7 - New Family and Finding a Treasure

Val and the Light Ray Lion cub's eyes met, there was an intense glare between the two of them. The Light Ray Lion cub broke the stare down, and looked around, observing its surroundings. The Light Ray Lion seemed to be rather confused, it instinctively knew that Val was different from itself and was not its mother or father. As it was observing its surroundings, it noticed the bloody and dead Light Ray Lion which was most likely its mother. The Light Ray Lion cub's eyes watered and it wiggled and struggled in an attempt to be released from Val's grasp. Val realized what it was trying to do, so he gently placed the cub on the ground next to its mother and observed its behavior. Val was interested to see how it would respond, it may assume that Val was the one who had killed his mother.

The Light Ray Lion cub stared at its mother's face for a few seconds before attempting to wake her up by nuzzling his head against hers, he softly meowed, desperately attempting to wake her up. However, after a few minutes, he realized it was impossible, she was not going to wake up, she was dead. As a beast, he instinctually understood that you need to be strong and fight, otherwise all there is, is death.

The Light Ray Lion cub looked up, finally shifting his sight from his dead mother, and looked at Val. He scowled, showing his small fangs, and gave a high pitch growl, attempting to intimidate Val. However, all Val could think was,

"Cute!"

To Val, this little beast was adorable, he was not intimidated, even if he was capable of becoming an A-Rank beast, but that did not mean he was one currently. Right now, he was very small, easily small enough to comfortably fit on Val's lap, and in fact, Val believed he could even sit on his head without falling off.

Val attempted to communicate with the beast, he did not know how he was supposed to, nor if it was even possible but he had decided that this Light Ray Lion cub would be his first tamed beast, so he had to give it a shot. Val decided to just try and speak to the cub and see how it goes.

"Hey little guy, I know you are sad and angry that your mother has died but it was not me who killed her, it was these big bad Orcs. They attacked your mother and father, killing both of them. But I was able to steal your mother's body and cut you out to save your life. So do not be angry with me, you should be thanking me."

Val tried to explain what had happened to the Light Ray Lion family, however, he lacked interpersonal communication skills as he rarely interacted with other people, and he certainly was not proficient in supporting others who or struggling and upset. So he ended up rambling a bit.

The Light Ray Lion cub looked at Val and slightly shifted his head to the side. From Val's perspective, it was a very cute action, but it also seemed like the cub understood the meaning of Val's words or at least some of the meaning. Val decided to continue speaking to the cub in an attempt to communicate what he wanted.

"I am not too different from you, I have never had a family, and I am alone also. We both have strong talents and if you want we could become each other's family, we could travel around together, killing bad monsters and becoming strong together. We could become rich and eat lots of yummy food! Oh, that reminds me are you hungry?"

The Light Ray Lion cub continued to stare at Val but with noticeably less hostility. Val decided to feed the cub a little bit of his dried meat which was depleting rather quickly, he would have to hunt for some animals from now on so as not to run out of food. He quickly grabs some dried meat from his backpack and extended it toward the cub. The cub looked at the dried meat and then back at Val and then back to the dried meat again, unsure of if he should eat the food. The cub meowed at Val a few times to which he replied,

"It's safe, just try it, you need to eat, you have just been born and you need to eat so you can grow strong and support me."

The Light Ray Lion cub gave in and bit into the dried meat. As a carnivore, it quickly devoured the dried meat, and it seemed to be full and quite sleepy. Val knew this was the time to strike so he quickly asked,

"So do you want to become my family? I have a skill called [Tame] which can make us partners and a team."

The cub meowed as if confirming and walked towards Val, climbing onto his lap. It seemed he needed to rest.

Val took this as consent and attempted to activate [Tame]. This was his first time using the skill and he was unsure if it would be successful. He was also not sure about how long it would take to activate and complete.

Since resting, Val had increased his mana reserves to a bit above 15%, but as soon as he activated [Tame], his mana reserves depleted rapidly. He was at roughly 1-2% and he was worried that he would collapse from using up all his mana but luckily he was only exhausted and tired. It would be very dangerous if he fell unconscious here, as he was still in the forest and though he was not in the open, he was not exactly well hidden.

After a minute of waiting for the skill to complete, Val felt a link created between himself and the Light Ray Lion cub. He looked down and noticed that the cub had fallen asleep in a ball on his lap, it was very cute and warm. It brought a genuine smile to Val's face.

Val instinctually knew it was possible to look at the Cub status, so he decided to have a look. He wanted to know its Talent rank and skill rank. Val shut his eyes and imagined the cub to bring up his status.

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Name: ________

Age: 0

Gender: Male

Beast Race: Light Ray Lion

Talent and Skills:

A-Rank Light Talent

- Lazer Roar (B-Rank)

Blessing:

Blessed by the DemiGod of Nature

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The Light Ray Lion cub's status was much shorter than his own, but that was to be expected. What was surprising was that the cub was born blessed by the DemiGod of Nature. Blessings were different from talents, skills, and physiques. They would not immediately show their benefits, they will become more apparent as one grows and become stronger and can be incredibly powerful. It is impossible to know exactly how a blessing will manifest in someone, the benefits it provides are completely up to the whims of the divine being which has bestowed the blessing. So Val will have to wait and see what will develop in the future.

Val realized that he will have to name the Light Ray Lion cub now that he was his partner. Val was not the best at naming as he had never had a pet or needed to name someone else. He thought about it for a bit but could not think of anything that suited the cub. He decided to come back to this later, as the cub was currently sleeping so it was not the most pressing matter. There was still something inside the mother Light Ray Lion that Val wanted to remove, he also wanted to remove her eyes, teeth, and claws which would all net a large amount of money if sold. The eyes were used in alchemy, and the claws and teeth were very high-quality materials that could be used in a weapon or tool.

Val slowly and carefully lifted the cub off his lap, placing him on the ground next to his bag, he grabbed his sword and began to cut into the back of the Light Ray Lion. Once he had cut deep enough he placed his hand in to grab whatever was there. The adrenaline had already stopped running through his body and he really noticed how disgusting it was to have your hands inside another creature. He got over his disgust and griped a ball-shaped object and removed it from the corpse.

Once he looked at the object his mouth fell open, unable to be closed, Val was in shock, complete and utter shock. How could this be possible, Val instantly realized what the circular ball-shaped object was; it was a skill orb. Val had never seen a skill orb but he knew this was a skill orb based on what he had heard about them, and the fact, he did not know what else it could be.

After observing the skill orb for a minute, he had completed his analysis, the skill orb was of the Light attribute, which was not a surprise considering the beast it came from. He could not tell the exact rank of the skill orb, but he was pretty confident that it was between D-Rank and B-Rank, he doubted it was below D-Rank and above B-Rank based on the color and mana density.

This was a huge find for him, a light skill orb of this Rank was sure to be worth a huge amount if sold. However, it could also be very useful for his new partner, who had a Light Talent. He would have to make an important choice between strengthening his first familiar and making a lot of money. It was a hard choice, but he had some time to think about it, so he quickly put away the Light Skill Orb and started removing the parts of the corpse which he planned to take with him and sell when he got to his destination. He wanted to complete this before the small, cute cub awoke. He did not want the cub to have to see him mutilating his mother.