Mutation condition

The beast horde first wave was supposed to arrive a few hours later according to the last information he had received. Of course, Aurus as a shopkeeper only had to keep the shop open and sell supplies. He didn't have to go and fight in the beast horde.

So, Aurus had the employees open the shop as usual as he planned to find a way to make his contracted beasts stronger. He had received an icon a while back, the monster icon. Up to now, he had used it mostly to get more information on the beasts of the customers but it also had the information on how to have the beast mutate or rank up.

Obviously, both Zaya and Attra didn't need to rank up as they were actually suppressed by his own strength. However, they could still mutate which would strengthen them. According to the Hunters, a mutated beast was stronger for about a rank. In other words, if Zaya and Attra ranked up, their combat strength would increase greatly and they would be able to fight dark-gold rank monsters.

However, to rank up, the beasts needed to achieve a few conditions. Obviously, the beasts normally didn't know the conditions and they could only mutate if they had completed the task. As such, monsters rarely mutated but those who did were stronger than their counterparts.

Opening the monster icon, Aurus looked into the information of Zaya and chose to look at the mutation conditions.

The monster has to be of the gold rank. (Completed)

The monster has to kill one thousand monsters. (Completed)

The monster has to kill one fire type monster. (0/1)

The monster has to kill one ice type monster. (0/1)

The monster has to kill ten dark-gold rank monsters. (0/10)

Seeing the mutation condition for the first mutation of Zaya, Aurus could understand the difficulty for normal monsters since they couldn't tell what their conditions were. Aurus could understand why mutating gave such an edge to the monsters. After all, since the monsters never knew their mutation condition, they would never try to fight higher ranked monsters. It was against their instincts.

Remembering the information, Aurus closed the page of Zaya and opened the mutation condition of Attra.

The monster has to be of the gold rank. (Completed)

The monster has to kill one thousand flying monsters. (0/1000)

The monster has to spend a week in a place full of natural energy. (0/1)

The monster has to kill one nature type of monster. (0/1)

The monster has to kill 10 dark-gold rank monsters. (0/10)

Seeing the requirements for Attra, he knew he wouldn't be able to complete it in a short time. The reason? Obviously, because she has to spend a week in a place full of the nature element. There wasn't such a place close to the safe zones, he would have to enter the wilderness to go and find such a place.

Honestly, Aurus didn't want to fight in the beast wave. However, since he had both a task to keep the city safe and the requirements for his contracted beasts, he figured he might as well fight the monsters even if it was only to complete the necessary skills.

He looked at his employees and said: "Later I will go out. As such, I will leave the store to you guys. If there is someone who wants to see me tell them I'll be back in the evening."

Seeing the nod of his employees, he sent them to work and Aurus went to the bathroom. He wanted to increase his cultivation level with the help of the system. After all, the stronger he was, the stronger was his contracted beasts and the safer they would be.

Opening the point icon, Aurus looked at the cultivation increase and saw that the price was quite high. However, these days, points were the least of his concerns due to the amount he made.

"There is something weird about the system. Why does it keep giving points for every crystal I acquired? If it was going to transform crystals into points or it was using crystals directly as a currency for the system, I would understand. However, the system isn't gaining anything from me and simply gives points which I can use to improve myself. It's weird and moreover, I still can't tell what the goal of the system is in the end." Sighing at himself for all the questions he had which couldn't be answered he continued what he planned to do.

Paying up the necessary amount of points, he increased his cultivation. Just like always, an incredible amount of black goo squeezed out of his body while he felt pain spread all across his body. At this point, he was quite used to the pain which came up every time he broke through. Although not pleasant, he could go through it without much of a problem.

Unbeknownst to Aurus, while he thought that the pain was completely normal and that everyone went through what he did, he was completely wrong. Although it was normal to feel mild pain due to the rapid increase in strength, what Aurus felt wasn't normal at all.

Increasing his cultivation from silver rank stage one to silver rank stage three, he looked at the system to increase his cultivation to the complete level only to find that it wasn't offered for the moment.

[Remaining time until the silver rank complete stage is unlocked: 14 days.]

Raising an eyebrow at this notification, Aurus talked to himself out loud. "How come it's locked? It never happened previously? It's obviously not linked to the points to pay since it's simply locked. It's almost as if the system isn't allowing me to raise my cultivation too fast?"

At the same time as he was wondering why it was locked, a new task appeared in front of him.

[Task: Increase in combat power

Description: The user is increasing his cultivation at an incredibly fast speed. However, cultivation is one thing and combat strength is another. Increase your combat strength.

Objective: Kill fifty gold rank stage 3 monsters by yourself, without the help of your contracted beasts.

Time limit: 2 weeks

Reward: Hotel icon, team icon.]

Seeing this new task, he understood that the system wanted him to increase his combat strength. Although he was a shopkeeper, he needed strength to collect the necessary resources in the other world.

Washing up since he just broke through, he cleaned up the bathtub right afterwards. He then said goodbye to his mother and sister before leaving the house with Zaya and Attra.

Walking on the street, he could see the tension in the air and the Hunters who didn't talk as they all walked towards their destination without stopping.

Making his way once again towards the gate, he noticed that there were around three hundred more Hunters on the wall at this time making it a total of around five hundred Hunters. Upon his arrival, some Hunters turned their heads to see who had just come and nodded at Aurus as they recognized him.

Looking on the other side of the wall, Aurus saw that the number of beasts had increased and that Hunters were still working hard to kill as much as possible.

Turning to the middle-aged man next to him, Aurus asked: "Do you know when the first wave of the beast tide will arrive at the wall?"

Without turning as he still looked at the forest for any traces of monsters he answered respectfully. "Yes, we received a report that the beasts will arrive in around three hours' time. The Hunters are all beginning to prepare and some have already started to fight."

Aurus nodded while thanking the middle-aged man as he made his way down the wall and exited the safe-zone. He planned on killing some beasts before the beast tide and depending on the size of the wave and his remaining, he would continue to fight.

While he wasn't a professional Hunter, he had fought a lot of monsters and knew how to fight.

Entering the wilderness, Aurus immediately started to fight with the monsters. Currently, the number of monsters in the surroundings wasn't much but they had definitely increased since the previous day.

Back on the wall, he had specially searched for beasts of the fire, ice or nature element. Luckily, he had found a beast of the fire element but hadn't found any of the two other types. With a little luck, they would appear soon and he would be able to push them towards their mutation.

"Alright, Zaya, Attra, follow me." As he finished talking Aurus ran towards where he had found the beast having a fire element.

As he got closer, he used his identification skill and seeing that it was of the silver rank stage two, Aurus sent her to attack while he had Attra look at how Zaya fought. While she couldn't copy Zaya's style of attack, she could certainly get inspiration and learn how to fight this way.