Onyx was leaning on a wooden fence by the fields fiddling a straw in between his lips, his straw hat tipped low on his head to cover his eyes, he was clearly relaxing and taking life slowly.

  The moment he had his fill of relaxation he stood straight and stretched his limbs , after that onyx lifted his hat from up his eyes and turned his gaze to the close horizon.

  To which he was then meet with the sight of fields of verdant glossy green stretching far into the distance, the plants that consisted this great green carpet, looked like stalks as tall as chests, with many branches growing along Thier stems ,this branches being covered and ending with thumb sized heart shaped leafs, that had the tenderness and even a smell like that of peppermint.

  "The herbs are growing well " muttered onyx while adjusting his hat, it been almost a month since he and mister rolf planted the seeds for the medica mystica herb, during of which the plant have already grown this much.

  This rate of growth might seem shocking but one must remember that this were special plants from the outer realms, and in the realms all sorts of strange and fantastical phenomena can be seen, fire that burns cold, seasons that revolves backwards, landscapes that changes over night, compared to such things plants that grows in the span of a month are a pretty tame occurrence.

  Besides mister rolf was an experienced farmer and had a beast specifically specialising in plant cultivation, accomplishing such results shouldn't surprising all things considered.

  Onyx tiped his hat then turned around and headed towards mister Rolf's hut, there the old farmer was setting on a chair on his porch sipping some coffee and enjoying the morning breeze.

  " Morning mister rolf" onyx greeted upon reaching the old man

  " Morning, lad" the old man replied

  " A Fine day isn't it, the herbs seem to be doing good"

  " Mehh" the old man simply replied

  Onyx rubbed his nose then classped his plams then asked " so what's this important task you said you had for me today"

  After they sowed the seeds, all of what mister rolf and onyx were doing for the last month was tending for them, something that took considerably less work that most of which was handled by mister rolf anyway, leaving onyx pretty bored for most of the time, and so the news about this important task was pretty intriguing for him after a very slow month.

  " Ehm ... about that " mutterd mister rolf as he gullped the last of his coffee before turning back to onyx and asking " tell me kid how much soul capacity you have available"

  Onyx taken it back by this sudden personal question but he had no reason to hide this information from the old man so he responded truthfully " well I only have my totem beast so all of my soul capacity at my disposal by which I mean all 12 units, why do you ask ? "

  The old farmer didn't answer immediately first muttering to himself " 12 units eh ... More than enough" , he then rose from his seat climbed down his porch and started walking away but before signaling onyx to fallow him

  As the two walked passing by one of the field of herbs, mister rolf began explaining " as you can see kid, the herbs are on the verge of maturity which means that soon it would be time for harvest "

  Onyx nooded already aware of that.

  But mister rolf continued " now normally that would have been good news if not for one small detail"

  Onyx ear perked up sensing trouble in the old man's words

  " See , around and during harvest time it isn't uncommon for wild beasts to be attracted to the corps cultivated in this here farm, even though the station make conscious effort to cull the beasts populations and secure the area in it's proximity to allow us farmers to have space to work in , there is always a couple of beasts that manages to make Thier way into our fields , usually small frey that managed to slip through the cracks of the station security by being too insignificant for the station to see the need of making an effort against them , after all the station can't handle every little thing , but however insignificant those beasts might be if left for Thier own devices they could end up pillaging most of if not the entire crop , now usually helda and I are able to deter most pests while only sustaining minimal losses , however this time thanks to your help , the scope of the harvest had expanded significantly which reduces my confidence in our ability to defend all of it on our own, furthermore I have confidence that the harvest this time around would be of a high quality which increases my desire to secure it further more, and thus this leads to the task I want to ask of you " the old man explained before pausing a bit

  Onyx after listening to the old man's explanation already had an idea about the he wanted to ask of him

  And confirming his thoughts the old then added" so I want you to help me guard the crops this time around "

  " Bingo " onyx thought before responding with" well mister rolf I would love but you're aware of my totems state, tusk is still not much of a fighter so I doubt i can be of help "

  It was true , even though onyx had been delegintly nurturing tusk with the catalysts he had for last month, reaching 20 % in growth level and growing considerably stronger than when he first started, tusk is yet to undergo his metamorphosis and without reaching full maturity tusk was still pretty weak and vulnerable compared to the average beast.

  " That is unless ... " onyx then added " you've got a solution for that "

  " Clever lad you've guessed already haven't you " the old man answered with a chuckle

  The two then continued walking reaching the edges of mister Rolf's farm specifically a part onyx hadn't seen before

  The place was mostly empty excepted for a single courois structure that stood a couple paces away from were the two men now stood.

  The structure looked a coup of some kind or a miniature hut, made mostly of dried mud, supported by stone and roofed by a mat of sticks and dried grass, this little hut had a single circular entrance , a barrel's led in diameter , placed at its forefront .

