My family was standing there with excited expressions as soon as I walked in. They looked on expectantly at my egg. The twins gasped before screaming, "Big Brother Aldric is a Tamer! Mama! Look he did it." Mom's eyes teared up.
My Dad clapped a hand down on my shoulder. "You have done well son." He smiled down at me. On his shoulder was his own Beast. Father had awakened when he was 18. A late bloomer. His skill had been D- Strengthen. He had hatched a Roc Kit. Sadly he never awakened a talent and never gained any more skills. "Has your Domain opened yet?" He questioned me.
I shook my head, "Not yet."
He turned to Mom and the twins. "We should let Aldric rest. He'll need to care for the egg and focus on his Domain for the next week." He looked at me over his shoulder, "I know we won't see much of you for a while but be sure to join us for meals."
"Move aside, Glenn!" Mom pushed dad. "At least tell us what your skill and first egg are," she said. She smiled at me with a sheen of tears. Mom had awakened but her talent had not even been high enough to try her luck with an egg.
"C+ Growth, and this," I said rubbing a hand over my egg, "Is a Aqua Vulpe." Mom's hands clasped together.
"I've heard of those! They are healing types right?" Right Mom worked worked healers. "I think Hailey has one. Hers is a High Silver rank. Such a cute little beast."
My Dad sighed. "What does your Growth skill entail?"
Two skills may have the same name but do different things. Like Dad's skill Strengthen. His strengthen skill could harden a certain part of a beast. Where as someone else with the skill may be able to strengthen a beasts attack.
I had not yet checked my skill so I decided to do so now.
{Skills: Growth (C+), Bloodline Growth (S)}
{Growth C+: Speed up the hatching and growth process of any beast. Can also be used to grow low level beast skills}
{Bloodline Growth S: Allows the user to Detect and Enhance the Bloodline of Tamed beasts. May also be able to awaken Bloodlines. (Find energy sources to upgrade skills further) }
I had to force my face into a neutral expression. "It makes my beasts hatch and grow faster," I said with a meek smile.
Father and mother both frowned. "That seems extremely..." Mother started.
"Weak," Father finished. "Given that it's C rank. There should be more to it."
I shrugged, "It also says something about low level beast skills but I don't really get what it means."
I knew beast skill ranks could change with time but that came with proficiency. Dad's eyes widened and he laughed. "You can speed up the learning process of beast skills most likely." My eyes widened. That made sense.
"Can also be used to grow low level beast skills..." I repeated.
Dad nodded. "There are a few skills like that. They can increase how fast a beast learns new skills or how quickly they gain proficiency." Dad hugged Mom with a booming laugh. "Our son will have a great future."
"You go rest honey," Mom told me. "I'll ask Hailey if she'd be willing to teach you Aqua Vulpe some skills after it hatches."
"Okay!" I gave each of the twins a head pat and then went up to my room. I set the egg on my night stand and opened up the care instructions.
First place your egg in a small container. You want it big enough to hold the egg. I stood up and rushed to the kitchen. My egg was on the smaller side so a smaller pot should work. Everyone watched me with curiosity.
"I need a pot to hold the egg in." Dad's eyebrows raised before he nodded as if just remembering I needed it.
Finally I found one and rushed back up stairs. Next place the egg in the container and pour the nutritient solution over the egg. Pour as much of the solution into the container as it can hold without over filling. Some eggs may float in the solution depending on element. No need to worry if yours does this.
Remember to keep an eye on the level of the nutritient solution and top it off as needed.
That's it? Really. I ran my hand over the floating egg in the pot. "I wonder if you will be male or female," I mused.
{Tamed beast detected! Use Growth? Yes/No} Appeared in front of me.
"Yes," I said without thinking.
{Aqua Vulpe, Stage- Egg, Hatching- 4 Days}
I smiled and started doing sit ups in my room. Physical fitness was supposed to help with a Tamer Domain size. I wanted my Domain to be huge. The bigger the Domain the more Beast a Tamer could have. It also allowed for higher level Beasts to be Tamed. My Domain had not opened yet so I needed to work on trying to expand it.
Physical fitness could improve Domain even after it was open. I turned on an audio while I exercised.
There are three main pathways for Beast Tamers. Training, Breeding, and Fighting. There are of course other pathways as well. Healing and Alchemy are examples of these other pathways. Healers are rare and treasured. As most healing Beasts are too weak too fight they normally stay in cities. Some more powerful Healers will be invited to join guilds. Such people are protected when they travel into the wilderness.
Beast Trainers find joy in teaching other Beasts skills. They train Beasts for other and sometimes house the Beasts of other Tamers to improve their beasts.
Fighters are explorers. They brave the wilds to find and reclaim lost territories. Sometimes they find ruins or tears. I turned it off as I turned my attention back to the egg. It was getting late but I felt like the egg was much like a child. Then again why wouldn't I? Had I not been forced to care for a chicken egg like it was my own child for health class. The memory made me chuckle.
So I laid down in bed and decided to tell the egg a story. I spun a tale about a little fox who loved to swim. He was an outcast due to it. So that fox set out to find a place of his own. One day he saw a found a pond surrounded by fruit trees. That was where the little fox made its home. He was lonely but happy to have found a home of his own.
My days pretty much fell into an easy cycle. Wake up, check on the egg, carry it down stairs with me for breakfast, exercise in the living room to spend time with everyone, top up the nutritient solution, study skills that my Aqua Vulpe may learn or be taught. After three days I was in the process of doing squats when I felt it.
I felt a burning pain in my lower back that made me double over. I did not think as I yanked my shirt off my head and tried to get a look at my Domain mark. Placement and shape of one's Domain mark varied. They were extremely important though. Domain shape often hinted at what kind of skills a Tamer would gain in the future.
"What is it?" I asked excitedly. "I can't see it clearly!"
"Thorns!" Willow cried.
Mother came up beside her, "It does resemble thorns with those points but..." She looked at Dad for help.
"Smoke?" He questioned. "I'll get you a mirror."
"I think it's a tree," William said proudly.
Dad handed me the mirror so I could get a look. Sure enough they were all right. There were twisting lines that were darker than other seeming to take the from of a dead tree, while lighter lines of gray swirled around. There were jagged lines in the gray that seemed almost like thorns but I thought they were trying to make something.
I shrugged, "My skill is called Growth. Makes sense that it would be a plant of some kind."
"Yeah but does that mean you will only get more plant skills?" Dad asked.
"Growth is not really a plant skill Dad. The name makes it seem like it should be but it really is not a plant thing."
"Enough of that. How big is the space?!" Mom asked. There were two ways to tell how large a Domain space was. The first was the test. The school would test us once we returned with our newly hatched beasts. The other was for us to take a look within the Domain ourselves.
I focused on the mark to force my consciousness within it. The space was empty. I looked around. It was a land of black as far as I could tell. I moved forward to try and get a sense of the size.
{Domain Size: 5x5 meters}
{Talaent: Unassigned}
Unassigned? What did that mean? I pulled myself from the mark. I would worry about that later for now I needed to expand my space.
"Well?" Willow asked impatiently. She was still far to young to even know what a good size Domain was.
I chuckled as I said, "25 square meters."
Dad smiled, "Not bad."