Chapter 6: A Mysterious Egg

Chris stood there for several seconds, completely baffled by what he had just seen.

He had actually managed to make a contract with the egg?

The realization slowly sank in, and his expression immediately changed as excitement overwhelmed him.

"Finally! Finally, I made a contract with a beast!"

Genuine tears began pouring from his eyes as he laughed, unable to contain his happiness.

After three years of nothing but failure, after countless beasts and countless attempts, he had finally succeeded.

Even if the egg never hatched and the beast inside turned out to be useless, it still proved that his talent wasn’t defective. His Mythic Beast Tamer class was real, and there was nothing wrong with him.

He quickly approached the egg and used his system to check its information.

[Dragon Egg.]

[Class: Unknown.]

[Requirements to hatch: Absorb 20 beast cores from beasts level 10 or higher.]

[Hatching progress: 0%.]

He immediately jumped backward.

"What!? A dragon?"

He naturally knew what a dragon was. Everyone did.

Dragons had been described in countless ancient texts, legends, and stories, but Chris had always disregarded them as nothing more than mythical creatures. There had never been any confirmed evidence that dragons had actually existed.

Yet now, right in front of him, was a genuine dragon egg.

Even more shocking was the fact that he had somehow managed to form a contract with it.

’It shouldn’t be too difficult to hatch it. I only need 20 beast cores from beasts Level 10 or higher. I might already have some.’

He quickly took off his backpack and began searching through it.

After digging through the contents for a while, he eventually found three beast cores from beasts that had been Level 10 and Level 11.

They were all low-class beasts, but they should still meet the requirements.

Chris had several more stored in his backpack, but all of them had come from beasts below Level 10. He had been collecting them throughout his years in the Wilds, intending to sell them once he eventually returned to the city.

He took the three cores and brought them toward the egg, although he wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to make it absorb them. The system hadn’t given him any instructions, but for some reason, he had a feeling that he only needed to place them next to the egg.

As soon as the three cores touched the egg, they suddenly turned into streams of red energy and were instantly absorbed into the shell.

[Hatching progress: 15%.]

"It works!"

He was elated.

He had already gotten three of the twenty beast cores he needed, and he only needed seventeen more.

Now he just needed to find a way out of this place with the egg and hunt some more beasts.

While looking around the cave, Chris suddenly noticed a small notebook lying beside the skeleton that had been holding the egg.

He carefully picked it up, making sure not to damage it. The notebook was extremely old, and the pages had already become yellow and fragile from the passage of time.

He slowly opened it and carefully turned through the pages.

Most of the writing had already faded away, with some pages being completely unreadable, but he managed to find a section that was still clear enough to make out.

It appeared to have been written as a diary.

The first few lines explained that the owner of the diary had been a soldier stationed at the fortress during a war against demonic beasts.

He continued reading.

*I don’t know how much longer I can hold this pen, but if anyone finds this diary, then perhaps they will finally know what happened here.*

*We were stationed at this fortress to defend the northern border during the war with the demonic beasts. For months, nothing happened beyond the occasional attack, and although the beasts were dangerous, we had grown accustomed to fighting them.*

*Then they came.*

*I had never seen creatures like them before. They descended from the sky without warning, their enormous wings blotting out the sun as they attacked the fortress. We had no idea where they came from, and by the time the alarm was raised, it was already too late.*

*They called them Ampitheres in the records, but none of us had ever encountered them before. Their bodies were like enormous serpents, yet they possessed wings and could move through the sky with terrifying speed.*

*Their flames were unlike anything I had ever seen. The fortress walls that had protected us for years began melting beneath their attacks, and the soldiers who were struck by those flames didn’t even have time to scream before they were burned alive.*

*We tried to fight back, but there was nothing we could do.*

*I was given a single order before the fortress fell.*

*Protect the egg.*

*I don’t know why the commanders considered it so important, and I wasn’t told what creature was supposed to hatch from it. All I knew was that we had obtained it during the war and that I was responsible for keeping it safe.*

*When the Ampitheres breached the fortress, I took the egg and fled into the underground tunnels. I thought I could hide it there until reinforcements arrived, but I was injured while escaping.*

*My leg is badly wounded, and I can barely move anymore.I can still hear their screams above me, but it might only be my imagination.*

*Brothers, I have failed you. I don’t think I have much time left.*

The rest of the page was unreadable.

"The war with the demonic beasts? What is that? I’ve never heard of that war or any demonic beasts. And those beasts from earlier are called Ampitheres... I’ve never heard of them either."

After spending three years in the Wilds and studying every record he could find about beasts, he knew more about them than most people. If even he had never heard of Ampitheres, they had to be incredibly rare, or perhaps something about them had been lost over time.

He carefully placed the notebook back beside the skeleton before picking up the egg.

There had to be another way out of the cave, and after searching the walls for several minutes, he finally noticed a narrow crack behind some rocks.

