"Come here, little beetle. I will give you this fruit," a student said as he brought out a berry. He waved it around in front of the giant beetle trying to lure it in.
The beetle looked at the berry as if entranced by the food and slowly walked towards the student. The student had a warm smile on his face, but the emotion in his eyes gave away his intentions.
As soon as he walked towards the beetle to give it the berry, however, the beetle got scared and ran away.
"Hey, wait," the student immediately followed behind the beetle, but the beetle went into a dense part of the forest and disappeared. Since using divine sense wasn't allowed at all, he couldn't even search for it anymore.
"What the hell? Where did it go?" the student asked, unable to find any signs of the beetle.
* * * * * *
"Ughh! Why is a snake here? I hate snakes," A girl said as she looked at the small, blue-colored, slithering snake. "What type of snake even is this? Have I even learned about it yet?"
The snake didn't bother with the girl and slithered away from her without stopping.
"Goddammit, Wait!" she shouted and went after the snake. The snake was quite slow, so she had no problem catching up to it. The snake turned around to look at her and saw the girl make some weird motions with her hands.
A green light was released from her hands and fell onto the snake. "Come with me, you damn snake. I will give you some blueblooded mice. You love those right?" she asked.
Suddenly, the snake turned around and slithered away.
"What?" the girl said in shock and followed after the snake, but the snake was already gone.
"Huh? How did my charm not work on it? Did it break through it?" the girl couldn't help but wonder.
* * * * * *
"Hmm, that looks like a Night Snatcher. If I remember correctly, they love snakeskins, right?" the young man said to himself as he looked at the bird in the tree.
"I'm quite lucky to have found a Night Snatcher this early into the day. If I remember correctly, they are only supposed to show up at night, right?" he thought.
He slowly walked towards the bird, but it was getting darker and darker as the evening got closer.
"I thought we started just a few hours ago. Is it really evening by now?" he wondered but didn't think much about it. He quickly brought out a book from his bag and flipped it around.
He could see words like 'Snake Tongue', 'Feline Tongue', 'Bug Tongue', and many other beast tongues. He stopped on a particular page that had the words 'Bird Tongue' on top of it.
"Alright, let's see. How do I greet," he said and quickly read through it. "I see."
He put down the book and took a deep breath. Slowly, his lungs started glowing as they filled with Qi. Same for his neck which was also getting filled with Qi.
Then, he opened his mouth with his jaw unhinged and didn't close them. Suddenly, the Qi and air in his lungs went up through his neck and a bird-like chirp started sounding from within him.
The Night Snatcher was surprised and looked towards the student. The student had just said the words "Greetings, how are you?" through the bird's chirp, he had just made.
The Night Snatcher chirped back with its back eyes as well.
"Oh, what did it say?" the student quickly flipped through the book to fight a sound that was similar to the one the bird just made.
"Hmm… 'friend', huh? Haha, yes Friend," the student said and immediately went 'Ah!' before saying that he was a friend in the bird's tongue.
They back and forth went on for a little bit longer when suddenly, the Night Snatcher simply left and flew away.
"Wait!" the student shouted, but he couldn't see the Night Snatcher anymore. All this time he spent talking to the bird was wasted just like that.
"What did I do wrong?" he thought as he looked around. "Huh? Why is it so bright all of a sudden."
* * * * * *
"Hey, stop!"
"It's you. Come here."
"I will kill you if you don't come here."
"Hey buddy, do you want some meat?"
"No, it ran away again."
"Oi, no, come. I need you to pass the test."
Ning could hear such voices as he walked through the jungle unassumingly. He currently looked like a tiger's cub with purple stripes instead of black ones.
Thanks to a skill he bought a century or so ago called 108 Transformations. Thanks to that skill, he could turn to change his appearance into anything he wanted.
He purred trying to get the attention of the students. One of the students came up to him, trying to give him food. Ning got close to the student, ate the food, and ran away.
Another student came to him a little later. At that time, the student tried to lure him using some leaves. Ning spit next to him and ran away.
Similar to his beasts, he was also making trouble for the student until it was midnight. Once it hit midnight, however, he returned back out of the forest and called back his beasts too.
Night, Blue, and Aegis came out of the forest and immediately changed their forms back to their real ones.
Blue kept complaining about how annoying the students were, while Aegis didn't really agree with that notion. The students were very friendly towards him.
Night just stayed stoic and didn't speak at all. "Alright, go back inside. Finally, I can let these students tame the beasts," Ning said.
The 3 of them went back into the beast space inside of Ning.
Ning still had his senses spread up to a few kilometers away and was looking at the students. He could also see the beasts he scared away slowly return back as well.
'Alright, that should be enough. It's just a waiting game now,' he thought and sat down on the ground.
