A-066 was a holy beastmaster who was a level higher than Alan, the alchemist, so Alan was at a disadvantage.
A second later, A-066 punched Alan’s face. Seeing this, Baylon was the first among the rest of the Guardians to jump in and help.
Meanwhile, Mill was clenching her fist, ready to retaliate at any moment. Bass noticed it and charged forward. Then the other members of Team A-066 also joined the fight, except for A-066 himself.
The holy beastmaster had indeed overstepped, but Alan was the one who started the fight. Nonetheless, none could tolerate the other.
Moss noticed the unfair fight of four against three, so he summoned a shield to separate the two groups.
“You’re using skills?!” A-069 thundered.
Then he thought, ‘My brother got eliminated because of you! I’ll show you who’s boss!’
The holy beastmaster summoned a Saber-toothed Tiger to attack Moss.
Moss never intended to fight and only raised a shield to defend himself against the tiger.
A-069 saw Moss defending himself and became even more motivated to use more of his skills to attack. Moss noticed this and summoned another shield, throwing it at A-069.
Moss’s shield exerted one ton of force, causing A-069 to retreat. Then A-066 joined the fray.
A-066’s name was Arthur, and he was a dark warlock. He had short brown hair, thin eyebrows, and fierce eyes. He was five foot nine, looking cool and domineering.
He saw Mill again and felt a passion burn in his heart. Arthur had been attracted to Mill the first time he saw her. However, his level was still low, and he had yet to master any higher-leveled skills when he first saw the girl.
But things were different now. After the first few stages of training, Arthur’s levels rapidly increased, and he also learned new skills like Dark Devour and Weakening Ray.
When Moss retaliated and threw his shield toward Arthur’s teammate, Arthur knew it was his chance to show off in front of Mill. He could save his teammates and beat Moss before Mill’s eyes so he could win her favor.
“Your attack was impressive, B-666! Let me try it on for size!” Arthur released two black, dazzling Weakening Rays and shot them at Moss’s two shields, causing them to lose their trajectories and slow down gradually.
Moss also felt a more violent impact from the Saber-toothed Tiger smashing into the two shields in his hands.
‘He executed those Weakening Rays beautifully!’ Moss praised inwardly.
That was not the end of Arthur’s attack. He drew a circle with his outward stretched palms, and a funnel-shaped black vortex appeared.
Meanwhile, Moss felt the black vortex gradually sucking away his power.
‘That’s Dark Devour! Dark Warlocks are indeed extraordinary! The power of darkness is terrifying!’ Moss was shocked.
However, Dark Devour also activated Moss’s Holy Belief, which counteracted Dark Devour’s effects. Moss felt Dark Devour’s effects weakening, but Mill and the others got increasingly uncomfortable.
Seeing this, Moss summoned two more shields and flew toward Arthur.
“Stormstrike!”
With a shout, Moss launched his attack on Arthur.
“Stop!”
The students heard a cold and clear voice. Then a light barrier enveloped them, making the students feel waves of warmth as Moss and Arthur stopped fighting.
The fighting students looked in the direction of the voice in shock. Seeing that it was Red Spider who shouted, the two groups returned to their respective teams and stood quietly, their eyes filled with admiration.
‘So, Deputy Chief Instructor Red Spider is a priestess—a psionic priestess, to be exact. She just used Light of Peace and Advanced Healing!’ Moss was shocked.
“You guys have grown stronger, haven’t you? Still, we’re amid beast-taming, not combat training! It looks like you guys have a lot of time to spare, huh?!” Red Spider reprimanded the two teams as she stood rooted.
Afterward, she said, “Don’t let this happen again.” Then she turned around to leave in a carefree manner, leaving the ten youths in shock.
…
After that minor disturbance, the Guardians put their hearts into their training. However, having heart was not enough for beast-taming because it was more important to possess adequate spiritual power.
Even someone as strong as Moss, whose Beast Communication skill became increasingly proficient, had to return to the basics after trying many times on the middle ranks.
“This is too difficult!” Alan pouted and complained, which made his already chubby face rounder.
“Sigh, I wanted to tame a Two-headed Magic Eagle! It would’ve been a great combo with me as a crossbow master! Now it seems I can only train a Fiery Chicken at best!” Bass also grumbled.
“I give up! I can only tame an ocelot now! Well, at least it can be my pet if I do,” Mill said in a clear voice as she sighed with relief.
“Don’t be discouraged, guys. If we’re having trouble with this, I’m sure the others are too. Still, we must ensure we can complete the taming portion before considering the rest.
“We have three chances to tame beasts during the beast-taming test. We should ensure our success on the first try to build our confidence, and then we can go all out and tame more challenging beasts on the other two tries,” Moss encouraged his teammates.
Moss saw a cute yet ferocious Flying Demon Rat in front of him and thought of what Mill said just now. He felt it was an excellent idea to tame a Magical Beastling as a pet.
He reminded the Guardians, “We have almost mastered the methods and techniques of beast-taming. We only need to focus on improving our spiritual power as much as possible before the assessments now.”
The Guardians nodded one after another as Moss rekindled their fighting spirits. They knew one would have an easier time taming beasts if one possessed potent enough spiritual power.
The beast-taming test resembled a competition on who possessed the most potent spiritual power.
“Everyone here has awakened varying classes, so we will have different ways to strengthen our spiritual power. Since that is the case, we should find the most suitable beast to train with separately,” Mill suggested with anticipation in her heart.
Just like that, the Guardians split up.
Moss had an idea, ‘I should go to the Ancient Knight Mystic Realms!’
After some comparisons, he felt he should continue raiding the Mystic Realms he had yet to complete. He could constantly stimulate his knight’s spirit in those realms, making raising his Holy Belief’s values easier.
However, Moss was still in the underground training grounds, so obtaining more value points for his Holy Belief would be challenging if he could not stimulate his knight’s spirit.
In addition, he found that it was faster to level up in the Mystic Realms compared to the underground training grounds. Still, he could only gain minuscule amounts of experience in the underground training grounds, so he had no choice but to spend more time practicing.
With that thought, Moss stood up and walked toward the underground training ground’s exit.
When some students saw Moss walking toward the exit, they were surprised and quickly started a heated discussion.
“Is B-666 done with his training? He’s too confident.”
“That’s not confidence. B-666 has been stuck on the ninth floor for days now. He’s probably giving up.”
“Just like that? I know this test is challenging, but I’m determined to tame a beast as a pet for myself.”