Cut those vegetables

"So the best method is to just go out in the wild and hope to be lucky?", Ivan asked.

"Correct. Just go out and hope to be lucky.", Carl smiled at him.

They talked a bit more about slaves and how to select one fitting for you. Each of them had different ideas and they all profited from exchanging them.

It was then time to say goodbye. Ivan would be going home while Lin would accompany Carl for the meeting with her grandfather. The sisters too were going home but they had to go in a different direction than Ivan, so they wouldn't be going together.

When Ivan reached his home and opened the door, he was able to see some changes to the living room. There were now many more seating opportunities, which fitted in well with the complete picture of the room.

When he entered he could hear the laughter coming from the kitchen. It was easy to identify the light and adorable laughter of his daughter. He guessed that they were once again in the kitchen baking or cooking.

And that was the picture he was seeing when entering the kitchen. All the women in the house had come together here to cook. Celine and Miranda were doing the main work with Lucia and Jane helping wherever possible.

Madam Tanner had been banished to the side, where she was sitting on a stool, drinking tea and watching over the stove. From the smile on her face, she didn't feel offended by having been allocated this job. Instead, she seemed to enjoy the view of the family cooking together.

Celine had felt Ivan entering and she instantly gave him an order, "Go cut those vegetables." She commanded him while pointing to a basket filled with carrots.

Unlike her, Jane greeted him when he went over to the basket, to start his work. "Hey, daddy. You are just in time to help."

From her words, it didn't seem like they had been cooking for long and he would have a lot of helping to do.

He listened to the women chatting, while he was cutting the vegetables. As soon as he was finished with one task, Celine or Miranda would directly give him the next one. Only after, what felt like an eternity of cutting and peeling was he finally done. There were no more preparatory tasks to be done.

"Go and prepare the table.", the command, coming from Celine stopped his relief of finally having finished.

"Daddy, come and help me.", Jane said while taking out the cutlery.

Ivan who hadn't prepared the table before followed his daughter's direction and together they finished the task.

During the whole process, he had felt warm and comfortable. This was how a family should be. They should be together doing mundane tasks. They should enjoy their normal life together.

When everyone was seated around the table he realized that only a part of what they had cooked was intended for today's dinner. The rest was put aside for the party.

After dinner, they played some board games together until it was time for Jane to go to bed. Ivan took her to her room and after putting her into the bed was stopped by her, when he was leaving.

"Daddy, can you tell me a story to fall asleep to?", she shyly asked.

To her request, there was no way he could say no. But he didn't know any stories suitable for a child of her age. Luckily she helped him out of his embarrassment as she wordlessly took out a book and pushed it into his hand.

"The story of the little cat please.", she then pleaded with him.

It was the first time he had a children's book in his hands. There were a lot of illustrations in it and he knew that his daughter was more than capable of reading it herself, which together with the illustrations would make the experience much more complete then him reading it to her.

But he also knew that this wasn't just about the experience of reading but of her father reading the story to her and for him to read the story to his daughter.

He checked the table of contents and then opened the page where the story of the little cat started.

"One day a little cat woke up and ...", he started to read in a soft voice. While looking down at the lovely face of his daughter on the bed.

He silently closed the book and put it on Jane's night table. The little girl had already fallen asleep a while ago but he had still continued reading the story until the end. After patting her little head one last time, he then silently left the room, unaware of the smile spreading on the girl's lips.

The next day after school, Ivan took the time to check out the database Carl had told him about it. There truly was a large collection of known monsters, that could fulfill different roles. For tanks, the most popular species were bears, lizards, and turtles.

Turtles had the highest defenses but were also the slowest. The bears had good defense speed and attacks. They were very balanced and thus were very popular. In Ivan's view, the lizards were the most interesting. They weren't as clear cut as the other two but could have the same properties as the other two. The only reason that they weren't the most popular was that it was rare for one to find that had a supreme combination.

Those with thick scales would usually be slowed down by them, making them similar to turtles. Those with thinner scales would be faster and were similar to bears. But unlike the other two species, it was possible to find some single exemplars that had very hard scales and weren't slowed down by them. Those were called supreme combination lizards and they didn't have any obvious disadvantages. Of course, they would always have the disadvantages of their species, which were the thinner scales on their belly.

Ivan didn't have to think much about it and directly decided to find a suitable lizard. After all his little his bloodline pet was a little lizard, so it would be fitting to have a lizard in his group. And he somehow felt closer to them as well.

There was still a lot of lizard types listed in the database, making it difficult to decide on a single one. There were types that lived in the desert and others that lived in the mountains. These two were the main habitats but there were also some others which lived in swamps or forests.

After a bit more research he finally decided to try to find one which lived in the mountains. Not only did these types generally have higher defense, fitting well in the role of tank, but there was also a mountain range not far away, that contained some known species.

He had found two species he liked especially well, the 'Black Granite Lizards' which as the name said had skin similar to black granite. They had good defense and looked sleek and dangerous, appealing to his taste. The second was the 'White Marmor Lizards'. This species was bigger than the 'Black Granite Lizards' and had a higher defense while having a reduced movability.

Looking at the pictures of the two species he had selected, he couldn't help but wonder if unconscious he had selected those that looked the best. Because both of them looked quite good.

Anyway, he would only be able to go out and look for a fitting one after Lara was back since there wasn't enough time left until the weekend. Now that he had selected something to tame and knew where he was going it was time to look for some quests in that area.

He had only done the quest necessary for the alliance without doing anything extra. Now that he was going out into the wilderness anyway, it would be good to finish some on the way.

Besides that, it was also necessary to ask for leave from school. Luckily it was easy to do this. It was only necessary to ask, then the teacher would give you a test and if you managed to be good enough then you could get up to one month of leave.

This was commonly used by the better students who had learned many things beforehand or who had a higher learning speed than the other students. This way they didn't have to hang around in school and could instead work on their career or go train.

Ivan hadn't made use of it, although he theoretically was able to since he liked being with his friends at school and he found that even if he read the material for lessons beforehand, there were still things he could learn from the teachers.