  Standing there mister rolf first summoned helda from his soul sea and after greeting the old girl he turned back to the mud hut and shouted " oi , hatchet , wake up you lazy ball of feathers you've got a visitor"

  After mister rolf shouted those words something inside the hut seemed to steer, onyx could catch glimpse of it from through the huts entrance.

  And after a few seconds of courois anticipation, what came out of the hut was as one would expect, a catalyst beast.

  Specifically a beast like that of a monstrous chicken, or some kinda ancient terro bird brought back to life, the beast reached a grown man's belt in term of height, it had brown coloured feather with a couple of dark feathers here and there, the beast had a set of thick looking legs in contrast to it's set of stubby wings, two distinct feathers can be seen atop of the creature's head along with bright blue skin that coverd most of it face and a set of big round yellow eyes with black iris.

  Finally the beast's most distinct feature was it beak, black as charcoal and possessing a metallic sheen but most importantly being curved and shapen into a form like that of an axe.

  That strange peak was this beast's most prominent and only intemdating feature, and also clearly it's name sake.

  As beast finally emerged and stretched wide, ruffling its feathers and flapping its tiny wings, as it opened it's axe like beak in a yawn.

  Once finished it's registered mister rolf and helda Infront of him, giving them a familiar gaze before turning his looks to onyx and throwing a puzzled look at him.

  Onyx stared back at the beast scrutinizing it througly, not every day he gets to see a new beast up close.

  " This fella right here" mister rolf began " is ' hatchet ' and as you have already guessed I want you to tame him"

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Onyx how even though expected what's going to happen was still surprised, he hadn't even though about taming a new beast before , the reason being that he had no strength to tame one from the wild nor the capital to purchase one from the market

  , so being handed one all out of the blue was quite the surprise.

  However before he let's his excitement set in onyx had a couple questions that needed answering.

  He turned his head to mister rolf and asked " wait why do you keep an untamed beast around your farm isn't it dangerous ? "

  " Bahh " mister rolf shrugged before explaining" I first received hatchet as a gift from a friend who works at a beast breading facility in the station, they gave him to me to help around the farm, I had him tamed when I first got him but after a while I figured that he wasn't doing much compared to helda so I untamed him to save up on my soul capacity, however since he was a gift from a friend I couldn't get just rid of him so I built him this hut and let him live around my farm, you usually never see him because he just likes to laze around, and as for if he is dangerous don't worry about, hatchet is from a domesticated species of beasts plus he was raised by humans from the moment he was born so afar as beast goes he is pretty much docile unless provoked, and even untamed helda's presence is more than enough to keep him in check "

  " I see " onyx said now understanding

  Mister rolf clapped his hands and said" so why don't we get on with this right away then "

  "Wh-what ?, now? , right away ?" onyx stummerd

  " Yeah, why the hold up, your here , he's here ,might as well get it over with "

  " What about soul load? "

  " Don't worry about it, Hatchet has the soul load of 5 and with your soul capacity of 12 your more than qualified to tame him "

  " Ok still this my first time doing this "

  " So what ? , it would still be your first time wither you do it now or some other time, so what difference does it make "

  " Ok still... "

  " Oh , quiet your whining , listen you know how to tame a beast don't you? "

  Onyx sighed and answered" yes "

  " Then do just that, don't worry , me and helda are right here to interfere should that big chicken even thing about pecking you "

  " Alright " onyx sighed in defeat before stepping forward to preform his out of the blue and less than prepared for task.

  Onyx first approached the beast crafuly and slowly as to not show any hostily, even though this creature was a domesticated beast, a catalyst beast is still catalyst beast, and even the weakest and most docile of which can still kill a regular human effortlessly, so it best not to provoke even this goofy looking bird .

  The beast was eyeing onyx carefully as he slowly advanced towards it, and the moment onyx was only an arms length away from it, the beast suddenly ruffled it's feathers aggressively and lifted it axe like beak poised to strike.

  But before anything can go wrong, helda lumbering only a couple of paces away gave an unhappy loud snort, the beast hearing that understood the warning and sheepishly lowered it's head slowly.

  Once the beast was disarmed , onyx who was frozen a second ago gave a comforted sigh and continued his advance , finishing by placing his hand on the beast's body.

  Once physical contact was established, onyx then took a deep breath closed his eyes and began to concentrate, the flux within him soon begining to steer , activating one of his transcendent arts

  This one , this time being the beast communion art.

  The beast communion art was the most known and the most common transcendent art right after the basic energy circulation art , still it is arguably the most important art anyone could learn.

