Upon entering the digital world, Linus appeared inside an empty white room with only two items inside. This was his personal space which wasn't personalised due to him being poor. There was only a default study table which had been free and a default bookshelf filled with his high school textbooks. Aside from those, only the books necessary for becoming an apprentice pet cultivator could be found inside it.

He didn't linger around in his empty personal space but immediately left after indicating his destination to be White Bone City. People who entered the digital world could go to any public city of the Global Federation for free, but any administration related to a person had to happen in the real world or the virtual city in which he resides.

Linus appeared on the public teleportation square of the virtual White Bone City. He was surrounded by streams of people teleporting in and out of the city, mostly the latter as White Bone City is only a subsidiary city under the regional White Star City. He didn't linger around and immediately headed towards his destination while taking in his surroundings. Aside from people and massive buildings, pets accompanying their trainers and advertisements related to pet food, pet training centres, pet dojos and more could be found everywhere.

One of the most interesting sights was a father and daughter riding a Bronze rank Bone Lizard through the streets. It did, however, not take long for Linus to reach his destination which was the city hall. He came here to register his awakening and ability which was required before he would be given a certificate that was needed to buy beasts and legally contract a beast as a pet.

The certificate was also necessary to take part in the apprentice pet cultivator examination. He entered the city hall which was relatively empty except for a few people. After entering, he was immediately welcomed by a virtual assistant who asked about his reason for visiting.

Linus answered that he came to register his awakening and the assistant immediately replied that something like that was under its jurisdiction. The assistant then guided Linus inside a private booth where he had to provide his identification credentials. After providing those it asked if he successfully awakened his contract space to which he affirmed. Afterwards, he was asked to be allowed to be scanned to confirm his awakening.

Linus agreed and in the real world, his virtual bracelet scanned his body detecting his contract space without any problems. Inside the digital world, a confirmation appeared in front of the assistant allowing it to continue the registration. It then asked Linus to explain his taming ability as only the user knew what it was. This wasn't necessary or required, but those who didn't disclose their abilities or were found to be lying would not be considered by the taming universities, pet dojos and corporations.

Linus explained that his taming ability belonged to the fourth category and was called shadow kingdom while also providing the description the contract space had transmitted to him. The virtual assistant didn't move for a small amount of time, before beginning to work again after he had finished describing his ability.

It had registered the ability to shadow kingdom under the fourth category with an unconfirmed tag while also listing its description which was: 'The king ruled over all and darkness reigned within the kingdom.'

After it finished registering, it returned its attention to Linus and answered that his ability was successfully registered and that his apprentice pet trainer certificate was added to his information credentials. It also mentioned that his ability had never appeared since the Global Federation was established. It did refer to some other abilities which had similarities to it which it had sent to Linus's mail.

Linus thanked the assistant, before leaving the city hall. He didn't immediately head to the Pet cultivator association branch inside White Bone City. He found a quiet place on a bench at the side of the road he had to take towards the branch. After sitting down, he checked the mail, the virtual assistant had sent him, which had information about abilities which showed similarities with his shadow kingdom.

The information contained the description of ten other fourth category abilities. The first was called stone castle and it allowed the user to project a stone castle within his contract space in which earth elemental energies were richer speeding up the cultivation of earth elemental pets. Aside from that, the castle could also be projected outside the person's contract space protecting all who reside within.

This was an ability that was highly valued by the Global Federation and only three people are known to have awakened it. The second ability was called ice queen and allowed the user to be immune to the cold while also allowing the user to control ice in a limited manner which would develop as the contract space became stronger.

Another ability which was highly valued due but less than the first. Other abilities similar to the first and second appeared among them with only big differences to be found in the related elements. The last ability listed among the ten was Linus's former ability shadow king which allowed the user to control his own and his pets' shadows. Those shadows could rise from the ground and be used to defend, attack and bind opponents.

Shadow king was an ability of intermediate value and rare rarity due to its utility and special element. Linus used what he already knew about his new ability and what he learned from those other similar abilities to determine one of his shadow kingdom's characteristics.

The fused dark shadow energies should most probably enhance the recovery and cultivation of dark and shadow elemental pets. Aside from that, he speculated that it had another characteristic or usage, but he still hadn't discovered it. What he did know was that he couldn't project it into reality while also not using it to control his shadow or darkness.

Like some other abilities, it probably required him to have contracted a pet before it could be used. Now that the anxiety and stress about his ability had diminished by a lot, he left the bench and headed towards the Pet cultivator association to take the examination.

Linus swiftly arrived at the branch and upon entry was again greeted by a virtual assistant. Compared to the city hall, the Pet cultivator association branch was extremely busy and filled. Many people and their pets could be seen waiting and talking. They mostly talked about which pet cultivator to contact to heal, strengthen or evolve their pets. On the other hand, a minority of pet cultivators talked amongst each other or contacted clients.

After Linus took in his surroundings, he notified the virtual assistant about his reason for entry. The virtual assistant registered him to take the virtual pet cultivator exam after confirming his information credentials and apprentice pet trainer certificate. It then led him to a door which would lead to a private room temporarily created for him to take the exam under the assistant's supervision.

