A Different Caliber

A different caliber entirely.

Pangenia had a pet system. But almost no one raised pets properly. The reason was simple.

They're weak, and a pain to raise.

For one thing, the monsters you could even tame were limited. That came down to the nature of Pangenia itself — floating in the sky, every map linked by warp, and closed off because of it. Closed off meant hostile to anything from outside. Taming a monster that had already grown to any real size was nearly impossible; at best you stole a hatchling or an egg and tried your luck from there.

The second the environment changes, nine out of ten of them die.

And the environment was still the problem. Monsters of a species that had spent ages growing in one specific place. Cross a warp to another continent and everything was different. Even minor shifts — mana density, that sort of thing — hit them hard enough that most of them simply died. Even the survivors rarely grew the way they were supposed to.

That was why. The results never matched the effort and care you poured in, so almost no gamer built a character around taming. Of course, a few people had tamed something and then used breeding to force a radical change of species — but only among the lower races. Tame a higher race, never mind a mythic species, and breed it?

Simply impossible.

So people started focusing on Souls instead of taming.

A monster summoned in its original form from a Soul can be evolved.

Souls were items that dropped at an utterly vicious rate when you hunted. You could ride them or summon them to fight beside you, but they were so rare that even listings barely existed. And that wasn't all a Soul was good for. They became material for Unique-grade equipment, or the key to certain special quests. Which meant almost no one used a Soul as a Soul. Feeding one into Unique-grade gear was almost always the better deal.

Until I tried it, the idea of evolving a Soul didn't even exist.

A monster summoned from a Soul had no ordinary growth. What it did was evolve — or mutate. Appearing as an infant didn't mean it would become an adult of the same species. Depending on the evolution path, there was a low chance it would transform into something else entirely.

I was the first one to figure that out. After that, more people started trying to evolve Souls, and word was a few even managed to evolve them into mythic species. Even so, I could say with confidence that no one knew Soul evolution as cold as I did.

It was practically the only way a human could ever tame a mythic species.

Was. Past tense. That was back when I was still a gamer. Now that I was a Player, you could also buy mythic-species eggs from the Golden Rule Shop — but it was still hard. If this contest had been about hatching an egg instead of a Soul, I wouldn't have been so sure of myself.

But a pure contest of growing a Soul? I was a specialist.

Except—

A Soul that can grow, though.

…A Soul that grows by raising its rank. Even I had never seen that.

A Soul was, literally, a summoning medium with a dead monster's spirit engraved into it. It wasn't a proper living thing, so it shouldn't grow. Outside of raising its grade through mutation and evolution, there was no way to make it stronger.

But maybe that was because this was a trial from the World Tree's dungeon. The theme was contending with gods forgotten under the name of the Primal — look at it only through ordinary eyes and you were liable to get your nose broken.

I have to assume both growth and evolution are possible.

…In that case, this Soul was a very special medium. A kind the world had never seen. If you could raise its rank to drive growth, and evolve it on top of that—

It's more than worth raising.

The value was beyond anything I could put into words. The reason I hadn't gotten greedy even after obtaining a Hydragon Soul in the past was that putting that effort in still promised less than just raising Randolph. Relatively speaking, the Hydragon Soul simply wasn't worth as much.

But this Soul was different. This one was worth raising in earnest, with everything I had.

And above all—

…Communion is possible, too.

A Soul was a summon. Nothing more than the spirit of a slain monster given form. It obeyed its summoner; of course you couldn't commune with it.

And yet—

Kyiiing!

Kyaaaeng!

Woof woof woof!

The Baby Hydragon, hunt finished, wagging its tails in front of me. Could I really call this thing nothing but a Soul, a summon? Anyone looking would have said it was a living creature, plain and simple.

"Well done."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I stroked each of its nine heads one by one.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

As expected, its rank had skyrocketed all at once. The Iron Mountain Goat Boss was a monster with high defense but low attack power — a mid-tier Boss Monster well past the beginner hunting grounds. And the Baby Hydragon had brought it down after a three-hour struggle.

Stamina went up a lot more than the rest.

Probably from fighting for its life on the strength of its natural regeneration. Stamina sat higher than the other stats. Which meant the way it fought would change how it grew and what it became.

I stroked the Baby Hydragon's heads even harder. Of course, the Baby Hydragon hadn't been the only one suffering.

I didn't think "sensory sharing" would literally mean sharing each other's senses.

Whenever it took a hit, the pain came to me too. At double the intensity, no less. In exchange, I could correct its movements a little with my will — mostly in dangerous moments, or when it needed to strike a vital point.

If it dies, I'm in danger too.

