*ding!* [Player Leon Hudson and Grey Wolf pup (Kona) have agreed to the Taming ritual. Partial Soul bonding will now commence.]

*ding!* [By taming a ferocious monster, you have gained a new companion that can grow alongside you, and have learned a new skill! You have learned Monster Taming (D)!]

*ding!* [You are the first Player to tame a monster! As a reward, you have earned the title: Beast Master!]

{ Monster Taming (D) - You are learning how to tame monsters by gaining their trust and fighting along side them. Taming binds parts of your souls together, allowing Tamer and Tamed to share stats or skills. You can only tame a monster if it is not the same species as the Tamer and the Tamed creature's intelligence is high enough to understand the Tamer.

- Slight increase in earning a Monster's trust

- You are able to learn one skill at your 'Monster Taming' Skill's level or lower

- Your Tamed monster can use 10%{20%} of one of your base stats

- You and your tamed monster's souls are bound by Universal Law, meaning should one of you die the other shall as well. If Tamer and Tamed are of different ranks, the higher rank shall suffer backlash of an unknown magnitude should the other die, while the lower rank will die if the other dies before them. When one or both contractors die, the contract becomes Void.

- Tamed Monsters (1/1{2}): Grey Wolf (Kona)

Evolution Requirements:

- 1 Tamed monster has reached level 25 (2/25)

- 1 Tamed monster consumes 3 soul stones of other monsters with one at least being the same rank as the Tamer. Soul Stones consumed: (0/3); 1 E rank soul stone consumed: (0/1)

- Tamed monster has at least 1 skill the same rank as the Tamer (1/1)

{ Kona

lvl 2 / exp (1/13)

titles: Brilliant Mind; Leon Hudson's Tamed Monster

stats:

Health (F) +1

Attack (F) +2

Defense (F)

Speed (F) +1

Intelligence (E)

Mana 21/21

Skills:

Language Learning (E)

Puppy Dog Eyes (F)

Magic Bolt (F) }

{ Beast Master - You are the first Player to tame a ferocious monster, gaining a loyal companion that will follow you until death does you apart. You're trustworthiness with monsters will increase faster than normal, allowing you to gain more companions throughout your journey. The effects of any Taming related skills with be doubled.

- Monsters that you have already tamed prior to gaining the skill will start with max loyalty.

- Monsters will learn to trust you 2x faster than normal

- Max number of Monsters that can be tamed is doubled

- The effects of Taming related skills are doubled

- exp can be shared between Tamer and Tamed

- Loyal Sacrifice: Should a Tamer take a fatal hit, a Tamed monster can accept the hit instead and their Master will suffer no backlashes after their death.

Cooldown: 1/1; Time remaining: 3 months }

Being able to look at Kona's status page was not something he expected to be able to do. But then again, taming monsters in general was hard so maybe there wasn't enough public information amongst Gods out there about the inner workings of the Monster Taming skill.

His Monster Taming skill was D rank, but could be upgraded based on how strong his tamed monsters were. It was a skill that would definitely make it easier for Kona to grow in her current state. By helping her, it was directly helping him now. It was no longer considered 'charity work.'

The Monster Taming skill's effect were great for both of them, a win-win situation if you ignore the fact that if one died, the other might too. He would get one of Kona's skills while she got 10% of one of his stats.

There were several things he wasn't sure of at the time, for example, would he be able to switch out the skill he chose, to learn a different skill from her at a later time when she learned more skills? If the answer was no, then what he chose now was very important and frustrating, as she was barely level 2 with very few skills.

Another question he had was whether the borrowed stats Kona got would be taken directly out of his own stats, or if they would be copied over to hers. His concern was whether he would lose his own stats to give to her, given the system's wording. If the answer was yes, he was prepared to suffer the backlash now, as he didn't want to lose his own stats even for a tamed monster.

It just wasn't worth it when it was hard enough to fight monsters of a similar rank as him.