After entering, he seated himself and found a question list which consisted of a hundred theoretical questions related to pets and pet cultivation. The first question was a foundational question asking him to explain the different ranks and levels of pets and pet trainers.

He answered the standard answer that pets were divided into ten ranks which were iron, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, king, emperor, legendary and mythical. Each rank was divided into 9 minor levels and pet trainers were similarly divided into ten ranks known as apprentice pet trainer, professional pet trainer ranked from bronze to diamond, master, grandmaster, legendary and mythical pet trainer.

A pet trainer is ranked after both his contract space while also requiring him to have at least one pet of that rank. Pets also had race ranks which determined their potential for growth and further growth would require evolution into a higher being.

The second question asked about the power of pets and how they manifested. This was another easy question to which he gave the standard answer that beasts and pets had racial skills which gave them power and allowed them to control this power. One racial skill would awaken according to its rank while other skills could be learned depending on compatibility, comprehension and training.

An example would be that a bronze rank healing lily had two racial skills called healing aura and vitality dew which allowed it to heal others using its aura and dew that it could condense using water in the atmosphere. Healing lilies could also learn skills like petal dance, sweet fragrance and more.

Following the first two foundational questions, more difficult questions appeared like which type of potion was best used to treat burn wounds on a water elemental type pet. Which potion is required to evolve an iron rank skeleton. Which ingredients are used to concoct a basic healing potion? How much ice dew is used in a perfect basic ice element replenishment potion.

Those kinds of questions continued to appear throughout the entire exam, but Linus didn't slow down in answering and remained equally confident. All the effort and time the previous Linus had spent studying and memorising seemed to have paid off as he knew the answer to all the questions.

The potion and ingredient related questions never exceeded information over the iron rank as that was the only free publically available knowledge published by the Pet cultivator association. It was also the only required knowledge for apprentice pet cultivators, but this didn't make the exa easy as it required the exam taker to apply his theoretical knowledge in provided examples. Although this wasn't a problem for Linus, others failed miserably to apply the diverse knowledge found in 25 theoretical books.

After Linus had answered 99 questions only the last remained. This was a bonus question and wouldn't affect his final score if he wasn't capable of answering but answering successfully would elevate his result.

The question went as follows: 'A level 9 iron rank dark rose wants to evolve, but no possible evolution methods have been found until now. How would you try to evolve this pet and explain your reasoning?'

Linus was troubled by this question as there wasn't a certain correct answer and they wanted to mainly test his understanding of pet cultivation and how he would tackle unknown problems.

After thinking and deducing a method in five minutes, he wrote his answer down before checking all his other answers. He then handed in his exam to the virtual assistant who started correcting the exam while Linus waited for the result.

While the virtual assistant was correcting the first 99 answers, the last question was sent to a professional pet cultivator responsible for the apprentice exams at White Bone City's branch.

The professional's name was Gert Wellington and he was a low-rank professional pet cultivator while also being a silver rank professional pet trainer. When Gert saw the question about the dark rose, he sighed as this was the most difficult bonus question that a person could get and which had never been answered in any decent way.

He started reading Linus's answer and from having a boring expression it started changing to one of intrigue until it became one of shock when he reached the end. He deduced that what Linus had come up with was logically sound and could maybe help a dark rose to evolve. The thing that shocked him, however, was Linus's ingenuity and creativity.

Linus's answer was the following:

'A peak iron rank dark rose doesn't have the capability of becoming bronze rank due to its iron rank racial limit. Dark roses are also known for their weakness and uselessness as their only racial skill dark petal are too weak to damage or defend against attacks, only leaving them as a distraction tool.

Dark roses are darkness elemental type plant beasts or pets who have to absorb fairly pure darkness elemental energy from the air or a fluid. No known methods for evolution have been found due to both its inherent restrictions and weakness while also having high requirements for darkness energy.

Commonly a certain type of potion that is focused on enhancing a pet's racial skills and elemental affinity would help it evolve while in other circumstances certain environments and multiple potions are used to evolve a pet, this mostly happens for higher rank pets and beasts.

The first type has certainly already been tested unsuccessfully on dark roses only leaving the second option. This option will be a lot more expensive but could maybe help it evolve and as is common knowledge the more high-quality materials are used in the evolution, the more powerful type of race the pet will evolve making it worth it.

Two things have to be taken into consideration, the first is the racial skill of dark petal and a dark rose's high requirement for darkness energy. The second is the easiest to simulate as it only requires the dark rose to absorb a higher quality darkness energy from either a higher grade potion or a natural environment like the night jungle outside the regional Nightmare City. A pet trainer with a special ability that provides high-quality darkness energy in their contract space could also work.

The first is more tricky, but instead of focusing only on materials and potions to stimulate the skill. The dark rose could also learn other skills which enhance its petals like sharp petals, sturdy leaves and darkness synthesis. After having learned skills that enhance its petals, a dark lotus potion that's normally used by iron rank lotuses to evolve into silver race rank abyss lotuses could be used on a dark rose as it would stimulate both the racial skill dark petal while also providing even higher grade darkness energy to further stimulate the darkness energy of the dark rose.

The energy and dark lotus potion speak for themselves why they should be used but the reasoning for training other skills to enhance dark petal is that higher ranking pets at the gold rank already use this method to help them breakthrough their racial restrictions.'