Chapter 5: The Forbidden Mountains (2)

Damian is inside a cave gathering purple-coloured grass and beside him is a corpse of a Rainbow Centipede a low-class battle beast and this one is at tier 2, Damian and the other kids are now inside the forbidden mountains for a month and his strength has increased and his control over his spirit energy is now better than before, he can now use his spirit inspection technique with ease but he still cannot use soul chains multiple times as he was still stuck at novice rank.

During this month there are already kids who manage to bond with a battle beast and are now starting to train with them but Damian is not in a hurry, for his battle beasts he wants to make sure that he bonds with a strong battle beast with great potential similar to Kane, only high-class battle beast is worthy of him to bond with.

After he finished collecting the purple grass he put it inside his pocket along with the medicines and the scorch flower, various spirit fruits and a vial of Stunner Bee honey.

The purple grass can help increase the potency of a battle beasts' poison, the spirit fruits can help increase a beast master and a battle beast's spirit energy, and the Stunner Bee honey can paralyze an opponent. These resources are found by Damian in the span of a month, for the others it is already a great harvest but for him, it is not enough, plus he still hasn't found a battle beast to bond with.

" I should leave the outskirts of the mountains tomorrow, I think it is time to enter the inner areas of these mountains," Damian said to himself.

With the map given by Garu in his hand, he is looking at a spot on the map with a cross mark on it.

...

Inside a dark and damp woods inside the mountains.

Damian is having a hard time navigating this place, because of the darkness despite it being still early afternoon, the trees in this place grew so big that it covers the area and deprived it of sunlight. Damian just arrived and he is already having a hard time.

* Growl * hiss, * caaaww * hurrrrrr

Various sounds can be heard throughout the dark and damp place, Damian jumped up towards a tree branch and he opened the map once again.

" Dark Woods, what a fitting name, there should be dark attribute battle beasts here, " Damian said with a smile on his face. When he first saw the Dark Woods on the map he already decided that the battle beast that he will bond with will come from this place, since after reading about dark attributes he decided that his first battle beast will be a dark attribute one, since dark attributes are regarded as one of the best hunters in the battle beast world. Dark attribute battle beasts specialize in speed and lethal attacks, unlike other attributes like fire which specialize in flashy and destructive attacks and skills.

Just like before the first thing that Damian did was to find a safe place where he can spend the night, and rest peacefully.

After hours and hours of roaming the dark wood, he finally found an empty opening in one of the big trees inside the dark woods.

" This must be an old nest of an aerial type battle beast, and from the looks of it this has been abandoned for a long time " Damian is delighted upon finding this old nest, since it is located in a high place and since it is empty that means no other aerial type battle beast is around the area so it is relatively safe.

He spent the night inside the old nest, he practiced meditation to improve his spirit energy control.

The morning came and Damian woke up early, he plans to start looking for battle beasts immediately.

He jumped from one branch to another, there are many battle beasts along the way but none of them caught his eye since all of them are low class, he then saw a middle-class battle beast.

" A young Dark Wolf! " Damian stopped in his tracks to use spirit inspection on the young shadow wolf.

" Middle class, middle-level tier 1, dark attribute, from the looks of it this one already knows two skills," Damian said in surprise, turns out this young Dark wolf is quite talented.

But it is still middle class, if it is a high class with this kind of talent, Damian will immediately make a bond with it.

He shook his head and then left the place.

Damian went to look around more before nighttime comes though it is always dark in these woods it is still more dangerous at night time, but he failed to find a high-class dark attribute battle beasts, though he saw middle-class battle beasts they don't fit in his standards.

If the other kids find out that he refused to bond with a middle-class battle beast they will vomit blood, some of them are already happy bonding with a low-class battle beast while he is still disappointed at a middle-class battle beast.

Damian went back to the old nest to spend the night. Damian's routine of searching for a battle beast in the morning till afternoon and going home before dark went on for another month before he stumbled upon a small cave that radiates a thick dark energy.

" This is dangerous! " Damian said to himself but he still went inside.

He carefully walked inside the cave while gripping the black dagger tightly.

As he gets near the end of the cave he starts to see some kind of a skin shedding from a pretty big creature. He picked up the translucent piece of skin on the ground and upon further inspection he found out that it is a shedding from a snake.

" A snake species battle beast, I hope it's a high class," Damian said.

He continued on his way and he starts to see trails of blood as he gets closer.

He then reached the end and he saw a four-meter-long black snake and its body is as thick as a grown man's leg.

" Spirit inspection " Damian immediately used his inspection technique to learn more about this battle beast, he got a closer look at the big snake and managed to identify it.

" Shadow Serpent! " Damian said feeling extremely lucky.

" A high-class dual attribute battle beast with dark and poison attributes" Damian said, he learned from the battle beast book about the Shadow Serpent. A dual attribute is extremely rare in battle beasts.

" Tier 5 high level, learned 5 skills from the looks of it, it is already matured, but there should be an egg or a youngling here," Damian said.

He is sure that there is an egg or a young Shadow Serpent inside the cave because, Shadow Serpents are one of the few battle beasts regarded as nomads, they don't stay in one place for a long time they roam around searching for food and leave once they are full, and they only look for places to stay for a long time like this cave is when they are laying and hatching eggs.

" How should I get my hands on Shadow Serpent younglings if they are guarded by their tier 5 mother? " Damian wondered.

He decided to wait for the mother to leave the cave, he wrapped himself with mud that he found inside the cave to hide his temperature he also took some of the skin that the dark serpent shed.

After three hours the mother Shadow Serpent finally left the cave.

Damian immediately approached where the Dark Serpent was sleeping earlier and he saw three newly hatched Shadow Serpent coiled up.

He immediately used spirit inspection on them.

"Low-level tier 1, knows one skill already, hahaha impressive " After seeing one of the little Shadow serpents is talented Damian grew more excited.

"Low-level tier 1, knows one skill as well, but this one is slightly bigger in size, this one is physically stronger " Damian smiled feeling quite happy.

When he turned his head towards the last youngling his eyes went wide from shock.

"Middle-level tier 1, already knows three skills " Damian immediately crouched down, he got a better look at the extremely talented young Shadow Serpent, and then he saw that it is the smallest of the three and it looks quite weak as well as if it is about to die.

* Hisss!

Damian turned around and saw that the mother Shadow Serpent is back with a dead battle beast in its mouth.

" Shit! " Damian said. In his panic, he just grabbed a young Shadow Serpent and ran straight towards the angry Mother Shadow Serpent.

The Shadow Serpent thought that Damian is going to attack, instead, Damian ran past the Shadow Serpent straight towards the way out.

Damian looked back but to his surprise, the mother Shadow Serpent didn't chase him.

He didn't think too much of it and just dashed straight out of the cave and he continuously ran towards his nest.

*Huff * huff

Damian panting for breath he didn't stop once when he ran out of the cave.