“The egg is stirring,” I told Healer Melon. I would have to miss classes today. But that was fine. The plain gray egg was far more important than one day of classes. Most of my classes were auxiliary classes anyways. While I would lose out on the money I had spent to reserve a couple of them, that was fine.

“Just stay near it and keep a small trickle of Mana to the egg. It will strengthen your bond with the monster and have it recognize you as its parent,” he said, repeating information I knew. I had reviewed similar information from the texts he had gotten me, but it was good to get a reminder so I didn’t make a mistake.

Healer Melon stayed back as I kept my hands just above the surface of the head sized egg. I released my Mana into the air and focused on keeping it around the egg. In the past I had released much more Mana in the mornings and evenings every day than I was releasing currently. Now I was keeping my the amount of Mana to a small trickle.

I could feel the monster stirring inside and slowly trying to break free. The egg was too small and it had grown weak and frail as the monster absorbed its nutrition. An egg was a natural treasure of the dungeon for the simple fact that monsters rarely remained alive long enough to have an offspring, since monsters were created by the dungeon.

To have an egg was a very rare occurrence. It did happen, since there were a few adventurers with pets. But most adventurers chose to sell them as curiosities to the rich. Someone like my father might have had a guard monster as a status symbol if it wasn’t for my mother. She was incredibly intolerant of monsters, even tamed ones.

Showing her a monster was a quick way to have a dead monster and an upset Warlady. Even knowing that, I was going to tame this monster to assist me. Teaching it healing would come with some complications, but after spending so much time with healers, I knew how useful they were.

While I wasn’t planning to adventure alone, finding trustworthy teammates was not simple. The only friend I had made so far was Judy, the beastkin. Everyone was too focused on getting ahead and gaining skill levels for such things as friendship or teamwork. Perhaps that would change in later years, but my first year so far showed that the competition was all that mattered.

The monster inside the egg moved and the surface of the egg cracked. Its movement increased in intensity. It wanted to break free. I kept my Mana consistent around the egg as it slowly broke apart. A snake snoot poked its way out of a small hole that had been made.

I didn’t do anything except what I was already doing. A monster needed to break free of the egg on its own. Interfering with the process carried the risk of making it think I was attacking it. The monster struggled once more, larger pieces broke away and a black scaled snake head poked its way fully out of the egg.

Over the next couple of minutes, the monster struggled more in bursts and slowly freed its two wings. It was a Winged Serpent. Black scales and bright red eyes. Its feathered wings were a dark gray.

As it emerged from the egg, it flapped its wings twice and flew around me. I kept my Mana focused around the monster with a bit of difficulty. While my Mana points were getting low, that was fine, the bonding steps requiring Mana were almost completed.

The Winged Serpent landed on my head, messing up my brown hair, which was fine. I didn’t react negatively and focused on the bond skill between us. I focused on communicating the thoughts of parent, strong, and protector.

I could feel the small and fragile mind of the Winged Serpent reaching back. It was happy, excited, and hungry. I had a small tray of finely cut monster meat ready and removed the metal lid over the tray. The Winged Serpent floated down and began eating the meat. I could feel it accepting that I was in charge and that it recognized me.

While a bonded monster wouldn’t easily turn, it still could. If it was abused or its partner was too weak, thent here was a chance it would rebel and try to dominate the relationship. The trick in the books Healer Melon had gotten me was to read was to not make it question the relationship for as long as possible. That way the relationship became more engrained into the mind of the monster.

By the time it became dangerous, it would be too used to listening to me to think any differently. Now for the real challenge, what I was going to name it, not it, him. Healer Melody, despite being helpful recently, didn’t have good ideas for a name. He had suggested Danger Noodle, Snek, and Hiss Von Scale. His bald head was letting his brain cook and not in a good way if he thought those names were good.

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“A good name would be after the legendary staff from history, which had a snake design. The staff of kings, Ozymandius. You can be Ozy for short,” I declared.

Ozy looked up at me and gave a nod. It was just agreeing, even if it didn’t fully understand the agreement or the motion it made. He then slithered over and came to rest on my shoulders while digesting his meal.

“Congratulations, you now have a tamed monster,” Healer Melon said.

“At least it is small enough to keep with me,” I replied.

“Winged Serpents can grow quite large based on my understanding. Eventually you should be able to ride it,” he replied.

