Chapter 199 - Tame beast (2/2)
:”Let me take the beast off your hands and you can deposit the poison with my secretary. You can collect the blood by tonight,” said Kiran as took the cage and moved inside his stable. With that Shadow and the others came out of his place after Shadow gave a couple of vials with the poison of the horned toad to the secretary
”So? What next?” asked Agua.
”I am going to the Alchemist association. I want to try a few things before we get to the coast,” said Shadow as he handed him the map of the marshlands and a few of the resources that he had collected from the marshlands. To a guild these were more important as they could investigate the area with much ease. He clearly put in all the information including that of the cave and the different kinds of monsters that were there. One could think that they could get this information from any of the players, but it is best if they gathered it from a scout as they don't disturb the beasts and make a proper assessment of the location and patterns of the monsters in an area. Most of the others in such raids fire blindly as they are brought in to compensate for lack of firepower.
”We will talk after your trip to the beach then,” said Agua as he took them from Shadow as they took their leave
Balthazar could use the meat from the beasts of the marshland to experiment on alternative antivenom which doesn't need the blood from the tamer, but he wanted to do those experiments during the night time of the game. He didn't want to use the fireglows to hunt in the night as he didn't want others to know of the method anytime soon. So, he decided to go hunting alone and only work on potions during the night.
He also received the tame beast skill book and learnt it. But he hadn't yet used it against any beast. He currently wanted to check the skill and experiment with some animals. He went back to Kiran's secretary and bought a pet pouch which could hold another 5 pets.
He went to a tavern to book a private room to check the nook that was provided to him by Kiran. The book was like an idiot's guide to taming and was differentiated into multiple sections. The first section described about different beasts that he had encountered and how to determine a few basic qualities and nature of the beasts based on the environment and their physical features. This were common knowledge to most players in his past. So, Balthazar skimmed over it lightly before going to the next section.
This was more about using the tame beast skill on wild beasts. These were written in the form of Kiran's own experiences. The most important thing is to make sure that a beast was alone. If it perceived that other beasts could help it overcome the player, even if they were of other species, it will try its best to not allow itself to be tamed and will attack the player. The best chances for taming are when one could make it believe being tamed was its best choice.
It works better when the beasts are in a weak condition. One could see beasts in various conditions like crippled, poisoned and even pregnant in various places in the game. The pregnant ones and smaller ones would be found in caves. These could be easily tamed than the other kind of beasts. Sometimes having medicinal agents or things which the beasts would like or crave would also increase the chances of taming the beasts.
The other sections indicated the use of various growth agents, food, first-aid, healing medicines and training techniques. These were explained for different beasts with different kinds of specialities and it even included a few aquatic beasts which were hard to find and maintain. After going through them for an hour, he decided to go and attempt taming on a few beasts. Even if he got more beasts or managed to tame beasts that he didn't require, he could always sell them to the tamers and others. So, he decided to use the tame beast skill and level it up as much as he could. He also realized that this skill could be used quite frequently when he was hunting for experience.
He checked the map and decided to start with smaller beasts. The chance of it being tamed was always higher when the beasts were of a lower level than the player. So, he first thought of going to the forest and capture a few deer. It was the best option he could see currently as deer were usually docile species. If they are alone, they could be tamed far easier than the other beasts.
As he moved in that direction, he realized that there were lot of players in the forest. A majority of all the players in the town area were hunting in the forest. He didn't want others to know of his tame beast skill yet. So, he decided to try the marshlands instead. The marshlands have undergone a raid, but there were many players who died and so there were still a lot of people avoided it even after there were a lot of players selling information about it. The only ones who would probably go there are guilds and adventurer teams who intended to pioneer a new area.
It was still a better area than the forest ast it would have lesser number of eyes, but these beasts in that area are all very aggressive in nature. So, it would be harder to tame them. Still, he finally chose to practice in the marshlands. He had the venom of the horned toads which could be used to weaken other beasts to tame them and going to marshlands would allow him a chance to collect more venom.
He made his way to the marshlands and found that the player density in the area was less than that he had expected. He went inside in stealth and came to a level 15 area. This was an area which had silver scale snakes and black-tongue lizards which he could practice against. There were also red-spot toads but those were fast and small. It was hard to control one's attacks in a way that they survive with a low health. Even after he captured the silver scale snakes and lizards, they wouldn't be much useful to him as pets unless they were at a higher level. He would have to research with various medicines to promote their growth and he had no intention of doing that with these beasts. He only planned to sell them.
He quickly went and started to attack the beasts that he could find. As an assassin, ambushing single targets was something he was good at. He could quickly cripple a beast once he ambushed it, but usually there would be other beasts in the vicinity and the ambush only serves as a starting point. It was not a problem for Shadow while dealing with silver scale snakes. His first attempt provoked 6 snakes, but he still managed to kill five leaving one alive and impaled by his weapon at the last.
He tried his skill, but it failed, and the snake bled out to die. He collected the useful remains and went again to attempt it. He failed about 4 times, three just bled out in refusal and one retaliated agains him, before he got lucky with a black tongue lizard which finally accepted to be a pet when he offered it some gharial meat while he cast the skill. The data about the pet appeared as soon as it accepted in his pets list.
[Black tongue lizard] (Common pet)
Level 15;
HP: 200/4500;
Movement speed: 65;
Claw attack: 100;
Poison smear: Uses its long tong to poison the opponent causing a poison damage of 35 HP per second for 4 seconds. Cooldown: 20 seconds.
”Got no use for this, except to squeeze out it venom periodically. Best put it for sale,” thought Balthazar as he saw its characteristics. It was true as it had very little movement speed and it would be easily mauled by higher level beasts. Bringing it out in the middle of a fight would be the same as offering the monsters a free meal.