The meeting with Daiki washed away the odd fog over his mind.

Now, he felt a lot more free and ready to go. Also, he had a goal to achieve that was solid and easy to follow. He was going to win the tournament. To that end.

"Flora."

"Yes?"

"How does one bond a legendary monster girl?"

There were two distinct reactions from his monster girls at that sudden question.

From Amy, there was a prideful nod, as if he did something that was expected. From Flora, all he got was flustered confusion.

‘Master?!?!!’ came the confused voice in his head.

“What?” Simon said out loud, surprised at Flora’s sudden concern.

‘Do you know what you are saying?’ Flora said into his mind.

She was worried and rightfully so. Simon was not aware that all three of his monster girls were very very essence-hungry. Unbeknownst to her master, he was currently fueling the equivalent of around 25 tier-5 monster girls reduced to 5 because of all three being miracle bonds and the first bond(Flora did not know that Amy was a legendary monster with her powers sealed but still needing her normal intake which meant he was fielding around 7 monster girls in reality).

Unless that voice stepped in he would be adding, at a minimum, 10 monster girls worth of energy drain into the group. (Whether  he could even bond one was already a forgone conclusion)

Simon would not be able to sustain it given that he fed all three of them daily.

While she had yet to teach how the math worked to him it was roughly like this:

Every tamer was born with an essence quality of one. If they are born to a hero or an epic/legendary/mythic monster, it was two. On the uber-rare occasion, they were born to both it was three. Every tier-5 or above monster girl they had, would also increase by one per tier. Every time a miracle bond was formed the number would again increase by one. Now this number was multiplied by the bond limit and that was how much essence they could give out per day.

If one were to imagine it as a point system.

tier - 0 required zero points

tier - 1 required one point

tier - 2 required two points

tier - 3 required three points and so on.

On average a tamer had 20-25 points of essence to give per day. (1 at the base and 1 from their first bond. We are considering the field four monsters with two to three of them being tier 5). Meaning they have just enough to feed their monster girls once per day. However, this same essence pool was also what regenerated their magical energy and stamina. So they have around 10-15 unless they want to spend the whole day in bed. Even lower if they wanted to be active. However, the number shifted around because skills that regenerated mana and stamina existed. Some items helped with those two stats. However, to this day, no item or skill was discovered that increased the recovery of one’s essence.

Flora assumed Simon had around 56 points and around half of that was being used to power them and half to power himself. Adding a tier 5 legendary would be adding 50 extra points to that number.

Unless he started being stingy and not feeding everyone every day, something he really should do regardless even if it pained her to say it, he could not feasibly add such a monster to their roster.

In reality(this was something neither Simon nor Flora knew) Simon generated an absurd 84 points of essence per day and had multiple stamina and mana regeneration skills keeping that essence exclusively for feeding monsters. It was how he had been able to spoil Amy for so long. Even if one were to account for the full cost of fielding an ‘active’ legendary, Simon could feasibly do it.

However, as none of them knew, Flora was completely valid in her worry.

“I am saying that our team needs a power-up if we want to win.”

‘And why are you suddenly so fixated on the tournament you simply learned about it today and I did not think you were that competitive?’

“I don’t know, Flora, it's like I don’t know what I am doing right now. I get that I am learning and all that but for what reason? Why am I learning and training? I just figured trying to focus on something feasible would do me good.”

‘Ah.’

Flora kept forgetting that Simon was still a teenager. It was easy to forget given his normally conservative self combined with his incredible capacity for knowledge.

‘I see… How about this master? Let's get to the Arena and start training. Something we were going to do anyway. Afterward, we can go to the administration to apply for a legendary monster.’

Now that Flora was over her initial surprise, she was more amenable to the idea. Not that she wanted him to get a legendary monster girl. That was a horrible idea, but to get a sanctioned one was difficult. The psychic paperwork alone was enough to deter most. Then there were the steep bonding requirements. None of which Simon had met yet.

Daiki himself probably got an unsanctioned legendary monster girl from somewhere. It was not against the University rules but you also lost the myriad safeguards in place to make sure the bonding goes smoothly.

Flora was under no obligation to tell him and this will be another secret of hers. Not that her master would be kept in the dark for a long time.

Then he would drop that nonsense…However, what would happen if he somehow managed to succeed? This was the part she did not know and that scared her, especially given her master’s spoiling habits.

Wait… was this not a way to force the master to realize how indulgent he was being in feeding his monster girls every day?

Despite a part of her hurting at the realization, she managed to convince herself that in the worst-case scenario, there was still some good that would come out.