Soon, he came across a mutated beast. It looked ordinary, and even a little weak, but a single appraisal was enough to destroy all of his doubts.
"Found one at last."
Victor let out a sigh of relief as he examined the dark beast inside the display case.
If it wasn't for the Ancient Eye, he wouldn't have figured out that this was mutated beast by himself.
Nothing about it spelled Mutant.
No wonder some beast-tamers would dedicate their lives over finding mutant beasts but result in nothing.
He felt a bit dizzy from constantly using the Ancient Eye, but it was all worth it.
Victor's eyes landed on the mutated beast.
Within the display case, web strings latched on the glass, twisting and entangling with each other into a complicated pattern.
A small, unassuming black spider could be seen sleeping in the center of the web.
A dark transparent screen appeared in front of him.
***
[Name]: Shadow Crawler
[Gender]: Female
[Attribute Type]: Darkness
[Description]: A mutated variant of a common dark-attribute beast.
[Skills]: [Bite], [Shadow Cover], [Piercing++ (Passive)], [Web Master++ (Passive)] ...
***
This mutated beast was special.
It had two extra skills!
Victor let out a smile once all the shock had gone away.
He struck gold this time around.
A normal mutation only had one extra skill, but this one had two!
Thankfully, no student had taken it yet.
On second thought, it wasn't that surprising. Dark attribute beasts were already unpopular, and the Shadow Crawler was bottom-tier even among them.
It looked like a regular spider—small, harmless, pathetic even. The person that would pick such a beast either had absolute confidence on themselves or a complete fool.
There was no in-between because the Shadow Crawler was special even amongst dark-attribute beasts.
Recalling its information in the Beast Encyclopedia, Victor shook his head.
The Shadow Crawler's unassuming appearance hides a deeper terror, the ordinary-looking arachnid was known for its title "Giant Killer" in the far Southern Jungles.
With its small size but strong instant killing power, it was recognized as a symbol of terror in the jungles. A single bite of this beast can kill an ordinary human within seconds, turning them into a mindless husk.
However, its weakness was as glaring as its killing power. It wasn't as fast as one would expect for a beast of its size, and it was as squishy as a bug.
A single breath of fire can kill it instantly, burning its body into ashes within seconds. That weakness alone kept it from being considered anything more than a Common-grade beast.
It hardly could survive a single hit from any Common-grade beast.
Most beast tamers wouldn't give it a second glance. To them, if a beast couldn't survive a single hit, what was the point?
There was an element of truth to it, and Victor also thought carefully before putting the beast to one of his choices.
It seems he made the right decision.
Because of that, he lucked into finding a mutated Shadow Crawler.
An ordinary Shadow Crawler only had [Bite] and [Shadow Cover] as its skills, but this mutant one had two supporting skills!
Something like this would pass off as a Rare beast. Only a fool would think twice for this opportunity.
Since time was short, he didn't hesitate any longer and opened the display case from the top.
Once he opened the display case, the sticky webs suddenly converged to each other, waking up the small, unassuming black spider.
The Shadow Crawler eyes opened slightly, a yawn escaping its mouth. It looked at Victor with confusion.
Victor pondered for a moment.
There were two methods to tame a beast: the first one was to kill them, absorb their soul, and gain a fragment of their abilities.
The second one was to convince the beast to offer their soul to the beast-tamer, achieving a soul link bond, gaining both the beast and a fragment of its abilities.
Obviously, the second method was the superior method. But there were a lot of cases where the beast can't be convinced, making the first method to be the only viable option.
But in this case, the academy required all the students to choose the second method.
'Let's see how this goes.'
Victor nodded and released some aura from his core. Darkness seemed to come out of his body, covering his figure with a transparent dark mist.
It was said that cores are actually part of the human soul, and each core represents an aspect of the beast tamer's soul.
Magical beasts understood the Language of the Soul. When the beast-tamer releases even a sliver of their core's aura, it allows the beast to gain insight of who the beast-tamer was: their strength, resolve, ideals and dreams.
At that moment, the spider's eyes snapped open. It's six scarlet pupils turned to Victor—filled with desire and awe.
It was like it met its God.
'As expected…'
Victor smiled, but something shocking occurred the next moment.
Several popping sounds resounded in the room. Within the innumerable display cases, the sleeping beasts were forcefully awakened!
The dark beasts smelled something that fueled their existences—an energy so attractive it forcefully awakened them.
It even pierced through the containers.
"…"
Victor felt an uncountable number of gazes land on him. Those gazes seemed to have a hint of desire in them.
He was a little afraid they would break through their containers, but on second thought, the display cases shouldn't be ordinary if it wanted to contain magical beasts.
He saw the Shadow Crawler send out a wisp of its soul origin, a small transparent dark circle.
The scene reminded Victor of the time Mirage also unhesitatingly sent out his soul origin.
But this time it was different.
Mirage was just a contracted beast. They benefitted each other through a signed agreement.
But the Shadow Crawler…
If he accepted the Shadow Crawler's soul origin, they would form a genuine soul link bond, one that would only shatter after death.
Through thick and thin, from the lowest lows and highest highs, the Shadow Crawler would accompany him to fulfill his ideals.
"Alright, little guy."
Victor smiled a little, his eyes brightening. He reached out to the dark circle with his finger, absorbing the wisp of soul origin with ease.
After he absorbed it, the Shadow Crawler jumped to his hand with joy. It crawled on his skin and stopped on his shoulders, rubbing her tiny head against his cheeks.
"Excited, are we? I'll name you…"
Victor smiled, rubbing her head with his finger.
"Nyx."
That name held a special place in his heart, and it was only appropriate to give it to his first tamed beast.