Lord: Sequence Master

In his divine domain, Rosen held a Sequence 9 slime in his hand, kneading it as he attempted to harness his Beast Taming skill.

[Beast Taming LV1: Allowed the user to tame supernatural creatures as sub-pets using their spiritual energy. The number of tamed creatures depended on the user's spiritual strength.]

With his 16 points of spiritual energy, Rosen could tame up to 16 Sequence 9 slimes.

To tame Sequence 8 slimes, he needed to upgrade Beast Taming to Level 2.

Rosen channeled a point of spiritual energy into his palm and began weaving a Beast Taming rune, a complex spiritual symbol.

The Beast Taming rune was a type of spiritual rune, requiring intricate control over one's spiritual energy.

Unsurprisingly, he failed on his first try—then again, and again. He continued to fail.

This rune wasn't just a simple two-dimensional pattern; it was a three-dimensional structure. Weaving a spiritual thread as fine as silk into a three-dimensional rune required advanced techniques. Creating such a small rune was even more complex than the most sophisticated microchip from his previous life.

Based solely on his current level of spiritual control, it might have taken Rosen a hundred years to successfully weave this rune without help.

That's where his supernatural essence came into play. Rosen's Hunter's supernatural essence had absorbed the power of the Beast Taming skill crystal, and the core of the Beast Taming skill—its most complex rune—had already been imprinted within his supernatural essence as a template.

Rosen wasn't exactly creating the rune from scratch. He was copying the template using his spiritual energy.

If he had to rely on his own abilities to generate a Beast Taming rune, it would have required him to have at least Sequence 3 power and a Level 7 Beast Taming skill just to attempt it.

After several days of practice, Rosen finally managed to successfully copy the first Beast Taming rune using his spiritual energy.

He embedded the rune into the slime's body, and it fused with the creature's soul.

A creature whose soul was embedded with a taming rune would become a sub-pet, whereas embedding it into a creature's spiritual energy would make it a primary pet. The divine beast seal in his divine beast pen was a more powerful and complex spiritual rune compared to the Beast Taming rune.

Rosen could create divine beast seals only due to the divine energy involved.

It took Rosen ten days to tame ten Sequence 9 slimes, and by then, his Beast Taming skill had leveled up to Level 2.

[Beast Taming LV2: Allowed the user to tame supernatural creatures as sub-pets using their spiritual energy. The number of tamed creatures depended on the user's spiritual strength.]

[Trait: Beast Affinity – Lowered the resistance of supernatural creatures during the taming process.]

This time, with his foundational experience, Rosen successfully created the first taming rune in just two days. It took him fifteen more days to replace all his Sequence 9 slimes with Sequence 8 slimes.

Rosen casually retrieved a Sequence 9 Sea Rat essence, one of the most abundant supernatural essences in his possession.

Over the nearly three years spent creating his self-portrait, Grey Rat had industriously bred Sea Rats, Blade Rats, and various other rodents in his divine beast pen. Their numbers had grown to the point that even the divine beast pen was reaching its limit. As a result, many became Grey Rat's food as it advanced to Sequence 8.

Rosen summoned his Nightmare Slime and tossed it a Sea Rat essence.

The slime swallowed the essence in one gulp and, under the power of the Pet Transformation skill, began transforming into a Sea Rat.

Once the transformation was complete, the slime reverted to its original form and used its Devour ability to digest the essence it had absorbed.

Rosen then fed it the essence of a Sequence 9 Blade Rat Shark, and the slime repeated the process—transform, revert, then digest.

This cycle of feeding and transforming continued, alternating between Sea Rat and Blade Rat Shark essences. The Nightmare Slime gradually increased its proficiency in the Pet Transformation skill.

Pet Transformation was a resource-heavy skill. While it was easy to improve at lower levels, advancing at higher levels would require substantial resources.

After completing ten transformations, Pet Transformation leveled up to Level 2.

Rosen didn't stop there. He proceeded to feed his Nightmare Slime Sequence 8 Sea Rat and Blade Rat Shark essences. After another ten transformations, Pet Transformation advanced to Level 3.

While it still couldn't transform into Sequence 7 creatures, the Level 3 skill gained a new trait.

Pet Transformation Level 2 came with the Fast Transformation trait, reducing the transformation time from a few minutes to a few seconds.

At Level 3, Rosen had a choice: he could either add a second trait or enhance the first one.

Since Rosen was committed to a specialization strategy, he chose to strengthen his first trait.

[Pet Transformation LV3: Allowed the pet to transform into a supernatural creature of equal rank by absorbing its supernatural essence.]

[Enhanced Trait: Enhanced Transformation – After transformation, the pet retained the highest attributes from both its original and transformed forms.]

When Rosen saw this enhanced trait, his first reaction was that it was worth it.

The Nightmare Slime's greatest strength was its immense vitality, while most of its other attributes were weaknesses. If it transformed into a Blade Rat Shark, it would gain the shark's speed and high-damage abilities but lose its vitality. With this enhanced trait, it could now retain its original vitality even after transformation.

Excited, Rosen pulled out a special essence he had recently purchased from the Blue Whale Guild City.

The Nightmare Slime swallowed and began to transform, soon turning into a Sequence 8 Frost Naga.

Frost Nagas were highly intelligent supernatural creatures and belonged to the upper echelon of spirits, with growth potential reaching Sequence 4.

Nagas were one of the dominant forces of the ocean, and the World Government had yet to completely eradicate all Naga tribes within human territories.

If it weren't for the limited availability of higher Sequence Naga essences, Rosen would have sought something even stronger.

[Nightmare Slime: Divine Pet]

[Rank: Sequence 8]

[Spiritual Power: 22 points]

[Innate Abilities: Nightmare Devour LV2, Devour LV2, Void Foraging LV2]

[Skills: Pet Transformation LV3, Pet Aura LV1, Psychokinesis LV2, Shadow Cloak LV2, Death Blow LV2, Supernatural Perception LV2]

[Transformation: Frost Naga (Sequence 8)]

[Transformation Innate Abilities: Water Elementalization, Ice Elemental Control]

[Transformation Skills: Naga Meditation, Ice Arrow, Summon Water Elemental, Ice Shield, Mirror Image, Water Prison]

Supernatural creatures' innate abilities were essentially the equivalent of humans' innate skills.

From any perspective, the Nightmare Slime was now an exceptionally formidable creature at the Sequence 8 level.

With its attributes, innate abilities, and skills all stacking after transformation, even Rosen himself couldn't match its strength.

Through Pet Aura, Rosen commanded the Nightmare Slime to share its innate abilities and Pet Transformation skill with the other slimes.

The sixteen Sequence 8 slimes soon gained Pet Transformation LV3, Nightmare Devour LV1, and Devour LV1.

Although the abilities were weakened by one rank, Devour LV1 still granted the slimes formidable growth potential. This was precisely why Rosen had chosen those three skills—because combined with Devour and the divine beast pen, he could maximize the potential of his pet army to its absolute limit.

(End of Chapter)