Yeah, You're Coming With Me
Osho took a deep breath of the crisp evening air and sighed.
He could never get over how fresh the air in this world was. But he couldn't be blamed. He never knew just how dirty the air of the earth was until he ended up in this place.
Granted, with the way things were run in this place, the lack of polluted air wasn't surprising.
"Alright, everyone, gather up," Osho was snapped out of his reverie when the voice of the teacher hit him.
He focused forward and caught sight of her. She could simply be described as a beautiful redhead. Her face was fair without any blemishes, and her orange eyes let out faint hints of her fiery demeanor.
She wore a blouse with black pants that accentuated her figure, and she was undoubtedly considered eye candy among many males within the school.
Something eye-catching, though, was the red salamander on her shoulder. Besides its color, it looked like a normal salamander. However, there was an unmistakable spark of intelligence in its eyes.
"I've said it before, but I'll say it again to make sure that there are no mishaps." The teacher began, her voice stern, and everyone paid close attention, Osho included.
After he died in a car accident, he found himself in the body of his younger self.
Initially, he thought he had regressed. However, it didn't take him long to realize that he had transmigrated. That's because this world was vastly different from the Earth, which he was familiar with.
The biggest reason for this was beasts.
The appearance of beasts was completely unprecedented and marked a turning point for humanity.
Their appearance could be attributed to a strange energy that descended upon the planet, which wasn't called Earth, but Azure Star. Its appearance was completely random and didn't seem to have any tangible cause that anyone could attribute it to.
This energy was called Mana.
When it appeared, many things changed.
From plants to animals, a large portion of the lifeforms on the planet underwent strange mutations. From developing strange abilities to getting bigger and more terrifying. The changes were various and numerous.
But one thing was clear, and that was that humans were in a tough spot because of these changes.
For one, conventional weaponry rarely worked on beasts anymore. From firearms to explosives, they did little to no damage to them.
The reason for this was that without Mana, there was no effective way to deal with a beast.
Moreover, after mutating, the reproductive abilities of beasts grew exponentially, and they weren't docile like before.
Because of this, humanity became a target, and soon, a massive war between humans and beasts ensued.
The war lasted a few decades with a terrifying amount of casualties on both sides. But it only stopped when scientists discovered something incredible.
Beasts could be tamed.
Another strange and oddly specific mutation the beasts underwent was that regardless of the species, beasts could only reproduce via eggs. It was strange as mammalian beasts would still breastfeed their young, but they had to be born in eggs.
The theory was that the eggs acted as incubators for Mana and would allow the creature within the egg to become acclimated to the energy before entering the world.
Anyway, after the discovery was made, the path of the war took a drastic turn.
Humans were now capable of taming these powerful beasts and receiving their aid in battle. So coupled with the cunning of humans and the sheer power beasts offered, the war gradually tilted in the favor of humanity. Eventually, they regained their foothold in the world and were no longer at the mercy of the beasts.
However, even though the war drew to a close, it never truly ended as there were still an immense number of beasts in the wild. As such, it was mandatory for humans who reached the age of 16 to be given a beast egg to hatch and tame their first beast.
Which gave way to the situation Osho was currently in.
"You're zoning out again. Nervous?" Osho looked to the side and smiled a little. There, he spotted his childhood friend and closest companion, both in his old life and this one.
One of the reasons Osho thought he had regressed initially was because many of the people he knew in his last life were in this life as well. Which included this girl.
"Just thinking," Osho answered calmly, and she pouted, looking very cute.
"You're always thinking. What's going on in that brain of yours? You thinking of a way to take over the world or something." The question caused Osho to snicker.
"What if I was? What would you do about it?" He retorted half-heartedly.
"Then I, Ellie Hemsworth, will stop you." She puffed out her chest, and Osho wheezed.
"Osho! Ellie!" The voice of their teacher jolted them to attention. They had gotten carried away with their conversation.
After a stern glare from the teacher, she continued.
"Remember. You will all have an hour to go in there and pick your egg. Nothing more, nothing less. The moment your time is up, you'll be escorted out. With or without a beast egg." She said and made sure everyone heard her before continuing.
"Besides that, please, and please, pay attention to compatibility." She let out an exasperated sigh.
"Don't go and pick a beast egg with low compatibility to your Mana. You know that if you do, taming the creature inside will become a tall task. So be practical and pick what is compatible with you." She stressed as much as she could, and when she was sure that everyone understood, she continued.
"Other than that, just be orderly and don't cause a ruckus. No fighting with someone if they pick a beast egg you like. Remember, first come, first serve. If you didn't get there first, then you either wait until the person moves on or you search for something else. If you cause a disturbance, you'll be escorted out." There were a few uncomfortable reactions to this, but a stern glare from her made everyone quiet.
