The area right behind the Dimensional Portal was the most boring place in the Beast Dimension— or at least, such was the case for the Korean Kim Jin Seok— the number ten hero in Korea at the moment. A few minutes earlier, he already sent everyone to look for their own Beast and try to tame it. It was such a simple task that anyone could achieve off the bat. But because of that, others would be compelled to look for an even better beast to tame, eating away the entire morning that Kim Jin Seok allotted for everyone.
During that time, Kim Jin Seok simply lingered there, waiting for the time to pass by so he could finally get to the exciting most looked-forward-to part of their Beast Dimension Excursion. But at the moment, he had nothing else to do but sit on a rock and contemplate life. Had he known that he'd be assigned another group today, he'd have brought an additional power bank for his console... but since it was a sudden notice, he had no choice but to follow through with it.
"If only number six didn't get sick. Sigh~ why do I have to clean up their messes? I'm the number ten hero, you know... the number ten." He said to himself, but he didn't voice it out as loud for fear that someone was eavesdropping on him.
After looking around a couple of times, he heaved a deep exhale before lying down on the huge boulder of rock where he was sitting a couple of moments ago. If there really was nothing he could do, then he'd decided to at least get some extra hours of sleep before anything happens.
'Still, how many years has it been since I started working here...' Kim Jin Seok said in his mind, looking up at the sky while admiring the myriad of stars that clad the night. Compared to the view from the earth, the sky's view here in the Beast Dimension was divine. It was beautiful and mesmerizing, and anyone who watched it would get their consciousness temporarily taken from them.
Despite the slow run of time as he found tranquility while resting, Kim Jin Seok quite frankly didn't feel bad at all. Instead, he absolutely enjoyed the quiet despite being bored out of his mind.
'I wonder what kind of beast they'll bring with them this time.' He muttered to himself, tapping on his arm as he listened to silence.
Tap. Tap.
Tap.
The light pitter-patter of feet made Kim Jin Seok bolt upright. He feared that someone was sneaking up behind him but as it turned out, it was none other than Lydia Schwarz, one of the superheroes who participated in the exercise. She wasn't the talkative type so no one in Satoshi's group paid attention to her.
"I'm back." She lightly muttered as a huge elephant-like beast came trotting down behind her.
Just like her hair and eye color, the elephant was of the dark blue color, with hints of a darker shade on its four legs. A tusk with a nice shade of ashen grey grew from both sides of its trunk, giving it a more menacing image despite its cuddly appearance. Lydia rubbed the chin of the blue elephant before settling down, leaning on one of its legs.
"That's a... a Frost Elephant? An A-Grade Beast that hibernates underground during summertime, and reemerged on the surface to hunt during the winter. Amazing... this is the first time I've seen one." Kim Jin Seok said to himself, admiring the blue elephant that stood before him.
If he had any authority regarding the trip to the Beast Dimension, he would've cut the exercise right then and there since it's clear that Lydia won in terms of Beast Grade.
It wasn't mentioned before but just like Satoshi's system, Dex, the world also uses a ranking system for the beasts captured in the Beast Dimension. There are two parameters set on how a beast is graded. One, its rarity— if a beast is pretty common then it would have a lower grade. And two, its combat capabilities— if a beast has a wide variety of skills, then its grade would be higher.
Starting from the lowest F Grade, these beasts are the most common beasts in the Beast Dimension, and taming them is pretty easy. From F Grade to B Grade, these beasts are pretty common, but taming them gets harder and harder the higher their grades are. A Grade refers to beasts who are powerful enough to go head to head with a low-ranked to mid-ranked superhero. And then there are the legendary S-Grade, SS-Grade, and SSS-Grade— these beasts are basically the kings and queens of the Beast Dimension, able to go against a high-ranking superhero. Throughout history, there are only a handful of SSS-Grade Beasts discovered.
Then again, despite the many attempts, no one had been successful in taming these monstrosities.
That's why it's already a feat in and of itself to tame an A-Grade Beast. At such a young age, Lydia managed to achieve just that, and she was alone to boot. Usually, some superheroes would require a party just to tame an A-Grade Beast.
This also explains Kim Jin Seok's mindset of cutting the trip to the Beast Dimension off. After all, no one could top what Lydia had achieved, and she was the first one to arrive, to say the least.
"How did you tame the Frost Elephant? Did you use the Pacifist Approach or the Bellicist Approach?" Kim Jin Seok asked, his eyes sparkling as he disturbed Lydia's peace.
"I fought with it." Lydia simply answered. "Honestly, it's not that impressive. I just happened to stumble upon a cave, then I entered it, and a horde of Frost Elephants was there. I fought the weakest one and tamed it."
'So she was lucky. Even those who wanted to tame the Frost Elephants had a hard time looking for their habitat.' Kim Jin Seok said to himself.
"I saw someone who caught something better than me though. I think it was a Black Winged Dragon." Lydia then brought up the topic out of nowhere.
Kim Jin Seok hasn't even recovered from the surprise of the tamed Frost Elephant when Lydia told him about the Black Winged Dragon. His eyes grew wide in excitement as his lips curved conspicuously upwards. "Someone caught a what?!" He exclaimed.
.....
In the end, Jean Grey and Jack Michael both said their farewells before they headed to their respective Dimensional Portals. They promised to hunt for an Altered Type White Lion in the near future and then went their separate ways.
Of course, they insisted Satoshi that he show them his Alpha Red Salamander and his Altered Type White Lion before they left. Needless to say, they were quite astonished by it. After all, it's quite rare to see an Alpha, much less to see an Altered Type. But there it was, two of the rarest types of beasts to ever exist.
With the excitement pretty much over, Satoshi finally had the time to relax and heave a sigh of relief. Fortunately, the two adults didn't see his sleight of hand back there, and he was able to get away with taming the Black Winged Dragon albeit accidentally. Up until now, he still couldn't believe that the Black Winged Dragon was actually a human.
"I can't believe I used it on a human. How could I do that!" Once again, Satoshi started overthinking, grabbing his hair as he tried to figure out a way out— something that would undo the taming process on the Black Winged Dragon.
[Satoshi, why are you contemplating so much about adding another human to your team? Haven't you done it already in the past?] Dex asked, mildly bewildered. Just as he mentioned, Satoshi had done it in the past so there shouldn't be any problem with doing it again. This was also the reason why Dex didn't stop him from using his superpower on the Black Winged Dragon.
And judging from Dex's line of thought, he was actually right.
"What do you mean? Of course, I've never used it on any humans. If I had I wouldn't react this way." Satoshi reasoned out, telling Dex that he was outright wrong with his accusation.
[Gabriel and the Ice Empress are humans... yet you never have a problem with them. Are there any particular reasons why? I don't understand.] Dex continued.
"..."
"..."
A pause, and then all the colors drained from Satoshi's face as he internalized every word Dex told him. He never really thought about Gabriel and the Ice Empress up until now. All he thought was that they were monsters spawning in the gates... nothing more and nothing less.
But based on Dex... they were humans? How could that be?
"WHAAAT?!" Satoshi screamed, almost losing it at the bomb that Dex so casually dropped on him. "Are you telling me that... the two of them... they're humans?!"
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