Chapter 11: Umbra

When these messages appeared in his mind, Shane also sensed a connection between him and the Shadow-snake establishing, and a sensation of emotions overflowed both of them.

It was weird to feel the Shadow-snake's emotions and if Shane was honest, it felt quite uncomfortable but over time, he would grow accustomed to the sensation.

At least he thought that and the Shadow-snake was probably feeling the same as him but probably it felt an even deeper sensation, as his range of emotions was much wider compared to the Shadow-snake.

Shane was expectant about the status of his newly obtained companion but at the same time, he wanted to know how to upgrade his Innate Skill.

And after pondering for a few seconds, he decided to look at the Shadow-snake first.

_______________

Name: [?]

Race:[Shadow-snake]

Rank: [Peak 1st-Wild stage(Low-Wild)]

Quality: [Uncommon]

<Locked> |Evolution|

Affinity: Lowest Basic-Darkness(Shadow)

Ability: [One with the Darkness(Trash)]

Loyalty: [7%]

_______________

Looking through the Status-chart from his Shadow-snake, everything seemed interesting and Shane was astonished to see so much information at once.

Not many with a taming skill would tell others about their tamed beast's abilities or other facts, as revealing these secrets may result in a disadvantage for them in the future.

As such everything was rather secretive about the [Taming] skill in general.

Due to his father, Shane had still a wide range of information about many skills but even then, there wasn´t that much he got to know about the taming skill.

The first thing that jumped into his view was definitely the quality the Shadow-snake possessed and it caused Shane to smile brightly.

A beasts quality had the same sections like items with Trash<Common<Uncommon<Rare and so on.

The higher the quality of a beast, the more intelligent it was compared to its brethren in addition to a slight increase in agility, endurance, strength, and so on.

One could say that higher quality beasts had better survivability in their surroundings due to them reigning supreme over the weaker quality beasts of the same race.

It was even said that the quality of a beast determined its future progress and evolution paths.

This means, the higher the quality of a beast is, the higher it might ascend in stages and strength by evolving.

His father knew a renowned tamer, who revealed some information about taming to him.

This included the fact that enhancing the quality of beasts is extremely important, as it can change both the beast's and the tamer´s life.

But this is easier said than done, as enhancing a beast's quality was said to be extremely difficult, mainly because of the high price one has to pay.

After this news came out, most humans that wanted to get their hands on a taming skill, decided to disregard their thought simply because they had to accumulate more than enough funds in order to become stronger, and they couldn't divide their wealth further, as most couldn´t even sustain themselves with enough resources to cultivate fast enough.

In the end, most tamers had to decide, whether to slow down their own progress to receive a beast with higher quality by enhancing it by themselves or search for beasts with high quality in order to look out for ways to evolve them with the available quality.

Even the renowned tamer, Shane was acquainted with thanks to his father, decided to disregard the thought of increasing the quality of multiple beasts and he said that raising one beast by oneself would be more than enough, while other beasts could be tamed as extras.

If one were to tame a beast with the desire to enhance its quality to the peak, one should be prepared to pay the price.

But seeing the quality of his Shadow-snake, Shane smiled lightly.

Having a [Uncommon] beast, meant, it could at least evolve one time without following the common path like the Shadow-python.

Thinking about the Shadow-python, Shane began to wonder if a Shadow-snake had a [Common] quality when it evolved into a Shadow-python, but he was not entirely sure about that.

As such he decided to look at the Shadow-snake´s ability and loyalty after skipping the Lowest Basic Darkness affinity, which was obvious.

It was the worst of the worst and affinities were divided into three main sections, humans knew.

Basic-Intermediate-Advanced and each of these three sections could be divided into Lowest-Low--Mid-High-Highest which was a vast difference.

Humans didn't have any innate affinity normally, like other races but the System allowed them to obtain them after they choose their occupation.

With their occupation, they would be able to select an affinity and with the further development of their occupation, it was even possible to receive multiple affinities.

Some special occupations allocate even two to three affinities at once, but they were extremely rare, and even rarer were humans, born with an affinity.

Humanity´s genetic model changed over 200 years of cultivation, refining, baptism, obtained affinities, and more.

As such it was only normal that babies with innate skills, traits, abilities, and affinities were born and Shane himself could be said to be someone like that.

He wasn't sure if he received the Innate skill and [Artemis´ Blessing] thanks to his parents or due to him transmigrating into this body and nobody would be able to answer him.

As such it didn't matter.

[One with the Darkness(Trash)] was the most common ability a Shadow-snake possessed and the ability's quality was enough to tell Shane that it was useless.

Apparently, Shadow-snakes could fuse with the Darkness, but from the experience he gained during the last few hours, Shane could only say that the ability could at most be used for dim beasts without good sight instead of humans and other intelligent races.

At least it could be said that the ability was better than nothing at all and Shane told himself, that he shouldn't be dissatisfied with the ability when his gaze went to the last point.

[Loyalty] and Shane had absolutely no knowledge about this… would the Shadow-snake leave him, once it reached zero, or would he be punished? How to increase it and are there any benefits to increase the loyalty of a tamed beast?

Shane didn´t know but he had to find out.

As such the first move he did, was to talk with his newly obtained companion.

Without a name, he could always call the Shadow-snake just a snake or `you` and that was obviously bad for their relationship.

After they formed a bond with each other, the Shadow-snake could understand Shane much better compared to before and it was easier for each other to "talk" with one another.

Because of that, Shane threw name after name onto the snake, asking if he liked any of them but it seemed unsatisfied and after a whole hour passed a notification resounded in his head

[Loyalty of (Shadow-snake) decreased by 1%]

And Shane began to sweat heavily...What to do????

He wasn´t sure how to name the Shadow-snake until a sudden thought appeared in his mind…

'How about I use some words from earth? Shadow..."Umbra?"` Shane unconsciously mumbled and when the Shadow snake heard this name, it hissed joyfully and Shane felt the sudden joy coming from the Shadow-snake, overwhelming him, as two messages appeared in front of him.

[[Umbra] has been allocated to the tamed beast (Shadow-snake)]

[Loyalty of (Umbra) increased by 3%]

And looking once again at the status bar, it looked instantly more pleasing to Shane´s eyes

_______________

Name: [Umbra♂]

Race:[Shadow-snake]

Rank: [Peak 1st-Wild stage(Low-Wild)]

Quality: [Uncommon]

<Locked> |Evolution| (+)

Affinity: Lowest Basic-Darkness(Shadow)

Ability: [One with the Darkness(Trash)]

Loyalty: [9%]

_______________

When he finished reading through Umbra´s status bar once again, Shane picked him up and caressed his black scales, before an emotion was submitted throughout their connection

"Are you hungry?" Shane asked and he could only see Umbra's tilting its small head confused as the smell of the pizza he ate, was transmitted, which astonished him.

Standing up with the 10-centimeter long Umbra coiled around his neck, at least it tried to, as it was too small, Shane went outside once again with an important mission!

FOOD!