This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

The first match of the National Tournament opened with a whimper, not a bang.

At least, that was the general consensus among the upper years.

Dark Moon had drawn one of the lowest-ranked colleges in the bracket—Starridge Institute. A southern school known more for its agriculture-based elective courses than its combat performance. They hadn’t made it to the National stage in nearly two decades.

And so, predictably, the match ended quickly.

Kairos won the solo 1v1 in under two minutes, his cursed constructs slicing clean through his opponent’s defence like he was checking off boxes on a practice drill. If anything, the practice drills they needed to conduct at the college offered more resistance than the opponent.

Dwayne, Soren, and Hailey handled the 3v3 next, ending it before the ten-minute mark. They didn’t even need to summon the maximum of 3 contracts per person—instead managing to take down the 9 opposing contracts with only 3.

No full team battle.

No major arena clash.

No Kain.

No Serena.

No satisfaction.

The crowd was not pleased.

The camera operators knew it, too. Because every time the match began to lull—or, more accurately, every ten seconds—they’d cut back to Kain’s face. And the crowd would erupt.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Somewhere in the left section of the upper stands, a pair of girls had held up a banner that read “KAIN YOU NOT BE SO PERFECT?!”. Not far from them, another student held a flag with the words “Kain of Thought” in bold silver letters across a navy blue background.

Then came the posters.

One had Kain’s face meticulously sketched in charcoal, complete with exaggerated jawline and sparkling eyes. Another depicted him atop a massive stylized star, surrounded by floating fairies and Gilded Serafin spelling out “Blueprint Daddy.”

And those were just the more presentable ones…Kain had to utilize all of the muscles in his face to prevent it from changing when he saw a poster with his face asking him to ‘step on them’…and the one holding that poster was a burly bearded man twice Kain’s size.

“Dark Moon College wins by submission!” the announcer’s voice echoed around the arena, dragging Kain’s thoughts back to the present.

Cheers erupted—but mostly polite ones.

He glanced up at the broadcast lens, noticed it shift slightly in his direction, and made brief eye contact.

The cheers doubled.

Serena, sitting beside him with her usual impeccable posture, smirked. “You’re not even fighting, and you’re still stealing the spotlight.”

Kain sighed morosely. “That is the pain and struggle of being so talented and handsome, the spotlight follows me wherever I go…”

Serena merely rolled her eyes, whereas their returning teammates (Kairos, Dwayne, and Soren) simply glared at Kain in disgust.

Thankfully, one of the nearby staff who overheard seemed to think highly of Kain and added lightly. “He did start a movement in a sense”

He blinked. “A movement?”

She nodded at the field.

The camera zoomed in as the participants for the next match took over their stage, it was a matchup between two low-ranking schools Kain was unfamiliar with. And there, clear as day, stood a young boy—no older than first year—holding out a hand to summon his spiritual creature.

A Clear Spring Wolf.

Another student across from him reached out and a tiny, fluttering figure appeared into her palm.

A four-winged lesser Water-elemental Fairy.

The chat from the broadcast was already popping off.

>MarryMeKain: Omg that’s a Clear Spring Wolf right? Didn’t Kain Newman popularize that species??

>StuffSoRandom: That’s one of those fairy things that can evolve from a silkworm right? My nephew surprisingly wanted a Silkworm as his first contract, will it eventually look like that?

>BoomBastic798: Kain wasn’t in the fight but his legacy was 💀

Serena leaned closer. “That’s the fifth Clear Spring Wolf I’ve seen so far today.”

“They’re popular,” Kain murmured, trying not to look smug. “Ever since I released the updated FMT pill ratios, they’re way easier to raise. Low cost, clean compatibility. Doesn’t need years and mountains of resources to evolve anymore.”

“There have also been a few fairies this competition despite that being a relatively new evolutionary form discovered. There will probably only be more next year,” The listening staff member added.

Kain nodded, although he was a little disappointed by the quality of the fairies seen in the competition. Most of them were lesser elemental fairies, with 2 pairs (4 wings in total) of wings, like the one on the stage right now.

So far, Kain had only seen one match today with a greater fairy with 3 pairs (6 total) wings, which was summoned by a second-year in a match earlier from a College in the top 20.

So far, Kain had scarcely heard of anyone across the entire empire managing to create a Royal Fairy, so it made sense that he hadn’t seen one in this competition.

But still, the current turnout was good. And judging by the fact that the lesser water fiary on stage right now was performing very well, Kain could assume that there would be another boom of people wanting to have their own after the Nationals. Kain almost felt guily to the organizers, this national event was practically a free advertisement for the different patents he owned.

The fact was, Kain hadn’t even meant to start a trend… He’d just wanted to fulfil the promise to one of his research assistants and help his Leafwing Moth evolve. But the cuteness of the resulting evolution had exploded its popularity beyond expectation.

What was once considered a contract only for the absolute poorest with low potential, the common Silkworm had now become a full-blown national craze. Images of its tertiary evolution, the, Elemental Fairies, was now everywhere online. And it was now solidly in the lists of bot the 10 most common and most desired contracts.

Especially among the first-years.

At least a third of them had some kind of contract that could be traced back to one of Kain’s studies—Elemental Fairy, Clear Spring Wolf, Gilded Serafin. A few even had a Warhog Ravager (the Ragin Steelboar Evolution Kain recently patented).

The Lumifin evolution—Gilded Serafin—had become especially popular among light-attribute tamers. Kain spotted at least two in the warmup chambers earlier today. One looked like it had the mutation that glowed gold when agitated.

“I hate it,” Kain muttered. After all, now there were so many of the same species at the National Tournament, reducing the variability.

“You love it,” Serena replied, calling him out for his feigned humbleness.

“I don’t.”

“You wrote a twenty-page public memo addressed to parents on why the Silkworm, Lumifin, and River Wolf Pup were the ideal first contracts for their children.”

“That was for academic integrity. I logically analyzed the pros and cons of common first-contract species and came to the conclusion that those were the best ones,” he said defensively.

“You hosted an online webinar after you first patented the elemental fairies, where you made the attendees chant ‘Eight wings is the dream.'”

Kain didn’t blink. “Motivation is key in education.”

Serena gave him a flat look.

“…Okay,” he admitted, “maybe I mildly enjoy watching my discoveries reshape a generation.”

She snorted. “Mildly, huh?”

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