Lin Su’s life didn’t change with a flash of light or some voice announcing rules from the sky. There was no grand reveal, no convenient explanation waiting for him when he realized he could pass between two parallel worlds. It happened quietly, almost awkwardly, the kind of thing you only believe after it keeps happening. What he relied on wasn’t a cheat or a system telling him what to do next, but his own instincts—honed, cautious, and sharper than most people gave him credit for. On top of that, there was his strange, almost natural connection to beasts, something that went well beyond anything written in standard Beast Taming manuals.
Before any of that mattered, though, Lin Su was just another kid trying to survive. He was eighteen, a final-year student at Green Eagle High School, living in Zone 32 of the Yanhuang Safe Alliance. The world around him was the result of disaster layered on disaster, a place where humanity only held its ground by contracting alien beasts and turning them into Guardian Beasts. Beast Tamers weren’t heroes in stories—they were necessities. Without them, the safe zones wouldn’t last a week.
Lin Su had grown up knowing loss better than comfort. When he was three, a massive beast tide tore through the area, leaving him without parents and without answers. From then on, the Autumn Leaves Children’s Welfare Home became his entire world. The alliance provided basic support, enough to keep him alive, but nothing resembling security. He learned early how to budget, how to stay quiet, and how to avoid becoming a burden. He didn’t expect kindness, and he never asked for it.
Money was always tight, so Lin Su found his own way to earn it. Most evenings, he could be found at a run-down arcade nearby. With patience and absurdly precise control, he worked the claw machines until plush toys piled up at his feet. Boss Li, the arcade owner, would grumble and complain, accusing Lin Su of draining him dry, but neither of them meant it seriously. Lin Su sold the toys back at a low price, and Boss Li got steady foot traffic. When Lin Su casually handed one of the prizes to a crying child without thinking twice, it showed who he really was—someone practical, yes, but not cold.
Despite how calm he looked, Lin Su carried a growing unease. The public distribution of initial Guardian Beasts was coming up fast, and everyone knew how important that day was. Your first contracted beast shaped everything—your combat ceiling, your social standing, even whether a top Beast Tamer University would look at you twice. One decision, and your future was effectively locked in.
The situation wasn’t in his favor. Long ago, Immortal-tier alien beasts had enforced the Alien Beast Ban, cutting humans off from contracting truly high-potential species. What remained were mostly Elite-tier beasts, with Commander-tier ones being both rare and outrageously expensive. Green Eagle High School did offer elite options, including the well-known Green Feathered Eagle, but just the breeding fee alone was more than twelve thousand league coins. Lin Su had saved diligently for years, but wealthier students were playing an entirely different game.
Even so, he didn’t spiral or curse his luck. He adjusted, prepared as best he could, and accepted the limits in front of him. The night before allocation day, he skimmed an article about Qin Yunzhang, the alliance’s chief researcher, who claimed alien beasts followed fixed evolutionary routes separate from native species. It sounded revolutionary, but to Lin Su, it was just words on a screen—interesting, maybe important someday, but useless right now.
What he didn’t know was that his path had already shifted. Somewhere between exhaustion and sleep, something slipped. When he woke up, unfamiliar voices greeted him, calling him “young master.” The surroundings were wrong, the air itself felt different, and yet there was a strange sense of connection—as if this place and his own world were linked by an invisible thread.
From that point forward, Lin Su existed between two realms. He didn’t rise through borrowed power or scripted advantages. He trusted his own judgment, forming bonds with beasts through understanding rather than domination. With no romance to distract him and no system holding his hand, Lin Su began walking a road that challenged everything people thought they knew about Beast Tamers—one step at a time, across worlds that were never meant to overlap.
