empty slot

Raid woke up to roosters outside screaming. Of course, this was only heard in the slums as the rich had magic clocks.

He quickly moved out of bed and walked to his cabinet. He was in a damp wooden box with a thin sheet metal roof. He had a wooden bed with a long-dead plant-stuffed sack. He had a half-broken round table with a stool for a chair. He had one old chest for storage and a cabinet in which he stored food.

Today was the day Raid finally ventured out to start cultivation. He had to save for a long time so he could buy things to go out into the wilds.

He needed 5 copper in total to go in and out of the gate, 2 for leaving and 3 for reentering. Over the years, he bought a shovel, pickaxe, and an axe, along with weak magic healing cream. After years, that's all he could get with the money he had. After all, he alone couldn't do much without support.

It was time to get his first monster. In theory, he could have infinite monsters, but he couldn't support that expenditure of food, magic energy, resources, and time. But he wasn't focused on that right now; he was at the entrance of the woods.

He had a target for his starting beast, and along the way, he would collect and find things to refine it.

His target was simple: a queen ant. Many had tried this route, but many weren't happy with the result. Their idea was to refine a queen ant to have it reproduce an army. Unfortunately, it didn't work out as the queen wouldn't lay eggs.

Refining worked like this: you find your target and gather your resources. You put your target into a bind and start the magic binding refinery. Your resources would start to merge with the target and form a slave-bound monster. Then the monster would gain magic abilities based on its innate race and resources. Of course, things could fail; it mostly depended on luck and your magic energy.

Once this was completed, you would gain the ability to control your monster or have it be autonomous. You would also get to use the monster's abilities, but it was applicable a lot at the start of cultivation because of low magic energy storage. The bound monsters would affect your cultivation path and your cultivation base.

Along the way, Raid gathered some resources he was going to use for refining. He wasn't wanting an army; he wanted the abilities of the ant: pheromone creation and command. They were both basic and easily adapted and changed according to refining resources.

The resources he collected along the way were Bee Honey, Tree Sap, Reflective Flower, and Red Nutritious Bark. These resources went rare or special; he just collected what he hoped would turn out interesting. They were just supplementary materials; his main ingredient was going to be the weak magic healing cream.

He was hoping that the command or pheromone ability would take a healing aspect so he could earn money easier.

When he came up to the ant hill that was marked by other people who refined ants, he quickly kicked the ant hill. Very quickly, a large number of ants rushed out, but he was prepared. He scooped them back into the hole with his shovel over and over until a bigger ant forcefully flung his shovel away.

Raid was shocked as this was a regular ant's nest, and what shocked him more was what crawled out: a one-foot ant. The ant was a really dark red instead of black, and it had transparent eyes. Not good, it was a wild monster. From the looks of it, its ability was strength.

Raid backed away quickly and saw that the wild monster was actually slow.

"-"

"Heh, I could maybe use this guy instead," Raid yelled.

But he had spoken too soon, the originally slow ant suddenly released a boom as it launched off the ground at Raid.

Raid quickly fell down, avoiding the ant but, in return, hurting himself.

He quickly looked around and saw the ant had crashed into a bush. Raid ran up and, while the ant was just getting up, he quickly stabbed it with the pickaxe. As he did, he quickly started to perform the magic refining ritual.

A circle appeared around the ant. Raid quickly threw up all the items. They floated up and started rotating around the edge of the circle.

Raid quickly put his hand on the ant and started injecting magic energy into it. The ant violently shook like it was having a seizure.

Raid felt like his hand was going to break; his hand had already been cut by the ant's carapace. As time passed, he only felt worse as his magic energy was quickly being used, and his body was getting hit.

A few minutes later, he finally felt something illusory click, and the resources that were just floating around started to liquefy.

He was relieved but also worried he now only had luck on his side for the successful or unsuccessful refining.

He watched as the healing cream shot into the ant's head. At first, the ant gave no reaction, but then the pickaxe got flung out as its wound rapidly closed. Next, the wood flew into the ant; bones could be heard being broken. Then the tree sap and bee honey flew into the ant's eyes; its eyes quickly turned cloudy. Lastly, the reflective flower flew into the ant, and a rapid flash flew all around.