If it was no, and Kona would copy 10% of one of his stats to add to her own, then there wouldn't be a problem. He wouldn't be losing anything but that also brought up the concern about taking one of her skills for the same reason.

Would she lose the skill that he took from her? That also didn't seem very fair, but luckily the bratty system was able to explain how it worked.

Since the Monster Taming skill was supposed to benefit both parties, it was the better scenarios for borrowing both the skill and stats of the Tamed and Tamer respectively. It was a relief for both parties, but more so for the little fluffball who looked like her life was flashing before her eyes.

She may not have been able to read the words on the system for the taming skill but when Leon talked about it, she seemed to understand it for the most part. He didn't talk to the pup about the evolution requirements though, as they were going to take a while and the part about having to consume Soul Stones made him grumble.

He knew the Soul Stone of Kona's mother was important to her, even though it was also a treasure in its own right. On top of that, he had no idea how rare they were during the 1st stage of terraformation but it would definitely not be easy to find them; it was already very lucky for them to have two Soul Stones.

The Beast Master title, the reward he got for being the first Tamer on Earth, was the perfect title to go with his Monster Taming skill. He would be able to tame more monsters more easily and once tamed, they would all be completely loyal.

The best part of it was probably the fact that it doubled the effects of any of his other taming related skills, meaning Monster Taming was applicable. With the boost from the Beast Master Title, he would now be able to receive a second skill from Kona, and she could now borrow 20% of one of his stats!

He was considering on what second skill he should take, but just brushed it off for now since there was nothing really worth taking other than her Language Learning. The system wasn't hounding him to take a skill so he would hold off as long as he could before choosing a second one.

Looking over to Kona, she didn't act much different than before max loyalty took effect, but she was strange already so he also brushed it off as normal. He would now be able to tame 2 monsters, but he wasn't planning on getting a second one anytime soon. It would already be tough enough to train this fluffball to the point that she could protect just herself, let alone him.

As such, he didn't want anything to do with another tamable monster for the foreseeable future.

He also liked the Loyal Sacrifice skill, of course not mentioning it to the pup, since it meant his life could be guaranteed in an emergency. What he didn't like though was how the skill was worded, meaning Kona would most likely have to accept the fatal strike willingly.

He wasn't sure if the max loyalty would work to ensure this happened but he hoped to never have to use this skill for both their sakes.

He really liked the shared exp though, finding out at a later time that when she killed lets say, a level 5 Black Bear, she would earn the full exp which was 48 exp while Leon would earn half, which was 24 exp.

It would become a very handy skill and allow him to continue leveling up even when he wasn't the one killing.

And last but not least, Kona herself. Her stats sucked. They really did.

She may have had more mana than normal and more intelligence, but it was all Fs across the board and considering she was only a puppy at level two, the minimum she had in each stat was 2 points. And from the information he got from her earlier about which stats she got for eating meat, he believed he got a pretty accurate representation of her stat distribution.

Health 3 (F)

Attack 4 (F)

Defense 2 (F)

Speed 3 (F)

Her stats were very low except for the obvious ones that were higher than normal. She had made 1 mark in the snow for health and speed, while making two in the snow for attack and none for defense.

From what Leon knew, and what the system confirmed for him, was that monsters like Kona also gained +1 to all stats after every level up. This meant that for a pup like her or for someone who was average health-wise, they would have 10 stats in all categories at level 10, plus 50 mana since mana increased by 5 points every level.

For Leon, he got double stat points every level so he would have reached that same threshold at level 5, if he started at all 1s. However not everyone started at the same baseline, considering both him and the pup had a variety of different stat distributions in the beginning.

As he had been healthy, worked out all the time, and even got special training in the military, his stats probably started out much higher, maybe 5 around average. When he was level one, he did have an attack at E rank already, meaning he was much stronger than everything else around him and that made it easy to kill animals above his level quickly.

As for Kona, both her mana and intelligence were very high at only level 2, and that was the result of the title she had: Brilliant Mind.