Terrence had his eyes firmly set on the Nexus. With it basically serving as a lawless region across the continent, he didn’t have to worry about alarming the local Contribution Agency regarding his rapid clearing of dungeon rifts.

Terrence had wanted to do something like this before, but he was always careful to ensure the Contribution Agency wouldn’t investigate his movements or keep their watchful eyes on him.

Sure enough, all normal rules would fall apart if a sudden anomaly appeared in their records. Who in their right mind would be considered a normal person to clear entire dungeons as quickly as slapping away annoying mosquitoes? Even the recorded strongest tamer in the world couldn’t just clear dungeon rifts like clapping at bugs.

As the elevator’s altitude dropped rapidly and the dense mist grew thicker while the mechanical platform descended into the abyss, Terrence could feel the heavy tension settling around him.

He was standing completely alone on the platform, but he already felt like he was definitely not alone down here.

’Could this really be the true Nexus? It is quite different from what I was initially expecting... Sure, it is still undeniably eerie, but it feels like a bitterly cold version of hell.’

Terrence’s eyes filled with deep anticipation as each second passed, bringing him closer to the lowest floor of this cracked earth surface.

Soon enough, the platform came to a complete halt, and he could already feel the violent fluctuations of raw mana radiating from several different directions. Traces of human activity were still visible around the foot of the central elevator, but those signs would soon become thinner the deeper one walked into the abyss.

Unregistered dungeon rifts clung to his bare skin like heavy static as he finally stepped off the elevator and took his first step forward. Almost immediately, he saw three separate dungeon rifts standing not far from each other in the gloom.

To his left was a standard C-Rank dungeon rift, while right beside it sat a low-tier D-Rank portal. On the opposite side of the trail stood another violent C-Rank rift.

He saw small groups of tamers entering and exiting the various dungeon rifts, likely testing their limits or training inside the unstable spaces. Some were actively using the lower rifts as simple resource-mining dimensions, considering that mana infusion works significantly faster inside an active dungeon rift.

Infusing raw mana directly into a blank stone or a basic tool was normally an inefficient and cheap way to extract a greater magical effect from mana. Terrence didn’t even bother thinking about doing something like that, as it would be nothing more than a complete waste of his precious time.

With each second that passed as he strode forward, he noticed far more dungeon rifts than he had ever entered in total. The sheer scale of the Nexus Network was truly no joke after all.

"Shit... I can already feel a slight difficulty in breathing out here," Terrence complained to himself as he came to a sudden halt before one particular dungeon rift.

It was a dangerous B-Rank portal, and it marked the twentieth dungeon rift he had passed since aimlessly walking through the intricate, winding paths of this cracked earth surface.

Watching the swirling purple rift humming directly before him, he took a deep breath of the stale air before stepping inside.

The moment he arrived on the other side of the portal, he held his breath while carefully checking what kind of ecosystem and biome this dungeon rift possessed.

After looking around and seeing zero similarity to any living civilization, he let out a long sigh of relief.

Noir appeared silently by his side in a flash of dark mist, while Avery remained safe inside the Beast Sanctuary to continue resting. Avery had fought exceptionally well during their previous battle, but he had severely overexerted his physical body during that brutal fight with the long-eared human tamer.

The physical toll on Avery was massive compared to Noir, so for the time being, Noir would act as Terrence’s main battle unit and personal guide.

This particular dungeon rift was a dense Jungle Biome. Given how thoroughly familiar Terrence was with these types of environments, he didn’t have a hard time trekking across the swampy ground and maneuvering past mutated trees with thick veins extending down from above.

Noir effortlessly erased every physical obstacle they passed while actively locating any wild beast hiding nearby.

Soon enough, they located their first target, and Noir immediately dropped into a low, ready stance.

Terrence peeked out from behind a thick tree trunk at a distance, carefully observing a giant Frog Beast that appeared just a few tens of meters away from his position.

Its thick skin was completely covered with swarming Fly Beasts, and this giant Frog Beast was actively preying on the smaller creatures. With a massive frame roughly similar to the size of a commercial sedan, the bottle-sized Fly Beasts were completely powerless against the ruthless harvesting method the frog was executing.

Terrence’s eyes narrowed as he suddenly recalled that this creature looked remarkably similar to Clara’s former beast, right before he had sold that powerful A-Rank Guard Slime to her.

Its wide back was covered with vibrant blue lines, while most of its body maintained a sickly green, slimy texture. Its large eyes looked like polished black obsidian gems featuring a bright yellow horizontal line running through the center.

Its thick neck stretched out grotesquely, catching yet another buzzing Fly Beast in mid-air before swallowing it whole.

"I really didn’t think I would ever see something like this with my own eyes in this life... A wild beast actively preying on another wild species. What I normally see is humans fighting them alongside their contracted tames. But I guess raw wildness still exists among them just like normal animals out in nature."

He mentally opened his golden System window prompt and focused on materializing the Beast Net artifact. Following a few brilliant sparkles of light appearing over his open palm, the physical item slowly materialized in his grip.

He felt his fingers clench tightly around the smooth handle of the newly spawned artifact. The handle measured roughly two meters in length, attached to a wide net loop with a half-meter diameter opening.

It looked ridiculously gigantic for an insect net or hand catcher, but its long handle shone with a brilliant golden hue instead of a dull, ordinary material.

"So... how exactly should we execute this?" Terrence murmured, recalling the core rule about weakening a wild beast first before catching it or attempting to form a contract with it.

However, he wasn’t just catching this creature for his own party—he had to somehow convert it into sellable merchandise for his shop.

"The true magical properties of this artifact are still a bit of a mystery to me..." He sighed softly, pausing for a few seconds before glancing down at Noir.

"Go ahead and immobilize it, Noir. But make absolute sure that it doesn’t end up too heavily injured in the process."

Noir gave a swift nod, and the Shadow Hound instantly vanished into thin air from right beside him.

A split second later, Noir reappeared directly on top of the giant Frog Beast. Catching the creature in total surprise, Noir landed heavily on top of its wide head, slamming the monster hard into the muddy ground and causing it to immediately lose consciousness from the impact.

Terrence rushed out from his hiding spot toward the scene, pushing his way through a scattered swarm of panicking Fly Beasts escaping the area. As he arrived at the strike zone, he exhaled in relief upon confirming that the Frog Beast was still alive and breathing.

"This will be test experiment number one. Can I actually catch this unconscious frog and register it as viable store merchandise?" Terrence asked himself out loud as he raised the golden Beast Net up into the air.

The unequal sizes between the net and the creature were visibly glaring and uncomfortable—the massive Frog Beast obviously wouldn’t fit into a net with a half-meter opening under normal physical laws. Nevertheless, Terrence proceeded with his attempt, hoping for a magical System miracle to happen.

Sure enough, the moment he swung the tool forward, the magical diameter of the net stretched wide across the air. With effortless ease, Terrence splayed the golden mesh over the giant Frog Beast, capturing it in a single fluid motion.

The massive Frog Beast vanished instantly from the muddy ground as its entire body compressed and fit seamlessly into the glowing Beast Net.

A crisp System notification chimed in his mind right on cue:

[Congratulations! You have successfully captured and added a new beast to your store merchandise list: Azure-lined Frog.]

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