  As this art what allows one to tame, accommodate, command and even receive feedback from catalyst beasts

  Basically if you want to become a beast catalyser this is the art to learn, it goes without saying that this art was one of humanity greatest achievement in the new age as it was the cornerstone that gave rise to Thier current status quo.

  And right now onyx was using this art to tame this beast before him, but how you might ask, well..

  The beast communion art primary ability is to allow a person to turn Thier flux into a mental force that they can impose on other lesser sentient creatures, the moment this mental force comes into contact with the targets own, they would coillied and that's when the hard part begins .

  As in that moment the catalyser have to use Thier will to override the target's own, either by overwhelming it or by making it willing submit control, the moment a beast's will is overridden, a mental connection between the two would form, with a clear leader-follower structure, once that happens the taming can be considered a success and the Catalyser can now control the beast and even store them in Thier soul sea.

  And that was exactly what onyx was doing right now, soon after activating his beast communion art and sending his will into the beast, he was soon meet with a resistance from the beast's will.

  A battle of will felt quite strange and abstract for onyx, he somehow "felt" his own will like a formless and ethereal force , able to shift and move easily to his whims

  The moment his will came into contact with the beast's own he was soon able to get a sense for it as well, he didn't know how that worked exactly but if he was to describe the beasts will he would say it looked like a giant after image of the beast itself when compared to his own will, it was thrashing it's axe like beak wildly and flapping around it's tiny wings while running around frantically like a headless chicken, onyx was fascinated seeing this phenomena in action .

  he was taught in the academy that a beast's will would usually take a shape and behave in a way directly affected by it's nature, psyche and current desires and emotions .

  Any time onyx will came to a close proximity with the beast's, the opposing will would thrash wildly against his own, everytime that happened onyx would feel a push back and slightly weakening in his own will

  " Enough dosing around time to get serious" onyx thought to himself, he then recalled his teachings and began to concentrate his will.

  Soon the formless will gathered and concentrated into a shape that resembled that of his own on par in size with the beast, the new will stood frozen for a second before surging forward towards the opposing will.

  The two wills then began to wrestle, with onyx grappling his opponent and the beast thrashing in resistance, if this was the real world, it would have been border line suicide to tussle with a beast like that, but in this plane of abstract consciousness the rules were different .

  As the two wills continued colliding they both began to diminish and grow weaker , this was no surprise as when wills collides they would desabite one another , after all they were a manifestation of Thier owner's mental force which were finite despite Thier abstract nature.

  On the outside onyx was already sweating, he was feeling his mental force reducing and his mind growing weaker, even though the beast's will was also facing the same situation, it compensated it's diminishing strength with animalistic fury , after all there is nothing more dangerous than a desperate animal.

  Onyx tried his best to resist and gain the upper hand but the beast's determination and his own inexperience were too big of a hurdle for him to overcome

  At this rate he was going to lose, he concluded aware of his predicament but in his moment of need help was not far away

  Onyx, in back of his head could hear a voice calling out to him , it was mister Rolf's, he could hear the old man saying " roka seeds kid, use roka seeds"

  " Roka seeds ? " Onyx thought confused, he knew what those were but what does those...

  right at that moment a thought seemed to click, onyx then harnessed his remaining will , retreating away from the will of the beast.

  Onyx's will then reduced in size , a signal of not being hostile anymore yet despite that the beast's will was still pretty much so , eyeing onyx with anger and contempt just catching it's breath before bouncing on him again.

  However as it was doing so onyx harnsesed a portion of his remaining will and manifest a sack in one of his hands, inside this sack was a bunch of seeds like that of sunflower seeds but much girthier

  Onyx then began to casually grasp a handful of those seeds before scattering them around his feet,

  This gesture might seem pointless at first just as the beast gaint will was about stomp on onyx's, it figure suddenly paused, seemingly taken a back by the sight of the seeds scattered around, the beast's will stopped for a second before lowering it's head and carefully pecking one, it pecked just one before lifting it sharp gaze towards onyx again growling towards him menacegly, but the beast for all it's caution and fury, couldn't help but go for another....... And another...and another and another.

  Before long the beast seemingly forgot about onyx and instead became entirely focused on the pecking up the seeds scattered around, as it did so it gaint figure began to reduce in size, this was happening because the seeds it was consuming were made of onyx's will and so by consuming it that would make it own will weaker , but despite that the beast didn't seem to mind in fact as the beast will which felt angry and aggressive some moments before was gradually becoming calmer as it shrunk , until eventually all the previous hostility coming from it had disappeared replaced with a raising feeling of contentment and even... Happiness.

  Onyx will continued spreading the seeds and the beast's will continued consuming them , continuing to reduce in size and as the beast was becoming more docile it wasn't long until it was eating straight out of onyx's hand

  As The beast feed onyx brushed his hand across it head gently , projecting a feeling of kindness and warmth " there you go, good birdy , good birdy"

  This state continued on for a couple of seconds until out of the sudden a ringing sensation resounded throughout this entire mental plane, shaking onyx to his core, before the entire plane seemed to shatter thrusting onyx back into his own mind .

