I follow Daniel out of the building and head west this time. We enter a two story building, and he directs me into a large open room to the left with many tables though only a few have people at them right now.  He explains to me “We actually missed lunch due to finding out your aptitudes so technically it’s not normally available like this. Honestly, you should not get used to this anyway as unless you are stationed here you will be responsible for feeding and housing yourself.”

I ask, “Do I need to learn how to cook for myself or will food be available to buy wherever I go?”

He replies “Learning to cook is always a good thing as it can save you money especially when just starting out. Usually, food is available near where you will be hunting at. The way things work is that Odyssey starts bombarding a planet or moon with mana when this occurs monsters start to spawn. The longer the mana is sent into a planet, the bigger and harder the monsters are that spawn though it generally takes about ten years before the mana level is high enough to start spawning even weaker monsters.  That’s where the factions come in, when a planet is found to have begun this process the three factions bid on the planet to any current residents of the planet. Whoever wins gets to build a space station and place buildings for their faction planet side. As a result, they tax all transactions that take place on the planet and serve as way stops for all the Odyssey adventurers. The contract with the initial faction is for five hundred years as it takes about one hundred to two hundred years before the faction will start to recoup the initial investment.”

We go ahead to one of the staff and ask for plates, and they brought us some meat and mushed up vegetables when I am asked I am told its cockatrice and crushed tubers. We take these plates to an empty table, and I think to ask, “How are these planets found?”

He then tells me “The factions keep in their employ scouts. They go to planets and scan for mana or for people who show signs of mana infiltration, as those are the first signs of a new Odyssey planet. Once they find a new planet, they are to report it to their designated faction, who will then alert the other two factions. The scout and the faction will be paid a finder’s fee by the other factions and representatives will be sent out to start educations and negotiations with the planets current populace, if any. Honestly, the finder’s fee is worth quite a lot and some people have never had to hunt again after finding a new planet.”

After this explanation, I start to eat the cockatrice, and the thought crosses my mind, it tastes like chicken. Which confuses me as I cannot remember what a chicken is or how I would know what it tastes like. Evidently, I have enough of an expression on my face when I paused eating that Daniel asks me, “Have another question?”

Setting aside my thoughts I ask my next question “What are the factions?”

“Well, the three factions are Vortex which we belong to, Immortalis, and Karma. Each of us has different goals. We of Vortex are trying to find a way to stop or at least slow down Odyssey. There are not enough adventurers, yet Odyssey keeps spreading like a plague. On new planets, even the locals can take down the monster spawns without too much trouble. On the older planets, you can hardly leave the cities without taking extreme precautions, and there are just not enough adventurers to take out the monsters or to keep them thinned out. It’s not safe, and you can’t just relocate the planet's inhabitants. We tend to actively try to find and recruit the orphans and misfits, so families are not broken apart when someone is found mana infiltrated” he tells me.

“Second we have Immortalis, they are a decent group of people that believe in some ancient fighting spirit that lives on in them. They tend to be more helpful to residents of planets and others around them, just don’t screw with them because they revere their spirit as a being of vengeance and will come after you hard if you wrong them.”

“Third is Karma. They tend to follow the golden rule in all things, which to me is kind of stupid, but if they are wronged, they believe that karma will fix it and overall remain neutral for the most part. They tend to arbitrate disputes between the rest of us, and while they do not hold as many stations and planets as us, they don’t seem to really care and are still a quite powerful faction.”

I then ask him “What about on planets that already have the technology yet are newly mana bombarded? What happens there, do the factions just outlaw all tech to the adventurers and the planet's inhabitants use their guns?”

He gets a thoughtful look on his face “That is one of the mysteries. When a planet starts developing mana, technology starts failing that is not made with mana. That is part of the bidding process, new mana crafters, and mana crafted infrastructure to replace what is going to start failing.  People have tried shields and other methods, but nothing has worked. Stuff made without mana just stops working.” he admits then continues “As far as bringing in guns and advanced weapon technology to a planet. The factions need training planets, so it was agreed that until monsters spawn that actually warrant advanced weaponry, just the good old classics would be used.”

By this time we have finished our plates, so he directs me to deposit my plate on a tray after throwing our trash away and to follow him out.  Once outside the building, he asks me what skill I had selected when I told him Beast mastery he instructed me to think show beast mastery. Once I did, I got this popup

Beast Taming - 0%

This skill increases the chance of increasing the loyalty of an animal, or beast type monster. Upon success, the animal’s loyalty rating will increase, and an attempt will occur to make the target bound to the skill user.

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Increase targets loyalty by 1%+ skill total.

Chance to tame 20%  +Loyalty + skill total – target level

He then explained to me “As you can see with the skill unlocked, but not trained up you have an extremely low chance to tame a beast of any kind. If right now you went up to a dog and tried to make friends with it, you could try to use the skill many times before it would finally trust you enough to follow your commands. If you had not unlocked it yet, it would still be possible to do, but it would take even more coaxing to get the pet to follow you.”

Luckily this was semi transparent as I was walking, so I was able to follow him back to his office without issue. He then directed me “Your next task is to raise the skill to ten percent, honestly, doing this will take the rest of the day and if you dally part of tomorrow but it’s important. Here is a map, I marked on it where a farm is where the cockatrices are raised. They are not aggressive, so you will get a chance to raise your skill, without having to deal with aggression issues, just remember if the skill works and increases loyalty move on to another bird. You will not have to worry about actually taming one since they are domesticated, they already have an owner, and as such, the skill will fail that part. To use the skill you need to focus on one of the birds, you should see above its head a bar appear that shows you the animal’s general information. After you see that think use beast taming to activate the skill. Once you finish with getting to ten percent come back to me, do not bother trying to raise the skill higher it’s capped on domesticated animals. If it’s already dark go to the food area and ask for a room for the night if not come to me and we will go from there.

The map showed that the farm was about a mile away to the north, so I left the building and followed the road away from the barrack and towards the edge of town. It took about fifteen minutes to find the place, and once I was there I asked one of the workers where I should go, he directed me to some holding pens that each held a bird used for egg laying. The birds themselves were about four and a half feet tall with horns on the back of their heads and a long, scaled tail that resembled a rat’s tail. The body lacked feathers except on the neck and wings, and the feet held spurs that were about four to six inches long. Overall I was glad it was domesticated because it looked very formidable. I then focused on the bird and information appeared above its head

Cockatrice (female)

Level 11

Owned by Takien farms

I began to think use beast taming, and my body started to move of its own accord, and I started to feel pretty embarrassed when I started imitating what the birds were doing flapping my arms and scratching around with my feet. I really wish Daniel had told me about this part then I might have changed my mind about the whole beast taming thing. I then received three messages, one said the spell was resisted, the second said target invalid and the third said that beast taming had increased by .5%, while I was pondering this the bird swatted me with its tail and I thought to myself it’s going to be a long day.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Personal Information

Name

Age

Class

Level

Faction

Alain

18

N/A

1

N/A

Health

EXP  to next level

Mana

35

100

28

Statistics

Strength

Stamina

Dexterity

Intelligence

Wisdom

4

5

10

4

4

Magic Affinity

Nature

Cold

Fire

Water

Light and Dark

8%

5%

1%

4%

3%

Skills

Beast Taming

.5%

Stat points remaining

0

Skill points remaining

0