The meal was more conversation than it was actually eating, but that worked for everyone present. Karl was learning all about the beasts and the political situation in the region. The Elves were intimately familiar with both, as most of them had been watching them for hundreds of years already, all while living in this village.
The remote location made a lot of sense for the species. A city like the Golden Dragon Capital changed far too much for them to adapt to, and only one or two buildings in the entire city would outlive them.
In a place like that, there was no sense of permanence, everything would feel like it was in a constant state of flux.
Karl knew the feeling from living in a camp during the war, and a life like that was no life at all in the long term. You needed somewhere to go home and relax, a familiar place to centre yourself.
“What is your next goal? Will you be going back to where you came from now that you have finished your quest here?” The Mayor asked.
Karl shook his head. “No, I have one more quest left here. I need to find a new pet. It’s a quest reward, but it only gave me a general direction and no actual details.”
The Mayor laughed and patted Karl on the shoulder. “Welcome to the club. All the best quest rewards are just the Gods looking for amusement. So they’re never easy, but they’re always worth it in the end. Just put in the work, and you’ll find that what they give you will be one of the greatest finds that you could have managed.
At your power level, it could be anything from a baby dragon or phoenix to an extra planar creature like a Reaper or an Oath Breaker. Though that one might not count as a beast, they’re more of a demihuman type demon. But if they rewarded you with a Tree of Life sapling or a Vorpal Bunny, that could be just as good.”
“Can you even count a tree sapling as a beast type pet?” Karl asked.
“I don’t see why not. The Tree of Life can walk until it sets permanent roots, it has rudimentary intelligence, and it is from the wilderness.
I think that the Vorpal Bunny would be the best option behind your own dragon, though. They have the most ridiculous attack ever. It’s not much to look at, but their bite attack has barrier bypass, armour ignore and the Instant Death debuff. They can just kill anything that offends them.”
Karl’s eyes went wide at the Mayor’s comment. He gained the core ability of his pets. If he could add [Instant Death] to his attacks, it wouldn’t even matter what they put him up against. If he could hit it, it would die.
He was also significantly more durable than the average bunny.
The question was: How did you catch a creature that ignored barriers and killed with a single hit?
One of the young mothers rolled her eyes at the Mayor. “You know that isn’t realistic. The reward is always something that is matched to the recipient’s personality. If he was the sort that wanted to make an entire Blizzard spell a one hit kill, the gods wouldn’t have favoured him to start with.”
No, that sounded both horrific and incredibly useful. Perhaps she could revisit that topic, he wouldn’t mind that sort of skill.
“More likely it would be something that smoothly pairs with his existing beasts. If he’s lacking in an area, he will likely get something that will fill that gap. Quite often these rewards give a holy beast of some sort, but he already has one. So, if he doesn’t need a Circle of Protection, or healing, or burst damage, I would think that he’s being led to some sort of unique support skill. If he’s favoured enough, he might even get an aspect reward from the World Dragon or the Old Gods.” She suggested. “An aspect reward? I am not familiar with the phrase.” Karl asked, wondering if it was an odd translation from Elvish.
“Oh, it means a skill that is similar to the ones that they are known for. A bargain bin version of a Divine Skill. You could get something like [Armament] from the war god that lets you just create weapons on demand, or you might get one of the food creation skills from a nature god. You might get something truly wild as well. I heard that a few thousand years ago, there was an Elf that got the [Companion] skill from the World Dragon.”
Karl tried to recall something about that from his history classes, but came up blank. It might be his nation’s patron deity, but he had no idea what the skill was.
The Elf didn’t seem to notice, and just assumed that everyone knew what that skill did.
The name was fairly self-explanatory, but Karl couldn’t see why it would be so special when there were Golems everywhere.
One of the older Elves nodded. “If it gives you a skill, it’s guaranteed to be at least at the Epic Rank, and if it’s for a particularly difficult or deity aligned quest, it’s not unheard of for the reward to be a Legendary Skill.”
Karl’s Epic Ranked beast armour was already a massively overpowered skill. His armour was many times better than anything that he could buy at home. So what would a Legendary Rank skill be like?
Or even more importantly, what would a beast that was obtained from a Legendary Rank quest reward be like?
If it was a beast that had a legendary rank skill, it was certain to be an insanely powerful beast to begin with, but what sort of form would such a creature take? The school curriculum didn’t cover beasts with Legendary skills, just divine beasts and Legendary threats to humanity. For all he knew, it could be something as cute and non-threatening as Remi.
“Well, maybe I will get lucky and receive a Legendary reward from the quest. With the lack of details and just a direction to go by, they’re keeping me in suspense. But it is a beast, so perhaps the best one is relative, and it can’t be so easily defined.”
One of the younger Elves laughed. “Have you tried befriending Aspen? She’s a Forest Dragon, that should be a pretty good pet.”
There was a growling from the edge of the gathering, and the boy went pale. “A good pet, you say.” The young female voice roared, before a shaggy green dragon covered in leaves leapt into the sky.
Karl patted the boy on the shoulder. “I suggest you run.”
The boy nodded and sprinted for the opening to what looked like a cellar. But far too slowly to escape the wrath of a dragon that felt slighted.
The boy’s mother looked panicked, but Karl sat her down with a gentle pressure. “Relax, she’s not going to seriously injure him. If she were actually mad, she wouldn’t have roared or flown up where he could see her.”
The woman didn’t look like she believed him, but a few seconds later, the dragon came back out with a puppy in her arms. “See, no harm done. She just turned him into a pet for a few minutes so he knew what it was like.
Apparently.”
The Elves in the area were laughing as the dragon berated the puppy, who she had tied a string collar to before placing him on the table so he couldn’t run away.
The mother went to rescue her boy, and the Mayor sighed. “You say that now, but she holds a grudge like the trees hold the scars of the past. She likely wouldn’t turn him back at all if his mother didn’t plead his case.”
Karl laughed and shrugged. “He’s an Elf, he’s got a long time for her to get over it. But can we take Miss Remi to the Storm God’s temple quickly? Perhaps she will get some insight.”
The Mayor smiled. “It’s right there, that cave. Just let Remi go say hello, and the Storm God will answer eventually. Like good thunderstorms, their answers take a few days to brew.”
Remi excitedly slithered off to check out the temple cave, and Karl turned to make sure that the kids weren’t taking advantage of Thor. The Cerro was too kind to say if they were being annoying.