Attempting to Tame

As we both went back into the cave, the others were awake. They all nodded to me one by one at different times when Zint was not looking, but nobody mentioned anything. 

We ate cooked meat for breakfast, and I outlined our plan for the day. "I have a base near to the beach, but there are not too many resources inside. It would be a waste of time and stamina to go there, so instead we are going to try to find an animal to tame. We have enough spoiled meat for a lot of narcotics and laced arrows and we even found like forty red mushrooms in the cave last night. We have everything that we need to tame an animal."

Isot nodded. I can try to take you to where I found the Triceratops in the past."

"Yeah, that sounds good. I want us to be careful as we head through the woods so that we don't run into other survivors. Therefore, I want just Isot and Twon to accompany me while Zint and Font will stay back and gather resources like metals up in the hills, fibers, and maybe even some sulfur if you find any. I imagine most of that is up near the volcano, but still keep an eye out for it so we can make gunpowder later."

Everyone agreed with the plan and so we got to crafting the narcotic and laced arrows.

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*Crafting stream is finished: You have obtained 2,600/5,200 experience from the items that you have made.* 

You have 9,000/100,000 experience needed for level 13.

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I had made 13 narcotic and then 13 laced arrows from that. Now that I had made them, we were ready.

The three of us ventured from the cave and Isot led us. I had my combat knife hooked at my waist in case there was anyone that we came upon in the extremely dense jungle terrain. 

We traveled through the jungle for half an hour before we came near to the sound of something disturbing the trees. It had to be big because it was making a lot of noise. We approached it cautiously. 

Through the trees, there was a dinosaur with three horns upon its shield-like head. It was a Triceratops. It was about 10 yards away from us. I distributed the laced arrows between us and we loaded our weapons.

On my signal, we opened fire. My arrow pierced through the hide of its flank, Isot's arrow from his bow hit it in the side, and Twon's arrow buried itself in the triceatop's asshole. 

The Triceratops eyes widened and it let out a scream that was truly haunting. It turned around towards us as we were loading our weapons. I brought my crossbow level with it and I fired. My arrow lodged itself in the middle of its leg. Both Isot and Twon fired theirs and they hit the Triceratops. 

It was charging towards us, but its eyes started to droop, its steps became more heavy, and its feet began to drag across the dirt. Just as I was about to shoot another arrow, it collapsed on the ground only a few feet away from me.

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You have rendered a Triceratops (level 20) unconscious. If you attempt to tame the Triceratops with your level of mana and control, you will have a 67% chance of success. 3 mana will be used. 

For your first time, I will help you to understand how the process works. Will you proceed? [YES][NO]

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I tapped "YES" and my vision disappeared. My eyes were open, but I could see nothing. I felt a strand of energy from deep within my Soulstone well up and snake out of my mouth. My senses had been dulled and the only thing I felt was the stream of mana guided by the system.

I felt myself string through the mouth of the Triceratops. Perhaps the string of mana held a trace of my very soul. I felt myself enter the very beating heart of the beast. Inside, I felt myself wrap around an extremely small circle that seemed almost like a pearl that emanated a white light.

My string of mana fragmented into multitudes of tiny strands and wrapped around the ball until it was covered completely. Suddenly, I felt a presence, an ego. Its consciousness brushed up against my own. As soon as our consciousness faced off, the beast raised a mental wall.

That wall was a giant wall with a bony shield like the face of a Triceratops. It seemed to taunt me. Have you done nothing to break down my wall? Are you truly that weak? Come and take my soul, you weakling! That is what I imagined the beast would have said.

I felt excited internally as I mustered up the image of a giant tank. The tank fired at the beast's wall, and it shattered into oblivion. I felt the heart that I had inflated beat sporadically at first and then it seized up and stopped. At that moment, the ball that the system had guided me to and constricted around with my string of mana shattered as the wall had.

I felt the string of mana flying away through the body of the Triceratops. As I flew along, I felt blood vessels and veins burst around me. Surely this was not the Triceratops being tamed. Perhaps I had exerted a mental force that was too strong. I realized I had killed it. 

And just as I was thinking that the string of mana flew back out of the Triceratops body and into my own where it settled back inside my Soulstone. I quickly regained my senses to see a familiar blue window in front of me.

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*You have failed to tame the Triceratops (level 20), better luck next time.*

Note, You have destroyed a Triceratops' mana core, thereby shattering its soul. Be careful not to overpower an opponent's ego when you are trying to take control of them. 

You have killed a Triceratops (Level 20) and have gained 25,000/50,000 total experience. 

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I looked down at the body. It was leaking blood everywhere. I turned around to Twon and Isot. "Well, I was close."

Twon was smiling as he brought out a hatchet from the depths of his inventory. "I don't mind."

Twon had a grin so wide you could see his pearly white teeth being stained by the blood that flew up from the corpse he was slicing up so spastically.

I sighed and let him do his thing. I decided it would be best to head home since the taming process had depleted my mana. Perhaps we could try again tomorrow.