Tyrion woke up to a loud noise coming from his room.
He groaned, stretched and yawn. At that time, he opened his eyes only to see a 2 meters tall Three-Arm Monkey as well as a man in his late 20's in his room!
The beast and man were both turning his room upside down, seemingly searching for something.
Tyrion's heart dropped and his face turned pale.
'Have I been found out?' Just the thought made Tyrion's heart pound hard in panic. He just got hold of the ancient bronze watch and now he was about to lost it?
"W-who are you? B-better scram before I scream thief!" Tyrion tried to sound threatening but the person gave out a cold snort without even staring at him.
"We've been given permission to search this place. If you don't agree, go fight it out with the village head. Now shut up and let me do my damn job."
With that, he approached Tyrion's bed which was on the floor and raised it up with Tyrion still resting on it.
Tyrion gritted his teeth in anger but held his mouth. Quickly climbing off the bed, he trotted outside.
The principal and the village head were both standing in the yard, smiling crudely. His mother stood opposite them, with her fists balled up and her jaws clenched tightly while she furiously glared at the two old men
What was even more shocking was the fact that there were several men ransacking the entire house, the farm and the barn with their summoned Symbiotes.
The storage shed had been torn open, the careful irrigation channels Tyrion and his mother had dug by hand over the course of a week were completely demolished!
It didn't even feel like a search at this point and felt like they were purposely being humiliated!
'All because I didn't summon a damned dragon?'
Tyrion was livid. But he was well aware it wasn't the only reason. They most lite have figured out that Grant was missing and were searching for traces of him. But how did they know to search here?
His mother's voice tore through the air in anger.
"I paid for this land and it belongs to me! You have no right to come here and search my property without an Enforcer present!"
The old principal maintained his smile, but there was a visible sneer on his face. "There's no need to involve the Enforcers. We've searched every property in the entire village. Yours is the only one that remains. It's simply a routine matter, nothing to be alarmed about."
"Yes, yes, Madam Maxwell, please calm yourself." The village head waved his wrinkled hand as though waving off a fly. "Don't take things so seriously. it isn't personal."
Tyrion's mother glowered at the two of them. She felt like slapping the two old man to death but she didn't want to ruin their lives over one simple matter.
Seeing her angry but didn't dare do anything, the two men smiled even more.
The village head turned to the young men and raised his voice. "Make sure to search every inch an corner if this place. Dig the ground if you have to and leave no stone unturned!"
The men relayed the command to their summons, which doubled their thoroughness.
On the old man's hand was an ancient compass. Tyrion noticed it immediately and his eyes squinted.
"Mom? What's happening?"
Two pairs of old eyes snapped to him. The principal and the village head exchanged a quick glance and chuckled, amused.
The principal immediately scowled.
"Why aren't you in class, boy? Just because you managed to summon a trash beast doesn't give you the right to slack off! The Beast Technique: Cosmic Shield is being taught today. Do you have any idea what you're missing? The university registration window won't stay open forever! You'd better—"
"Thank you for your concern." His mother flatly cut the old man off with an indifferent tone.
"I'm perfectly capable of teaching my son the Cosmic Shield myself. And the university registration has already been handled. Please — finish your search and leave. My son and I have no interest in being harassed any further."
The young men eventually returned, shaking their heads. Nothing.
The two elders' expressions flickered unpleasantly before their polished smiles snapped back into place.
"Sorry for the intrusion," the principal apologized with no single hint of sincerity in his tone.
They left without arranging what the destroyed.
"Did they say what they were looking for?" Tyrion turned to his his mother and asked.
Mrs Maxwell exhaled through her nose and shook her head. "Those assholes." She looked across the ruin of their yard for a long moment, then rolled up her sleeves. "Come on. Let's fix what we can and see if any of the crops can be replanted."
It took the entire day.
That night, Tyrion waited until the house was quiet. Then he took an head lamp and went to the farm where he buried the items.
