Lord of the Magical Beasts

The black robed elder muttered to himself for a moment, patting his pockets. Then he produced a dull Magical Crystal Ball from within a magical space and said, “In our tribe, every newly born baby has to drip a drop of their blood onto this crystal ball. We use it to predict his natural potential when it comes to communicating with wild beasts.”

As Yang Ling had absorbed the energy from the Black Obsidian and released a ring of red light as well as waves of buzzing, the black robed prophet, who had the strongest mental energy in the tribe, immediately sensed it and sent a guard to invite Yang Ling to meet him.

When they first met, he had felt a unique aura coming from Yang Ling. That feeling was similar to those of the tribesmen who had trained the Soul of the Wild Beasts to a high level. After attentively getting a feel of the energy, he had decided to take the crystal ball out to do a test, and ascertain if Yang Ling had anything to do with the tribe or not.

The Magical Crystal Ball could be said to be the greatest treasure in the Sumeer tribe. It was a holy item passed down over generations of prophets. It could not only be used to predict the potential a tribesman had when it came to communicating with wild beasts, it could also be used to ascertain a tribesman’s identity. The crystal ball would not have any effects if the person’s drop of blood belonged to an outsider, but if that person had the bloodline of the Sumeer people, the crystal ball would glow green.

Was there anything strange with this crystal ball?

Seeing the level of importance the black robed elder had placed on the matter, Yang Ling was silent. He was worried that the prophet might have set a trap for him, but he also hoped to use the opportunity to test his so-called potential in communicating with wild beasts. It would be even more ideal if he was able to further obtain the method the Sumeer people used to train their Soul of the Wild Beasts ability. He believed that it would be immensely beneficial to his Magical Beast army.

“Brother Yang, let me go first!” Yuna piped up, sensing Yang Ling’s worry. She bit into her index finger and pressed it lightly to the Magical Crystal Ball’s surface before Yang Ling had time to stop her. Instantly, the crystal ball’s dull surface began to lighten, finally glowing with a pale green light.

“Good, good, this is great!” The prophet grinned. He could, of course, sense the crystal ball’s changes. His hands trembled with excitement.

Over the years, the generations of his tribesmen had grown weaker, not only having poorer abilities when it came to communicating with wild beasts, the tribe’s numbers had also decreased. Finding tribesmen that they had lost contact with was great news for the tribe.

Yuna blinked at him, and Yang Ling understood her intentions. He knew that the crystal ball posed no danger. He hesitated no longer, biting open his own index finger and pressing it onto the crystal ball. But not only did the crystal ball not turn green, it instead began to tremble slightly.

“Oh, what’s this?”

Even the prophet, who had held that crystal ball for generations, was deeply confused at the magical item’s behavior. He was as surprised as Yuna and Yang Ling! He began to quietly utter some incantations. Soon, the statue with the broken arm sprang to strange life, piercing green light suddenly emanating from its eyes. The beams of light went straight to the crystal ball, illuminating it.

The moment he pressed his bloodied finger to the crystal ball, Yang Ling felt the Wizard Power in his body pour outward, and he quickly began reciting the Wizard Mantra. In that instant, his Wizard Core throbbed, driving around the blood energy in his body. The Wizard Power returned to his body after welling into the crystal ball. He did not lose any energy in this exchange; in fact, he managed to absorb a pure green energy from inside the crystal ball.

After absorbing a large amount of green energy, the crystal ball slowly stopped shaking. Under the effects of Yang Ling’s blood red Wizard Power and the green energy, the crystal ball began to exude an aura of orange light. At the same time, mysterious symbols appeared on the crystal ball’s surface.

The symbols on the crystal ball were clustered together, changing at high speeds, flashing past as fast as lightning. Yuna was dumbfounded, unable to track the symbols. The black robed elder looked down and mumbled to himself, trying to think of the reason for the change in the Magical Crystal Ball, oblivious to the appearance of the symbols. Only Yang Ling, who had an alarmingly efficient memory after having advanced to the level of Earth Wizard, could memorize the symbols quickly enough.

“Yang Ling, are you alright?” Yuna asked nervously, seeing Yang Ling retract his hand and close his eyes in silence. She looked from Yang Ling to the prophet, who was deep in thought.

After confirming that he had not missed a single symbol, Yang Ling opened his eyes and smiled, telling Yuna not to worry. Even though he did not understand the meaning behind the symbols for the time being, he had a hunch that this was something good that he should not miss.

“So strange, why would it happen like that?” The prophet asked, mostly to himself, as he stroked the crystal ball. It had returned to the dull, unimpressive appearance. In all his years, the prophet had never seen or heard of such a strange thing happening to the Magical Crystal Ball.

Regardless, he was sure that the two visitors had some sort of connection to at least one branch of the long lost tribesmen. Otherwise, the Magical Crystal Ball would not have glowed green after it absorbed Yuna’s blood.

After a moment’s deliberation, the black robed elder produced a yellowed record from within his robes and began to explain. “This is the spell that we, the Sumeer people, use to train the Soul of the Wild Beasts. Read the first page!” He instructed a guard wearing five feathers on his head to demonstrate the actions to Yang Ling and Yuna, guiding them along as they learned the tadpole-like Sumeer language.

