Chapter 8: Shane, the Plunderer

[Innate Skill]: Taming |Trash-★(+)|

Shane forgot the existence of his Innate Skill, which he obtained when he awoke his system.

And it was a Taming Skill at that!

He never heard about an Innate Skill similar to his but there were a few magicians that learned summoning tamed beasts, which seemed somehow similar, while regular tamers also existed.

If he remembered correctly these regular Tamers could tame beasts at a lower rank than themself with further restrictions.

They could store their tamed beasts and summon them if demanded, but their combat prowess was weaker than their equivalent to the exact same race in most cases.

As such, Shane started to wonder if the same would happen to the beasts he could tame.

According to the information provided by certain Tamers, it took them a long time to tame beasts and they are extremely proud of their own feat and the tamed beasts.

Would he also need a long time to tame a weak beast? If that was the case he would have to catch a Low-Wild beast to test it out!

'A Shadow-snake wouldn't be bad, right?' Shane pondered but because he wasn't sure if taming would require much time or not, he would have to be in a safe proximity in order to experiment with his Innate Skill, and not within the territory of the Shadow snakes.

After thinking for some time, Shane decided to purchase three things.

He paid 2 gold coins to purchase another Nightsight and concealment potion and another 3 silver coins were used up for a [Mortal(Trash)] leather bag that was barely able to hold out attacks by Low-Wild beasts without tearing apart, as long as nothing sharp was used.

The Shadow-snake had only sharp fangs and they couldn't be usefully utilized in order to tear apart a bag.

As such Shane would be relatively safe without wasting much of his wealth and he was still left with 20 silver coins.

With his remaining 28 minutes on the potions' effects, Shane continued his plucking spree for Nightshade flowers.

He wasn't sure if he should venture to the main Nightshade flower field or not, because the possibility to meet a [Shadow-Python] would be much higher and its strength ranged from

[Mid-Wild to Low-Elite] which is an extremely wide range.

Shadow-python was the most commonly chosen evolution path a Shadow-snake normally took when it reached its racial limit, while there were still some other rather uncommon paths.

In Shane's opinion, there should be a few Shadow-python inside the main field, even though the chances to meet them at the outskirts where the darkness permeated mana is thinner.

Due to their slightly more advanced ability to conceal themselves in the darkness, Shane would have to be attentive, even if he only looked at the outskirts.

As such he would at first plunder the outskirts with their slightly smaller bunches of Nightshade flowers.

But even then, he would make a huge profit, and time continued to pass slowly.

When the effect of his potions was almost used up with only one minute remaining, Shane gulped down the newly purchased potions, while childishly looking at his [Finances]

The most time he wasted, was to find the valley and to go down without drawing too much attention on himself, and now while being on the valley's ground, his gains were extremely pleasing to the eyes, even if he had to evade the main field with its tens of thousand Nightshade flowers.

His wealth increased by a lot and he already accumulated a small fortune of 3 gold coins and 38 silver coins with some spare bronze coins.

This could be considered a terrifying amount for someone who entered the Primordial Dimension for his first time but Shane was still not satisfied.

He made a rough plan for a few months and according to this plan, more gold coins were absolutely needed.

However, in Shane's opinion there had to be a reason for the human race to avoid this valley, even though only a few adventurers visited the Soul-Onyx Jungle Dimension on their own accord.

There was still the possibility that humans gave up on the forest and only harvested the Soul-Onyx-Wood but this chance was relatively small because the valley was surrounded by Soul-Onyx trees.

Because of his suspicion about the main field, Shane continued to plunder the outskirts even though he had to go far away from the original path he went down.

The heavy rain that still poured down made everything worse and once his potion had only [1H:30M] left, Shane decided to search his way back home.

In the beginning, it was still easy to find the path he went but after five minutes everything seemed smudged and Shane lamented about his stupidity.

'I knew I forgot something… It was already weird that I had so many gold coins left.'

As of now, Shane accumulated 13 gold coins 52 silver coins, and 60 bronze coins.

It was more than enough for Shane to continue with his plan but the first thing he had to do was searching for the way out of the Valley.

He knew he had forgotten something important and seeing the tracer with invisible markers inside the System´s shop as recommendations, soured his mood even more.

But lamenting his situation wouldn't help him at all and he decided to follow his gut feeling.

He could roughly remember the path he took and walking back would most likely work...partially.

Seeing muddy spots on his way back, Shane knew he was right, and walking around them, his attention was all over the place, while [Hunter's Mind] was fully utilized.

Shane took more than 10 minutes until he found the way to the top of the valley, and once he looked up while taking a step, Shane stepped on a smooth and slippery spot, where he stumbled, only to slip away.

Without any way to get a hold of anything, Shane lost his balance and fell on his back.

As if that wasn´t enough the soil below him seemed to be loose, causing it to collapse, taking Shane further down into the valley´s main field, he initially didn't want to be.

Cursing in his mind, Shane was about to stand up, when he noticed that he fell directly into the Nightshade flower field as he saw a motionless black-scaled body with a length of more than one meter protruding out of the soggy ground.

'Ohh... please….' He thought and even though his mind was extremely firm thanks to his fathers teaching, Shane could hardly contain his feelings and it was only due to the [Hunter´s Mind] passive support, that he didn't shout out loud when he fell down into the main field of the Nightshade flowers.

The only positive thing, Shane noticed was, that it looked like the Shadow-Python he could see right next to him was sleeping deeply or was more likely even in hibernation.

If that was the case, he could call himself extremely lucky as he slowly stood up, attentively looking at the Shadow-python next to him.

He didn´t forget to look around for other Shadow-snakes but the most imminent threat was right next to him and the rest could wait patiently for his attention.

Seconds felt like an eternity and when he stood and took his first step, Shane noticed the Shadow-Python moving, causing sweat pearls to form on his already fully wet face.

Fortunately, nothing more happened and Shane slowly backed off, not letting the unmovable body out of his gaze.

He was quite a distance away before he turned around.

Before anything could happen; Shane climbed up the tiny slope he fell down.

And [Artemis´ Blessing] didn´t curse him, as he found the path to the top of the valley he had cut open once he was able to stand firmly back on the higher position.

The shock of his short adventure was still present and Shane wanted nothing more than to rush out of the valley as soon as possible.

Taking one firm step after another, Shane took care, that he wouldn´t slip another time, as a single adventure like before was more than enough.

When his potion effect countdown reached 50 minutes, he reached the patch, where saw the tiny Shadow-snake previously.

At least he thought this was the place as he could faintly see yellow slits piercing him from below a muddy, loose soil.

Looking closer, a sudden Idea formed in Shane´s mind with a sly smile emerging on his face.