This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

The next day, the students were given the opportunity to teleport with the staff back to Dark Moon city or to another first-tier city.

Given that they'd performed so well in the tournament, there would naturally be school credits and other opportunities rewarded to them once they went back to the school, wanting to capitalize on the opportunity to gain some more strength before the start of the school year in a few weeks, majority of the students decided to head to the school first before going back to their respective homes.

The only exceptions were Kain and Serena, who knew that time was of the essence to find Cherry and decided to immediately take the school up on its offer to teleport them to Starfire City which was only a short train ride away from his hometown.

After enduring the nauseous feeling that comes with teleportation once again, a feeling that is gradually getting less strong the more times he suffers from, it they arrived at the familiar Starfire City and then boarded a train to Brightstar.

Looking at the familiar scenery passing by Kain, was continuously weighed down by the anxiety of not knowing what had happened to Cherry—or even if she was still alive.

It would take a couple of hours to arrive at his hometown, and knowing that he needed a distraction, Kain decided to check some of the System notifications he'd received since the end of the tournament.

The first was the only tournament mission that had not been completed after Phase One:

*Contribute to Dark Moon College increasing in ranking—reward variable based on final ranking of Dark Moon College*

*The final ranking of Dark Moon College is 2nd for the next year. An increase in one rank will grant the Host 10,000 GP*
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Kain was pleasantly surprised by the large reward, considering that he needed 100,000 GP for the next system upgrade, this single mission gave him a tenth of what he needed.

There was also another system notification for a completed mission that hadn't appeared immediately after the tournament ended, but instead right as they were boarding this train, making Kain curious if it was unrelated to the tournament.

*Have 10,000 citizens use an evolutionary form created by you—10,000 points*

Kain hadn't expected for the evolutionary form he created to trigger the completion of a hidden mission. He'd already developed several unique evolutionary forms for his own contracts, but there was never any notification of a mission.

It looks like the System rewarded him for creating evolutionary forms that have a far-reaching impact more so than it cared about him developing new forms only for his own contracts.

Just the fact that the required number of citizens using a contract with a form created by him needs to reach a whopping 10,000, shows how much value the System places on the far-reaching impact of any form he makes.

Kain was also surprised that the number reached 10,000. Prior to the tournament, when Kain had gotten his last portion of the dividends from the exchange of the patented evolution plan, the number of recorded citizens to use his evolution was only half of that –around 5300.

The largest influx of exchanges for the patent had been right after the press release revealing the new evolution, and things slowed down greatly in the months after.

However, out of nowhere that number suddenly doubled? Pulling out his phone, Kain decided to investigate online and quickly found the answer.

It appears like it is completely due to his good luck that someone took the tournament to advertise the Lumifin's evolved form, the Gilded Serafin, at the tournament for him for free.

During Phase One, a second year from a lower-ranked school (ranked in the 40s) actually competed in a solo match using the Gilded Serafin.

Normally the match of a lower-tier school wouldn't get any coverage, but their opponent was actually a school in the top 20, meaning that they were one of the few lower-ranked schools that would get to compete on the main arena's stage.

And although this lower-ranked school did ultimately lose the round, that second-year student put up a good fight and actually managed to win their solo battle against the student representative of a top 20 school.

The Gilded Serafin already got a ton of attention due to its beauty and novelty when it was first released. However, it was really only popular among those who didn't plan to go far on the path of becoming a beast-tamer.

However, this student's match revealed that the Gilded Serafin, with proper training, could also have decent strength. Therefore, after the match the Gilden Serafin, which was now recognized to have both beauty and strength, ushered in its second spring and its popularity—along with Kain's—reach new heights. Although there was no follow-up form, so most students at higher-ranked schools still wouldn't contract it.

Kain decided to put his other projects he was currently working on to the side for now. If he could develop the evolutionary pathway of the Lumifin even further, he was sure that the exchanges for his patent would go up drastically. After all, the potential of a creature who will stop at Silver-quality and only reach orange-grade spiritual power was different from one with a known evolutionary form of a higher gold or platinum quality. Of course, to keep its appeal to the masses, the evolutionary materials can't be too expensive or challenging to find.

Since the day of the match that the Gilded Serafin took the stage was one of the few days Kain had elected to stay in the hotel room, he was unable to see it in person. He was also curious about the match and, despite being the creator of the evolutionary form, he had never actually seen the species he created in combat. Therefore, he decided to pull up a recording of the match.

The recording was from the official live broadcast and so the quality was excellent. However, it's because of the excellent quality that Kain could readily tell the difference in the treatment of matches between schools in the top 5 and outside of the top 5. Since the highest-ranked school in this match barely scraped in at rank 20, the match was able to appear on the main stage and be broadcast. But the lack of enthusiasm of the commentators and audience, and the high amount of empty seats in the audience showed the lack of attention lower-ranked schools get.

But under these adverse conditions, Kain was wondering how good of a promotional effect this student must have done for him for the sales of the patent to double in a mere week—surpassing months worth of sales in a matter of days.

On one side stood a short female beast-tamer with an unassuming appearance. Before her was a Gilded Serafin floating in the air on a cloud composed of mist and light. Flanking it were two water-attribute fish-like spiritual creatures—hinting at the identity of her affinity.

A pool of water was gradually spreading under the collective action of the three.

On the opposing side, a male beast-tamer stood amidst a lineup of fire-attribute spiritual creatures. Although they were at an elemental disadvantage, he didn't at all appear like he thought he had a chance of losing.

The male beast-tamer began aggressively, with fire-attribute bird taking to the air and launching a relentless rain of fiery orbs toward the opposing team. The fire-attribute hound charged forward, sending waves of molten lava surging across the arena and disrupting the spread of the water sent out by the opponents.

The female beast-tamer's water-based team struggled initially under the oppressive heat. A barrier of water created by a contract that looked like a swordfish absorbed much of the incoming damage, but cracks began forming under the relentless assault.

Meanwhile, a wave of heat produced by a fire-attribute centipede caused the water in the arena to evaporate, creating a rising mist that weakened the water team's effectiveness.

However, instead of being discouraged by their plans of creating an advantageous terrain being foiled, it seemed as though they had been planning on using the opponents to create a mist from the beginning.

The resulting mist not only boosted a Rejuvenating Mist skill produced by one of the girl's contracts, but it also showcased the Gilded Serafin's remarkable control abilities using illusions to confuse and disorient the opponents' senses.

With the combination of their sight being covered by the mist, and the illusions made to disorient them further, the fire-attribute opponents were consistently unable to respond to incoming attacks.

In the end, the opponents were gradually worn down while not being able to effectively retaliate. However, the moment that probably served as the best advertisement for the Gilded Serafin was when it launched what appeared to be its strongest move towards the end of the battle.

The skill used by the Gilded Serafin, a massive vortex of golden water and light energy swirled outward, extinguishing the fire skill hurtling towards it, cooling the lava on the arena floor, and enveloping all three fire-attribute creatures in its radiant embrace. With that one move all three enemies, although they were already quite exhausted and damaged, were ultimately eliminated—and the credit for that final win happened to fall on the Gilded Serafin.