Chapter 2 - Bubble Beast

Chapter 2 – Bubble Beast

Glen walked out of the beginner's village which was named, the Maru South Village. He saw the signboard in front of the village. There was also a sign board indicating that the prairie outside the village was called the Maru Prairie.

As Glen walked out of the village, many players and NPC were walking in and out of the village. From their appearance, he could see that they were stronger than him. More so with their beasts following behind them.

'I need to tame my first beast fast,' thought Glen and he immediately got out of the village. Since the game was new, there were a lot of players hunting on the prairie.

Glen went to a more secluded area because he did not want to compete with other players. He was a beginner and if he was in a scuffle with others, he might lose easily.

Glen decided on a location and took out his dagger to search for his first beast when suddenly, the wind blew lightly and he saw a bubble blew towards him.

The bubble was fist-size but it was surely not a normal bubble. How could there be a bubble in an open field? Furthermore, there was no water source nearby to produce a bubble. Moreover, a floating bubble in the air was usually a soap bubble.

Still, it was obvious that the bubble was not normal. Inside the bubble, there was a floating colorless star. The star was quite small and it floated at the center of the bubble.

Glen prepared his dagger as he had a feeling that it was a beast. Since he had no beast, he needed to fight by himself.

As the bubble got closer, it suddenly turned and on the surface of the bubble, Glen saw two eyes and a mouth. It did not look real but more like two circles and one long, curved line. The face saw Glen and it smiled happily.

Glen was a bit taken aback by a moving face on a bubble and he immediately slashed the bubble with his dagger as he was afraid the beast would attack him.

As his dagger touched the bubble's surface, a number appeared on top of the bubble.

[HP -0.01]

Once its HP was decreased by 0.01 point, the bubble popped. Before it popped, Glen saw the shocked face of the bubble. As the bubble popped, the colorless star inside it disappeared too. Then, something was dropped by the bubble, it was a bubble that also popped once it touched the grass.

"…" Glen was speechless. He thought that it would be a big battle but the bubble popped easily without any fight.

'Maybe this is the beginner area and all the beast here is weak?' he thought. At the same time, he got a notification from the system.

[Congratulations! The Bubble beast you defeated is the 1 trillionth Bubble beast defeated by players in the game. You are rewarded with the special skill, Data Saver. More information about the skill can be viewed in the skill menu] the notification spoke.

Glen was shocked. "1 trillionth!? Only the third days and the players have defeated 1 trillion of this… bubble beast?" He found it weird. He knew that the game currently had almost 100 million players but still, 1 trillion was far from 100 million.

"How many did a single player defeat?" Glen wondered. Also, seeing that there were already 1 trillion of the bubble beasts defeated, he felt a bit bad for them.

"Are they perhaps too feeble that even the item drop disappears immediately?" Glen mumbled and he remembered that when he hit the Bubble beast, it only had 0.01 HP and immediately lost after that.

"They did not even have 1 HP…" Glen felt bad when he thought of that.

Glen wanted to check the special skill he got from defeating the 1 trillionth bubble beast. While walking towards the beast, he knew the reason many of the bubble beasts were defeated.

First of all, they were quite weak. Glen could see this when he easily defeated one with a single slash. Secondly, the time in the real world was three days but inside the game, it was 3 months. The time difference was 1 day in real life equal to 1 month in the game.

Glen sat under a tree and checked the special skill, Data Saver from his system.

Name – Data Saver

Grade – Special

Description – Record everything the player encounters be it from seeing, hearing, smelling, taste, touch, reading, etc., and turns them into useful data and knowledge. The recorded data can be used to produce and deduce more useful data if possible. The recorded data will also automatically enhance some skill if the data is compatible with the skill.

Condition – Effect can be seen when using other skills.

"Wow! This really is a special skill," Glen was happy. From his understanding of the skill, it would record whatever he encountered in the game. The recorded data or information would also be used to produce more advanced data or information.

For example, Glen recorded numbers 1 and 2. These two numbers were recorded by Data Saver and it could also produce more advanced data such as 1+1 equaled 2, 1+2 equal 3, 1-2 equal to negative 1.

"Then, can I become an Upgrade Specialist?" Glen's eyes lit up. The profession was something he read on many posts in the Beast Life's forum.

Just as the name suggested, Upgrade Specialists specialized in helping the beast to evolve to a more powerful form. Beast Life boasted of this feature from the announcement day.

According to the developer, there were millions of routes of improvement a beast could go through if the players knew the method and Upgrade Specialists specialized in this.

Upgrade Specialist studied about beasts and researched on the path of evolution a beast can go through. Many players had used the NPC's Upgrade Specialist and managed to help their beasts become stronger.

However, the NPC's Upgrade Specialist was limited in their knowledge. Not all beasts could undergo some kind of upgrade and some players needed to take the job to search for more upgrade methods.

"This job is lucrative and I can get a lot of money from even one consultation," Glen was hopeful. Upgrade Specialist was indeed a money-making profession in the game.

According to players who used the Upgrade Specialist's service, they needed to pay quite a large sum of money. Those that paid more would get a better improvement while those that paid less got a weaker improvement.

Glen was joyful. He could not wait to become an Upgrade Specialist. "I wonder if there are other players with a special skill?" he mumbled. Since he could get one, other lucky players could get one too.

