While looking for his next prey, Rex thought of his time in this world. He had been here for a month, as far as he considered, even though his memories implied closer to ten years or so. As for why his body was aproximately sixteen, it was due to his his abilities forced awakening in order to survive. He had to admit to himself, it was fun. What grinder wouldnt enjoy a world where you could live a fantasy like life, while having the ability to grind and grow stronger. It takes a certain mindset to be able to do the same thing for hours, with a metaporical shiny new toy dangling in the distance. Here however, every kill was growth, and as such it made for a more thrilling experience. Rex loved it, and as such he felt he could never grow tired of it.
And so he kept going. He searched for prey, and as soon as he found it, he spent little time in engaging and taking it down. His kills often were bison like creatues. There were two variants- camouflaged ones that became active in the night, and the ones active in day. Day light ones were larger and stronger, and since they didnt have the ability to hide themselves they lived in bigger packs, ensuring safety with numbers. Sometimes Rex would encounter packs of wolves or bears. All of these naturaly occuring beasts in his old world were much stronger here. not only in size, but speed and power as well. Even the beasts that lived in the forests ouside were more like the ones in his previous world. But these, Supuerinfused with mana had grown incomparably more powerfull. Bears adn boars would be a pain for most of normal adventurers to deal with, their hides thick and harder than steel, huge hulking bodies and savage, rage like ferocity. Thankfully Rex had his greatsword and as such he didnt have the same problems most adventurers would face if they were to come this deep without years of prior preparations and planning.
One needed the natural treasures from the dungeon to be able to take on the deeper floors. Super mana infused metals, to forge weapons sharper and more durable than any material naturaly occuring on the surface capable of, pelts of beasts and monsters, to make better armor for safer dungeon delving, and ingridients from both beast and nature, to brew concoctions that would strengten the imbiber in numerous different ways. In a world where a single man could take out hundreds if not thousands, no one wanted to be at the bottom of the pecking order. And even in cities, where there were some semblance of law and order, under the watch of city lords and their guard regiments, human greed and shallowness reared its ugly head. Corruption and crime. A nonescapable part of humanity, one that will acompany them to the end of time. And those, that were not rich, or brave, or strong enough from the get go, could only let go of their ambitions and dreams, and like any other man, lived, just hoping to get by, and to not be stomped by the powerfull. Though there was also a small hope in the little people of this world. Humans were greedy, ambitious and ever more demanding, so the stronger they became, the more they desired to rule. And a ruler needs people to rule, so the cycle came full circle. The weak strive to be powerfull, or give up, the powerfull, while occasionaly stomping on the weak, to remind of their place, also preotected them, to an extent, to feed their egos.
Rex though of this for a moment, relizing that is want all that different from his original world, if only less sofisticated and more primal in nature. After all they didnt have true monsters to contend with. Sure initially they had to care for wolves and tiger and other such beasts, but its not like there roamed t-rexes, or any other dinosaurs snacking on people. In this wolrd however, a few stories large monster popping up somewhere with a penchant for human flesh was, while uncommon, not unheard of a situation.
He was murdering and draining his targets ever increasing his mastery over his chains, who now had risen to three in count. And while sometimes getting tangled, because Rex messed up a bit in the control of the chains, it had increased his efficiency of and speed of his hunting.
'I wonder, how good the meat of boars on this level tastes, and would that help my girls to grow stronger. In theory, it should provide some benefit to them, with meat naturaly infused with mana of these levels.' Rex though, while killing a couple of boars. He had spent two weeks or so here, so he was feeling a slight desire to go out and spend some time with Irina, who had come to enjoy their night time activities. Not that Rex himself didnt feel the same. And so, with renewed vigor, and clear subquest in his mind, he redoubled his efforts in achieving his reason for being here, besides growing ever stronger.
With clear cut goal, Rex speed and eficiency rose, and he became a blurr of death, dashing ever forward to achieve his goal. He wasnt worried about his compatriots asuming he was dead, because Victor and the merchants had a life jade made with Rex's mana signature. While one couldnt use it to track the owner of said mana it didnt break unless othe person marked with it died. So as long as the jade was okey, as it would be with Rex alive, they could just go on with their business.
The second encounter with a great sabertooth was much smoother and nowher near as dangerous for Rex. First, Rex had experienced, what the tiger coould do, secondly, he had grown much stronger than before, and thirdly, this tiger seemed exausted for some reason, and wery much so on guard, with ferocity in its eyes Rex hadnt seen before. The beast also wasnt lunging at Rex the moment it saw him. As if its instincts and purpose, if Rex had to give this second feeling a name, were overpowering the ingrained need to kill anything that was not dungeon born. Rex stopped,and started to use his sight to evaluate his surroundings, while still keeping his eyes on the tiger. A minute or so later, he realised, what was going on. The tiger had just had cubs, and after labor was exausted, and its maternal insticnt was somehow overpowering her dungeon monster nature. The need to propagate its kind, was aparently stronger withing apex predators, Rex reasoned.
