Alex was a little surprised when he saw the little cat move away from the core. But once he stopped telling the cat what to do, it immediately gravitated back towards the core.
Alex swiftly pulled the core towards him and kept it in his bag. Now that there was no aura from the core available, the cat started blinking its black eyes around, not knowing what to do.
"Meow," it meowed a little.
"Come here, little buddy," Alex said as he gestured the cat to come towards him with this hands.
"Meow," The cat meowed as it clumsily jumped towards Alex and started nudging his head on his knees.
"Where did you come from, buddy?" he asked, and started to think back on what had just happened. 'My arm,' he thought as he looked at his arms once more. 'It's gone. Did my scar heal, or…' he finally remembered what his master had said that day in the auction hall.
'Beast companions are a little unique, in that they don't live in the physical world after they bond with a cultivator,' was what Ma Rong had told him in the auction hall just before showing the tattoo of her own beast in the nape of her neck.
'A tattoo… was my scar, not an actual scar, but a tattoo?' he started to finally understand what had happened.
'But, that would mean…' he looked down at the little cat and tilted his head as he asked, "Did you form a bond with me?" he wasn't expecting an answer and he didn't get any.
He pet the little cat on its back and scratched its belly. "Meow," the cat meowed once more.
"Hmm… don't I have to feed you my blood essence for you to make a bond with you?" he asked. He remembered reading records on beast companions in the library. Although they weren't extensive in knowledge, they did give a general idea of what had to be done.
According to the records, beast companions could only be bonded by the beasts themselves. The humans could only 'influence' the desire to bond. This was why people got cubs and other newly born monsters. So that they could influence them from early on and make them voluntarily bond with them.
"But, Master did say the bonding requires humans to present their essence to the monsters. And the bond is only successful when the beasts accept the blood and drink it. But I haven't given the little cat any blo— " his words stuck in his mouth as he remembered the day back then.
That was the same day he had managed to refine the Steel sword. And refinement process was only done when the artifact accepted the person's essence, an essence which meant blood from their foreheads.
"That's right. The wolf bit me in my head and I was bloody at the time. Did you take in some of the blood at that time? Now that I think about it, I don't remember much of what happened after I pulled out the sword." Alex guessed that the little cat must've accepted his blood essence when he was down and nearly unconscious.
He pet the cat some more and as he was rubbing its belly, he felt its stomach move a little. "Hmm… are you hungry?" he was a little surprised.
He tried to look up its name and suddenly a bunch of extra information came to his head.
[White Cat (Infant) - Bonded
Name: None
Cultivation Base: Skin Tempering 2nd Realm
Evolution Chance: 5%
Cultivation Method: None]
"Oh," he was slightly astonished when he saw the entire panel pop up. This was a new set of information that he had never seen before.
"Name? You want a name buddy?" he asked the cat. "Meow," Alex thought he heard some sort of affirmation in that meow just now.
"Okay then, let's see… should I use real-life names like Toby or Felix? Nah, that doesn't sound right? Can I not choose and instead use a randomizer?" he thought as he clicked on the name.
A panel opened up where he could type and at the bottom left was a randomize button. He clicked on it, and it gave the name 'lingling'.
'Lingling? I don't like that.' Alex went on to randomize once more. He randomized a few times before he saw a name that he liked.
"Hmm… Since you are mostly white, the name fits too." He clicked confirm on the panel. "Alright then, from now on, your name will be Pearl."
"Meow" the little cat gave a questioning look. "Yes, Pearl. That's your name now." Alex said with a smile on his face.
The cat smiled as well and started meowing about. It started running laps around him but after a few laps, it sat near him in exhaustion.
"Are you okay little Pearl?" he asked for a second. The cat purred a little, its voice very weak.
"Oh, right. You were hungry. What do you eat though, meats? I don't have any." Alex said. Any restaurants he could visit were outside the sect and that would take quite a while to reach.
"Ah, that's right, monsters eat other monster's core too, right?" he took out a core from a very weak Skin Tempering 3rd realm monster and gave it to the little cat.
"Here Pearl, can you eat this?" he asked the cat.
"Meow Meow," seeing the monster core, the little cat's eyes immediately lit up with hunger. Alex put it near its mouth and it started to immediately nibble on it.
Unlike its mother's core, however, it easily started biting off the low-level core. Within minutes, it managed to finish the entire core and started meowing like it was getting tired.
"You want to sleep buddy?" he asked. He wanted to put him in his robes, but then remembered that beast companions usually stayed on the person they bonded with.
"Alright, can you go back here?" he asked as he pointed to his left arm. Immediately, white light shone from the cat as it leaped into his arm, turning to a tattoo of a paw.