“That is a long ways away. The main growth mechanism for monsters are stats, which means leveling. Which will go slowly while we are out of the dungeon. I would prefer him to remain small for now and focus on skills instead,” I replied.

“It won’t be easy teaching it with how monsters learn through their innate skills and abilities,” Healer Melon said.

“I know. But the answer is Alchemic products. Specifically, skills taken from other monsters. The College has a collection of monster skills one can purchase. By giving Ozy one new skill every three months, he should improve in a specific direction,” I said while running my hand over his back. I felt his contentment at my action.

“I am glad you are on top of things. Since I only know a bit. A pet is a huge responsibility and expense. Does the College even have healing skills from monsters with how rare they are?” Healer Melon asked.

“Yes. But they aren’t cheap and require a certain standing here at the College. Thankfully I meet the requirements with my class rank as number one and my background is more than enough. I am thinking the skills Anatomy Insight, Healing Insight, Health Sense, Stamina Sense, Cure, Greater Cure, Purify, Greater Purify, Refresh, and Greater Refresh,” I explained.

“And those skills were extracted from monsters?” Healer Melon asked with a bit of surprise.

“Yes. They are very rare, but there are healing monsters in the dungeon. I wanted Greater Respite instead of Greater Refresh, since the previous one handles physical exhaustion as well as stamina points,” I explained.

“That is true, but Refresh offers greater stamina recovery. They are good choices, but I am afraid to ask how much these skills will cost,” he said.

“Due to their rarity from monsters, I am looking at the maximum price of 1,000 gold per skill. The College has agreed to allow me to borrow the money on credit,” I replied.

“That is more than enough money for a long lifetime and could be used to get some useful skills for yourself when you graduate,” Healer Melon pointed out. It was something I had considered carefully. But if I was going to have a pet, I was going to invest in it to be the best, just like me. Ozy was going to be a teammate I could fully count on. Otherwise a pet would be a waste of gold and time.

It hurt to go into that much debt. That was the cost of about two red soul fruits. But Ozy was going to be amazing. Having a pet that could heal and perform combat Alchemy was priceless. I could trust my pet to have my back and train him to perfectly support me in combat. While my mother and other people might see that as a weakness, I saw it as expending the number of skills I had access to.

I was never going to learn healing. I might learn Cure as a spell skill at most like my mother, but there were too many supporting skills needed to be a proper healer. Insight skills were skills that only monsters could learn and progress. A human would have serious issues if they tried to learn an innate skill from a monster. By serious issues, death was one of the better outcomes.

Instead of a bunch of support skills, a monster would have Weapon Insight and know how to wield any weapon naturally. It was completely unfair, but for all their natural advantages, monsters couldn’t choose how to progress or their skills. Only the thinking races could, which is what separated us from monsters. Monster skills could only be acquired through their innate nature or through an Alchemic process.

I could try and teach Ozy various skills, but he wouldn’t be able to pick them up naturally like I was able to with skills. That was another reason why pets weren’t popular. Teaching them new skills required money to pay for the Alchemically extracted monster skills instead of investing that money into a better weapon or piece of armor. That is why pets were mostly used to show off as guard monsters for noble estates.

“Are you going to check on the monster’s status?” Healer Melon asked me. I smiled a bit at the trick question.

“No. Ozy just hatched and needs time to rest and recover. While a monster is born with its status active, rushing to check it could cause soul damage. Better to let it rest and build up strength for a while. When it is time to check my status at the end of the semester, I will check his status as well in a couple of weeks,” I replied and scratched a part of his scales that were bothering him.

Ozy was going to be amazing. While others might look down on having a pet, it was the best way forward for myself. I knew it in my heart. And the risk of removing a tier 4 skill was incredibly high with how unstable my soul was. Even if I had wanted to get rid of Ozy in the past, getting rid of the skill wouldn’t have been easy.

I would also have to train him to respond to my thoughts and to support me in combat. That was would be tricky. At least monsters could improve through their skills from consuming Mana and through training. They just couldn’t gain new skills through training, the same with their stats. Their stats were directly tied to their level.

Monsters were more Mana than flesh, even if they had physical bodies. They were held together with Mana. Many people speculated that this was due to the dungeon creating them directly from Mana. It was why their growth was tied directly to their level. Another mystery of the world.

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