A Tamer’s Adventure

It’s been a few days since the visit from butler John, and roughly two weeks remain before meeting up with Joseph for a check-in.

Right now, Amber and Martyn are sitting in the forest in the cool shade.

Aside from the surprise encounter, they have been doing well. Amber has improved greatly; her attributes have grown quite well, and she has gained a physicality skill that allows her body to remain in peak condition at most times.

Her healing spell had also improved well enough that she could cast it in a few seconds. Her biggest increase, however, was her mana, as with them sharing their senses, she advanced her core rapidly, and her arcana rose highly as a result.

For Martyn, he had filled his mana battery quota, and in exuding so much mana in a week, his arcana increased as a result.

“Do you think it’s time to level up?”

“Hm… You’ve gotten a lot stronger; your magic has levelled up. I’d say so; in all honesty, it’s up to you.”

Amber hummed in thought.

“I’d like to level up now, though if I ate the dragon meat, then my attributes would be close to twenty,” Amber said.

"True, but why raise attributes when you can do the same with training?”

Amber yawned, deciding to lean against Martyn.

“Fair point. So are we going to the dungeon? I’ll have to kill the boss on the sixth floor three more times before I level up. It’s still early in the afternoon.”

"Yeah, that seems like the plan. Before that, though, let’s stop by the library; let’s find out your precise conditions to evolve and not focus on the general one.”

Amber rose, “Let’s go!”

She pulled Martyn up, who smiled, feeling the excitement through their bond. Amber went to pick up her weapons, and with her intent, they vanished.

Martyn felt the weapons appearing in his inventory—a unique result for the monster tamer class. Since their bond was on a soul level, Amber could access his inventory and store items within without having a space affinity.

Flicking his finger, Martyn pulled out a single sheet of paper. But this was no ordinary sheet.

It functioned like a phone and was specifically made for him; it was essentially a chat group for every space mage. Donald had told him to mention any developments or discoveries when using space magic with his class.

His first was that Amber had access to his inventory even from afar, and with it not being limited by range, it exploded the magic world.

Of course, his identity was kept to a certain anonymity, so only those of high rank in their magic field would be aware of it. His first discovery had already made a splash in the magic world.

And as if that wasn’t enough, he made another discovery, one they both decided to keep to themselves.

This one was smaller than the first, but its implications were too wild to fathom. With his soulbond skill, he shared his senses with Amber and, while doing so, used his spatial awareness to see if she could grasp the skill or something similar.

Like how it resulted in her increasing her mana, it forced her to learn a skill. Since she didn’t have a spatial affinity, she couldn't learn his skill, but what she got was just as amazing, if not greater.

[Extrasensory: You have awakened your sixth sense, able to perceive and sense things beyond normality. Train it, hone it, and you could one day awaken dormant supernatural abilities.]

Something he had learned in the academy was that mana and magic were not the only sources of power in this world; those with weak mana could learn aura, a power related to the psyche and soul. Everyone could access it with dedicated training and discipline.

But those who didn’t have either could awaken psychic abilities, be able to move objects, control elements, and create reactions with their mental powers, requiring no mana and only being limited by imagination.

One couldn’t just attain psychic powers; you either awakened it somehow out of sheer luck or were born with it, and those gaining the skill were rare, and many became strong individuals in their respective fields.

But to have both magic and psychic abilities meant the level of chaos one could unleash was dreadful.

Now Amber didn’t have psychic powers; instead, she essentially awakened her sixth sense; she’d have to train it to the level of an expert and choose from whatever sub-skill would appear.

It could be anything from pyrokinesis to hydrokinesis. But Martyn had an inkling it would be the latter.

But that wasn’t even the end of it, because Amber had the genius idea to share their senses so he could learn the skill, and the plan worked.

To say both were overjoyed when it happened was a grave understatement; they had spent the following night with a burning passion for one another.

For him, it meant he could also gain control over another element if possible, as there has never been a spatial variant of telekinetic power ever recorded. If he could learn pyrokinesis in the future, then he’d be happy.

However, it would take some time before he levelled his skill to an expert rank. Martyn quickly got rid of those thoughts as they arrived at the library.

‘Honestly, if I succeeded in the summoning, if I got a sponsorship, I wouldn’t be here. With her.’

Martyn mulled over everything, truly happy to have Amber by his side.

The Kobold in question nudged him with a faint blush on her cheeks. They sat down at a desk, reading over the specifics of her variant race.

“Could you focus, please?”

He was focused. On her. As much as that was all he wanted to do, he joined her in learning her requirements to evolve.

Firstly, for a Kobold with a leviathan descent, two paths exist for her evolution into a monster girl.

The first was a lizard monster girl, and the other was a lamia.

Reading, they discovered she needed to defeat a reptilian boss alone; the greater rock lizard as a mini-boss filled this category. Consume its monster core and advance to become an expert in water magic.

A few things were mentioned, though, as skills can influence evolution and skills she’d gain from it. Evolving would commence once both conditions were met.

It was written to eat the monster core first, as it would bring up a prompt allowing them to choose when to evolve once they met all their requirements.

“Your water magic is at level three, right?”

“Yeah, I’m two levels away from being an expert in water magic.”

With that being the only thing holding them back from evolving, the two headed to the inn and put on their adventuring gear before heading to the dungeon.

The sixth floor was no different from the previous one; rock lizards and kobolds, Martyn and Amber together, slaughtered through them with ease.

With both spatial awareness and extrasensory abilities, Martyn could react to all attacks with greater ease, and so could Amber. Together, they fought in sync.

