Chapter 242: Aggressive Taming

Joshua led Thomas and Celia in a fight against the giant owl to try to figure out a way to tame the aggressive creature. In all of the times that Joshua had helped Lily tame beast it was usually when those beast were either on their last legs after being trapped in a dungeon or the connection between Lily and the beast was already forming before a fight could even take place. This was the first time that they were put in a position where the beast they were trying to tame was actively aggressive and still trying to put up a fight. That was the case when it came to both the owl and the bison. Joshua didn't want to come in as overbearing at first so that the owl wouldn't respond in kind so he fought defensively.

The fight mainly consisted of the owl constantly going on the attack as it either shot feathers at them to get them to back off or leapt into the air to strike out with its claws. It was clear that the owl couldn't really use its stronger abilities without being able to fly around and that was really hampering it, but since Joshua wasn't trying to kill it that really didn't matter in the end. Right now Joshua didn't even have any of the mages or close combat fighters attacking the beast. This was a fight where the tanks would take center stage and the tamers would have to be the leading actors.

At first Joshua didn't have trouble stopping the owl's attacks, but with its size it was difficult to block its claws. Joshua always had to try to knock it aside otherwise they could easily surround him forcing him to have to try to cut his way out. In that case all he would end up doing is hurting the owl and causing it to become even more frantic. This is where Celia helped out by creating a barrier around Joshua when the owl used a trick to get around his scale blade. The owl had turned intangible just before attacking Joshua allowing its claw to get past his scale blade. The barrier that Celia created was able to hold up against the attack, but it already had signs of cracking. Joshua used the brief moment when the owls was taken by surprise to knock aside the claw once more.

As they kept fighting the frantic nature of the owl was starting to calm down and Joshua could see its intelligence starting to shine through once more and that was a good sign.' Thomas are you able to feel any sort of link to the owl yet?' Joshua asked through the mental link.

'Slightly but it's like its ignoring it for the time being. I'll keep trying, but I think I need it to see that the link isn't harmful.' Thomas said before bringing out Imperia who flew into the sky above the large owl. The owl suddenly shifted its sight towards the small bat that suddenly grew in size and became far more frightening. 'I'm going to have Imperia use her illusions to help calm it down.'

Joshua nodded at this and stepped back as the owl wasn't paying attention to him or Celia anymore. They had done their part in getting the owl to come out of its frenzied state and now it was time for Thomas to do the rest. At first the owl looked guarded against Imperia, but since she was high up in the air the owl didn't have many options of attacking her with its damaged wing. Before the owl could turn its attention away from her Imperia's wings started shining brightly and the owl almost seemed hypnotized, but Joshua was certain that it was caught up in an illusion. For a moment the owl almost seemed to be staring off into space before it closed its eyes and turned its attention towards Thomas.

Thomas stepped forward towards the owl as the large creature continued to stare down at him. Joshua was nearby just in case anything happened, but he couldn't feel any threat from the owl anymore and since Celia wasn't reacting either Joshua was certain that the owl was no longer dangerous. The owl shrunk down in size a bit getting closer to the size of Imperia before it lowered its body and allowed Thomas to touch its large head. It didn't take long for a bond to establish between the two and the giant owl disappeared into Thomas's soul realm. With that settled Joshua turned his attention towards Lily and the other group that had gone on to try to tame the bison.

Right away Joshua could see that things didn't go to plan and all though the three tanks had held the bison in check it wasn't calming down like the owl had. Herd animals like the bison tended to lash out when all other options had been taken away and at the moment it had no way to run away so it was constantly trying to stomp anyone that got close to it with its one good front leg. Jayce and Ivan were able to block those attacks while Abigail guarded against the large horns whenever the bison tried to swing them down and take out all the tanks at once.

Joshua was going to rush over and help them out, but he saw Lily handle things in her own way as she brought out Titus who let out a challenging roar towards the bison. He grew to his full size and was still only a little taller than the much heavier set bison, but the moment Titus started drawing vines out of the ground and covering himself with them he became far more imposing. The bison let out challenging bellows as it tried to goat Titus into charging in towards its large horns, but Titus wasn't trying to kill the bison and instead shot several vines out of the ground that wrapped around the bison's three good legs. Titus then rushed in and grabbed its horns once it was taken by surprise with its legs getting tangled up. Titus twisted his arms causing the bison to be knocked over onto its side and then created more vines to hold the bison down.

With that Titus quickly had everything under control as the bison continued to try to break free of the vines, but they only grew tighter and held on firmly. Titus held its head to where it couldn't try to hit anyone with its horns and just stayed in that position for a few minutes as the bison finally started to calm down. When it stopped thrashing around and was calm enough to form a link with Lily she went right ahead and started taming it. The beast for the moment would be the biggest beast that the group had in size being a little larger than Tank, and it still had lots of room to grow stronger since they had already seen the herd leaders of bison and how powerful they could be. This bison was still young and had a lot of room to grow.

After both sides had completed their goals they joined back up and collected any materials that they could from the remains of the coyotes while Lily and Thomas were happy from taming some of the powerful beast in the prairie. Celia on the other hand was smiling after getting a level up from the fight with the coyotes. It had been a while since the group had gotten in a fight so they hadn't been leveling up at all in the past few days, but they were going to have to gain some strength before taking on the prairie guardians. Joshua was hopeful that the last area would have beast that would be good to level up against consistently instead of nocturnal predators or large herds of bison.

"Well that wasn't too bad once you got them to settle down." Adrian said with a grin. "It's a shame there really wasn't anything for the rest of us to do while it was all going on."

"At least it went well." Joshua said with a smile before turning to look at both Lily and Thomas. "So what can you two tell us about your new beast companions?" Lily smiled before sending out a system message to everyone to show them the information of the new bison she had just tamed. The bison's stats were all about strength and vitality. It had a decent amount of mana and will so that it could control the element of earth to an extent along with surround its horns in aura or other parts of its body. Its dexterity was low, but that didn't exactly mean that it was slow. It meant that it wasn't very flexible. Its straight line speed was good and it could probably even chase down the coyotes if it had to, but its ability to shift and turn around at any moment was almost nil.

The abilities that the bison had were of course to use earthen spells and a bit of aura control, but one ability that Joshua noticed was its ability to read air currents. This ability explained why the leader of the bison was able to tell where the owl was coming from even when it was blinded by the smoke. Since this bison had this ability it was likely well on its way to becoming a herd leader which would make it a great bison for taming. Joshua knew that Lily wasn't planning on having the bison as a part of her main group of beast companions, but it could be the leader for a group of bison in the stables that could be used to guard James Town or the new alliance large town that was almost done being set up.

When Joshua turned to see how things faired on Thomas's end he could see that he was extremely excited after gaining the owl. The information that was sent out on the owl showed that it was an extremely fast creature with high strength and good mana for all of the attacks that it used while hunting. It's only major weakness was the fact that it didn't have tons of health or high regeneration in a similar fashion to the bison but that was to be expected. It had all of the abilities that they had seen the other owls use while hunting the herd of bison earlier along with a wind manipulation ability which showed that it was good with wind elemental magic. Thomas ended up getting a new partner that he could rely on going forward.