This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange - Chapter 800: Vault Visit Complete

Chapter 800: Chapter 800: Vault Visit Complete

Kain’s footsteps carried a clean, steady cadence through the silent vault as he drifted past rows of polished cases, hovering tomes, and pedestals held in soft suspension by pale arrays. The air smelled faintly of old paper and spirit-ink—calm, ordered, almost medicinal.

He exhaled and began working the aisles with purpose. Placards clicked beneath his eyes as he read and rejected in the same breath. “Sky‑Burrow Drill Ant Queen’s Husk—no.” A glance to the next stand. “Thunder‑etched Spearshaft—Halreth can forge better.” He kept moving. “Moonveil Egg—can’t contract you.” Another turn. “Spirit‑Seal Pendant—redundant now; the ’Veil of the Hidden Star’ spiritual skill will do that job.” He slid past a case of crystals. “Sun‑Marrow Ore—Pangea has veins of this already. I could get tons by tomorrow by just asking the dwarves to dig up some for me.” A glass tube of feathers shimmered in the light. “Nine‑Winds Gale Feathers—a decent evolution material, wrong fit for my team.”

He did a full lap like that—no, no, no—until the itch to grab something just to be done with it started creeping in. He tamped it down.

One choice was already set; the concealment manual tucked away by him would let the Director and Gabriel live without broadcasting their abnormality every time someone with decent senses walked past them.

Two selections remained. However, since Kain didn’t need much anymore, picking felt harder than it should have.

He cruised by the creature-egg cradles without slowing. Storm‑wyverns, a Nightglass Manticore, a Frostflame Phoenix—impressive, but useless to him. His affinity was with microorganisms; no egg in here would ever be able to be contracted him.

’Speaking of my contracts…’

Queen still needs to evolve, he reminded himself. He’d searched Pangea for suitable materials, but every combination he ran through the Simulator plateaued—decent, never exceptional. Nothing that pushed her Life‑attribute into the direction he wanted without either having some weird effects, or being lacklustre in strength.

He stopped, rolled his shoulders, and changed methods.

Threads of Destiny weren’t just for danger; they could nudge toward opportunity too. His eyes got a familiar tingling sensation as he began using the spiritual skill, and faint filaments bloomed from every object in the vault—hundreds of threads running out in quiet lines.

Most were varying shades of grey. Then, two aisles over, a single thread shone like a light in the dark.

Kain headed toward it.

A lit pedestal held a lump of amber the size of his palm. Golden, translucent, laced with hair‑thin filaments of verdant light. Suspended inside, perfectly preserved, was a beetle—broad‑shouldered, heavy‑carapaced, its shell ridged in tidy geometric arcs. Time had browned it, but despite the beetle being dead, it still gave off an intense aura of life.

The label read:

[Amber‑Sealed Carapace of the Verdant Scarab

Era: Pre‑Celestial Ascension. Status: Extinct.

Notes: This species was recorded draining forests to husks and so was hunted into extinction by humans and spiritual creature alike—one of the few times humans and wildlife spiritual creatures came together for a common cause. However, later studies revealed it’s beneficial role on the ecosystem. Like an internal cycle of life—withdrawing life‑force, purifying it, then re‑emitting it richer and denser, catalyzing explosive regrowth in a region. Key ecological accelerator that is now no more. Residual lineage signs indicate that it contains the bloodline of the mythic scarab Khepri—bearer of dawn, emblem of rebirth.]

Queen stirred in his star space the instant he finished the last line. Kain released her without hesitation. The emerald wasp zipped a tight circle around the amber, wings thrumming, then butted his wrist—once, twice—insistent. If a contract could glare, she was doing it. This one.

Kain huffed. “Message received.” He lifted the case. The restraining field recognized his token and softened with a low shimmer. The amber felt faintly warm—from within—like a coal keeping yesterday’s sun. For a heartbeat he heard phantom chitin click, and smelled resin.

He slid the selection into his storage ring and didn’t even bother running an Evolution Simulaion in the System. He didn’t need to. The single white thread tied to the amber—the only one in the vault—and Queen’s near‑frenzied insistence were more than enough. Besides, there wasn’t much else here he wanted; better to seize the one thing that called to both fate and instinct.

He moved on, weaving deeper into the stacks.