A faint breeze came through it.

"My luck seems to have turned around."

He moved the rocks aside and squeezed through the opening, eventually finding a narrow tunnel that led toward the outside. When he emerged, he found himself on the side of a cliff, with the river far below him.

It seemed like the same river he had escaped into after escaping from the black bear.

The drop was nearly a hundred meters, making it impossible to climb down safely, but there was a steep section of rock leading upward to the left.

He made a sling from the remaining pieces of his clothes and a deer hide, securing the egg against his back before beginning to climb.

Using his experience from the Wilds, he easily climbed about ten meters until he reached the top.

The forest around the fortress was still dark and dense, but it was already around midday. He couldn’t stay near the Ampitheres for long, so he needed to distance himself from this area as soon as possible.

He decided to follow the cliff, hoping that it would take him away from this place.

After roughly two hours of walking, the trees became less dense and the grass grew brighter. The signs of the Ampitheres’ territory were gradually disappearing.

Then he heard a series of loud grunts.

Moving carefully toward the noise, carefully making sure that he wasn’t making any sounds, he spotted a large herd of wild boars gathered in an open area. Two enormous boars were fighting in the center, with several smaller ones watching from a distance.

’There are too many for one herd. They are likely the leaders of two different herds fighting over territory.’

An idea immediately came to mind.

He approached as close as he could and climbed a thick tree.

Once on the three, he stood on a thick branch about four meters above the ground and looked down at the herd.

[Wild Boar - Lvl. 6.]

[Wild Boar - Lvl. 8.]

[Wild Boar - Lvl. 11.]

Most were below Level 10, but there were also many above it, including the two leaders, who were both Level 16.

He carefully drew his bow and aimed at one of the leaders.

*Whoosh!*

The arrow struck the back of its head, killing it instantly.

The second leader immediately turned toward the tree, but before it could charge, another arrow flew toward it. The boar managed to dodge, forcing him to change targets.

He began firing at the other boars, making sure to focus only on those that were Level 10 or higher.

His arrows quickly began running low, but with the Recall enchantment, retrieving them was easy.

Within a short time, more than ten boars were dead. When the rest of the heards scattered in all directions, Chris slowly climbed down the thee.

Suddenly, a system notification appeared.

[Level increased.]

[Attribute points: +10.]

[Requirements for evolution met.]

[All attributes Increased: x1.5.]

His body suddenly felt stronger and his senses became sharper.

After being stuck at Level 9 for so long, even a slight improvement felt incredible. Not to mention the huge improvement he just received and going through the evolution.

[A Sub-Class unlocked: Dragon Tamer.]

[Level increased.]

[Attribute points: +10.]

[Level increased.]

[Attribute points: +10.]

He had finally leveled up, and he leveled up three levels.

"Finally a level increase. How long has it been since my level last increased? More than two years..."

For the past three years, he had been unable to reach Level 10 because a Beast Tamer needed to form a contract with a beast before they could continue their evolution. Now that he had contracted the dragon egg, even though it had yet to hatch, the requirement had been fulfilled.

At Level 10, his attributes had increased dramatically, and he had unlocked the Dragon Tamer sub-class.

Everyone unlocks a sub-class when they reach the evolution at level 10, and it’s connected to their main class.

He looked down at his hands, feeling the difference in his body, before turning his attention back to the dead boars.

Approaching the Level 16 leader, he cut off the best pieces of meat and carefully placed it within his backpack, before searching through its skull.

After a moment, he found a tiny red bead.

It was a low-quality beast core, but it still met the requirements.

He quickly gathered the remaining qualifying cores from the dead boars until he had 19.

Taking out the dragon egg, he placed 17 of them beside it.

One after another, the cores turned into red energy and disappeared into the egg.

[Hatching requirements met.]

[Estimated hatching time: 10 hours.]

"Ten hours... That’s very fast."

He looked around the forest. The sky was already beginning to darken, and the smell of blood would soon attract stronger beasts.

Carrying the egg, he moved away from the battlefield and continued for another two hours until he found a small cave.

Fortunately, there were no signs of stronger beasts nearby, perhaps because the Ampitheres had already hunted most of the creatures in this area when they went hunting.

After blocking the entrance with stones and branches, he lit a small fire and cooked some of the boar meat before drinking water from his flask.

Finally, he sat down and looked at the egg beside him.

A cold smile slowly appeared on his face.

"Hehe... Wait for me, everyone. I will show you who’s defective..."

For three years, he had endured pain, loneliness, humiliation, and even an attempt on his life, all because everyone believed that his Mythic class was useless.

But now he had finally proven them wrong.

"There is nothing I, Chris, can’t do! I will fight the heavens if need be, and one day, I will become the strongest."

When the meat was cooked, he extinguished the fire and sat down to eat.

After eating his fill, exhaustion finally caught up with him. With the dragon egg resting beside him, he lay down on the deer hide and slowly closed his eyes.