A Novice Monster Tamer

Adam looked at the three choices in front of him.

'No additional info? Really? Anyways. Let's make an educated guess. The first two have something to do with monsters. It is only natural to assume the third one does too. Shapeshifting into monsters? Why would that be useful? Maybe you can use their abilities too. But maybe you can't. Monster Tamer seems obvious. Allying monsters to your cause, right? And then Monster Summoner means summoning monsters. But what monsters can you summon? Plus, it's just a guess, but summoning a whole being, probably will use a massive amount of Mana Points compared to Taming a monster. Shapeshifting is the one that am the least convinced by. Summoning abilities are part of Conjuration Magic. I guess the answer is obvious.'

"I'll accept the Title Monster Tamer." Adam said out loud.

[ Congratulations! You have acquired the Title "Novice Monster Tamer".]

[ You have acquired the Skill "Taming Mark".]

"What's that about?" Adam asked.

[ Magic Skill: Taming Mark [D]

By touching a monster and using the Skill, you can imprint a Mark on its body. Marked Monsters will become your allies. You need to be stronger than a monster to tame it. Some monsters are harder to tame than others. A monster must have low Health Points before it can be tamed successfully. Mana Consumption: Depends on the monster. Duration: Indefinite for Familiars, Four hours for other Tamed Monsters.]

"Familiars?"

[ Familiars are Monsters that are tamed for an indefinite amount of time. They can also leave Dungeon Gates with the Tamer.]

"How many Familiars can I have?"

[A Novice Monster Tamer can have 1 Familiar.]

"Alright. After successfully taming a monster, will that continue draining Mana Points?"

[The Skill will only use Mana Points to make the monster your ally. After that, the monster will rely on its own strength to obey your commands.]

'This is pretty good then.' Adam thought.

"What about Experience Points and Gold received after the tamed monster kills another monster?"

[ A Tamed Monster will receive a minimum of 20% of the Experience Points that the monster drops. The tamer can control how many Experience Points he receives, and how much the tamed monster will receive from its own kills. The Gold Coins are lost.]

Adam chuckled.

"I have the perfect monster to tame then."

[The Fox That Blesses Men says that incarnation Adam is selfish and should have woke up incarnation Salma.]

[The Everlasting Winter says that it cannot be helped.]

[A Certain Evil says that the early bird gets the worm.]

After verifying that there wasn't anything left inside, he got out.

Adam got closer to the two sisters.

They were sleeping soundly so he left without them.

He walked towards The Great Snake's Den.

He didn't feel like running.

Once he arrived near the tunnel that led to the Hidden Location, Adam found about seven snakes in front of it.

Adam chose the slimmest one.

He went behind it and grabbed it with both hands.

Adam was way too strong for the snake to be able to defend itself.

'Alright, let's mark this guy.'

[ The target's Health Points is at full. It cannot be tamed.]

Adam tightened his grip on the snake's body while thinking about using the Skill.

After he used about half of his max strength, his hand started glowing.

Purple light covered it.

[You have used 180 Mana Points to tame a monster.]

[ Congratulations! You have successfully tamed 1 Great Snake Baby.]

Although it was a baby, it was about two meters long and pretty thick.

The snake looked at Adam. After that, it stroke its head against Adam's hand.

[ You can now view your Tamed Monster's status.]

"Really? Alright, show it to me."

[ Owner: Adam

Species & level : Great Snake Baby Lv1 (0/100 Experience Points)

HP: 30/70

Endurance: 15/35

Stats: Strength: 5

Agility: 1

Sense: 3

Vigor & Endurance: 7

Skill(s): (None)

]

"Alright. You really are a baby. Don't worry, I'll make you as big as that Great Snake one day." Adam said while stroking the snake's head.

Adam turned his head towards the other snakes.

"I'm going to have you attacking your brothers. I'm sorry. Follow me." Adam said.

He stood up and walked towards the closest snake and grabbed it by the neck and the tail.

He used enough force to take away most of its Health Points.

"From now on, you're getting 100% of the Experience Points you manage to acquire. Come on. Bite it."

Adam's tamed snake bit into the other snake with no hesitation.

After holding it for a while, Adam received a notification.

[ Your Tamed Monster has leveled up!]

[ All stats increase by 3!]

"What the hell? By 3? Every level up, our stat points increase by 1, why are you gaining 3?"

[ Tamed Monsters get stronger fast. It is necessary since Monster Tamers share their Experience Points with the Tamed Monsters.]

'I guess it would be normal to only give it 20% of the Experience Points. Who would make a Tamed Monster stronger instead of making themselves stronger? I can only do this because am at a pretty high level compared to it. Anyways, am not using this monster to fight. I'm cultivating it. I'm cultivating a Great Snake!'

Adam had a wide smile as he said that.

[A Certain Evil is looking at you.]

"Alright, five left."

Adam assisted his Tamed Monster to kill four out of five remaining Great Snake Babies. It had leveled up twice.

He let it fight the last one by itself.

"Alright. Get rid of it. You'll level up right after that."

The snake's speed was much faster than before.

That was to be expected, its Agility Stat had gone from 1 to 7.

It suddenly bit the other snake with all its strength.

