This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Chapter 219 First Trial

As Kain started to face the lost souls, he began to realize why they were selected as his first trial.

Kain had thankfully not had to face many spirit-type spiritual creatures prior to Bea's evolution.

Prior to evolution Bea destroyed her enemies by targeting their brain—but what if they had no brain? She could still exert an effect by targeting whatever brain-like entity was responsible for controlling the body of the spiritual creature. However, she wasn't nearly as effective against them.

However, this became less of an issue after she evolved and instead focused more on manipulating and consuming mental energy made up of memories, emotions, and their sense of self. Now she kills by destroying mindshards—that is destroying the consciousness directly—rather than targeting a physical brain.

But lost souls, perhaps due to their identity as creatures made up from remnants of an extremely strong emotional attachment, grudge, or memory, were difficult for Bea to "erase" their sense of self.

Thankfully, the majority of their attacks seemed to target the mind. Therefore, since all of his contracts are pretty resistant against attacks on the mind—especially Eve, Bea, and even Kain himself—and they weren't harmed. They also weren't very effective at harming any of the surrounding souls.

Around 10 minutes had passed since Kain had entered the relic, but only 2 lost souls had been killed by Bea. Averaging at a kill every 5 minutes.

Despite her ability to produce multiple splits that managed to infect the majority of the souls present already, to actually kill any of them and not just impede their movements, Bea had to concentrate much of her energy on one at a time due to their high resistance against her attacks—meaning that their progress was extremely slow.

Kain used his spiritual skill now to boost Bea's abilities, but did not use one of his instant refills, instead choosing to wait for his spiritual power to restore passively, since he didn't want to waste one of his few refills on the first trial.

But even after Bea received the boost, the kill rate only increased to about a kill every 2 to 3 minutes—a massive improvement, but still way too slow for Kain.

'Sigh…I don't think boosting Bea is the solution. This relic is supposed to be a trial to help me improve my weaknesses, just brute forcing my way through using a spiritual skill isn't the way.'

Kain began to look at his Vespirae. Since they mostly use physical attacks, they hadn't been able to play much of a role against the immaterial souls.

However, since the souls were also of the undead attribute, perhaps Eve may be able to play a larger role?

But despite getting better at manipulating earth attribute energy, no attack skill had actually been developed using that attribute.

The only life-attribute skill Kain had at his disposal was the SS-skill Essence of Life that creates the life attribute royal jelly.

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Not to mention, until she evolves, Queen herself doesn't actually possess the life attribute and is unable to freely wield the attribute outside of one skill she has.

'Maybe a fusion skill?' Kain had learned about fusion skills and combinations of skills early on as a student and had been brainstorming different moves that could be developed by his spiritual creatures working together.

One of the fusions that Kain had tested out was having Eve imbue her life-attribute energy into Queen's skill Noble Breeze to see if the wind generated by Queen could be used to more efficiently carry the life attribute energy around the field to the various plants—it was effective and also slightly enhanced the beneficial properties of Queen's skill.

However, Kain had positioned the combination as more of a support skill which he called Life Breeze

But perhaps against the undead it could have an offensive effect?

With nothing to lose Kain decided to give it a try. He instructed Bea to no longer waste energy trying to kill them but instead to just try and keep the enemies in place. He also gave instructions to produce the fusion skill Life Breeze to Eve and Queen.

As the energy flowed, a gentle green glow extended from Queen's abdomen, radiating outward until it enveloped her whole body.

The gentle light emanating from her contrasted greatly with the eerie darkness of the graveyard.

Kain watched as, at the same time the green light was being controlled by Eve, wind-attribute energy began to concentrate and swirl around Queen.

When both energies were concentrated around her, Queen pushed the energy outward. Instead of a brilliant blast of light, the green light previously covering her dimmed and a soft, green-tinged breeze extended from her, weaving through the air like a whisper.

The breeze flowed toward the now motionless lost souls, wrapping around them gently in an almost loving caress.

As it made contact, the spirits seemed to recoil, their features twisting in confusion and pain. The gentle breeze acted like a corrosive acid, quickly dissolving their ethereal forms. Wisps of smoke erupted from where the breeze touched and the lost souls evaporated into nothingness as if their very essence was being consumed.

Kain felt a surge of happiness; the fusion skill had worked beyond his expectations. He also got a better understanding of the goal of these trials. Instead of trying to forcefully boost his strength through artificial means like a spiritual skill or equipment, the first few trials should be able to be overcome at his normal level of strength with more creative thinking.

In moments, the eerie graveyard fell silent as the last few of the spirits dissolved into the night air, leaving only the soft glow of Life Breeze surrounding Queen.

Kain stood at the center of the graveyard, heart pounding with excitement. Not only had he developed a new application for a skill he'd previously only used for gardening, but he also had a prize to look forward to.

Rubbing his hands together greedily, he couldn't resist laughing happily as he was transferred out of the graveyard and in front of 3 objects.