Before they started to head out to look for more groups of the dogs Joshua pulled Lilly aside before sending out another aura pulse to make sure their surroundings were clear. He didn"t want to stop moving and have a conversation if they were going to be in trouble while doing it. "Um, Josh why are we stopping there are so many puppies out there for us to get!" She said excitedly causing Joshua to look at her weirdly. The things they were taming might be dogs, but they definitely weren"t puppies. h.e.l.l most of them were bigger than Joshua.t"First off I"ve been wondering this for some time, but why are you so certain of the potential of certain creatures. I know you said you can sense it, but sometimes you come across creatures that should have the potential to evolve yet you still don"t seem so excited to tame them." Joshua asked. He had noticed this back in the last dungeon they went too. She had said that the cats in there had only enough potential to grow another tail or something along those lines, but even though they could change she didn"t seem excited in the slightest that they could evolve further.
t"Well there is a reason for that. You see Josh all beast that are tameable can evolve to a certain degree just from the fact that they are tameable." Lilly said getting a confused look from Joshua in return. "You see when I said that creature would grow tails I meant it would become sort of like the boss monster at the end of the dungeon. Multiple tails, but not really all that much of a difference in fighting capabilities. Their evolution would be small and not make a big difference in the long run. On the other hand creatures like Flutter may have only one evolution, but the change was fairly large. Flutter became far more powerful, gained more abilities and even got her main ability to grow even more powerful. Her evolution was worthwhile."
t"So the reason you didn"t want to tame any of the cats in the dungeon outside of Jade was because their evolution didn"t make much of a change?" Joshua asked realizing where Lilly was going with this.
t"Mostly, besides the cats in there don"t measure up to the dogs we just tamed. All though these dogs don"t have much evolution going forward as well the pack leader of the group has a fairly significant evolution in the future. Although I won"t able to see all of its skills and abilities before it was put in to my soul realm forcefully I"m certain it has a higher range of skills than the cat. Plus the dogs work together extremely well, if I"m going to tame a cat it"s going to have to be a powerful one like Jade since most cats are independent in comparison to dogs. There are exception, but not in the cats we"ve seen so far." Lilly finished explaining.
t"That"s interesting, by the way I was wondering if taming a creature makes it easier for it to reach its potential or not." Joshua asked now that the general idea of how Lilly selected which creatures were worth her time to tame.
t"Most definitely. The main reason for that is the fact that the soul beast of the creature"s partner will affect the creature. In my case my soul beast helps by making it so that all creatures I tame have more potential in general. At least at this point anyway, I"m not sure if that will change even more in the future. I just know that now that I"ve tamed Tank and Cinder both of their potentials have increased even more from what they were beforehand." Lilly said with a puzzled look as she turned to Joshua. "Why do you ask?"
t"It just cleared up something for me that I"ve been thinking of lately. Ever since you told me about how once people reach level hundred they will be able to tame their own partner I"ve been thinking of what would be the best partner for me to go after, but based off your answer I think I"ve got a pretty good idea of what type of partner I want to have in the future." Joshua simply said with a smile. He was thinking along the lines of how his soul beast would affect his future partner. Since Buster was a Fenrir he was going to definitely have to tame a beast in the wolf family if he wanted the effects of his soul beast to be the most effective on his partner.
t"I"m guessing you have a pet in mind to go after in the future then?"
t"Now that I"ve learned all this I think I"ve got the perfect one in mind though I doubt I"ll be able to see it any time soon." Joshua replied as he thought of the guardian beast he had seen back in the beginner"s forest. He knew that it would be impossible to tame her since she was linked directly with the planet. She was one of the world"s protectors and therefore her strength grew as the worlds strength grew. In the future he might reach that level or even surpa.s.s it, but the giant wolf he had seen would forever be connected to the planet and be untamable.
Instead of going for the impossible he would love to tame one of her offspring as his partner in the future. They"d grow to be powerful like their mother over time even if they weren"t directly connected to the planet like her. If one of them were influenced to grow even more by Buster than that could only make them even more powerful in the future. For the moment Joshua was going to have to put that thought to the back of his mind and concentrate on what they needed to do right now.
"So are we going to go catch some more dogs now? I can"t wait to see all the types we can find while exploring the forest." Lilly said as they both started to move through the forest once again in search of more dogs. Joshua had sent an aura pulse and started moving in the direction of another large group of them that were a few minutes" walk away from their current location.
