Bark covered knees hitting the ground and sliding across the dusty clearing, lasher whip barely scraping past the wooden warrior’s up turned face, Rumble sprang up behind the opponent while spinning around with a sharp kick to its stalk.

With another lasher down, Rumble turned to stare down the last guardian of the nest, a larger than usual lasher with bright red and blue striping. Slowly they circled, circling the arena full of the guardian’s fallen brothers.

With a mutual understanding of what comes next, they both charged at one another, the lashers whip legs carrying it in long strides compared to Rumble’s powerful rocket like launches every time its powerful stumps slammed the ground. The lasher having seen the stumpy enemy topple its brethren; it swung low in order to cripple its opponent.

With instincts blaring loud, Rumble front flipped over its opponents low whip attack before slamming a powerful chop kick down onto split where the opponents arm attached to the stalk.

Being stronger than its brethren, the lasher did not go down from the blow, but it did lose the appendage when it split off from its main body. Now one branch down, it knew that the duel was getting down to the wire and as such it decided to launch its last ditch attack.

Starting to charge back in after having stepped back following its last attack, Rumble was caught off guard when the lasher’s maw split at the seams and sprayed out a cloud of sickly purple spores. The moment the spores made contact, the areas affected started to numb. Not knowing exactly what the attack was, but with a pretty good idea, Rumble slowed and tried reversing course but to no avail.

The Lasher whipped out and managed to grapple its pesky opponent. Squeezing hard, it managed to crush one of Rumbles arm joints but was impaled in return by the sharp thorns protruding its target.

With the retributive damage insuring a mutual loss of an appendage, the fight became complicated. The lasher was down to only its legs and Rumble was still momentarily frozen in place. As the seconds passed, the lasher failed to crack Rumble’s shell, but as feeling returned, Rumble was able to rip and tear the now weaponless opponent.