Under the guidance of the prophet and the guard, Yang Ling and Yuna gradually understood the training spell of the Soul of the Wild Beasts.

As it turned out, the Soul of the Wild Beasts was a way to establish a connection with a wild beast using mental energy, and then control its actions using a few techniques. The stronger one’s mental energy, the easier it was to sense a wild beast’s thoughts, and the more smoothly one could control the beast.

To a certain degree, the Soul of the Wild Beasts had a similar use to taming creatures using blood, but it leaned toward a two-way connection between humans and wild beasts. If a wild beast were to not follow orders because it was in a frenzy, then the Beast Tamer could only try to calm it, and give the order to take action again after it had calmed down. This was the fundamental difference between this technique and taming creatures using the blood technique.

According to the explanation on the stele, Wizards controlled the life and death of the beasts they had tamed. After training to a higher level, a Wizard could erase the memories of any creature that did not follow orders, or even tamper with its soul. It was an incredibly powerful technique.

As he began to understand the uses of the Soul of the Wild Beasts, Yang Ling mused about how best to use it on his Magical Beast army.

The Sumeer people used a bull’s horn to command their armies. Perhaps he could make some slight improvements and use a small whistle, or command them using his own whistling. This way, he would not need to spend as much of his mental energy on smaller issues.

As his Magical Beast army grew, he had to rely more on Magical Beast Champions like the Tarantula King and the Evil Eye Tyrant to avoid commanding individual tarantulas or Evil Eyes.

To prevent against the massive spider and Evil Eye army descending into chaos after the death of the Tarantula King or Evil Eye Tyrant in battle, he had only been able to cultivate a few small team leaders. But the Sumeer people’s method of training through the Soul of the Wild Beasts gave him a much better and safer option. He might even be able to command his Magical Beast army directly through whistles at critical moments.

Even though he did not know specifically of Yang Ling’s ability to communicate with wild beasts, the prophet could sense limitless potential in Yuna. In just over two hours, Yuna had stepped up to beginner level of the Soul of the Wild Beasts, establishing a rapport with the Cloud Leopard that a guard had brought with him for that purpose.

“A few thousand years ago, the Sumeer people had a magnificent civilization of Beast Tamers. Unfortunately, many of the high-level techniques of the Soul of the Wild Beasts have been lost! Nowadays, most people can only tame low-level Magical Beasts like the Caucasus Vicious Dog and Siberian Cloud Leopard, despite training their entire lives.” Letting out a sigh, the black robed elder continued. “Legend has it that in the past, our elite warriors could summon powerful Life Origin Magical Beasts, their abilities immensely powerful. Unfortunately, after the crisis, the elites of the past had all met with misfortune. The prophets of the previous generations had been unable to find the spell required to summon Life Origin Magical Beasts.”

Life Origin Magical Beasts?

Hearing the prophet say this, the guard trembled, his hands clenched tightly into fists. Over the millennia, many of their elite tribesmen had braved dangerous situations without hesitation, in order to find the spell required to summon Life Origin Magical Beasts. None of them had managed to make it out alive.

As it turned out, legend had it that after one trained the Soul of the Wild Beasts to a high level, they would be able to grasp several high-level spells. Amongst those spells lost to history were a top-notch spell that summoned Life Origin Magical Beasts at the expense of burning their souls.

Life Origin Magical Beasts were Magical Beasts that shared a life with its owner, and every Beast Tamer could only have one Life Origin Magical Beast in their life. After obtaining a Life Origin Magical Beast, a Beast Tamer’s life force would be far superior to an average person, but if the Magical Beast were to die, the Beast Tamer would also perish. The converse was also true.

After obtaining a Life Origin Magical Beast, a Beast Tamer would receive a powerful life force, and they could also gradually begin to understand the natural abilities of the Magical Beast. It was rumored that there was a Sumeer hero in history that owned a Black Dragon King as his Life Origin Magical Beast. In the end, his physical body became immensely strong, and his resistance to magic became so great that it was incomprehensible.

“Yuna, how many people are there left in your clan?” The black robed elder changed topics abruptly, ready to learn more about Yang Ling and Yuna’s background. If he could find a large number of tribesmen that they had lost contact with since ancient times, it would be a rare piece of good news to the isolated Sumeer people.

“This…um…” Yuna stammered, not knowing how to answer. Even though she did not know why the Magical Crystal Ball would exude a green glow when she put her blood in it, she was certain that she was not from the Sumeer tribe.

“I have heard that our family moved away from our hidden holy land to live in rich empires a long time ago!” Seeing Yuna stammer, Yang Ling rushed to speak, continuing, “In these years, there have not been many of our tribesmen here. But who knows how many of our tribesmen there are left in our holy land!”

Since the other party had already misunderstood him and Yuna to be their long lost tribesmen, Yang Ling wanted to go with the flow, in case any conflict ensued. After all, the other party had already told them the truth about the way to train the Soul of the Wild Beasts. If they were to reveal their identities now, who knows what the prophet would do!