As Damien scoured the bookshelves, he found that there truly was knowledge about everything, from the history and powers structure of the world to the various occupations that people followed.
Another section of the bookshelves was wholly devoted to spatial affinity and the different methods of its utilization.
As Damien scoured the bookshelves, he noticed a section focused on beast taming. Looking at the wolf that was still peacefully sleeping on the floor, Damien thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to study up on this field.
Although most of the information he found was useless to him, who had no interest in taking beast taming as a profession, he found a certain ritual titled the ‘Equal Blood Pact’.
This pact seemed to be perfect to use later, so he set it aside before he went on to read the information he found to be the most crucial.
As he read, Damien was pleasantly surprised. The world Damien is stranded in is called Apeiron and it’s what could be considered a typical fantasy world.
Apparently, they had titled the system as the [Apeiron Records] and had changed the name of the world to match. Since he thought this name was cooler than just calling it ‘the system’, he decided to use it from now on.
This world awakened mana thousands of years ago and is ruled by 5 massive empires, the strongest of which is the Adelaire Empire, with around 1/3 of the land being a forested beast domain ruled by 4th class beasts who gained their human form.
There was also a plethora of other races inhabiting the world. Mainly elves, dwarves, and beastmen.
Each race had their own specialty and tended to seclude themselves from each other, but surprisingly, there wasn’t a huge amount of racism between them.
There are also other peak powers like the adventurers guild, auxiliary guilds like the alchemist and forge master guilds and multiple merchant associations. Out of these powers, the adventurers guild is rumored to be the strongest, with a half-step demigod at its head.
As mentioned before, this world has several 4th class beings and they are considered the top tier of the world.
Ordinary civilians which make up a majority of the world’s population hadn’t achieved even their first-class yet, while 1st classes are the most common. Second-class individuals are usually considered around A and the lowest tier of S rank adventurers and third-class accounts for the S and SS rank.
There currently aren’t any 5th class beings alive on the planet, but it’s been said that there were one or two of them who resided here in the past.
5th class is considered as the demigod level, and the method of advancement to god level is only known by them. It’s also fabled that most demigods choose to travel to the “Heavenly World” where all peak experts reside.
Reading this far, Damien decided to take a break before his head exploded from too much information. He found that the customs of this world aren’t that different from Earth, but its hierarchy and strength were vastly different.
After all, even if he went back to Earth right now, Damien would be one of the strongest humans, but here, he was just another ant. Damien grinned at this thought.
Stronger opponents, better fights, and much more fun. This is what Damien had understood from the power scaling of the world.
Damien also found out through his reading that he was currently on the 39th floor, making the dragonoid beast, which he had now discovered was a wyvern, the 40th-floor boss.
‘Damn! Did I climb to the 40th floor already? I swear the goblin king was the 10th-floor boss, but I guess it was the 20th. It seems the only reason it was so easy was because of the intense strengthening I got from my rampage.’
When he put some thought into it, started to make sense. The goblin king’s physical trait that he had stolen was extremely useful against those on or lower than the level of the user. Even in his fight against the beast tide earlier, this ability alone had led to the deaths of a few beasts.
Now that another mystery was solved, the main question he had was about how much time had passed. After he entered the blood world, his sense of time had completely derailed. Putting this to the side, for now, Damien continued.
As Damien switched to reading about the auxiliary occupations, the wolf slowly woke up. When she did, she immediately jumped back and got into a battle-ready stance.
She didn’t understand why she had allowed herself to fall asleep after everything that had been going on these past few days, but she wasn’t ready to die yet.
Glancing around, she found herself in a strange environment, and soon, she saw a bipedal creature leisurely sitting in the distance. With this, her memory started flooding back to her.
From the events leading up to her meeting with Damien, all the way to the appearance of the wyvern and her passing out in his arm, she remembered it all. After receiving all the information, she lowered her guard ever so slightly.
After all, this being could have killed her multiple times over as she slept, but she could feel that she had barely even been touched.
Damien was so absorbed in his reading that he didn’t notice any of this happening, but he soon finished his book and looked up, only to see another pair of eyes looking back at him.
“Oh, you’re up?” Damien said in surprise. “Well, first things first, can you understand me?”
The wolf slowly nodded in acknowledgment.
Although Damien was a bit surprised by her intelligence, he didn’t think it was crazy, after all, he had just learned of the existence of an entire nation of beasts whose leaders had even taken on human form.
Damien pondered for a bit and decided to be blunt. “This might be a bit sudden, but I want to for a pact with you. This pact will connect us and we will become companions from this day forth. So, what do you say?”
The wolf was a bit confused about some of the words Damien used, but she got the gist of the situation. Hearing that she would have to form some kind of bond with this creature she didn’t know, she vehemently shook her head no.
“Okay, I understand your aversion, but hear me out. You have a plethora of beasts and that giant wyvern chasing you, and my goal is to kill that wyvern and the beasts stronger than it before leaving this dungeon.” Damien coaxed.
“If we form this pact, we both have better chances of survival. Plus, when I go to the surface, I can take you with me. Haven’t you ever been curious about what it looks like outside of these dreary cavern walls?”
Seeing that the wolf was still hesitant, Damien was even more convinced to take it as his beast companion. After all, this kind of cautious attitude is exactly what had helped him survive after his fall into the abyss.
Thinking this far, Damien continued to coax the wolf and attempt to persuade it.
The wolf fell into thought. She knew she couldn’t survive alone due to the wyvern sensing her bloodline aura, so it would be best to gain help.
Plus, she was interested in what the bipedal beast had told her about a world outside of this cavern. Slowly, she nodded her head, expressing her agreement to the pact.
“Great!” Damien exclaimed as he grabbed the sheet of paper outlining the blood pact. After reading it over one more time, Damien spoke,
“It looks like all we have to do is take a drop of blood each and express our consent. The rest will be done by the system.”
As they both did as he said, a system message popped up in front of Damien’s eyes.
[Congratulations. You have formed a pact with an unnamed level 40 Fallen Wolf. As the first individual from the world [Earth] to accomplish such a feat, you have been awarded experience. Your legend has been enhanced.]
Along with this message, Damien felt a wave of foreign emotions. Uncertainty, doubt, curiosity, and most prominent, an intense will to survive.
The wolf felt a similar rush of emotions. From Damien, she felt worry, anxiety, determination, and an intense flame that shone with heat surpassing any sun that represented his will to survive.
As they shared emotions, Damien smiled. “Well, I guess it’s time for introductions. My name is Damien Void, and it’s a pleasure working with you.”
The wolf felt a bit dazzled by this smile but was confused about what to say. Although she couldn’t talk yet, she could convey her feelings to Damien through their pact.
Feeling her confusion, Damien shook his head in amusement and asked, “So, do you want me to name you, or do you want to do it yourself?”
The wolf’s eyes brightened as she nodded, conveying her desire for a name unique to her.
Damien smiled once again. “Okay then, from this moment forth, you’ll be called Zara.”
Zara wagged her tail, conveying her satisfaction towards her new name as she walked forward and nuzzled up to Damien. Now that she could feel his emotions clearly, she had no reservations towards him.
Damien ran his hand through her soft fur as he fell into thought.
‘Well then, I guess it’s time for me to have my very first proper training montage.’