The Tamed Monster also wrapped its tail around the other snake's body and compressed it with all its strength.

The fight was decided in an instant.

[ Your Tamed Monster has leveled up!]

[ All stats increase by 3!]

"Tamed Monster....I'll just call you...This might sound basic but.... I'll call you Python from now on. Show me Python's status"

[ Owner: Adam

Name: Python

Species & level : Great Snake Baby Lv3 (0/500Experience Points)

HP: 160/160

Endurance: 55/80

Stats: Strength: 14

Agility: 10

Sense: 11

Vigor & Endurance: 16

Skill(s): (None)

]

"You're getting strong fast. Too fast." Adam said.

'I'm kind of worried it's going to get too strong....Oh, let's go see his father. Or mother, who knows' Adam thought.

He went towards the entrance to The Great Snake's Den.

"Store" He whispered.

"I'll buy one Wooden Bow."

The Wooden Bow could now be found in his Storage.

"Alright, Python get up here." Adam extended his arm towards Python.

The snake quickly got on Adam's arm and made its way to his shoulders.

It wrapped itself around his neck like a scarf. But it was extremely focused on not tightening itself around Adam's neck.

"Not bad. Good thing I chose the slimmest one. Not too heavy."

Adam took the Wooden Bow into his left hand.

With his right hand, he took out Light Mana Potions that he drank one by one until his Mana Points were at full.

Adam looked outside the tunnel.

The Great Snake was napping at its usual place. The only difference was that one of its eyes looked like it had been burnt.

'Is that what Salma's Fire Arrow did?' Adam did his best to hold his laughter.

He focused on his right hand.

'Alright. I'll put all my Mana Points in one arrow. I want it to last a good 15 seconds.'

A purple arrow appeared in his hand.

[ Reinforced Conjured Arrow [C]. Attack Power: 160. Duration: 30 seconds.]

'What?'

Adam had expected more Attack Power. When he had used all his Mana Points on the two maces, each had an Attack Power of 120. But what he forgot was that this was an arrow. Not a weapon on its own.

'Is this even worth doing? Compared to the damage Salma had dealt with her Fire Arrow?'

Nevertheless, Adam aimed his arrow towards The Great Snake's head.

He let go of the arrow and ran away with Python on his shoulders.

The monster roared, and Adam ran even faster.

The arrow missed The Great Snake's head, but it got embedded deeply inside the monster's neck.

After it stayed in his neck a couple of seconds, it turned to dust.

Which meant that the wound started bleeding.

But The Great Snake only roared once.

It was tired of the weaklings that attacked and ran away.

The Great Snake quickly turned back to sleep.

"Could that have been better?" Adam asked as he ran away.

[ The arrow is a very strong weapon, but the Wooden Bow is not in comparison.]

"Right. I guess the Bow is the other half of the equation. Maybe I should conjure a bow and an arrow next time. How much damage did it deal?"

[ Damage Points : 90. ]

"What? Why so low?"

[The arrow was not thrown with lots of force. Not only that but the scales of the Great Snake reduced its power greatly.]

'Shit. So I should aim better and get better weapons, huh? Mana and Magic Affinity will be important for me if I want to keep conjuring weapons. But I also need the Agility and Dexterity to use those weapons well.'

Adam walked back to Salma and Layla.

He found them yawning. They had just woken up.

"Hey." Adam said.

"Hi. Thank you for the cloak haha." Layla said with a smile as she handed it to him.

"Did you find anything? Wait, is that a snake around your neck???" Salma flipped out.

"Yep. I tamed it. It's a Skill I got while you were asleep haha. Here touch him. I called him Python."

"That's..." Layla started,

"...pretty basic." Salma finished her sentence.

They were reluctant to pet the huge snake, but they eventually did.

"Well, anyways. What do you want to do?" Adam asked them.

"What do you mean?" The sisters asked in unison.

"Well, should we get out of here? Or try fighting the big snake?" Adam asked.

"Oh. The big snake..right. Wait. You tamed this guy because you think he's going to become like The Great Snake?" Layla asked with wide eyes.

"Well...yeah. He's a Great Snake Baby. He's gonna get there one day." Adam answered.

"Cooooool." Salma said as she stroke Python's scaly skin.

Unlike The Great Snake's, Python's scales were of a brighter green. But their eyes were of the same yellow.

"I guess we could try to damage the snake, at least a little bit more. Salma's the only one that can attack from far away though. I wonder how fast it is. I mean its body is huge, so it can't be that fast right?" Layla asked.

"Yeah, maybe. It would be risky though." Salma said.

"Oh. Wait." Adam said.

They all stopped and listened to him.

"What if I create an army of spiders and send them in there? Wouldn't that piss it off a lot? Plus if there are enough spiders, we can even blend in there and attack it. Wouldn't that be a great strategy?" Adam explained.

"Is there no limit to how many monsters you can have under your control at once?" Layla asked.

"Well, I know that my control over them will decrease the more there are. But I think we can easily get at least twenty in there. We'll slowly make the army larger, and once I start losing control of them too much, we get rid of the extra ones." Adam answered.

"Yey! We're making an army!" Salma said excitedly.

[ The Fox That Blesses Men says that this should have been incarnation Salma's army.]

"Let's do it then."