Standing over the now defeated opponent, drawing in deep breaths of exhaustion, the victor felt a wave of power start to circulate from within before springing forth from the small bark covered body that Rumble called his own, a soft glow that quickly deepened into a dark green that brightened at its edges. With excitement and jumping with joy while one arm was flopping wildly, Rumble ran back home ,excited, to the now aware and mutually excited human friend.

~~~ Brad~~~

“Its happening Mia! Rumble just ticked over the edge! He is heading back now, but lets hurry to meet him around back of the house.” Brad exclaimed, having been alerted to the upgraded status from the system menu showing Rumble’s information.

“Already!?” Mia asked, caught unaware by the extremely quick progress that had been made this morning. “He finished five percent progress with just that nest!?” She asked, still not quite believing it.

“Ya, it had ticked up about two percent over the past hour, but apparently finishing off the last of it granted him the last three percent that he needed… must’ve been a boss or bonus for clearing it.”

“That is insane, I wish that my own skills could find huge boosts like that. Five percent at level nine of a tier within just a morning’s work is probably up there with the quickest of them. It is honestly amazing how strong Rumble is, he has barely slowed down at all versus Copper opponents.” Mia said, while having finished what she was in the middle of doing earlier and now getting up to follow.

Grabbing Mia’s hand to hurry her along, Brad continued in a still excited tone. “That is not quite true, Brad is taking a lot more damage. Right now he is hovering around thirty percent health left while running on fumes for stamina. The status menu also shows that his right arm is broken… he will recover just fine after a few hours, but he definitely is being pushed by them. If the nests were not tied to my overall level, then we would be in trouble.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Yes, it is tied to your overall level, but with a minimum of Copper tier. So Rumble just took on an entire nest of most likely ten monsters at Copper tier! Heck, I do not think that we should even call them monsters anymore, Rumble fits that description much better while fighting.”

“No kidding, I wonder what he would’ve been like if I had went with another combat profession instead of farmer.” Brad wondered aloud to Mia, while turning the final corner around the shack in order to meet the quickly approaching ‘Monster’.

“Honestly Brad, I do not think that he would have been as strong. Rumble is the little monster he is because of you being a ‘Farmer’. We both have seen how ‘Bountiful Harvest’ has made his stats grow. From what I have gathered from others, companions grow slower than full blown fighters. The only companions that grow similarly to adventurers are the ones tied to master’s that also have a support class in order to boost them. You are more or less a support class as a ‘Farmer’. Honestly, your two classes are quite the powerful combination. I still cannot help but wonder how you were able to access the class.” Mia commented while waiting at the back paths entrance with Brad.

“I have wondered that myself. It is probably something that I should look into.”

“You know what? You are about to get your first skill to Copper… once both are there, you will gain access to your ‘Bloodline’ menu. I wonder if it is something that is explained there.”

“What are ‘Bloodlines’? Is it like a family tree list? Will I be able to find my parents with it?” Brad asked hopefully.

“No, it will not list any names, but it will have some bonuses listed from your parents that they passed down to you. As an orphan, you probably know nothing about what yours will contain, but most families call it by the slang term ‘inheritance’ due to the bonuses that they receive and usually know about prior to unlocking it. Even though I was also an orphan, I do know roughly what mine will offer. Coming from a family of ‘Merchant’ variants, mine will most likely offer bonuses to buying and selling merchandise.” Mia said.

“Is it possible that I don’t have one? What if it doesn’t line up with being a farmer?” Brad asked.

“It might now line up, but you can always opt to start a new one and to gain its benefits as you progress down the bloodline upgrade tree.” Mia reassured Brad.

“Lets talk more about this later, I need to know more… but Rumble is almost here!”

Within moments the little companion skidded out from around a corner in the tall grass lined path. Lighting the pathway as he ran towards them, Rumble was visibly glowing. Obviously at the peak of his current power Tier, Rumble was overflowing with potential that was only barely waiting to be released.

Having been bowled over, Brad was quickly tumbling backwards towards the shack, having already been crouched down to hug Rumble he was not in the most of stable positions prior to the tackle.

Upon meeting each other, Rumble dived into Brads awaiting arms, initiating a systems prompt filled with a far distant sounding of a bell ringing a light note.

Congratulations for a achieving Copper Tier on your first skill!

Skill: Plant Familiar (Tree) is now Copper 0

Skills required for Copper Tier rank up 1/2

Upon reading the full pop-up and closing it, Brad was greeted with a new skill related prompt with the sound of rustling branches and leaves accompanying it.

Skill: Plant Familiar (Tree) is now ready for an Evolution.

Please choose one of the following choices for skill evolution.

1. Hulk: A large variant that possess great strength and durability

2. Adapter: A variant that quickly adapts to new environments and climates.

3. Green Commander: A variant that possess the ability to gather and lead plants

4. Warrior: A variant that excels in close combat using quick coordinated attacks

5. Center Piece: An immobile variant that greatly buffs the local area/domain

“Congrats little buddy, you made it to Copper!” Brad enthusiastically praised his familiar.

“Congratulations Rumble!” echoed Mia.

“So now the problem is choosing what to evolve you into. Can you see the options?” Brad asked Rumble.

With a shrug of his branches and an emoji of not knowing, it was clear that Rumble did not see them.

“Well, it looks like both Rumble and I are in the same boat. What kind of choices did it give you?” Mia asked.

“Well, it gave me five total. The first being ‘Hulk’, which it says is a large variant that possess great strength and durability…. And finally the fifth is Center Piece, which is immobile, but buffs the local area and domain.” Brad recited off the list for his companions.

“Well, I believe that Center Piece, regardless of how good it would be for us, is off the table due to Rumble’s personality. I honestly cannot see him willing to sit immobile for the rest of his life.” Mia chimed in.

Seeing Rumble agreeing with Mia with a furious nodding, Brad added. “Agreed, Rumble probably wouldn’t even like the adapter variant as much since it would not improve his greatest hobby… fighting. Honestly, even Green Commander and Hulk are probably second tier options for him. He likes fighting from the frontlines too much to command and army, but his current fighting style does not suit a large hulking frame. Warrior seems like it already describes him though….”

Mia, looking down at Rumble giving a mock thumbs up, quickly agreed. “So I guess that settles it. Rumble is going with Warrior then. Are you ready?” Mia finished, looking back and forth between the two.

With a spoken “Ready!” from Brad and an excited gesture from the little companion, the two started initiating the evolution with their choice made.