The place had been dug out. Luckily, Tyrion had been very smart when he buried the items. He had buried them three feet into the ground, covered the dirt up to two feet and then buried some cow dung an chicken poop over it and covered it with sand.
The person who dug that particular site only dug till he hit the poop and left it in disgust.
Tyrion didn't even know how he thought of this method. He was only used it just to be safe, he didn't expect the method he used offhandedly was the one who saved his life.
He learnt a great lesson from this. It's never too much to be over cautious.
He dug through the poop. Then dug further into the earth until he found a plastic bag of items.
Sitting cross-legged on his bed, Tyrion spread everything out on his bed.
The loot he had taken from the two Life-bound expert.
The box filled with two herbs in them, the three manuals and the most important item, the Ancient Bronze Watch.
Excitedly, he opened the wooden box and touched one of the herbs.
[Name: Twin Star Herb]
[Grade: 2]
[Lifetime: 121 years]
[Description: A rare dual-stemmed herb with leaves that shimmer faintly under moonlight like two distant stars.]
[Extract Plant LifeTime? — Yes/No_?]
[Transfer Plant LifeTime? — Yes/No_ ?]
'A grade 2 herb?'
Tyrion was slightly stunned. Grade 1 herbs costs hundreds of thousands of Crowns to acquire and can actually be used to feed Symbiotes to increase their strength or even evolve. He didn't expect Grant to be with one just like that.
"Probably the academy gift it to him."
Focusing on the watch's ability now.
He used 20 minutes to roughly figure out the ability of the watch.
He could extract lifespan from a plant. He could transfer stored lifespan into another plant. But he could not extract from a plant he had already transferred into.
He could also not transfer into objects an also could not transfer the lifetime into living creatures or himself.
Plant to plant.
That was the rule.
Tyrion had fantasized about transferring thousands of lifespan into his chicken, letting its absorb thousands years of vitality to evolve to an ancient and powerful monster. Sadly, he couldn't transfer plant lifetime into his beast.
But a thought came to him. The watch specified it as [Plant Lifetime] could there be other lifetime it could absorb such as [Animal lifetime] or even [Human Lifetime] Could he absorb the lifetime of dead creatures and transfer them to his symbiote?
He really wanted to test it. But he couldn't afford to kill one of his mother's chicken just to test the ability and saved the thought for later.
Tyrion slipped out of the house again, moving quietly to the edge of the farm where a cluster of oak and mahogany trees roughly stood.
He pressed his palm against the tree.
[Name: Oak Tree]
[Type: Tree]
[Lifespan: 12 years]
[Extract or Transfer Lifespan?]
Tyrion clicked the watch and he saw as the years began to fall.
11.8… 11.3… 10.0… 7.4… 3.1… 1.0.
It wasn't instantaneous, but it wasn't slow either, roughly twelve seconds to drain nearly eleven years of life from the tree.
Tyrion stopped once the lifespan hit one year. He had no intention of letting a tree collapse overnight.
He moved to the next tree. Then the next. Oak, mahogany, a stubborn old pine at the fence's edge.
By the time he finished, a full hour had passed.
He raised the watch and checked the total.
[Lifespan Stored]
[Plant: 1,000.2 years]
One thousand years.
Even an ordinary weed would transform into a legendary grass after a thousand years.
Back in his room, he opened the wooden box and touched the first herb.
[Name: Twin-Star Plant]
[Type: Plant]
[Grade: 2]
[Lifespan: 121 Years]
[Extract or Transfer Lifespan?]
Tyrion clicked on Transfer without hesitation and the lifetime of the herb began to rise rapidly.
120 years… 150… 200… 280… 350 years
The Twin-Star Plant seemed to wake up, its two leaves started to darken as it turn into a deep shade of green.
The veins on the leave began to twinkle as new leaves budded and unfurled.