"It"s a shame that we don"t gain any experience when taming them. I guess that would make things a bit too easy in the end. It really doesn"t matter since we didn"t come to this area for training anyways." Joshua said with a smile before getting quiet once again as they started closing in on another group of dogs. This time Joshua rushed in and blinked directly towards the leader taking it out before any of the other dogs could get comfortable to fight. This made it easier for Cinder to scare the stragglers into submission while Lilly tamed them with a big smile on her face.
As they moved from group to group Joshua and Lilly came across several different types of dogs running around the forest. There were large dogs like Great Danes that had grown so big they were no longer the size of a horse, but more like the size of a Clydesdale horse that could easily tower over Joshua. They were the biggest dogs they had found in the forest and they were tough to deal with. The German Shepherd had been cunning and calculative making it a great leader while the Great Danes had been more of a tank if anything. Their skin was extremely thick making them hard to hurt and they had a lot of power behind their swipes. Joshua had to take them out by the legs to get them down properly for Lilly to tame.
Another type of dog that they had come across was the Pitbull breed that was extremely thick and muscular. This creature didn"t rely on its height and size to dominate a fight, or its cunning like the German Shepherd, but instead it relied completely on its strength. Joshua had hit one in the back of the head only for it to growl angrily from the moment of pain and turn on him. He had to dodge out of the way as the large dog tried to bite him. He was shocked to see that when it missed and ended up biting onto a large rock nearby it didn"t whine in pain or anything, but instead just bit down and tore apart a good chunk of the rock. The dogs bite strength was absurd and regular punches weren"t going to put it down. It took Joshua jumping on its back and repeatedly bashing its head to finally knock it unconscious.
tIn the end they had gathered several different types of dogs that all had their own unique traits that could be incredibly useful in protecting the territory. Some of them were tremendous trackers that could follow smell from miles away. In fact those were the hardest to deal with since they had constantly lead groups of dogs over to Joshua and Lilly just from being able to track their smells. Other dogs were clearly better fighters that should be put in the front line to tear down any enemies they were up against. Others were great leaders that could organize the group and give commands to either drag out harsh fights without endangering their subordinates or make quick work of any enemy that left an opening.
tAll of the dogs had their own capabilities and Joshua had noticed some more popular breeds weren"t in the forest most likely because they were either not usually in this type of area or inside the dungeon. Some dogs were meant for colder environments instead of the warm area that they were in at the moment. The idea of them being in the dungeon also made sense, most dungeons had similar creatures to the ones that could be found in the surrounding areas.
tAfter searching the place for a while and finding several dogs to tame by the time it was getting late they had already tamed well over a hundred dogs to bring back to the territory after they finish exploring for a while. Along the way Joshua made sure to kill several of the rabbits he found just so they wouldn"t run out of food supplies for all the dogs. Even though they stayed healthy and in good condition in Lilly"s soul realm they still needed to eat daily. Luckily the stable did the feeding for you as long as you supplied it with food.
tBefore it got too late and was getting close to the time to set up camp Joshua used his aura pulse to finally find the dungeon. It was in a clearing towards the center of the forest and the entrance was simply a large stairwell that went deep into the ground with two large dog statues out front. From that alone Joshua was certain that there were probably more dogs inside that could be even stronger than the ones they had captured so far.
t"Can we go tame some more in there? I"m sure we can find even more powerful ones that could help guard the territory." Lilly asked almost pleadingly.
t"Sorry, but we"ll have to save that for another time. I want this dungeon to be used for Jayce"s group to get stronger and if they don"t go through it on the first time then they won"t get as much experience out of it as they could have." Joshua said getting a pout in return from Lilly. "I"m not saying that we can"t go in their eventually, but we"ll let them go first while we go to some tougher dungeons in the other areas. We can come back and do a run through the dungeon to tame any of the dogs inside that you find helpful…which probably means all of them."
t"But what about the variant?"t
t"I highly doubt you have to worry about losing out on a variant. They resp.a.w.n as long as you don"t tame them remember. Just like back at the beginner"s dungeon. Flutter resp.a.w.ned because no one had tamed it up to that point. I"m not sure about afterwards though." With Joshua"s final explanation Lilly decided to go along with his idea. She still wanted to go inside to tame more dogs, but she knew that in the future they would need their future guild to grow stronger. For that to happen they would need people outside of just the ones at the top to grow alongside them.
tThey spent that night in tents just outside of the dungeon since none of the dogs in the forest were willing to walk near the area. With that they got a good rest in preparation for heading to the next area the following day.