The taming wheel broke. The attempt failed again.
The cage broke. The flame drake was again freed with full HP.
Everyone started attacking again, but with less vigor now. There was also no Arlcard anymore. The drake’s HP went down at a snail pace.
Jack was just about to feed his amulet a hundred mana cores when Jeanny shouted her order, “Retreat! Retreat! That’s it for today. Let’s try again tomorrow.”
No one objected. Although their game bodies were not tired, their minds were. Each of the drake’s attacks was deadly, one wrong move would cause casualties. Being on edge all the time caused them to feel fatigued. Experiencing failure twice added the exhaustion.
Seeing the situation, Jack also didn’t try to motivate them to continue, he stored his mana cores back. Jack offered himself to hold the flame drake while the others retreated. Domon and The Man wanted to help, but Jack told them to retreat. They were not fast-type. They would have a problem escaping the drake if it insisted on chasing them.
Jack instead summoned Therras. He had been planning to summon it as well to help him wear the drake down the third time, but since Jeanny had called for a retreat, he used it to help him hold the drake instead.
“Wait! Does any rogue or archer-based class here have a tracking skill?” Peniel called on those that were retreating.
When no one answered, she said, “Never mind then.”
The others continued retreating. Jack continued sparring with the drake while he checked everyone’s progress on his radar. He also activated Gold Scale Armor to help him survive.
When he saw everyone had gone out from his radar’s radius. He had Therras use its Imperious Pressure. The drake was bogged down by the increased gravity. It could still resist the pressure and moved slowly. Jack then clung onto Therras and had it used Tyrannical Charge in the direction away from the drake. The speeding skill brought him far away from the drake.
The drake was furious of these ants coming to hurt it and then just ran away. It made a final attempt by throwing its flame breath. Jack had seen it coming. He cast Magic Wall at his back to stop the incoming flame. He then summon Pandora and ran away.
With Pandora’s speed, Jack caught up with the others in a short time. The others were also galloping using their steeds. They were heading to the cave in the flame drakeling’s area where they had spent their previous night.
When Jack came to her side, Jeanny asked Peniel, “What’s a tracking skill?”
“It’s a skill that can be learned by any class that comes from either rogue or archer,” Peniel informed. “There are two tracking skills, one of which you should be able to easily buy from a respected rogue or archer’s factions. It is called Track Monster. This is an advanced skill. It allows you to mark a monster. After marking, you will be able to know its position for the next twenty-four hours. You can only mark one monster though. If you mark another one, the previous one will disappear.”
“I see, if we have that skill, we won’t need to waste too much time looking for flame drake below level 50. We can just mark that flame drake we fought just now and go for it again tomorrow,” Jeanny said.
“Yes,” Peniel said.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have it. I will ask our rogue and archer-based core members to look for this skill and purchase it in their factions when we return. They probably didn’t buy it yet because they save their points for battle-related skills.”
“You mentioned two tracking skills, what’s the other one?” Jack asked Peniel.
“The other one is an elite skill. This one is more difficult to procure. It’s called Track Person. As its name implied, the skill functions the same as Track Monster, but instead of a monster, you can mark a native or an outworlder. Hence knowing their positions for the next twenty-four hours. The factions that offer this skill should be Assassins Guild and Hunter’s Lodge. Other than these two, I doubt the other factions provided it. Even then, the points and ranks required are not low.”
Hearing it, Jack thought about joining the Hunter’s Lodge but decided against it soon. He didn’t want to spend time collecting points just for some tracking skills.
“By the way, that spinning wheel that appeared when I attempted the taming. The attempt will be successful as long as I hit the pin inside the red or blue zone, right? So how do my max-level Tame Pet and Master Tamer skill contribute to increasing the success rate?” Jack asked Peniel.
“What spinning wheel?” Jeanny asked.
Only Jack saw the wheel when the taming process started, so Jack explained it to Jeanny.
After Jack was done with his explaining, Peniel answered his question, “Your Tame Pet skill increased the width of the blue zone, while your Master Tamer skill increased the area of the red zone. If those two skills are low-level, those zones will be even smaller.”
“Heavens! They are already so small to me, they will be even smaller for others? Those that not yet max-level those two skills can forget about taming a guardian pet!” Jack exclaimed.
“It is small because you people choose a draconic rare elite much higher than your level. If you choose a lower-grade monster with a level around yours, the red and blue zone will not be that small. If its level is lower than you, those zones will become even bigger, so you will have an easier time taming it.”
Jack turned to Jeanny, “Should we go to other places to find lower-level and lower-grade monsters?”
“These drakes are already the lowest-level and lower-grade large-sized draconic monsters I know of. Others have higher levels. Unless you are lucky enough to find their young offspring, you can only try those drakes,” Peniel said.
“The Flame Drakelings in the outer areas are not those Flame Drake’s offsprings?” Jack asked.
“No, they are different monsters,” Peniel answered.
“Then we should try searching for their offspring then.”
“Draconic monsters had a very low fertility rate, so it will be very rare for you to find their offspring. Not to mention, their offspring will stay inside the nest till they mature. There will also be more than one mature drake inside the nest. Draconic is a solitary monster, but on rare occasions when they have offspring, some will gather to protect that offspring. Do you think you can capture and tame their offspring while facing more than one drake?”
“Fine… Let’s just try the adult flame drake again tomorrow.”
*
When they arrived at the cave, night had arrived. Jeanny organized the patrol sentries while asking everyone else to rest.
Jack was not tired yet, so he rode Pandora out to farm exp and draconic essences for a few more hours. He came back again when it was close to midnight.
He did his regular mana sense training. Sending his consciousness to monitor the surroundings. He was curious about what he saw yesterday, so he sent his perception to the depth of the cave, to where the sentries were keeping watch.
He looked into the depth of the cave. Nothing. Perhaps it was just an illusion yesterday? A reflection of light?
After watching for a while and seeing nothing, Jack was about to conclude his mana sense training when those two glowing red eyes appeared again.
‘Not illusion?’ Jack watched those two tiny glows. The eyes seemed to be observing the sentries again.
Jack couldn’t push his consciousness further because his body was too far, so he decided to wake up and walked over to where the sentries were.
The sentries were surprised to find him approached. They saluted him and asked if he needed anything. Jack told them to continue as they were, he simply wanted to look at the deeper part of the cave.
The sentries expected Jack to go deeper after hearing his words. They would go with him if so. But instead, Jack sat crosslegged next to them. Despite being confused, they didn’t disturb him.
Jack looked at the depth where he had sensed the eyes. It was very far, his Dragon Eye allowed him to look far but these sentries had no such ability. They couldn’t see the glowing eyes that were watching them, which meant those red eyes had superior visibility range similar to his Dragon Eye.
Jack’s Dragon Eye didn’t see anything in the depth, his radar also did not detect anything. He got into the meditative state and sent his consciousness away. Deeper this time.
The cave had opened up to a huge cavern after going deeper. The scouts who first searched this cave had also come upon this large cavern. The cavern looked empty. They didn’t proceed further as there were too many places to check. They did not need to waste time in scouring this entire cavern, they only need this place to spend the night. So Jeanny simply placed sentries to make sure nothing came from this cavern.
The cavern was indeed huge, Jack’s consciousness couldn’t sense the whole place. He needed to have his physical body moved deeper into the cave if he wanted to check further. But he had a feeling whatever thing that possessed those two eyes had already long gone.
So, Jack decided to end his mana sense training and rest.