The problem was that double sensory sharing put my own life at risk. But it also meant we understood each other that much better. That was why the bond felt so much closer.

I considered it. Ordinarily, it would be smarter to keep hunting safely right here.

Woof!

Sssrrr…

The Baby Hydragon. It looked like the fight had given it confidence — it was eyeing the Iron Mountain Goats wandering nearby the way a predator eyes prey. I looked past them and spoke.

"Next is the Desert Wolf Boss, then…"

…Kyiiing?

Shaaaaak!

A sound of pure horror from the Baby Hydragon. Next was the territory of carnivores, not herbivores. Monsters whose attack power put mountain goats to shame. But even there, I had no intention of going after ordinary Desert Wolves.

I had one target.

Hunt only Boss Monsters.

One Boss Monster per zone. I planned to beat that single one into the ground, over and over. There was a reason for that, too.

A Soul's rank only rises when you hunt monsters of a higher caliber.

I had zero interest in just pumping the visible rank. If ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you wanted the invisible Soul Rank climbing with it, hardship and adversity were required.

"Trust me. I will never let you die."

The Baby Hydragon's eyes, fixed on me as if overwhelmed, began to tremble hard.

The Desert Wolf Boss. A two-meter wolf with a sheen of gray fur. Against a monster twice the Baby Hydragon's size, there didn't seem to be any path to victory. Of course I'd have to help—

"You can do this! You've got this!"

I cheered hard from a safe distance. "I will never let you die" didn't necessarily mean I'd step in when things got dangerous.

"Believe in yourself as much as you believe in me!"

KRAAAAAH!

Hiss! Hiss!

Kyaaeng!

The Baby Hydragon, cowering in pure terror. The look of something that had just had the axe it trusted bury itself in its own foot. There was no hell like this hell.

But the cheering wasn't completely useless. Two of the Hydragon's heads started fighting back.

The Desert Wolf Boss's attacks were vicious. Every time the Hydragon took a claw or a bite, I felt it too. But it wasn't enough to one-shot the Hydragon. After that it was a cycle — recover through overwhelming natural regeneration, then go right back after the Desert Wolf Boss's vitals.

Dangerous moments kept coming. And still I didn't take a single step from where I stood.

The second way to raise a Soul's rank: never help.

The summoned Soul had to hunt alone. By default, a Soul's role was to support the character. Fighting together was the baseline. But if you wanted the Soul's rank to rise, you absolutely could not fight alongside it. You had to leave it to solve things on its own.

That was why no one had ever uncovered Soul evolution. The summon had to solo a monster of higher caliber. Only play that broke common sense could evolve a Soul.

…How many more hours did they fight like that?

Hoo…

I let out a breath of relief and looked at the Baby Hydragon.

Huff… huff…

Ssssss…

The Baby Hydragon was breathing just as hard. And then—

Whoosh. Whooooosh—

A brilliant blue light began to spread across its entire body. Its frame swelled larger; its form began to change. Mutation? Or maybe it was stepping up into adulthood. Either way, it would become incomparably stronger than before. Proof that my method had worked.

I watched its transformation with full focus.

And then—

"…Huh."

I let out a small breath of wonder at its evolved form. Not a Hydragon anymore — an entirely different species. And not just a different species: it had seized a higher, superior caliber.

Dianax. A monster whose very existence was barely known. Even I had never seen one — a legendary species I knew only by name. Which meant it was even harder to obtain than a Hydragon Soul, already considered nearly impossible to find.

I stared blankly at the Dianax.

Just like the legends.

They said a Dianax was a being composed of the rarest minerals in the world. Minerals more valuable than dragon scales. And the legends were right. The mineral that made up this Dianax—

…Hypermetal Orichalcum.

An essential material for Unique-grade ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠equipment that was said to be impossible to craft.

Minerals said to exist, yet that no one had ever claimed to obtain. People called them Hypermetals. Orichalcum was the most representative among them, and so impossible to find that everyone knew little more than the name. It was one of the reasons countless adventurers risked their lives probing dank swamps and dungeons no hand could reach. Find a vein of Hypermetal and it wouldn't just be a jackpot — it would be a jackpot worthy of the name.

And the hunger for Hypermetal wasn't only about rarity.

Materials for ultra-high-grade equipment that can't be crafted because the materials don't exist. Things so conductive to mana that people are certain they'd revolutionize the making and advancement of magic tools — that's what Hypermetals are.

Truly universal minerals. Hand one to a blacksmith and they'd hammer metal with tears in their eyes. Hand one to a mage of the Magic Tower and their legs would go weak as they locked themselves in a lab for three hundred sixty-five days a year.