Then, like ink bleeding through wet paper, a soft blue began to trace itself along the edges of every leaf an in that instant, the herb became a three-color herb, which is equivalent to a grade three herb.
The air around the herb was soothing like mountain plant after a morning dew. Just breathing it in made the tiredness in Tyrion's muscles loosen slightly.
[Name: Twin-Star Plant]
[Type: Plant]
[Description: Increases frost or water attribute monster pets by one stage.]
[Grade: three]
[Lifespan: 450 Years]
"Hehehe."
Tyrion could not help it. A giddy, undignified laugh escaped his mouth but he quickly closed his mouth with his hand.
Comporting himself, he picked up the second herb and closed the first one inside the box.
[Name: Flint-Leaf Clover Herb]
[Type: Plant]
[Description: Can be consumed by fire attribute monster pets to increase fire intensity.]
[Grade: One]
[Lifespan: 172 Years]
He clicked Transfer without hesitation and watched the numbers rise. This one was quite easy.
It only took a 55 year to enter Grade-Two.
Tyrion stared at the herbs in fascination.
The edges of its three clover-shaped leaves was ember at first but now, there was a tinge of blue color on it, marking it as a Grade Two herb.
Tyrion set both herbs aside and breathed. While his symbiotic neither have fire attribute and frost attribute, feeding it these two herbs would surely increase its strength by a lot! Most people wouldn't dare to waste a Grade Three Herb and Grade Two herb like and would choose to have it concocted by an Alchemist.
After sometime of thinking, Tyrion set down the herb and pulled out the three books.
The first book was a Human-Grade technique called the Cosmic Shield Barrier technique. As a summoner, one's survival depended on the barrier — when a summon was released, it created an anchor in the fourth dimension, a channel through which cosmic energy could flow from the void into the practitioner's body.
That energy settles within the beast seed to form a spark.
That spark came be used to power various techniques such as Cosmic Shield.
Cosmic shield is a must learn technique in this world as it forms a protective shield around you to protect you as your beast battle.
The second book was a actually an Earth-Grade. Fireball Spell.
Tyrion had seen how destructive the attack was even when Grant had limited energy to use, it still burnt through Frank's body.
It was the move Grant had thrown in the final seconds of his life.
The third book made him Tyrion's eyes widen in shock.
It was actually a medicinal manual!
It was called the Flaming-Star Evolution potion.
It was called the Flaming-Star Evolution Potion.
It takes the yang energy from the Flint-Leaf Clover herb and the yin energy from the Twin-Star Herb to create a perfect equilibrium. Once balance is achieved, various auxiliary herbs are introduced to stabilize the reaction and amplify the potency
According to what was written in the manual, the medicinal potion has 10% chance of evolving a beast towards an attribute of fire or ice, a 50% chance to level up but 100% chance to double the strength of the beast!
If taken regularly, even an ant would evolve and upgrade!
Tyrion's breath caught in his throat. Frank and Grant were truly his benefactors. He was just wandering in despair but came across the biggest opportunity of his life.
He sighed and scanned the ingredient list.
There were seven herbs total. Five were common, grade one plants that weren't at all expensive and could be seen everywhere, the remaining two were incredibly rare exotic herbs.
The two rare, exotic Grade One herbs the formula required were the Twin-Star Plant and the Flint-Leaf Clover Herb.
Grant had been gathering ingredients for this exact serum. He had died before completing it, and by some twist of fate, everything had landed in Tyrion's lap.
"Truly my benefactor." Tyrion couldn't help but mutter.
He almost laughed again, but caught himself.
There was still the matter of the five herbs. Even those, as common as they were, cost money he didn't have.
Then the idea came to him.
If he couldn't afford to buy the herbs, perhaps, could buy the seeds and grow them himself.
It was quieter, cheaper, and it wouldn't arouse any suspicion from others.
He spent the night memorizing the content of the three books before burning them.
As morning came, he did his chores, grabbed a chicken from the barn, he tucked it under his arm and started heading to the village.