  Onyx's eyes flinched wide open and his mouth gasped for air, he felt like he just came back from a deep dive in a pool.

  As his senses gradually returned he was welcomed with a feeling of weakness permeating his body, his legs buckled and he slumped down on his rear end.

  Onyx huffed and puffed as he lay on the ground, the mental exhaustion caused by the taming process was no joke. Even though he hadn't moved at all, he felt like he had been running for hours, his mind especially feeling tired and sluggish.

  Mister Rolf approached Onyx along with Helda, checking on the young man. "So how did it go?" asked the old man.

  Onyx didn't answer him immediately, still too tired to formulate words. However, he looked up at the old man, then towards the large bird beast who was also slumped on the ground, before activating his Omnichip to see his status, which now displayed:

  ONYX . R . BENNETT

  LEVEL 1 : [ 6% ]

  SOUL CAPACITY : 12

  FLUX : 9

  TRANSCENDENT ARTS : [BASIC ENERGY CIRCULATION] [BEAST COMMUNION]

  TAMED BEASTS: [TOTEM: [FIGHTER BEETLE LARVAE]] [IRON BEAK QUAIL]

  EMPOWERMENTS: NONE

  BOONS : NONE

  Looking at his status and seeing the new name under his tamed beasts entry was the confirmation Onyx was looking for—that he had succeeded in taming a wild beast for the first time ever.

  Realising this achievement, Onyx smiled despite his exhaustion, then turned to the waiting old man and answered, "Not bad... not bad at all."

  Understanding what Onyx meant, the old man gave a hearty laugh while patting Onyx on his back in congratulations.

  After giving Onyx a couple of minutes to catch his breath, the old man then pressed him about the details. He just needed to know how Onyx's first time taming a beast was like.

  Onyx obliged and described what happened in detail to the old man: how he first tried to use the force approach and overwhelm the beast's will, which soon became clear wasn't going to bring him victory, but then the old man's advice to use a manifestation of roka seeds—which he had previously taught him were a common feed for bird beasts—as a way to pacify and win the beast over. Analysing that action further, Onyx now understood that it was basically him bribing and promising that beast with roka seeds in exchange for its loyalty. That was the clearest interpretation he could get from that abstract confrontation.

  Regardless, he felt the need to ask, "But how did you know that roka seeds were going to work anyway?"

  "Hehe, didn't I tell you that I had that ball of feathers tamed before? Of course I know what going up against his will is like. Besides, the time I spent with him is what allowed me to know that roka seeds would work against him. You see, to combat this beast's laziness, I used to reward him with seeds for diligence, and roka seeds were his favourite," Mister Rolf explained.

  "I see," said Onyx.

  "Remember, kid—in the absence of strength, intelligence must become one's weapon. When you just can't overwhelm your opponents, use their nature against them. Do that, and there won't be a beast you can't tame," Mister Rolf shared a piece of his wisdom.

  Onyx nodded, now understanding the complexity that taming beasts had.

  And speaking of beasts, Hatchet, who was sitting idly by recovering from his exhaustion, finally got up and approached Onyx. He then began gently rubbing his head against his body and giving soft goots.

  Usually, a beast becomes much more docile towards their master once they're tamed. Still, Onyx was taken aback by this sudden show of affection.

  "Aw, did he warm to me already?" Onyx said, feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

  Sadly, however, Mister Rolf had to douse that warmth, saying, "Like hell he is—he's just buttering you up to get what he wants."

  Mister Rolf then procured a small bag from his pocket, tossing it to Onyx and saying, "Here, this should be what he's after."

  Onyx opened the bag to find none other than some roka seeds inside. The moment Hatchet caught sight of the seeds, his coots increased in volume and his focus shifted completely from Onyx towards the bag.

  Seeing this, Onyx was a little disappointed. And there he was, just thinking that his new beast liked him. But he couldn't be mad at him—these seeds were what he had promised him, after all.

  Onyx then relented and gave the eager beast what he wanted, grasping a handful of seeds from the bag and letting the beast eat right out of his hand, just like it had back in its mental space.

  "Now that that's over with," Mister Rolf began, concluding, "here's the plan: me and Helda will guard the eastern side of the farm, while you and Hatchet guard the western side. That way we can cover the most ground."

  Onyx nodded.

  "Wild beasts could be popping up any day now, so I implore you to get acquainted with controlling Hatchet as soon as possible. You wouldn't want to get into a confrontation unprepared."

  "Yes, sir," responded Onyx as he rose to his feet. He and Hatchet were soon to become very acquainted with each other.