Beast-Tamer: Limitless Evolution

Getting Experience

Watching the small human approach it, the boar felt insulted.

They had killed its brethren in front of it, and now they weren't even sending forth the beasts that did the deed?!

Did they believe it was an easy target because they dealt with its brethren easily?

No, that wouldn't do. It would show them that it was far, far stronger than its brethren, starting by crushing the arrogant human before it!

A torrent of steam shot from its nostrils as it stomped its hind legs and charged.

Its body blasted forward like a rocket, creating a powerful gust of wind as it went straight for Kurt who simply raised his arms.

With a mighty bellow, it aimed its head and rammed into him tusks first.

BANG

The impact created a shockwave that swept through the area, blowing dust and rocks all over the place.

Such force was enough to turn any normal human into meat paste. In fact, even if the human was at the same rank as the boar, chances are that they would sustain serious injuries if they weren't killed outright.

However.

"Heh... Hehehe!" The boar's eyes widened. It tried to proceed, but to its shock, it couldn't advance an inch!

"That was terrifying, but worth it!" Kurt said with a tone of pure elation as he held onto the tusks of the boar.

His muscles bulged beneath his armor, and veins could be seen on his neck. But he was stopping it.

"Let's see what else we can do!" With a yell, he strained, and amazingly, the boar started to get lifted off the ground.

He spun and threw its large body. It sailed through the air before smashing into the side of one of the trees, causing it to shake.

The boar let out a grunt, but Kurt didn't let up as he ran forward and reached the boar in a moment. He clenched his fist and threw a heavy punch at it.

His fist landed on the side of its head, and a loud sound rang out as the boar actually staggered from the blow, a slight depression appearing on the side of its head where Kurt hit.

In pain and anger, the boar squealed as a silver glow surrounded its body.

A moment later, the faint pieces of metallic fur on its hide hardened and shot out in an omnidirectional attack.

Without hesitation, Kurt stretched his hand forward and released a blast of destabilizing sound, causing many of the hair-like projectiles to be displaced.

However, it was enough for the boar to regain its bearings, and as soon as it stood up, one of its tusks glowed before releasing a glob of liquid metal.

Kurt jumped out of the way just in time, and when he did, the glob hit the ground and started to sizzle.

Kurt made a face.

"Oi, isn't your Affinity metal? How are you making hot metal?" He asked dryly before jumping out of the way of a charge from the boar.

As soon as he did, he pointed at it, and a visible wave of sound traveled from his finger, engulfing the boar and disintegrating the matter around it.

The boar dug its hooves into the ground to avoid getting blown away, but even then, one could see its hide getting damaged gradually as its eardrums ruptured violently.

By the end of it, the area around and behind the boar was shredded, and the boar was bleeding from several openings, with clear signs of internal injuries.

However, it kept glaring at Kurt as it tried to take a wobbly step forward.

"Nah, you're done," Kurt said simply and pressed his palms together.

The others heard a faint high-pitched noise and watched–and heard–as something, probably the boar's brain, exploded within its skull.

Its body went still for a second, then it collapsed, blood and brain matter oozing from its ears.

"Phew. That was fun!" Kurt said while rolling his shoulders.

The others took this as a sign to approach, and Irene was the first one to speak.

"That was awesome." She said with genuine awe in her voice, and Kurt grinned.

"Yeah, that was pretty cool." Sam also said, looking thoroughly impressed.

"So Venom can boost your physical and magical capabilities to that of an Adept Rank Beast. Possibly higher." Osho said while rubbing his chin.

"That's not all." Kurt smiled.

"He also boosts my regeneration speed and increases my Mana pool drastically. So I can be on par with a beast in that regard. There's more, but I don't wanna spoil it." He bragged, but it was indeed impressive.

Humans fighting against beasts of the same rank was unheard of. Rare, sure, but it happened from time to time.

Still, against a beast of a higher rank was much more difficult, and not even Osho had managed to perform such a feat, but Kurt made it look so easy.

You could argue that it wasn't truly Kurt as Venom was the one supplying him with the strength, but then again, beasts were considered to be an extension of a beast tamer's power.

"Alright, enough stalling. Time to– Hey, where are the corpses???" Osho paused as he looked around, and was surprised when he noticed that all the boar corpses were gone.

The others shared his confusion, but Ellie just smiled

"Don't worry about it. Spectrum was busy." She said mysteriously, and everyone gave her a strange look but chose not to question it. She kept alluding to Spectrum having some interesting abilities but never actually revealed any of them, so they assumed she wanted to surprise them as well.

Without wasting any more time, they got into formation and moved forward with the same formation as before.

A few minutes later, Gale spotted another target, and they proceeded.

***

A few hours later, the group left a trail of destruction in their wake.

They must have killed over a hundred creatures by now, with none of them being below the Apprentice rank, and as they guessed, the practice was great.

After so long, they were finally fighting together again, and they were quickly brushing up on their skills as a team.

Each fight allowed them to flesh out weaknesses as well as improve their coordination. At the same time, they started to have a better understanding of each other's new beasts, allowing them to come up with more effective strategies when it came to dealing with beasts.

Moreover, with them acting together, they were able to point out certain weaknesses they noticed in the others.

For instance, Osho pointed out that Sam keeps using Lux similarly to how she uses Blackie by making the wolf stealthy when he's pretty much the opposite, causing her to let the wolf be more offensive.

Kurt pointed out that Ellie doesn't make use of Sugil's ability to fly enough, as she has the Amphiptere slither a lot instead of flying and raining attacks from above.

Sam suggested that Ellie should use Inagi's poison more broadly, like by spreading large amounts of the stuff in a wide area, essentially creating an area of poison that passively debunks enemies.

The group continued to exchange pointers as they moved through the forest, and gradually, the power of their opponents grew.

The number of times the older beasts had to step in started to increase as the newbies faced against stuff that truly made them struggle, but there were no injuries as of yet.

Despite this, though, the group wasn't deterred. Instead, they were encouraged.

The whole point of this trip was to make them fight against powerful foes to make themselves stronger, so with the power of their opponents increasing, their growth also sped up.

'This is fun.' Gale said through their bond as the group rested after their latest battle.

The surrounding area had been torn up pretty heavily, with craters, puddles of poison, scorch marks, crystal construct fragments, and sliced up tree bark being scattered across a large area.

Their opponents had been a group of Black beetles that corroded everything they touched. Moreover, most of them were at the Adept rank, so the group had to exert themselves a bit more than usual to deal with the issue.

That said, they weren't truly in any danger, and the newbies were acquiring valuable experience in fighting stronger foes.

'Yeah? I was thinking of letting you frequent this place whenever you wanted since just staying inside the habitat can only do so much.' Osho suggested when he heard Gale's positive review of the place.

'Really?!' The bird who had been resting on his head perked up and looked down at Osho, who smiled and scratched under his beak.

'That's right. You're a big bird now. You should be able to move around on your own. And I think giving you more freedom will do you some good.' He confirmed.

'Yay!' Gale gave a happy chirp, making Osho chuckle.

However, the jovial mood came to an abrupt halt when a voice reached their ears.

"Huh? Who's using our training ground?"