Exit

Marcus was an ordinary soldier of the Dragon Empire. He nervously stood next to the armored vehicle, looking at the world around him. The general had received a report about a strange phenomenon appearing and had gone to investigate. They had found a strange crack in the air. After losing contact with drones they had sent in, they sent in a person and found that inside was completely isolated from the outside world.

The general led a team into the strange world, and Marcus was one of the people chosen. He didn't want to go, but there was no other choice. It was already known to the military that conventional weapons didn't do well against high level monsters, and unusual areas such as the one Marcus was currently in all had high level monsters. The general had led the exploration team deeper into this strange world and left him with some others to monitor the entrance.

As he was scanning the area for wild monsters, Marcus found three people in masks approaching the space crack.

"Commander, there's three people moving in this direction."

The commander looked over with binoculars. "They aren't one of us. I'll contact the general."

After a short moment, the commander yelled, "Gather up! We need to detain those masked individuals when they come over." After a while, the three arrived in front of the soldiers

"What is the purpose of this?" asked the masked man in the lead in a gruff voice, gesturing at the array of guns pointed at them.

"Put your hands above your head and turn around!" ordered the commander.

"I don't believe you have the right to tell me to do that."

The commander laughed. "I can dispose of your body here and no one will know."

The masked man nodded. "Is that so." Too late, the soldiers realized thin strings, almost transparent in the sun, were shooting through the air at them. They felt a searing pain in their head, as if their brains had swelled up, and collapsed one by one. The last thing Marcus saw as his vision turned black was the man stepping over his body and entering the space crack.

Outside, Aura stepped out and looked around. There were no other people in sight. The cave containing the portal had been wrecked. Tire tracks and broken rock structures were strewn everywhere.

Lydian and Ariel appeared behind him. "It's shocking how powerless regular humans are against monster trainers," said Lydian, thinking about the scene she had just witnessed.

"Now do you understand why I focus so much on improving personal strength? That can be you in front of a more powerful monster trainer, having no ability to resist. Well, let's not let what just happened dampen our mood. We achieved a lot in the spacial realm and we should be happy. Let's go home." The team borrowed stats from their monsters and headed home together. Their travel time was greatly reduced now that all three had contracted monsters.

They arrived at Aura and Lydian's house and Lydian cooked a sumptuous dinner to celebrate their return.

Afterwards, they had some fun playing with their monsters and feeding them.

Aura went online and found that all of the recent news articles and discussions were all about monster training. Information about monsters, various advice about which ones are strong and how to train them, and people showing off their higher level monsters were everywhere.

"People are understanding how important monster training is now. We should start selling the potions you create now that people will understand their value," said Aura.

Ariel nodded, "That's a good idea, I have the ability to produce more types of potions now too."

"We should start by selling the inferior experience boosting potion. They should be the ones with the highest demand, and introducing them will cause a large sensation. Any ideas what to call our potion shop?"

"How about Starlight Pharmaceuticals?"