ICEMTB CH5 Fighting Against Fate

"See this prosthetic arm of mine? I lost my real arm because of a Card Type Beast Tamer when I was in the university myself as a young kid. During one of the missions given by the University to train us, one Card Type Beast Tamer begged me to be his partner as I was one of the better tamers there with the power to amplify my tamed beast's physical stat."

"I took pity on him and joined him in his team as his partner. Since a Card Type Tamer needs to have at least 10 Warrior-Grade tamed beasts to be in a university despite the B-Rank, I thought at least he would be of some use. But, the piece of crap betrayed me and left me to die when we encountered a slightly tough monster."

"It turned out that he had utilized the 10 Warrior-Grade Beasts he had in a suicidal tactic in one of the missions and he didn't earn enough to buy more. So instead he filled his cardholder with the weakest of the common grade that he bought in bulk."

"However, he had not reformed his ways and used even those beasts in large suicide tactics, leaving them on the verge of death after his previous mission. That was why he had asked me to join him this time."

"When we encountered that strong monster, he made the weak beasts of his surround me and turn me into bait for the strong monster. Meanwhile, he ran away and left me to die."

"I somehow managed to kill the monster. But I lost my tamed beast and my arm in the process. When I finally managed to return to the university, I found out that the scum had long escaped the university. Due to my disability, loss of Tamed Beast, and failure of the mission, I was expelled from the university."

"Tell me now kid, why shouldn't I hold a grudge for any Card Type Beast Tamer I encounter? For all I know, you could turn out the same way as that piece of crap after you go to a university." the man said in a venomous tone.

"It's too bad that I can't permanently give a rank to any tamer. Else if I had my way then all Card Type Tamers would be permanently demoted to F-Class." the drunken man said with hate filling his tone as he grabbed Rudra's arm and dragged him out of the Awakening Center.

"Go home now. If you manage to tame 300 beasts by some miracle then come to me. I will accept my defeat and change your rank to B-class." the drunken man said in a mocking tone as he closed the door of the Awakening centre.

Rudra stayed on the ground in front of the Awakening Center for a while before slowly getting to his feet. He slowly shambled towards his apartment with a lost expression on his face, with no idea as to how to move forward in his life.

He was a D-Class Beat Tamer now. He could not even get a job as a teacher in some Preparatory Beast Taming School as Ms Nandini had done. To think he used to mock her in his mind when now his status was even lower than hers.

'No, I can't give up like this!!' Rudra decided as he turned his steps away from the path to his home and instead started walking towards the night market.

The night market was a flea market that was set up at night by Beast tamers since most of them went outside on missions or to gather resources during the morning hours. A lot of stuff that was not useful to those tamers anymore was sold by them in this market.

Rudra was going to the night market right now as he planned to buy any kind of beast that he could afford and contract. He wanted to test if taming and growing a beast as a card-type beast tamer was just as hard as they said.

As he reached the night market, a cacophony of noise advertising various stuff assaulted his ears.

"Real Purple Grass for Meditation Assist and Amplification!!! 15% off only for tonight!! Limited Stock!!!"

"Fresh High-Level Pet Food Ingredients!!! Everything from Medicinal Herbs to High-Level Monstrous Beasts Meat!!! Buy now before the stock is over!!!"

"Rare Genuine Rainbow Flower Honey!!! Produced in the Thousand Flower Restricted Zone!!! 100 Base Credits per gram!!! No Bargaining!!"

For a regular person who had just come in contact with Beast Taming, all of it was very tempting. Rudra had almost given up on his goal of finding a tamed beast and going to the large stall selling the honey. After all, if it was Genuine Rainbow Flower Honey then it could permanently enhance the mind and bodies of both Tamed beasts and Humans.

But he managed to control himself. He had to contract a beast today no matter what. Everything else can be taken care of later. His steps took him towards the street of the night market that was specifically assigned for tamed beast sales.

A layer of quietness enveloped this street, unlike the other places in the night market. Those who sold Tamed Beasts, whether adult or juvenile ones, were all-powerful Beast Tamers. Else they could not have kept all these Non-Contracted Beasts under control.