"Also, don't bother wasting time trying to guess the rank of a beast egg. That's impossible. Just focus on picking what has good compatibility with you and move on." This was another oddity with trying to take beasts.
It was impossible to ascertain the potential a beast had until after it hatched. Scientists were still trying to find out the reason why, but they hadn't had any success so far.
As such, beast taming was always a venture that depended entirely on luck.
But one could argue that a person could just get the eggs of a powerful beast and hatch that. After all, they should carry the bloodline of their parent, which should translate into potential.
That makes sense on paper. However, even if two powerful beasts have children, it isn't guaranteed that some or even any of the children will possess high potential.
This is because while a powerful beast's offspring has a higher chance of being strong, bloodline dilution and genetic randomness mean there is no guarantee that it will inherit its parent's full potential. So, a high-rank beast might just lay an egg with average potential.
All in all, one can never truly guarantee the potential of the beast that will emerge from an egg and is entirely dependent on luck.
That said, the more wealthy individuals could simply buy a large amount of eggs and continuously hatch them until they get a beast with good potential.
Which is why Osho was curious as to why Ellie was here with him and their classmates.
It was no secret that she came from a wealthy family. In fact, her family could be considered to be the most wealthy in the entire city, as they were the most successful group of merchants in the city.
Osho truly didn't think he'd see her here, so when he did, he was surprised.
Still, he didn't bother to ask as she would tell him of her own accord.
"Alright, that should be everything." She mumbled and checked her watch.
The moment it hit 7:00 pm, the door to the large warehouse was opened.
"Alright, everyone. Remember everything I said. I won't take up your time anymore. Go ahead." The teacher moved out of the way as the thick and heavy door swung inward for the students to pass. With how valuable beast eggs were, it was no surprise that the building that stored these many had at least this much protection.
Ellie lightly poked his side as they entered the large warehouse, and Osho spared her a glance. She was grinning.
"I won't hold you back. Go find what suits you best." And without saying anything else, she tool off.
'Weird girl.' He chuckled to himself before scanning the place.
The warehouse was massive. At least a hundred meters long and half that thick. So, there were thousands of beast eggs inside. Even with multiple hours, one wouldn't be able to go through them. So Osho wasn't in a rush.
The eggs were all kept inside special incubators that were very durable and protected them from harm. Though the eggs by themselves were incredibly durable.
The eggs also came in all shapes and sizes. Some could be the size of a normal pigeon egg, others could be as large as a basketball, and some even larger.
They weren't strictly oval shaped either as some eggs had more unique shapes. He spotted one that very closely resembled a cube, and another one that was so jagged it looked like a simple rock.
Osho sighed as his classmates filtered out to find what eggs best suited them. Again, there was no point in trying to check if the beast inside had good potential or not since that was impossible. What one needed was compatibility.
Besides, it didn't matter if he got a beast egg that had low or high potential. So, all he needed to focus on was finding an egg with sufficient compatibility.
As such, Osho started walking in a random direction and opened an incubator to place his hand on an egg he came across.
How compatibility was determined was simple. For a good chunk of their school years, students would be taught how to harness Mana, which was crucial for taming beasts.
Similar to how every beast was different, everyone's Mana had subtle differences, and these differences, while subtle, largely determined how compatible they would be with certain beasts.
Compatibility was so important for a few reasons. For example, if one picked a beast egg that had low compatibility with them, then there was a high chance they would be rejected if they tried to tame it. Moreover, even if they succeeded, the connection between the beast and the tamer would be weak, so the beast would be extremely disobedient and hard to control. Moreover, Tamers and their beast could receive feedback from one another via their connection, which was crucial in any situation for them. So if the compatibility was low and the connection was weak, they wouldn't be able to communicate effectively, which almost always led to problems, especially in a battle where communication between the two was key.
As he walked and sent his Mana into various eggs to check their compatibility, he ignored the ones that had a compatibility below 50% and noted the ones that had a higher compatibility than that.
The one hour duration passed swiftly, and Osho noted that students were starting to move with more urgency, the ones that hadn't decided what egg to take away, which was around 40% of the class.
Osho checked his watch and saw there were only 5 minutes left and sighed. He began considering going back to one of the eggs he had noted before. That one had a compatibility of about 65% and was the best feedback he'd gotten so far.
However, just as he was about to act on that desire, he sent his Mana into one more egg and froze.
The egg was of the typical oval shape, and it was around the size of an ostrich egg.
It was of a light grey color with strange wavy patterns along its surface. It was extremely cool to the touch.
But that wasn't what Osho paid attention attention to.
He slowly smiled as he made a calculation in his mind.
"89% Compatibility rate. Yeah, you're coming with me."