Is this really a Game?!

Winter had come.

Snow had blanketed the area around Doncaster, with the city being void of any of it thanks to the barrier that the giant golden tree provided for them.

The forests around the town, as well the grasslands and all other areas were covered by snow, some of the monsters living there finding it difficult to survive as the temperature would drop by quite a lot during the night, freezing some of the weaker monsters that were unable to find shelter on time.

The players had also found it more difficult to hunt monsters now. The cold weather made it more difficult, but the blanket of snow and the fact that it was harder to move was another reason as to why.

Some had almost died when being chased by stronger monsters they didn't count on encountering and then getting lost further away, not able to come back to the city before night fell.

Reign and the others had returned about 2 weeks ago.

To be more specific, Reign and Mia returned about 4 weeks ago, Wolf and Laura had returned a couple of days before them, and the rest came back a couple of days after them, with Beast being the last one to return 1 week ago.

The weather was bad, and it was only going to get worse, and colder. Eldar and Jack had told them that as they were privy to how the weather was changing.

It was still only in their area that the weather was this bad as, when going to the sea, the weather was obviously different, it was warmer and it had just started to snow a bit.

New York was still fine.

Winter had still not arrived there, the weather was fine, a bit colder, but that was all.

Right now, Reign and the others were sitting in their living room, all of them having serious expressions on their faces.

"I won't stop you or anything, but are you sure, it will be dangerous, you know that much." Reign said as Beast nodded his head.

"It hasn't evolved yet, it's at the peak of Tier V, this is the best opportunity I will have."

"With Blackie and my other beasts, I am certain I can do it."

"We will be close, if we do judge the situation as dire, we will intervene," Wolf told Beast who nodded his head at his words.

"I know."

"When do you want to go there?"

"Today, I don't want to wait any longer, I don't want to go, only to find out it has evolved."

"With how quickly it is progressing, we are barely able to keep up, this is the first time we have managed to be a Tier higher than it, and I don't want to miss this opportunity."

"Alright then, we will all get ready and go with you, we will stay back and observe, but again, just like Wolf has said, if we do notice that things are dire for you, we will be intervening."

"And don't you dare get angry if we do." Shadow added from the side, which made Beast chuckle.

"Yessir!"

"Alright, enough of that, get ready." Reign said as they all stood up before making their way to their rooms.

What they were all talking about was of course the raid boss, the flood dragon that was given a mark by Miriam who had done the same for Wolf in the past.

It was still a Tier V monster, and Beast wished to try and tame it.

He wanted to try it himself, he wanted to fight it, to beat it down till it submitted, and he knew that the best chance he had of that was now, and by doing it alone.

It wasn't as if he couldn't tame it with the others present, but a proud beast like a flood dragon would recognize his strength more easily if he managed to defeat it by himself.

His chances of taming it would be much higher, and with his beasts present, he wouldn't truly be alone anyway.

He got quite lucky during his challenge mission.

He was sent to the wilderness on a new planet, alone, with nobody with him.

The entire region he was in, one that was even larger than the one Doncaster was present in, was void of anything but this giant forest and the myriad of monsters living inside of it.

Beast's challenge was one that he thought was impossible at first.

It was to tame a Tier VI monster.

At first, he was certain the system had it for him. He had always been lucky, and now he believed that the system was doing its best to revert that by giving him such a difficult evolution challenge.

After all, it was much harder to tame a monster that was multiple levels above him than those who were lower or were the same level, and when it came to those an entire Tier above him, it was almost impossible.

Not to mention the possibility of dying from such a powerful monster.

However, the challenge proved to not be impossible for Beast who once again got lucky.

At first, he wandered around the forest, battling monsters and capturing some new ones. He had changed almost every tamed beast he had, only Fluffy and Blackie were left with him.

Fluffy was Tier V, while Blackie was now Tier VI, he had evolved together with him.

After spending weeks in the forest, an opportunity presented itself to Beast. He found a Tier VI monster he could tame.

It was still a newborn.

A cub of a powerful wyvern that dominated an area of the forest. It was a Tier VIII monster, one that could kill him with a single flap of its wings.

It had left its nest and went hunting. It had done so often, and it usually took hours to come back as it needed to go to other areas to find suitable monsters to hunt and bring back to its babies.

In total, there were 4 baby wyverns in the nest, all of them Tier VI monsters.

That was because both of their parents were Tier VIII monsters, and the more powerful one was, the more powerful their babies would be. That was not the case for humans and many other races, but it was always the case for monsters.

The more evolutions they went through, the more powerful they became, and the more difficult it was to produce offsprings, but the advantage they had was that the babies would have a portion of their power and they would be strong from birth.

It took Beast quite some time to finally tame one. He had spent hours every day going to the nest and simply standing there so that the baby wyverns would feel comfortable with him. He would make sure to stay there for only two hours before going back.

That was so he wouldn't leave a noticeable trace for the mother wyvern to notice, and for his aura that would be left to dissipate in time. Finally, after doing so for an entire week, he managed to befriend one baby wyvern who decided to come close to him to play.

It was quite a rough play session as the wyvern didn't know just how powerful it was. It was a Tier VI monster, and even though it was a baby, its beak and claws were sharp enough to damage Beast's armor, and the powerful hide it had allowed it to be unbothered by Beast, even if he punched it, it would barely feel a thing.

He spent a couple of more days playing with the baby and getting more familiar with it, and during that time, one more baby wyvern started playing with them.

In the end, the last day, he had spent a total of 3 hours trying to tame the baby, which he was finally able to do. He wished to try and tame the other one, but he knew that since he had stayed longer than usual, there was a high chance the mother would notice his trace, not to mention that it would notice that one baby was missing.

He could place the newly tamed wyvern baby back in the nest, but he didn't know how the mother would react, he didn't know if it would notice that something was different with the baby, and in the worst case scenario, if it would actually kill it.

He left, he ran away as far as he could, which proved to be the right thing to do.

Even though he was miles away when the mother arrived back in the nest, he was able to hear and sense the rage that came from the wyvern. The area around the nest was destroyed by its rage, trees were uprooted, mountains were flattened, it was akin to a natural disaster.

He had evolved a day after that, after he was certain he was far enough from the wyvern, only to see it coming at him after he evolved.

He wasn't able to stay in that world even a minute after his evolution as he had to teleport back, otherwise he would have been killed by the wyvern.

And now, it was time for him to go after the flood dragon and tame it.