He was barely a few hundred meters when the murmurs started.
"Oh, look at that, the chicken boy is out walking."
Two women chatting by the well didn't lower their voices as he passed. One of them clicked her tongue.
"His poor mother. Working herself to the bone for a child only for him to turn out to be such disappointment. Honestly, she should cut her losses."
A group of teenagers discussing which university they would attend suddenly saw him and they nudged each other.
"Hey, Tyrion! I know your family must be starving how about I buy your summoned chicken from you for 100 crowns!" He and his friend burst into laughter.
Tyrion ignored them. He had learnt to tune out their voices long ago and couldn't heard anything the said.
The market was noisy and loud. Stall owners shouted prices over each other, as monster summons of every shape walked between the crowd behind their their trainers.
Caged monsters sat stacked in their enclosures near the beast trader stalls.
Tyrion stopped in front of a stall bearing with a sign: Old Tang Herb Store.
Inside, behind a counter filled with jars and bundled dried herbs, an old man looked up from his newspaper.
He frowned in displeasure when he saw who it was.
"It's you."
He set down his pen. "And here I thought it might be a real customer. What do you want?"
Tyrion ignored the man's harsh word and replied. "I want to buy seeds,"
Old Tang squinted. "Planning to grow Cosmic herbs and sell them, are you? Think it's that simple?"
He chuckles in derision but turned to rummage behind the counter. "Not my problem what you're planning. What seeds?"
"Ironvine Sprout, Skythread Grass, Misty Fern, Grave-Urn Mushroom, and Blood Petal Sage."
Old Tang's hands paused. He turned back around, his eyes a fraction sharper than before. He let out a short, knowing chuckle. "Well, well. Isn't that a standard evolution serum recipe?"
He searched through a lower drawer and produced five small bags, each about the size of an egg, and set them on the counter between them.
"Ten Crowns."
Tyrion's expression flattened immediately. "Since when are they two Crowns each? They were one Crowns each last month."
"Supply and demand," Old Tang said with a bored expression on his face. "Scram if you don't want them. Having a Maxwell boy standing in front of my stall is already costing me business."
Tyrion rolled his eyes and looked at the bags. He sighed.
"I want to trade. The chicken, for the seeds."
Old Tang looked at the chicken his eyes squinted before going back to their usual indifference.
"Is this the chicken they said you summoned?"
Tyrion glared at the old man. "Have you heard of someone selling their symbiotic?"
The old man shrugged. "Difficult to say. As for that chicken; it could could be sick and die before I cook it. I'd be taking a risk here." He folded his arms.
"Tell you what, I'll take the chicken and five crowns, and we'll call it even."
Tyrion laughed coldly. "I can sell this bird to any butcher in this market for twenty Crowns, easy. Thirty if I'm patient. I'm broke, not stupid."
Old Tang's smirk thinned. "Then go sell it to a butcher."
"Fine." Tyrion picked the bags off the counter. "I'll take these five bags, give you the chicken, and you'll double the seeds — ten bags total. One of each type, twice over. That's the deal."
The old blinked his eyes. He looked at the chicken again.
"Hmph. Only because I'm in a generous mood."
He produced another five bags and slid them across the counter.
Tyrion laid the chicken down and tucked all ten bags into his pockets before Old Tang could object again.
In his room, Tyrion held a seed in his hand but nothing appeared on the watch.
He frowned, it seemed like it only works on plant.
He went out to the farm, found a secluded corner and turned the soil carefully, created five clean rows, and planted half his seeds in there.
One type per row, spaced evenly. He watered them, pressed a little cow dung into the soil around each spot as he stepped back.
These Cosmic herbs didn't require special soil, precise temperature or special nutrients to grow. Just a few days of normal growth and they'd germinate.
Germination typically take between one and three days. During that window, he decided to practice the Cosmic Shield technique.
As for the Fireball spell, he had no fire attribute, nor did his summon.