At the moment, he never saw someone posted about a special skill at the forum. "Perhaps, they want to keep it a secret and I think I should do the same too. If someone knew about my Data Saver, they will try to blackmail me and perhaps find me in real life too," Glen shuddered when he thought of that.

"Since this game money can be changed to real money, many will covet my special skill for money," Glen kept his mind on keeping his special skill a secret. Since the skill was a passive skill, he did not need to worry about people seeing him using it. Still, he needed to be careful.

"I need to tame a beast to complete my mission," Glen got up and decided to search for a beast to tame when he saw another bubble beast nearby.

"…" Glen stared at the bubble beast leisurely floating around. "I am indebted to your species for giving me this special skill," he mumbled.

"With enough information, I am sure you can become strong too," Glen smiled. He decided to tame the bubble beast for his first beast. He walked towards the bubble beast and stood behind it.

The bubble beast realized that someone was behind it and it turned its body to see. Glen saw that cute emoji face on the bubble and he smiled.

"Become my first beast," Glen reached his hand and touched the bubble beast lightly. The beast was too feeble and he was careful when touching it.

"Tame," Glen used the tame skill to tame the bubble beast. The bubble beast shone and it did not retaliate at all. The process was smooth sailing and he got a notification from the system that he succeeded in taming the bubble beast.

Immediately, the information about the bubble beast appeared in front of him.

Name –

Gender – Male

Species – Bubble

Tier – 1 star

Rank – 1

Stage – Colorless

Potential – Colorless

Talent – E

Element – Water

HP – 0.01 [Max 0.21]

Energy – 4.78 [Max 5.58]

Attack – 0.10 [Max 0.50]

Defense – 0.01 [Max 0.21]

Speed – 0.10 [Max 0.50]

Advancement to Colorless Rank 2 – 0/100

Skill

Bubble [Water] (G) [Level 1 – 0%] – No effect

Glen looked at the stats and he did not know if it was bad or not. He decided to check it later online. Since the game was new, he did not know if the stat would be good or bad but comparing them with each other, he could say that the bubble beast was an energy power user because naturally, they had more of this stat and too much of them compared to the other stats.

Comparing the other stats with the Energy Stat, Glen was absolutely sure that they were bad. HP and Defense were bad as he could easily defeat a Bubble beast with a slash of his free iron dagger.

Rank was the small level for the beast while the stage was the big level. When Glen clicked on the rank and stage, the explanation was there. According to the explanation, a stage had 10 ranks so Rank 1 was the weakest in a stage.

As for the stage, Colorless was the lowest stage. As for higher stages, there was no information about it in the explanation. He needed to figure it out himself.

Potential indicated the highest stage the beast would be able to reach. The bubble beast could only grow to Rank 10 Colorless. If Glen found a method to upgrade the bubble beast, the potential would increase.

Also, the potential was related to the tier. According to the information provided, the beast needed to be at the tier 2-star for it to be able to have the potential of the higher stage. For a 1-star beast, the highest it could go was the stage they were in when tamed.

So, for Glen to help his bubble beast advance to a higher stage, it needed to have at least tier 2-star.

For talent, it represented the speed of advancement of the beast. Grade E was the lowest talent and it would take a while for the bubble beast to advance to the next rank.

The bubble beast Glen tamed had one skill but the skill was useless because it did not have any effect. It could not even damage the opponent.

"…They are weak. With a useless skill like this, it is understandable that they cannot protect themselves," Glen pouted his lip.

[Please name your first beast] the system spoke. Glen did not think long and gave a name to the bubble beast.

"Bubbly," Glen spoke and the name was registered in the system and the bubble beast was officially named Bubbly.

[You have used one of the beast slots. Remaining Beast Slot - 2] the system spoke.

For a professional player, they would not be like Glen and tamed a useless beast like Bubbly. They would start with the most common beast and used them to tame a better beast and the cycle continued.

Since all players started with three beast slots, their third beast would be their strongest beast until they got more slots.

Be that as it may, Glen did not regret taming Bubbly. He did this thanks to the Bubble beast and if his Data Saver skill was as it claimed to be, Bubbly would become strong in the future too.

Furthermore, he had another two slots which he could use to tame a naturally stronger beast. Moreover, since he aimed to become an Upgrade Specialist, he might not need to fight that much.

Suddenly, another notification appeared.

[Bubble Beast data is updated]

"Hmm?" Bubbly's new data appeared in front of Glen. Other than the previous data, he could see more data available such as the beast's weaknesses, strengths, and also a few more important information.

Glen was not surprised to see the weaknesses and strength of the bubble beast. Its strength lied in his energy but with inferior skill, it could not be shown. As for a weakness, it was weak against almost everything.

"The longest a wild bubble beast can live are three days…" Glen was speechless. Since it was weak against many things, it could easily die. According to the information, the longest a bubble beast had lived in the wild was three days before a leaf was blown by the wind and pierced the longer-living bubble beast.

"So, Bubble beast is the weakest beast in the game," Glen understood why in three days, trillions of them were defeated by the players. Although all the new information was a bit worrying, Glen found hope.

He had yet to store more data in Data Saver but from his surroundings, he got enough data that was deduced by the special skill to be able to upgrade Bubbly.

"Bubbly, I will make you the strongest bubble beast in the game," Glen wanted to pat Bubbly but he feared that he would accidentally kill it. So, he stopped his intention.

"Bubu~" Bubbly shouted happily.