The luxury of time in the Imperial Academy lasted exactly three days.
For seventy-two hours, Squad 7 had enjoyed the unprecedented peace of the training halls. Maya had calibrated her heavy, Tier-2 Deep-Earth Shale shield. Princess Yan had locked herself in an alchemical lab, successfully refining the Blood-Lotus into a small fortune of high-grade Coagulation Pills. Robert had practiced drawing Void-arrays until his fingers bled, and Kai had spent hours in the resonance chambers, perfectly syncing his Level 9 System stats with the deadly, high-frequency hum of his Sovereign's Edge.
But on the morning of the fourth day, their wrist-bracers buzzed in unison with a mandatory, priority-red summons.
"The Menagerie Spire?" Robert read aloud, squinting at the holographic text projecting from his wrist as they marched across the courtyard. "Since when does the Academy have a zoo?"
"It is not a zoo, Vance," Princess Yan corrected, her violet eyes scanning the massive, dome-shaped structure looming at the eastern edge of the campus. It was constructed entirely of reinforced spirit-glass and thick, overlapping steel plates. "It is the Beast Ward. Historically, it is where the faculty kept captured Tier 7 and Tier 8 beasts for anatomical study and dissection. Initiates are strictly forbidden from entering."
Kai adjusted the heavy gravity cuffs on his wrists, his boots crunching against the gravel path. "Not anymore. Look."
Hundreds of first-year students were filtering through the massive steel blast doors of the Spire. The usual arrogant chatter of the nobility and the nervous murmurs of the commoners were entirely absent. Everyone looked confused.
As Squad 7 stepped through the heavy doors, the smell of ozone and burning coal from the forges was instantly replaced by the thick, primal scent of raw earth, exotic flora, and the heavy musk of wild predators.
They were corralled into a massive, sunken amphitheater. The walls were lined with reinforced, Qi-shielded containment cells holding terrifying, fully-grown beasts that paced angrily behind the glass.
Standing in the center of the amphitheater was a woman who looked like she had spent more time in the deep Outer Fringe than in a civilized classroom. She wore a sleeveless, scarred leather tunic, her muscular arms covered in intricate, swirling tribal arrays. Resting lazily over her shoulders was a massive, eight-foot-long Viper-Cat, its scales shimmering with passive Lightning Qi.
"Welcome to the Menagerie," the woman spoke, her voice carrying a sharp, echoing rasp that instantly silenced the room. The Viper-Cat hissed in agreement, sparks dancing between its fangs. "I am Master Elara. And as of this morning, I am your instructor for an entirely new curriculum: Beast Taming."
A ripple of confusion washed over the initiates.
"For five thousand years," Elara continued, pacing slowly around the amphitheater, "the Imperial Empire has viewed the mutated flora and fauna of Earth as two things: food, or building materials. We kill them for their cores, we skin them for their hides, and we extract their blood for alchemy."
She stopped and stroked the head of the terrifying Viper-Cat. The beast purred, a sound like grinding stones.
"But the Exarch-Kin are accelerating their harvest timeline," Elara said, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "The Empire needs stronger weapons, faster. A cultivator takes decades to naturally temper their bones and expand their meridians. Dean Azure and the Imperial Arcanists have spent the last ten years secretly developing a shortcut. We have finally cracked the Beast Taming Contract."
Elara tapped the center of her chest, right over her heart. A glowing, intricate golden array briefly pulsed beneath her skin, perfectly matching a mirrored array glowing on the forehead of the Viper-Cat.
"We have discovered how to safely form a blood-bind with a mutated beast while it is still in its infancy," she revealed, the magnitude of her words hanging heavily in the air. "When you bind an infant beast to your soul, you do not just gain a pet. You gain an auxiliary engine."
Princess Yan stepped forward slightly, her alchemical curiosity overriding her noble restraint. "Master Elara, human meridians are fundamentally incompatible with raw beast Qi. A direct link would cause the host's core to violently combust."
"Under the old methods, yes, Princess," Elara pointed out, a fierce grin spreading across her scarred face. "That is why the Beast Taming Contract requires three distinct phases. Pay attention, initiates. Your lives will depend on this."
Elara raised three fingers, ticking them off as she spoke.
"Phase One: Blood Resonance. You cannot just pick a beast because it looks terrifying. You must find an infant or an egg whose innate elemental affinity naturally resonates with your own. A Fire cultivator bonding with an Ice-beast will freeze their own heart from the inside out."
"Phase Two: The Array Implantation. Once a compatible beast is found, the Academy Inscribers will etch the Taming Array directly onto your chest, over your heart, and mirror it onto the beast. This array acts as a frictionless filter, safely converting beast Qi into human Cultivation Qi, and vice versa."