Seven huge stalls on this street covered a large amount of area. Rudra could see a large amount of Common-Grade and a few Soldier-Grade beasts being sold here. There were no signs of General-Grade or higher beasts here.

But he expected this beforehand. After all, General-Grade and above-beasts start displaying intelligence and were pretty powerful. Only official Base-sponsored Beast Shops were allowed to store these beasts. Else if beasts of that grade got out of control, it could prove a disaster for the Base.

Rudra walked slowly along the street, watching the various beasts that were displayed in specially made-cages. All sorts of beasts of various species were displayed here, from Avian-Type to Canine-Type to Feline-Type to various Insect-Type.

However, the price asked by these stalls was not something he could afford. By the time he came to the seventh stall, he was almost in despair. Feeling slightly desperate, he went up to the muscular man with scars all over his arms and face that was running that stall.

"Excuse me?" Rudra timidly called out. The man's appearance was very scary.

"Hmm? What do you want?" the man asked in a gruff tone.

"Actually… the thing is... I just awakened as a Beast Tamer today and I want a tamed beast to test out my Beast Taming." Rudra said hesitantly.

"What sort of budget do you have? What type of Taming Power do you possess? Do you want an attack, support, or defensive type tamed Beast?"

"That is the thing. I have 200 Base Credits at most and none of the choices displayed in any of the stalls is suitable."

"Well kid, you can't compromise on the Companion that you will choose to protect you. If you don't have the money then go and work hard to save up some before you buy one. After all, you have become a Beast Tamer now and that qualification will not go anywhere. You will always be a Beast Tamer from now on."

"No, I understand that. Also, I don't require a combat-type beast right now. I only require any beast that can be contracted with regardless of how weak or useless it is." Rudra clarified, "I have awakened to a Card-Type power and I just want to test it."

"Ah, that makes more sense. Well if those are the kind of conditions you are looking for then I might be able to help you out." the scarred man said as he rummaged in the space below the counter. After a few moments of searching, he found what he was looking for and brought out a large wooden box that he placed on the counter.

As he opened the box, Rudra was greeted with the sight of two compartments, both filled with eggs smaller than the size of his toe. The eggs on the left were spherical in shape and greenish-yellow in colour. Meanwhile, the eggs on the right were translucent white capsules with black and brown spots.

"Generally people take these for their Tamed Beasts food, but they contain beasts that you can hatch if you don't have any requirement for combat." the scarred man explained.

"The greenish-yellow spherical eggs are mutant caterpillar eggs. According to the rankings, it can be classified as a No-Grade, which is below even Common-Grade, because it had no combat strength. Though it has the word 'Mutant' in its name, it has no ferocious instincts and is even more docile than its non-mutated counterparts."

"Mutant caterpillars know only two things: How to eat and how to spit silk. Being a mutated creature, its silk can directly solidify into threads and don't need to be boiled in water like the traditional methods."

"The clothing industry nowadays uses this kind of caterpillars in large batches to generate silk for clothing. That is why you see silk clothing being much cheaper than cotton ones now."

The scarred man then pointed to the capsule-like eggs next, "These are Mutant Worker Ant eggs. Just like the caterpillars, the mutant word in their name is misleading. They have no ferocity or combat instincts. They generally rely on their large groups and hard chitin to survive."

"While these Mutant Worker Ants are classified as Common-Grade, due to the large strength they can display as part of Ant-type beasts, they have no thoughts of their own apart from the basic instincts to Eat, sleep, and survive. Just like an Ant Queen, a tamer will have to control their actions constantly using their mental link of the contract if they want to get anything done."

"A full-grown Mutant Worker Ant is as large as a small vehicle. Therefore people generally use them as mounts in the wild, as they can traverse most types of terrain."

"So these are the two choices I can give you kid. These eggs are generally sold as food for large Insect-Type Tamed Beasts and are priced at 100 Base Credits per egg. Which one do you want?"