This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Kain didn't actually start planting any of the spiritual plants because they'd be completely vulnerable to being damaged or taken away by any passing human or spiritual creatures.

What Kain needed for his future base of operations were wards.

Unfortunately, the cheapest wards that the college had to offer with no defensive abilities and only served as an alarm notification of invasion for Kain, was 1000 credits. Not to mention that it would be easily bypassed by any orange-grade spiritual creature or 3-star beast-tamer.

Now with 5360 credits to use, Kain could purchase a much more powerful ward to protect his plants.

He filtered the wards to limit them to ones that would be effective against yellow-grade spiritual creatures.

There were wards that repelled all unauthorized entrants and all attacks unless granted permission. Others also had an auto-repair function that could regenerate the ward's energy and the spiritual power contained within it given enough time. Some also had unique effects such as rebounding a certain percentage of physical and energy attack damage to the ward.

Then there were the wards that didn't have such a strong effect on preventing entry but were more effective at harming invaders once they entered.

These types often also had elemental attribute effects. For example, the Inferno Ward that inflicts continuous fire damage on creatures attempting to breach the ward and the fire damage increases with time.

Or the Frostguard Ward which applies a chilling effect that drastically reduces the speed and attack power of invaders while also causing frostbite effects.

Then there were wards that didn't prevent entry or cause much harm to invaders such as illusionary wards that create a complex array of illusions that mislead and confuse invaders. This makes navigation through the ward difficult. Or wards aimed at impeding or even eliminating all of the senses of invaders.

Given that the purpose of the ward Kain wanted was to prevent the damage and theft of his spiritual creatures, he figured that the best ward for him would be one that prevented entrants to begin with. After all, even if an invader received continuous damage after entering, they could still persist in trying to damage or steal his spiritual plants.

Therefore, Kain limited his options to the Sentinel Barrier and the Ethereal Ward, which cost 5000 and 5300 credits each.

The Sentinel Barrier provides a strong energy barrier that prevents unauthorized entry, and repels physical and energy-based attacks. It also has an auto-repair function that regenerates the ward's integrity over time. Additionally, it reflects 10% of physical and energy damage back to the attacker.

The Ethereal Ward was a barrier that incorporated a small amount of specific spiritual materials that needed to be replenished every 6 months to run. It can prevent the entry of yellow-grade spiritual creatures. It is also able to distort and deflect spiritual and physical attacks back to the source at full strength.

In the event of an invasion by a green-grade spiritual creature, or a 5-star beast-tamer, it can cause an all-round reduction of abilities by around 30%.

The Ethereal Ward's abilities are stronger and can even help Kain with dealing with invaders he'd be helpless against otherwise. Although even with a 30% reduction in strength he wouldn't be able to kill a Green-grade spiritual creature yet, but he may be able to escape with his life if ambushed by a creature like the Glacial Leviathan while alone.

However, he wasn't hesitant about the cost of the materials he would need to supply it with each month. After all, if he couldn't afford to activate it, then it would be no different from having no wards in place.

Therefore, he went to speak with one of the employees present. Likely due to the sudden influx of students wanting to exchange their materials from the beast-tide and purchase new items to strengthen themselves, there were many more employees present than usual.

However, even then it took Kain quite a while to flag someone down and get a more detailed list of the spiritual materials needed to keep the Ethereal Ward activated and their cost.

If Kain purchased it from the school, it would cost around 300 credits every 6 months. However, if he were to try and purchase them outside of the school the cost in CD would be much higher. And if he tried to gather them all on his own it may take him the full 6 months, while compromising his training and cultivation time.

Weighing the pros and cons, Kain figured that an expenditure of 600 credits every year to have some protection against Green-grade spiritual creatures and 5-star beast-tamers was worth it. And made the exchange. Thankfully the first set of spiritual materials was included with the purchase, because after buying the Ethereal Ward, Kain was once again destitute.

He headed back to his large plot of land. He'd already had someone remove all of the weeds overgrown on it and turn over the soil.

Kain also took some of the body parts without any value that he'd collected during the beast tide and used them as a fertilizer to ensure that the soil had enough spiritual power. After all, the field had only been used to grow ordinary weeds for years, there were was definitely not enough spiritual power to grow orange-grade spiritual plants as Kain planned.

After following the relatively straightforward instructions to establish the ward, Kain began to transplant the delicate juvenile spiritual plants to the field.

He also handed the many seeds he'd collected to the released Vespirae Guards who planted them as instructed by Queen.

Whether it was an innate ability of the Vespirae species, or due to her symbiotic relationship with Eve, Queen was extremely sensitive to the growth conditions and health of spiritual plants. Having her responsible for seeding the field was a lot more reliable that Kain.

On top of that, after reaching orange-grade, the potency of the life-attribute energy Eve released into the ground was greatly improved. In less than an hour, every inch of the massive field had been influenced by Eve and many of the seeds majority of the had already begun to sprout.

The different species of spiritual plants had different growth rates. Normally it may take several months or even years for a spiritual plant to reach maturity. But with the help of Eve, Kain may see his first fully mature spiritual plant among the juvenile plants in less than a week, and among the seeds in around 3 months.