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After the day ended, Frank closed the shop and said his goodbyes to the two kids, who walked together back to their home and separated after when their paths branched.
Frank used his monster pets to follow them from behind and protect them. He was able to use some of his abilities such as Shadow Clone through Onyx, so it wasn't hard to divide Onyx in two to protect the two kids.
…
It has been a week since Miriam started working in Frank's shop, and she couldn't help but feel happy each day. Every time she came from job, she would tell her sibling in the orphanage about it, and everyone would act surprised, admiring her for having found a nice job.
She had also been able to sneak food into the orphanage after Frank gifted her a special and strange pouch capable of storing a lot of things inside but look inconspicuous outside, she was able to easily sneak it inside her panties, where the nouns didn't inspected her, and got her friends a lot of the food he shared with her.
At the end of the week Frank had already decided to just give her a lot of food for all the children there to eat, he pitied them after she said they only drank bone soup and ate a stale bread every day…
Miriam was looking forward to today, after all she was going to receive her weekly pay! Frank had already agreed to pay her weekly, as the girl was too poor and seemed to need the money.
He had made a nice sum of Coins over the week by selling basic items to some random clients, who have come back a few times too, although only a week couldn't really say much, so he would need to wait longer.
Aside from slowly growing his capital, Frank also began to explore the city on his own at night, and also used his monster pets as scouts. Ruby used her wings to fly around, and the two mapped most of the immense city, which was located near an immense river that led to a large verdant forest to the west, while to the east there was a near endless grassland, which wasn't so endless, as it led to the shores of the continent.
They had briefly explored the wilderness but today they had decided to go there in the morning to see things through in more detail, coming with his wife and Alexander, he wanted them to level up their monster pets.
F F F F F L L L L L A A A A A A A A S S S S S S H H H H H H!
Ruby slowly flapped her wings and reached the floor, as Frank and his wife holding Alexander in her arms jumped over the grass of the forest.
This large forest composed of several layers was named the Evergreen Forest, and it was composed of mostly large bark trees that extended over ten meters above the ground and covered most of the sunlight from directly reaching the floor, making the forest floor rather dark, where small monsters would dwell around, mostly rodent-type and insect-type ones.
Frank couldn't help but make the relation to Pokémon in that regard… this was often called the "Starter Forest" where people came to train their Monster Pets. The way that monster pets grew stronger was through battles, gaining experience and developing their abilities.
It was unknown how it was done, but it appears that in this world monsters by merely fighting and accumulating such knowledge would allow them to slowly grow stronger. Of course, items and resources could be used to speed up this process, special materials could be feed to monsters to permanently boost their power, and even provoke evolution if they grew experienced enough.
Monster pets would naturally develop abilities of their main elements, but unlike games, none were always the same, some would know a few moves, and other many, some might never even develop all sorts of moves while others could be able to develop many, it often all depended in a bit of luck but also hard work.
Monsters in Gaia had Beast Crystals inside their chests, perhaps this was the reason they were able to gain power by fighting, the Beast Crystals would use the monster's inner energies when they engaged in fighting, and this would allow them to nourish their entire bodies, awakening abilities was common if such a thing happened.
In some sort of way, monsters were able to "automatically cultivate" as long as they engaged in intense fights, killing other monsters didn't granted EXP like Frank's System could, but it certainly helped the monsters grow stronger through the previously mentioned method.
As the monsters evolved, their Beast Crystals would develop and grow bigger and stronger, interestingly enough, much like Mana Cores in Terra, these crystals were a valuable resource used to fuel magic technology and helped people's everyday life a great deal.
According to the small guide Frank had bought in the Trainers Guild, a place similar to an Adventurer Guild where Trainers could go sell the monsters they captured or the corpses of the ones they hunted, alongside other types of resources and also be able to take quests and the like, this Evergreen Forest had a small variety of insect-type and rodent-type monsters.
Although Frank already had a big team of powerful monster pets, that didn't stop him from catching more just for fun, he felt like this was a Pokémon game, so he really wanted to build a team from scratch.
"And we are here… Dear, did you got the capture collars?" wondered Gwendolyn.
"Yeah… I got the Pokeball- I mean, these things…" said Frank.
Capture Collars were a special item designed to forcefully tame weakened monsters into monster pets, it also worked automatically when the monster pet agreed to be tamed, and it was something most monster pets wore so people could identify them as tamed monsters and not as wild ones.
Of course, the stronger the monsters were, the harder it would be to tame them with these, so special and more high-quality collars were needed… but for these starter-level monsters, it wasn't necessary.
The moment they walked a bit around the forest they immediately came into a monster, it was a big half a meter big, brown-colored beetle with black spots over its carapace, it had a sharp horn resembling a rhinoceros beetle.
Frank memorized the guide as he had absorbed it like he could absorb other books, learning all its info in seconds and even gaining a skill named "Monster Pet Encyclopedia" which filled up the more monsters he saw.
"Oh, that's a Black-spotted Brown Rhinoceros Beetle… that's a rare monster." Said Frank.
"Mine! I want it!" said Alexander excitedly
F F F F F L L L L L A A A A A A A A S S S S S S H H H H H H!
A beautiful Little bird, the Starlight Hummingbird of Alexander, flew towards the Beetle in front of it and quickly attacked it!
C L A A A A A A A A A A A S S S S SS S S H H H H H H !
A strong kick using its tiny legs was enough for the beetle to move a few centimeters away! However, the little hummingbird was still on its infant stage, so it couldn't so strong.
The beetle was a rare monster and also strong at defense due to its hard armor, therefore, more than just the kick of a tiny bird would be needed to knock it off.
"Grrash!"
The beetle released a strange sound that came from its mandibles crashing against one another, as it reached up to the hummingbird by jumping! It attempted to crush the little bird while it could!
However, Alexander used a mental command like most trainers could to order the bird to evade in time, this wasn't because the bird wouldn't evade, but Alexander had a greater reflexes in battle than the bird itself, so it helped it by preemptively alerting it of danger so it could move in time!
F F F F F L L L L L A A A A A A A A S S S S S S H H H H H H!
C L A A A A A A A A A A A S S S S SS S S H H H H H H !
The strong mandibles of the beetle crashed over the empty air, as the hummingbird flew around, starlight came out of its tiny and beautiful wings as it flapped them rapidly!
"Starlight Beam!"
Alexander suddenly infused a part of his mana into the Hummingbird, suddenly making the bird glow brightly like an actual star, this was a finishing move! If the beetle wasn't going to be knocked out easily, this would surely do it!
F F F F F L L L L L A A A A A A A A S S S S S S H H H H H H!
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