Chapter 116 - 111: Tame Beasts

Chapter 116: Chapter 111: Tame BeastsHaving chosen his profession, Xiao Jie glanced at the time and saw that it was nearly noon; it was time to head back to the village. They followed the same path back, and I Want to Be Immortal wildly chopped at the Tomb Robbers in excitement. The enhancement of his professional abilities through Master of Giant Weapons made his attacks much more ferocious. Often a single axe blow would cause a minor stagger, and two would cause a major one. The Tomb Robbers, lacking tenacity, were completely overpowered. Occasionally, he would land a crushing blow that smashed their weapons to pieces. And with Heavy Load, his mobility increased significantly, no longer confined to short strides. Seeing a Tomb Robber flee only to be cut down with an axe felt merciless. There was a certain savage beauty to the violence of a Berserker. Xiao Jie didn’t feel much difference himself since his talents were all focused on beasts, and his own strength hadn’t changed much. It was time to capture a beast to keep as a pet, he thought eagerly. Ginkgo Valley wasn’t home to any ferocious beasts—the strongest were merely Level 5-6 wolves and Level 6-7 boars. Considering he was squishy, he decided to go for a more robust pet. A wild boar would do. Though boars weren’t flashy, he was in a transitional period, and it was good enough for now. Plus, boars were omnivorous and easy to feed. Now, how does one use Beast Taming Skill again...? After some research, Xiao Jie quickly figured it out. The process of taming a beast was rather troublesome. Beast Taming Skill consisted of three sub-skills—Feed Beasts, Calm Beasts, and Tame Beasts. First, Feed Beasts had to be used to lower the beast’s Hate Value; once it dropped to zero, Calm Beasts was used to increase the beast’s Happiness Value. Finally, using Tame Beasts had a certain chance of making the beast submit and become a pet. The lower the Hate Value and the higher the Happiness Value, the better the chances of Tame Beasts succeeding. If taming failed, the beast would generate new Hate Value. The cycle of Feed—Calm—Tame—Feed—Calm—Tame would continue until successful taming. During this process, the Beast Tamer would continuously face attacks from the beast, meaning there was a certain level of danger involved. One could even be bitten to death if not careful. Of course, incapacitating the beast before calming it would make things much safer. For instance, using traps or other control skills to immobilize the beast... However, this would lead to a high Hate Value and low Happiness Value, greatly increasing the chances of failing to tame the beast, so whether it would be successful was entirely down to luck. But Xiao Jie didn’t need to bother with such complications; his talent for Beast Affinity meant that beasts wouldn’t attack him right away, sparing him much trouble. Furthermore, his talent as a Beast Scholar reduced the taming difficulty by 1 for any beast in his Illustrated Book. Whether it was pigs or dogs (wolves), they were all in his Beast Atlas, so he didn’t anticipate many issues. The current task was to find a beast with as high a level and as good skills as possible. Even though it was a transitional pet, he still wanted to choose a useful one, and not settle for the very bottom of the barrel. As they walked, he continuously used Beast Recognition to check the skills of the beasts they came across. When they reached the deeper parts of the forest, Xiao Jie finally set his sights on a suitable target. It was a Level 7 black wild boar. The wild boars in Ginkgo Forest were generally between Level 6-7, with Level 7 being the highest. He used Beast Recognition to check the boar’s skills and was pleased. It had three skills, with decent Skill Levels. This one was the one. He first threw a piece of meat as a form of ’Beast Temptation.’ The boar glanced at Xiao Jie and, as expected, did not attack. It ran to the meat, huffing and snorted as it began to eat heartily. The effect of Beast Affinity was quite notable. Normally, players had to first feed, then calm a beast until its Hate Value was gone before they could start taming. But Xiao Jie had Beast Affinity, which meant he could start with close-distance calming. Since the boar was an animal in his Beast Atlas, the Tame difficulty was reduced by 1; it was only at an entry-level difficulty. Xiao Jie used Calm Beasts a few times and watched as the boar’s Happiness Value increased to 20 before it stopped rising. It looked like calming alone wasn’t very effective. He attempted to use Tame Beasts, and the boar immediately huffed, raising its head to glare at Xiao Jie. Its eyes were slightly red, seemingly ready to attack. "Don’t be agitated; I’m just patting you. Have you had enough to eat? Here’s another piece." Xiao Jie kept calming the boar while speaking, tossing another piece of meat. The boar hesitated, sniffed the meat, and settled down to eat again. Tame Beasts! Hmph! —— Plop, another piece of meat is thrown onto the ground. Continue calming. Tame Beasts. The third time was finally a success. The wild boar shimmered in white light, and the name above its head suddenly changed. Wild Boar (Pet of Hidden Moon Following Wind). The wild boar seemed not to have realized what happened and looked at Xiao Jie with confusion. "What are you looking at? I’m your master from now on, so come here and let me pet you." Although the wild boar was reluctant, it still grunted and rubbed against Xiao Jie’s leg. System notification: You have successfully tamed a beast. Please name your pet. Looking at the wild boar’s pitch-black fur and rotund figure, let’s call you —— Meiqiu. After deciding on a name, Xiao Jie checked Meiqiu’s attributes. [Meiqiu (Pet of Hidden Moon Following Wind) Level 7, Life Value 240. Experience Points: 113/2800. Loyalty: 50/100. Happiness value: 20/100. Unhappy. Food type: Omnivorous, can be fed all types of food. Pet Skills— Thick Skin LV3. Naturally has 30 points of Biological Armor. Charge LV3. Charges at the target, dealing 30 points of blunt impact damage and attempting to knock it down, this skill can receive speed damage bonuses. Life Tenacity LV2. Maximum Life Value increased by 20%.] For a meat shield, these attributes aren’t bad. Xiao Jie checked the details of the Beast Taming Skill again— [A pet’s low Happiness value will slowly reduce Loyalty, while a high Happiness value will gradually increase Loyalty. By soothing, feeding, playing interactively, or fighting alongside your pet, you can increase this Happiness value. Different beasts gain happiness in different ways, and players need to repeatedly experiment to find the correct way of interaction...] Xiao Jie thought to himself, why bother with all the trouble when you can just ask. "Meiqiu, you got any hobbies?" "I want to eat, I’m hungry." That’s easy, Xiao Jie tossed a few steamed buns over, watching Meiqiu gobble them down and slowly increasing its Happiness value. "Got any other thoughts?" "I want to eat until I’m full, really full." Xiao Jie wondered, weren’t the steamed buns enough to satisfy its hunger? Keep feeding, he still had plenty of food. Watching Meiqiu hungrily devour over a dozen steamed buns, Xiao Jie broke out in sweat, realizing a very serious problem – pets eat more than people. Just feeding the pets could be a huge expense in the future. But maybe it’s just the wild boar that eats a lot, after all, it’s a pig. Other pets probably have other methods to increase Happiness value. Overall though, the cost of pet food is an issue. Luckily, he had Cooking skills and could hunt for meat, which could mitigate the problem to some extent by processing it. Otherwise, just buying dog food would be enough to bankrupt me. And from what he could see, the Secret Dog Food was quite useful; it could directly increase Happiness by 10 points, meaning it could lower the taming difficulty and increase Loyalty faster. He had to figure out a way to level up his Cooking, this recipe was a must-learn. It would definitely come in handy when taming even fiercer beasts in the future.