Chapter 619 Cerro Hatchlings

Chapter 619 Cerro Hatchlings

The Lightning Cerro area was much less heavily guarded. The baby Cerro were not too threatening, so as long as you wore shin guards, you would be alright until they grew up a little.

[Oh, I have bribes for the baby Thor type beasts.] Cara announced. [Oh, what did you come up with?]

Cara held up a hazelnut, and Karl wondered where it had come from.

[The Lotus made them for breakfast food, and I claimed some nuts for trees.] She declared proudly.

They weren't naturally a magical resource, they were just Hazelnuts. Tasty, but not rare or special. But after growing up in a Royal Rank beast space, even the common Hazelnut tree was imbued with mana.

What Cara had done was to make a crude copy of the hazelnut butter and insert it into small apples with the core removed. Even a young Lightning Cerro would treat those as a one or two bite snack, and Karl couldn't deny that they looked pretty tasty.

The Inquisitor nudged Karl, reminding him that he still had someone else's Moor Cat on his shoulder.

In response, he handed the monk girl a bag full of diced Commander Rank meat. "Feed her that when she needs a snack. High Rank monster meat is the best way for a young beast to grow, so don't be too stingy, even if the food costs are high.

I don't know if your ability is like mine, but if it is, you might eventually be able to keep food for your cat in a separate mental space." He explained.

Nikki looked confused and shrugged. "When she's not out here, she wanders my spirit ocean, the spot in my mind where I focus energy to grow mental strength."

So, she didn't get a separate space for the beast. That was unexpected. It also ruled out keeping resources there.

"In that case, you can put the meat in your inventory, you don't need to keep holding it." Karl reminded her.

"Right, inventory. I have a Class now." "And don't forget to check your class skills in your skill tree so that you can plan your advancement. You have a lot to do. The same for our first success story. Where did he go, by the way?"

A hand waved from the back of the group, and then Karl noticed that the clerics were taking away a body covered in a white sheet. They really hadn't been able to resurrect the one who had died to the Moor Cat kitten.

He was going to have to be reincarnated, and that couldn't be done here. It was a six high cleric ritual.

The grown Cerro group came over to greet Karl, and much to his surprise, they had a lot to say.

[It's a pack leader. Are we going to move the pack? This place is small. Why do you smell good, do you have food? Aren't the little ones cute? Are you keeping the predators away?] Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Two more cadets gained the class, and the group was beginning to think that Lightning Cerro was the best option for this process.

Then, things began to go wrong.

One of the Rangers began to convulse, and Karl sensed the distress from his bonded partner. It was part of his pack now, and the pack member was in danger, but the Cerro didn't know what to do.

It had already put a [Refreshing Lightning] barrier over him, but it couldn't see the attacker.

Karl examined him as thoroughly as he could, but it just didn't make sense. The man had the class, the Cerro was a common rank hatchling, and everything looked normal.

The white robed cleric realized it first.

"The mental link is too strong. It's breaking his mind. I will sedate him, but I don't know what we will do after that."

Karl wasn't sure that would work. The mental link was active even when you were sleeping. But being unconscious should give him the best chance to focus and stabilize his mind.

That left only two of the cadets, and while the hatchlings happily accepted all the snacks that they could offer, they wanted nothing else to do with them.

Then a second cadet dropped to the ground with blood pouring from their eyes and nose.

The cleric rushed over, but the boy waved his hand. "I will be alright, he's just... energetic. There is a tree of life in my soul sea, and Devon, my Cerro, charged it with his horns." He mumbled.

Karl chuckled. "You have a smashing post in your mental space? You're in for a very rough week until you build your mental strength."

The others all looked confused, so Karl created an [Earth Barrier] post on the far side of the enclosure.

The Cerro herd cheered and began to line up to take turns smashing into it.

"Dammit, we were finally breaking them of that habit." One of the University workers grumbled.

"It's essential to their mental health. You need to let them play. If they can't charge at posts, they need to charge each other, and that isn't as much fun. If you have mages, they also like mage barriers." Karl explained.

A number of the nearby Cerro nodded in agreement, making the cadets who were not having a hard time with their new partner laugh.

Mage barriers were good. Posts were better. Magical posts were the best. If they could find one that made a better noise when they hit it, they would revise the ranking system.