This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

They were in an intricately designed large drawing room. The entire room was softly lit by the only source of light, the crystal chandelier suspended above, due to the absence of any windows.

In the center of the room were two antique armchairs tilted towards each other that the robed figures were seated in while sipping from glasses of red wine.

In the corner, a beautiful child with golden curls and a delicate demeanor captured the attention in the room while playing the violin. However, despite his beautiful appearance, his eyes were empty, more so resembling a dead fish than a lively and adorable child\'s eyes.

Dressed in a light blue suit, his small fingers danced across the strings with effortless grace. The haunting melody filled the room and weaved an enchanting spell that caused the guest\'s eyes to glaze over to a cloudy white colour momentarily, before he snapped out of the trance and blinked his eyes furiously until they returned to their original dark brown.

"Fascinating! As a 5-star beast-tamer his gift can even affect me. You mean to tell me that he hasn\'t even awoken an affinity yet?"

The host\'s eyes shone with pride as he smiled, "Indeed. Technically within this empire\'s cultivation system he would be considered a normal person. He\'s the product of just one of the research areas we\'ve been working on in the hopes of allowing even ordinary individuals an opportunity to access great power. However…"

His smile dropped. "However, lately we\'ve hit a small snag. Our former, \'sponsor\', if you can call him that, recently had an accident."

"An accident?"

"He\'s dead. They say it\'s spiritual power poisoning. Really, ordinary people are just so fragile!"

The guest nodded, "Indeed. I\'m sure your former sponsor was also aware of that fact, probably why he was so generous in his financial support of your research. But are you absolutely sure that it was an accident? It won\'t be difficult to find you another, even several, sponsors. But if they find out that the previous sponsor was dead there will be concerns."

The host went silent. However, just when the guest thought that his question wouldn\'t be answered, the host finally opened his mouth. "We aren\'t sure ourselves…we also examined his body. There were no signs of any injuries. There was no poison found in his body. Honestly, the spiritual poisoning explanation is what makes the most sense, but something feels off.

The amount of spiritual power he ingested really shouldn\'t have been enough to kill him."

"Hmm…What about mental attacks?"

"Impossible. After he was accepted as a peripheral member of our organization, he was secretly given equipment that will trigger a shield around his body to prevent mental probing and mental attacks as they approached his body. It was necessary since he was just an ordinary person and we couldn\'t risk him being controlled or his memories read.

For a mental attack to bypass that piece of equipment it\'d need to come from a high-level beast tamer at or above 7-stars. And their movements would have been so obvious in a room full of high-level beast-tamers."

"What about the gap between when he left the auction and died? Any evidence of attacks then."

"None. I\'m telling you, the equipment was set to defend against any mental energy that came from outside of the wearer, that way it wouldn\'t be set off by the wearer themselves if they have a mental-attribute gift. But there was absolutely no movement in the equipment.

Even if Lady Mindshade herself had forcefully broken through the shield, we still would have sensed that it was activated and then quickly broken. But nothing! We can only conclude, no matter how implausible it seems, that the idiot can\'t hold his liquor and overdosed."

"It\'d be hard to find a sponsor as rich as the legitimate heir of the Nightsbane family…" The guest said hesitantly, trying to lower the other man\'s expectations.

The host waved his hand, "I don\'t expect you to find one as wealthy as Aric. Heck if you can find two or three new sponsors that\'d be fine."

The guest nodded, "That makes it easier then. There are plenty of children of rich and noble families that didn\'t successfully awaken an affinity and feel unwilling. As long as you can show them some promising results whether it\'s money or…\'test subjects\'…they should be willing to help.

You may need to consider moving your base of operations outside of the capital momentarily though to accommodate your new sponsors. Also because the disappearances have been making the news more and more often. I heard they even sent out a captain of the Shadow Guards to investigate. It\'s best to lie low for now."

The host also nodded, "I had the same idea. I just haven\'t decided on the next location yet. Show me some of the potential sponsors that you\'ve made contact with."

The guest pulled out two papers with the profiles of two different individuals. "These two are in the northern region. Due to the large amount of land, and low population, it should be easy to conceal your location out there. Although obtaining more test subjects will be challenging due to the scarce population. But both of them are illegitimate twins of a noble family.

Their father currently has no legitimate so the position for heir is up for grabs among the illegitimate children and they\'re both desperate to awaken an affinity."

The host nodded noncommittally. Likely sensing that he wasn\'t thrilled about the prospect of moving to the north, the guest pulled out another paper.

"Ahem. In the west we have the younger brother of Lord Emberfell. He\'s approaching the limit of his lifespan as an ordinary person. He may sign over all of his net worth to you if can see any hope of being able to cultivate and extend his lifespan."

"Hmm…wasn\'t one of the Emberfell industries in the news lately for unpaid employee wages? How much money can he actually provide even if it\'s all that he owns."

"Okay. Okay! I think you\'ll prefer these sponsors." He quickly pulled out two more papers and shakily handed them over. His forehead was starting to bead with sweat due to his host\'s unimpressed face. He didn\'t want this man who had a higher ranking than him within the organization to write him off as useless. People deemed useless never end well within the organization.

"These two are both young individuals in the south that carried much of their families\' hopes, but failed to awaken an affinity this year. The male is the eldest grandson of the Silverhart family—super rich! But after failing to awaken an affinity, his title as heir has been temporarily removed and may be given to one of his younger siblings if he fails to awaken again next year.

He\'s absolutely desperate for power to keep his status."

The host stared at the profile pensively. Seeing that he didn\'t immediately shoot down this sponsor, he began to push the other profile.

"In addition to him, we have this young lady of the Frost family. Although not as wealthy as the Silverhart family, they are still quite rich. Not to mention they completely surpass the Silverharts in terms of power and connections as a branch of Storm family, one of the founding five families.

If you choose the south as your new stomping grounds, these two sponsors will ensure that you have adequate money and connections to conceal your activities.

The host examined both profiles before nodding in acquiescence.

"I heard the weather in the south this time of year is quite nice…" He said with a smile.

The guest finally released the breath he\'d been holding and was finally able to lean back to try and enjoy the music.

BOOM

However, the tranquility of the atmosphere was abruptly shattered by a sudden explosion. In a horrifying explosion of flesh and blood, the serene elegance was obliterated.

The crystal chandelier hanging above now painted the room in a ghastly red colour as it was entirely covered in blood and guts.

And the source of the explosion, the violin playing child, was now reduced to a pair of bloody shoes with a broken violin laying next to them.

Sigh

The host sighed in annoyance before yelling, "B042, hurry up and clean up A037! A037 managed to last for over a month so I had hoped he\'d be our first success. Useless trash!"

I child that looked like as though he\'d been stitched together with several parts from both human and non-human individuals, quickly limped into the room on a mismatched pair of legs. One human, and the other noticeably more goat-like. The deformed child began to clean up the scraps of his former colleague unphased. Clearly this was not the first time this had occurred.

The host picked up the now bloody sheets of paper in annoyance.

"Ugh! Maybe a change of scenery is just what I need to get the creative juices flowing. Make contact with the sponsors and I\'ll arrange for the transfer to finalize within the month."

He tossed back over the two sheets of paper to the guest. The one at the top coincidentally having the name of the potential supervisor underlined in blood due to the explosion—Heather Frost.