'Ņow isnt this a heaven sent blessing.' Rex chucled to himself, and without drawing his sword from it scabbard, he prepeared fo a fight.
"If only you could understand me before the branding." Rex spoke in a normal tone, making the sabertooth more wary "I woudnt have to beat you up now. Well, small evil for the greater good i suppose." and dashed at the cat. The next ten minutes were a weird show of ferocious cat desperately trying to stop the threat from getting any closer to her cubs, and Rex trying to beat the sabertooth tiger without damaging it too much. Rex had and idea with how he could use drain in combination with his chains to heal a target of his choosing, but he needed to experiment a bit first before trying that on his pets, or slaves, and so before he had a surefire way to heal the cat, he coudnt just break its limbs and brand it after. He needed the cat down, and immobile, and so rex tried the only thing he could come up with. he used stamina drain on the cat. a super weak version, and while it ddint give him much, because of the controlled drain potency, it did notably slowed down the cat.
Another five minutes later, sabertooth was exausted, with a few bruises here and there from the beating it recieved. It was still struggling to get up, but had no strenght, desparate to protect its cubs. Exasuted, it felt the end nearing. Its labor had it tired and hungry, and now this unknow predator had sapped the last of its strenght. Death was inevitable. Both for her and the cubs, but there was nothing to draw from to opose this fate. Its struggling head slumped to teh ground, listless, accepting of its fate.
"Good, finaly stopped strugling didnt you." Rex spoke, standing in front of the bus sized sabertooth mama tiger. His eyes focused on the tiger "I was planning to catch a single cat, changes will have to be made." This that said he activated his spell and his blood chains came form the magic circle forming on the ground beneath his feet. The difference between these chains and the chains Rex used for drain were both visual and from where they were spawing. Rex's spell chains came from his back, as if leaveing his spine, and since they were magic construct more ethereal than real used to transfer energy, they didnt even tear his clothing, meanwhile brands chains looked liek solid, blood chains that came from a magic circle beneath his feet. Rex guided his branding magic, with the tigress as his target and soon the cat was wraped in the chains and the main banding one ethereally pierced the cats forehead. With the cat exausted and acceping its fate, and it being a beast with barely developed intelegence, branding was quick to complete. Rex felt his brand solidifying, binding the cat to his will, transferring the necesary knwoledge to the sabertooth, ensuring its understanding of Rex worlds(common language) and the rules its bound to.
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"I will go and brand your cubs. I doubt you want them to be left here to die." Rex spoke and advanced towards a mound, with a rather big cave entrance in it. "Rest there while I take care of this." he added dissapearing in the cave. A few minutes later, the sabertooth saw her master come out of the cave, both cubs in his arms. It was a weird sight. A man of two meters hight, arms extended sideways in a forty five degree angle up, holding a cub in each hand by the neck the way cats carry their cubs with their mouth. The cubs were already over one and a half meters not long, and Rex had no other ideas how to bring them out. Placing the cubs in the mama cats embrace he ordered her to just wait here with the cubs, and dissapeared.
Rex didnt went far away from the tigress, as she was exausted ,and had two cubs with her. That was such an insane haul for Rex, he coudnt take chances and loose them. So while keeping his eye in his newly aquired pets he did some hunting. Luckily, rather soon he came across a herd of bisons, and he didnt waste any time in killing half and amputating the legs for the other half. What followed was a quick experimentation with life energy transfer from the recently killed ones to the living ones. Some thrity minutes later, Rex had an acceptable working result. It was better to transfer life force from one living target to another, there was better efficiency. Rex reasoned it was because of his unique constitution that he not only could use drain, but it worked with such frightening efficiency. With a few remaining living specimens, Rex spent another twenty minutes to bring over to the tigress five beheaded bisons and drag three living, limbless bisons.
Three transfers later, the sabertooth mama was devouring the five corpses with great apetite. her first meal after the labor. And while no longer a free and feral cat in the dungeon, she no longer had that gnawing ferocity of a monster inside her. The brand freed her from one master, and bound to another. Rex looked at the cat, devouring its food, thinking for a bit.
"Tigra will be your name." then he looked at the cubs. The male cub was the same light brown collor as its mother. The other cub, female, was white as snow, with emerald green eyes.
"The male witll be Diego, and female Snow" after a while of thinking, Rex named his pets. He was aware his naming sense was shit, but who cares. its not like he is naming his own kids. Damn, when that happens thats gonna be a whole another can of worms. he will just deal with that when, and if that happens.