"Phase Three: The Incubation Loop. This is the hardest part," Elara warned. "For the first month, the infant beast will be entirely dependent on your core. You must feed it your Cultivation Qi every single day to fuel its growth. It will drain you. It will exhaust you. But if you survive the loop, the contract solidifies."
Elara let the silence stretch for a moment before dropping the true weight of the new class.
"When the contract solidifies," Elara's voice dropped to a reverent whisper, "the flow of energy reverses. The beast begins to passively feed the host. Through the array, the host instantly receives a direct transfer of fifty percent of the beast's total physical and elemental attributes."
The amphitheater erupted.
"Fifty percent?" a noble boy gasped from the front row.
"Wait," Robert whispered, frantically doing the math. "If a Tier-8 beast has enough raw physical strength to crush a steel carriage... we just get half of that strength added to our own muscles? Permanently?"
Kai's heart hammered against his ribs. His molten-gold eyes widened.
He mentally pulled up his transmigrator System overlay.
[Status]
[Strength 23]
[Agility 26],
[Stamina 21],
[Endurance 24]
His Level 9 software was desperate for better hardware. He had tortured himself under the 2x gravity cuffs and endured the agonizing Minor Cleansing just to reach those stats and survive swinging his heavy sword.
If he contracted a beast with naturally massive Strength or Endurance, the Beast Taming Contract would act as a massive, passive multiplier to his Cultivation base. He wouldn't have to spend years manually breaking down his muscle fibers. The beast would do the heavy lifting for him. It was the ultimate cheat code for a transmigrator looking to bypass the grueling cultivation timeline.
"Do not celebrate yet!" Elara barked, her Viper-Cat letting out a deafening roar that instantly silenced the cheering students.
"This technique is highly volatile. It is a dual-edged sword," Elara warned, her tone turning deadly serious. "If your contracted beast is killed in combat, the psychic backlash will shatter the array, fracture your core, and permanently cripple your cultivation. If the beast grows faster than your mental willpower can handle, the alpha dynamic will flip. It will consume your mind and hollow you out like a meat-puppet."
She looked over the sea of first-year students, her expression grim.
"This paradigm has never been tested on a mass scale. Because of the accelerated Exarch threat, the Emperor has mandated that your batch—the first-year vanguard initiates—will be the absolute first to implement this. You are the Empire's grand experiment. You are the guinea pigs. The faculty expects a twenty percent casualty rate from contract rejections alone."
Maya adjusted her new heavy shale shield on her back. "Well. That kills the mood."
"It's a calculated risk," Kai murmured, his gaze fixed on the heavy steel blast doors at the back of the amphitheater. "A Tier 7 Wyrm almost wiped us out in the Canyons. We are too weak to fight the deep-zone monsters, let alone the Exarchs. We need the raw stats. The Academy is handing us free attribute points, Maya. We just have to survive the price tag."
Master Elara clapped her hands, the sound echoing sharply.
The heavy steel plates at the back of the amphitheater slowly ground open, revealing a massive, heavily climate-controlled cavern bathed in soft, pulsing ultraviolet light. The air pouring out of the cavern was thick with ambient, chaotic Qi.
"Welcome to the Imperial Hatchery," Elara announced. "Inside are hundreds of unhatched eggs and newborn cubs, harvested by our elite scouts from the fringes of the deep zones over the last six months. They range from Tier 9 to Tier 8 potential. Some possess elemental affinities; some are purely physical."
She stepped aside, gesturing toward the glowing cavern.
"The beast chooses the master as much as the master chooses the beast. Your elemental nodes will naturally react to a compatible core. Do not rush. Let your Cultivation guide you."
Elara pulled a heavy iron pocket watch from her tunic.
"You have exactly one hour to walk the aisles. Find your auxiliary engine. Bring it to the scribing tables at the front to form the Beast Taming Contract. Begin!"
The students immediately flooded toward the Hatchery entrance, the nobles shoving past the commoners, desperate to find the most visually impressive or royal-blooded species before anyone else.
Kai didn't run. He let the frantic crowd surge past him. He tapped the charcoal-grey hilt of the Sovereign's Edge. He didn't want a flashy, roaring tiger or a delicate, winged serpent.
He was a Forgemaster with a Five-Element core. He needed something dense. Something that understood crushing pressure, intense heat, and raw, unyielding gravity.
"Come on, Squad 7," Kai said, a fierce smile touching his lips as he stepped toward the pulsing violet light of the Hatchery. "Let's go find our monsters."