There was one problem his money, Pangea’s resources, and even his cleverness couldn’t bulldoze: domains. He’d watched match after match sharpen into that truth. Domains didn’t yield to bribes or extra feeding. A domain opened only when a contract grasped a law for itself. He could provide sparring partners, safe time, and materials—but not comprehension. That door had to be unlocked from the inside.

If this vault had anything that smoothed the road to a domain, he wanted it.

He turned into a quiet corner where the air felt hushed. The shelves here looked like a curator’s junk drawer: a line of prism‑rods that bent light into tight, still ribbons; a bell jar with a snowflake that wouldn’t melt under direct flame; a slate disk etched with concentric rune‑rings sliding at mismatched speeds that never aligned.

Another thread tugged at his sight. Not white—but pale, the palest grey in the room. He followed.

A lotus, no larger than his palm, turned slowly above a matte‑black base. Six crystalline petals rotated with a clockmaker’s precision, each veined with hair‑thin sigils. No aura leaked from it. If anything, the world around it felt subtracted—sound, stray spiritual currents, even wandering thoughts shed their weight and fell away.

The placard read:

[Lotus of Silent Law

Function: Temporary locus of law‑clarity. Within its active radius, ambient spiritual noise is suppressed, external interference reduced, and personal attunement to a chosen law is amplified. Effective for early‑phase domain comprehension or stabilizing nascent domains.

Compatibility: Highest with Earth, Life, Plant, and Light; usable by other attributes with reduced effect.

Duration: Six months from first removal from isolation; withers thereafter.

Cautions: Ineffective if treated passively. Requires deliberate meditation or guided sparring focused on a single law. Overuse causes comprehension fatigue; schedule rest.]

Kain reached into the lotus’s radius and felt his mind quiet in a clean, immediate way. Thoughts stacked neatly rather than sliding across one another. He suspected even comprehending spiritual skills for himself—not just laws as the lotus is intended—would be easier to refine inside this field.

This is it. The area around the lotus was like a clean room where the world stopped yelling long enough for a mind to hear the law it was chasing.

He ran a quick mental roll call. Aegis—Earth primary, Abyssal secondary. The lotus’s Earth affinity would suit him well; pair that with controlled sparring against the college’s training golems and Aegis might finally put a toe over the threshold of a proper domain. Queen—Life primary, Wind secondary. The lotus’s Life tilt married perfectly with whatever evolutionary path she’d go down. Bea—Mental attribute; less aligned, but a quiet field was still a boon for constructing a stable domain. Vauleth—Fire with odd…likely. Vauleth has demonstrated the use of several attributes as of late; but perhaps this lotus could help him listen to whatever was waking in his bloodline.

No hesitation. “You’re coming with me.”

He brushed the activation seal. The lotus dimmed, then folded into a coin‑thin disc of crystal light and settled into his palm. A matching glyph inked itself along the inside of his wrist—a timer: six clear petals that would dull petal by petal as months clicked past. A useful and accurate method engrained to keep track of its effective period.

That made three exchanges…

He swept the aisles once more. Weapons gleamed. Eggs gleamed more. Artifacts promised loud miracles. He let them shine and kept walking. He had what he came for: a way to hide spiritual power, an evolutionary base material to evolve his queen properly and finally get her to blue-grade, and even, and this one he hadn’t even dared to hope for, an object to lower the threshold to forming a domain.

Kain stepped onto the exit dais. The floor sigils warmed beneath his boots, acknowledging his path. He set the lotus‑disc, the amber‑sealed scarab, and the concealment manual onto the receiving stand in sequence, let the array read his token, then swept them up again.

A soft chime answered—choices logged, all three exhange privileges spent.

He glanced at his wrist—six bright petals. “Six months,” he murmured. “We’ll wring every drop from you.” He tapped the ring holding the exchanged items. This journey had been more fruitful than he’d even hoped for.

With that, he turned for the opening door, the vault’s breath easing out in a low, contented sigh as the stone split and the light of the corridor outside spilled in.

Professor Mires waited for him beyond the threshold, curiosity evident on his face but, thankfully, he restrained his nosey instincts. After all, there have been talks about Kain taking on the role of Team Captain as a mere third-year next year, similar to the now graduated Ezra. And the last thing he wanted would be to upset the future star player of the College team due to being nosey. What if Kain requested that they change the professor in charge! Then he’d lose the rewards that came with leading the team to victory!

Mouth shut tightly, Mires simply escorted Kain out of the facility.