"Tomorrows problems for tomorrows me." he murmured and shoved the though deep in his mind, to hopefully never encounter it again.
Spending another hour, resting and waiting for Tigra to finish her meal and feed the cubs, Rex decided its time to return home. His had achieved his plan for coming here, better than he could have expected, and it was time for him to return. Tigra, with energy transfers from the bisons was more than capable to travel, and while not in perfect shape yet, she was above fifty precent, and Rex would ensure a few more dran-transfers to get her up to hundred. The cubs too, while recently born were more than capable of running already, so they could advance at a relatively fast pace.
Once Tigra knew their destination, she led Rex and the cubs to Return Tori. Rex didnt have to wory about cubs not growing to be as strong as the mother, because the mana rich enviroment only ensured the evolution of the species living in such a place. The tree pets were great sabertooth tigers. And the only detriment in their growth would be the acseess to food source of the same quality as the berbivores of the thirty floor, since they feeding on the mana rich plants were overstuffed with mana charged meat. And since Rex could just bring meat en masse from his dives in the dungeon, once he gets a proper spatial ring, that he had Victor order specifically from the Turtle sages living on a small island archipellago, the tigers would be no issues. Victor had asured Rex the ring would arive with an envoy from the sages by the time of the auction which would happen in a few months, or so Victor estimated. On their way Rex slaughtered or incapacitated a few more herds of bisons and got Tigra back to one hundred percent. He also grabbed a pair of hogs, two meter high and weighing quite a bit for dinnner at his mansion. His spatial ring could hold up to nince cubicmeters of stuff, so besides his greatsword it was loaded with the soft meat of boars and some of bisons.
Employing the same method as with his slaves the first time, Rex exited through the dungeon Return Tori, In each hand a huge bison dragging behind him, and a ribbon connecting him and the tigers as one entity, allowing his pets to travel through the gate as one unit. The cats wouldnt be able to leave through the gate otherwise. They had not been on the other side after all. It has to be said, Rex did laugh his ass off as the guild members nearly shat their pants , being the closest to the gate, when they saw Rex, followed by the bus sized tiger.
As luck would have it only super strong adventurers who had participated in raids had any knowledge or experience with great sabertooths, as such, while people who were passed by Rex and his pets were curious and formed a crowd following the tamer, no one recognized the absolute monsters that Rex had brought into the city. And even with the fact that he had came out in the dead of the night, the crowd still formed as nightlife in the sicty was in full swing. Rex had spent a total of a week in the dungeon once he parted with Victor and his group, and Rex was quite sure he would be visited by the lord and the merchants as soon as the guards inform them of his return, so without wasting time he returned home.
His three maids and Irina greeted him as soon as they heard his voice in the mansion. The cats had been wery well behaved as Rex had them instructed regarding their behaviour upon exiting the dungeon. It took him a few minutes to reach the food cellar of his mansion. It had a rather huge cold room equiped with a magical device that ran on monster cores. Rex had a few of those aquired with him. Any monster or beats on floor thirty had a core and it was left intact if Rex didnt use drain. So the beasts he fed to Tigra, the ones he dismembered for meat had cores that Rex collected to use or sell. And cold storage was like a large barn, since the mansion could support a few hundred to a thousand people with the main bulding and all servants quarters combined. The servants quarters were unused currently since Irina was basicly spending every night in Rex room, even if she had her own room as well, and the trio were located a floor below, where the handmaidens and presonal maids were meant to life. Eventually Rex would have more servants, but he needed to get nice and properly situated and used to this place before he decided to expand his entourage.
With the meat stored in the cold storage and his cats instructed, regarding the inhabitants of his mansion, which was relatively easy as they could sense the presence of their masters other slaves, basicly ensuring that no accidents or replacement could happen. Rex allowed Tigra to choose her new lair, so to speak, and Rex wasquite happy when Tigra moved to one of the stable/barn locations that were the closest to the main mansion. Only barns truly had the doors of the right size to acomodate such an enourmous beast. Being closest to their master would allow her to protect him , and provide the greatest security for her cubs as well.
Entering his mansion, he didnt bother to wake up his maids, but went straight to his room. When he saw Irina sleeping in his bed, as if waiting for his return, a small smile appeared on his face. He quitely moved himself to teh bathroom, and spent the next hour or so soaking in the bath and washing away the dirt and grime of his dungeon dive. Sure he had washed and swam in the water ponds, rivers and lakes in the dungeon, but it didnt came anywhere close to a proper bath with warm water, courtesy of monster core powered heaters, and soap. After thoroughly soaking to his hearrt content, Rex crawled in the bed and enjoyed a well earned rest for all his hard work. His presence in the bed made Irina subconsciously snuggle closer to him, and in the warm embrace of the bed and company, Rex was finaly lulled into sleep.