It wasn’t long before they ran across another adventuring party; nothing was said as they crossed paths with each other.

‘We can’t be too safe with every group we come across.’

Amber was racking up plenty of experience, and she was close to levelling up.

Which was great as they arrived at the boss room; the doors were blue, signalling that it was open for them to challenge.

Stepping in the doors closed at the centre with a thick great sword stood a tall Kobold warrior. With a quick appraisal, Martyn nodded.

"You have around the same power, but you surpass him in mana,” Martyn said, leaning against the door.

Amber nodded and raised her weapons. She marched to the Kobold warrior, who quizzically chirped at her. Amber responded with a chirp of her own.

Martyn didn’t know whether they recognised each other or not, but he didn’t care as the battle began.

Amber didn’t use her water magic, opting to coat her spear and shield with mana and begin to exchange blows with the warrior.

They both made use of their weapon’s reach; Amber was more agile, easily evading his heavy swings, and the warrior too managed to dodge, but not well as she left surface cuts on his skin.

It let out a roar, raising its mana-coated great sword high and bringing it down. Amber moved her shield, coating it with a thick layer of mana. The blow connected with the ground beneath her, and she kneeled.

It went to swing down again, but Amber blocked it and tilted her shield to the side, forcing the sword into the ground. With the opening, she thrust her spear.

The attack landed, puncturing its stomach, and with a growl, it swung from the side. Another blow she blocked, but she went skidding from it.

‘She’s gotten more conservative.’ Martyn nodded, seeing the fight develop.

The Kobold warrior hissed, its wound actively healing, a waste of mana.

Amber twirled her spear, stabbing it into the ground, and raising her open hand, she conjured five spears of water and launched them towards it.

The warrior swung with his greatsword blocking one; the second, he coated the blade with mana for the third.

At the fourth, it swung from the side, but the water spear curved beneath the swing, blasting against its stomach. The fifth went striking it in the face.

With a hole in its stomach and half its face blasted, it fell to its knees, bleeding and picking up her spear. Amber walked up towards it, ready to finish the fight.

It was then that it let out a blood-curdling screech; it clutched her spear and swung with its sword, all its mana bursting from the blade.

Amber was calm through it all, surprised, but she had thought of this outcome. She raised her shield, coating it with all her mana, and the spear vanished from the Kobold warrior’s grip and returned to the inventory.

As the blade and shield made contact, an explosion followed, and dust rose, blocking the view.

Martyn couldn’t see what occurred, but he felt a sense of accomplishment from their bond and guessed that she had pulled out her spear from the inventory the moment after she blocked and killed it.

Once the dust settled, Amber stood in a pool of blood, and the body of the Kobold warrior was gone.

He felt it through the bond—a rush of excitement and power—that she had levelled up.

“We can advance to D rank now. How was the fight?” Martyn smiled.

“That was a good fight. I didn’t know him; we just greeted each other before we began.”

Martyn said nothing but smiled. Curious, he pulled up her status and whistled; her arcana and strength increased to their maximum potential, followed by her psyche, with agility and vitality behind.

"So, where are you planning to place your points?”

“Hm, I could put them all in strength.”

“Why would you do that?”

Amber giggled, not giving her reason, but Martyn felt a slight sense of desire pushing through their bond. He smirked, walking over to her, his hands firmly gripping her waist.

“I wonder what that reason could be. My knight couldn’t be thinking of something perverse, could she?”

He whispered the words, squeezing her. Amber shuddered before pouting.

“Don’t do that, not here. Otherwise, we won’t stop.”

She shuddered under his intense emerald eyes. Looking at her status, she placed her points and pulled back.

The two returned to the surface and said, “I should learn teleportation as soon as possible; it’d make coming and leaving easier.”

“One step at a time, Martyn.” Amber nodded.

As soon as they left the dungeon, both shuddered uncontrollably.

[The skill “Extrasensory” (1) has levelled up! (2)]

They felt that knowing they were being watched and seeing their skill rise in level meant someone strong was giving them experience for the skill to rise instantly as well.

Immediately, Amber summoned her weapon, and Martyn expanded his spatial awareness to the limit, but they felt no one.

The presence only lasted a second before it was gone; regardless of that, they marched to the city with slow steps. Every snap of a twig or branch drew their attention, but nothing happened.

Neither said a word; they continued to the guild, handing in any cores and items they gathered, and went back to the inn.

Ranking up was a simple task; the badges they wore recorded the floors they went on, and their titles could show the bosses they defeated.

All of which, along with the missions they took, made them eligible to rank up; becoming D rank should’ve been a celebration, but there was a pressing matter.

In the safety of their room, Martyn set up a barrier. The feeling of being watched had left, but the urgency of the situation was real.

With the wards up, they could breathe.

“Do you think the Duke sent someone?” Amber asked, sitting on the bed.

“I don’t know. I sent the message to the space mage working with them, and he was alright returning to their previous contract unless Damien acted on his own.”

“What about Derek?” Amber said.

“I did consider it, but with what happened, there’s no way he’s that stupid, right?”

Amber shrugged, not knowing enough of Derek’s character to answer. But he couldn’t be that stupid to hire people, right?

“But we weren’t being constantly watched; it could’ve been someone passing, but... I’m not sure, just in case we’ll need to prepare. Thank God for the inventory. Tomorrow, we’re going to buy supplies. Report this to the guild and the knight.”

Amber nodded, happy with the plan. It may be nothing, but by chance, 'if it wasn’t then...'

It was better to be prepared for nothing than to not be at all.

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