Chapter 2: First Beast
The pain had stopped somehow. Terrence couldn’t find the right words to describe his situation.
What just happened? Did he just awaken? But with what? What was the Beast Supplier System?
There were plenty of questions racing through his mind, but one thing was more important than anything else right now: his survival.
[S-Rank Shadow Hound is here to protect the host!]
And just like that, the world continued to move.
The mid-flight goblin was about to reach him. Terrence was still on the ground, his body bruised and exhausted, unable to readjust his position in time to defend himself.
"Holy shit!" he blurted out, throwing an arm up instinctively.
An S-Rank Shadow Hound?
In this world, an S-Rank beast was a walking natural disaster. Towns were built to avoid them. Guilds sent entire armies to clear them. And he had just summoned one from thin air?
Before his brain could even process the ridiculousness of the situation, something flashed past him.
There was no sound, no blur, no mark, no warning. The air simply shattered.
The goblin was suddenly sent flying meters away from Terrence. Its small green body crumpled as it slammed through the damp air.
Its limbs twisted at unnatural angles, and its chest collapsed inward so violently that its original shape couldn’t even be drawn anymore.
A loud thwack echoed through the trees, followed by a heavy thud as the monster smashed into the thick trunk of a mutated oak and slid down into the dirt.
It didn’t twitch. It didn’t groan. It was dead in an instant.
Terrence finally relaxed his shoulders, letting his arm drop back to his side. He was safe now.
The threat that almost claimed his life was gone, reduced to a broken pile of green flesh against a tree.
His breathing was still wild and unstable. The adrenaline was pumping hard through his veins, making his chest heave up and down.
He forced himself to take control of it, using the basic mental exercises he had read about years ago.
In, two, three. Out, two, three.
He counted his breaths one by one until the sharp ringing in his ears faded. Once his lungs stopped burning and his hands stopped shaking, he looked up at the glowing golden window hovering directly before him in the gray forest light.
A strange, instinctive realization hit him. Without a doubt, without a second of hesitation, he muttered under his breath, "This is my Talent."
Beside him, a faint rustle caught his attention. He turned his head slowly, expecting a towering behemoth of a monster.
Instead, he saw a small dog.
The Shadow Hound sat quietly in the damp grass. It was compact, roughly the size of a common stray dog, with sleek black fur that swayed softly like dark, liquid smoke.
Its claws rested gently on the mud, and its tail lay still behind it. The beast made no unnecessary movements. It simply looked up at Terrence with two glowing crimson eyes, wearing the calm, serene expression of a respectful butler waiting for its master’s next order.
Terrence stared at it, his mind working at lightning speed as he finally regained his composure.
Panic solved nothing out here. Thinking clearly was the only way to stay alive on the Fringe.
Just what kind of monster was this? As far as his years of studying taxonomy books went, Shadow Hounds were strictly F-Rank fodder beasts.
They were weak, timid, and used by lower-tier scouts merely for basic tracking. There was no recorded history of an S-Rank Shadow Hound existing anywhere in the world.
Yet, the sheer speed it had just displayed proved the system window wasn’t lying.
He turned his focus back to the glowing screen floating in the damp air.
[Host: Terrence Lee]
[Beast Taming Talent Override: 100%]
[Beast Supplier Authority: 1%]
[Listed Beasts: 1x]
[Missions]
He stared at the lines of light, reading every single character carefully, slowly piecing together how this power worked.
Under normal world rules, humans needed a natural Beast Taming Talent to form a spiritual contract with a monster.
Without that contract, a wild beast would tear a human apart on sight. But this system was completely different. It bypassed the need for a traditional contract entirely.
He didn’t need spiritual affinity. He didn’t need a taming ritual. He could command these listed beasts, and they would be completely, unreservedly loyal to him.
Then his eyes locked onto the line that read [Listed Beasts: 1x].
That was another massive anomaly.
In all of recorded human history, only five legendary individuals had ever managed to contract more than one beast at a time.
Even then, the world enforced a strict rule: the more beasts a tamer held, the weaker those beasts became in rank due to the strain on the tamer’s mind.
You simply couldn’t hold multiple high-rank monsters at once.
Yet here he was, an eighteen-year-old outcast with zero natural talent, standing next to an uncontracted S-Rank beast that obeyed his every breath without placing a single drop of strain on his mind. And the system implied he could add even more beasts to this list.
"This is a gift from heaven," Terrence whispered, a cold, breathless laugh escaping his throat.
Right as the thought crossed his mind, the text on the golden window dissolved and reorganized itself into new prompts.
[First Registered Kill!]
[Beast Sanctuary Unlocked: You can now place your listed beasts in your dimensional beast sanctuary.]
[Available Listed Beast evolved into S-Rank Mutated Iron Shadow Hound. Congratulations!]
Terrence blinked hard, leaning closer to the screen. Was he reading things wrong?
Not only did he get an overpowered Shadow Hound right out of the gate, but the system had just mutated it on the spot?
As if responding to the notification, the small black dog beside him shifted.
Its smokey fur hardened slightly, taking on a subtle, metallic sheen under the gloomy forest canopy. Its physical size didn’t grow, but the dark aura oozing from its paws became noticeably heavier, pressing down on the surrounding grass until the blades snapped under the weight.
A sudden rush of intense heat flooded Terrence’s veins. His blood thrilled with an excitement he hadn’t felt in years.
The Lee family had thrown him out into the mud, calling him a talentless trash who didn’t deserve to carry their name. Lucas had looked down on him like an insect, boasting about his B-Rank affinity.
They thought throwing Terrence without a beast was a guaranteed death sentence.
They had no idea what he had just unlocked. They had no idea what was coming for them.
Terrence took a deep breath, forcing his rising emotions back down. He wanted to test the System right now.
He wanted to see how far his Beast Supplier Authority could go, how many beasts he could spawn, and what the Dimensional Sanctuary actually looked like.
But doing that out in the open forest was foolish. The iron scent of the goblin’s blood would draw more wild monsters to this exact spot very soon.
"I need to find a temporary shelter first," Terrence muttered to himself, casting a quick glance around the darkening woods.