Author's Note: Definitely going to be heavy influences from DQM+ the manga, DQM Joker, and DQ 3, 8, and 11 as well as the movie Your Story.

Speaking of finally decided on a compromise between Breeding/Synthesis based on reading DQM+ to completion (terrible ending though, sounds like they discovered they weren't being allowed to continue on and shoehorned it).

Chapter 2: Monster Mastery 101

It was a disconcerting feeling, being teleported in this manner, though considering it was only mildly weirder than the Portkey experiences he had Harry felt this was probably one of the better ways to teleport between...worlds? Realms? Honestly he'd only read the first two Narnia books to get Hermione off of his back. And because the summer after his second year had been really really boring.

Maybe if he had time after he got back he'd finish Narnia and read that other series Hermione talked about being similar...Feathery and Fury...no that wasn't it, Fibbury? Closer...ah yes, Fillory and Further that was it. She said it was a little darker than Narnia and a lot more pagan and with more active magic at the beginning at least.

Wow, Harry thought to himself, inter-dimensional travel takes a long time.

Though, as he squinted against the eldritch energy swirling around them he saw a growing light in the distance.

Harry stumbled out of a swirling portal of energy as Wagabou simply glided down upon his wings.

A human attendant quickly shut a large door over the portal and that seemed to it for their ride to their destination.

"So this is...Greatroost?" Harry questioned.

Only to be surprised as the human attendant bowed to him, "Indeed young master! You must be the one with the talent that Wagabou promised!"

"Oh umm..." Harry floundered a bit taken aback, "Yes I suppose so, I'm Harry Potter it's uh...nice to meet you?" Harry held out a hand for a handshake which the man blinked at then with a huge grin grabbed his hand in both hands and shook vigorously.

"Indeed indeed! I am Shen the Gate Attendant! I will be helping you most frequently if you are to be a Monster Master in the Tournament! You'll be coming through the gate to different worlds you've been given or found keys to to train your monsters!"

"Yeah yeah, introductions introsmucktions I gotta get the mageling to the king now. Shoo shoo!" Wagabou interrupted quite rudely, though, Harry noticed, Shen took it all with a smile and quickly acquiesced.

Apparently Wagabou's personality quirks were humored here more than they were disdained.

"Alrighty buckaroo," did Wagabou ever speak in a consistent fashion? His mixed metaphors, aphorisms, and phrases were sending his head spinning, "We're gonna go meet the head honcho, the king, now he's not all that powerful personally but his bloodline is actually connected to both myself and the tree and the three all existing in unison is how the wards that protect us from Wild Monsters are charged."

Oddly enough Harry could practically hear the capitalization of Wild Monsters, he filed that away for later.

"He'll give you his blessings, some currency, and your first key, then you'll head up into the branches to Ptolema's farm and she'll let you look around and whichever monster you bond with will be your first one, you'll know when you find the monster it'll probably be a rather low to mid-tier one as you aren't experienced as a Master yet. Most start with F or E ranks, occasionally you'll see a D rank bonding."

The young wizard had to focus very hard to absorb and keep straight this informational dump.

"We got a lot of bird and related to bird monsters on the farm as you might expect from our name. And if you didn't expect that then you're an idiot. Wouldn't be surprised if you end up with a Dracky or Picky or something like that. But don't worry about starting out weak, we'll set you up in a week or two with the Head Breeder and Synthesizer and she'll set you straight on combining or breeding your monsters and hatching the resultant eggs. She'll explain the whole shebang to ya, I'm just giving you the...what are they on your world? Pitnotes? No that sounds wrong...bah I'm summarizing for ya, kiddo."

Yeah Harry was starting to believe Wagabou was all bark no bite, no wonder the populace here just seemed to humor his prickly nature.

Speaking of prickly actually...being a nature spirit maybe he got it from the tree he was connected to? Because as they exited the tunnel connecting to the gate he realized they were at the foot of a giant, skyscraper plus tall, acacia tree, like found in Africa. With big giant spikes jutting out of the trunk and branches just like you would expect.

"I'd hate to see the giraffe that can eat from this," Harry joked towards Wagabou who just glared at him.

"The Tree Kingdoms' special trees are holy, do not make a dumb quip like that in front of anyone else here."

"Ah...right, sorry about that," Touchy subject he guessed. Maybe there were giant giraffe monsters and that's why it was sensitive?

"Anyways, after you start breeding and synthesizing with old Tilda you should be strong enough to take the pilgrimage to the Alltrades Abbey gate. Alltrades has the ability to bless adventurers with the knowledge to quickly progress certain 'classes' of skills. You for example might want to jump right in to either Warrior to learn to use that sword better or Mage to get a toe into our style of magic. This's where the whole power to fight the darkness thing comes in kiddo," Wagabou expounded upon his point, "If you can master a couple of classes and get all the way up to the intermediate or even advanced classes I guarantee you'll have a much better fighting chance. I mean high level Warriors and Paladins and the like take down dragons for breakfast and high level Mages and Sages can bring down firestorms and typhoons down upon hordes of monsters!"

Wagabou seemed rather excited about the prospect.

"So how does that work with the uh...Monster Master stuff?" Harry questioned.

"Well on a lot of Trees it doesn't, the Monster Masters are almost their own class merely supporting and raising their monsters. Here on Greatroost we don't believe in that, but since the Master ends up fighting alongside his monsters it means the three monster only teams for the Starry Night Tournament is also a disadvantage for us, usually the monsters are used to having a fourth active member and it throws off their teamwork or even stops them from growing as strong individually, so you'll have to watch out for that and make sure you have your team practice without you doing more than guiding them at times."

"That puts me getting stronger at odds with me team doesn't it?"

"Not as much as you would think if you know about the problem early and work around it, it's just that well Monster Taming capabilities are pretty rare out here so we have maybe three on the Tree at this moment other than yourself."

"And why aren't they doing this?"

"Their Taming limits are all pretty low. And they've all picked support classes like Priest or Bard so I can't count on them to do the hero type searching for whoever has snatched the other ones lately that I can count on you to do," he saw Harry start to open his mouth, "Oh come off it kid, I observed your world you have a saving people thing and a drive to get better and strong when faced with a challenge. Coupled with a high Taming limit manifesting through that Parsletongue thing and your experience with all the monsters on your world I think I found a winner."

Harry grumbled to himself a little bit but couldn't exactly refute any of that.

"Anyways here's the throne room, your stuff is at the inn already, good luck kid!"

And suddenly Harry was pushed through two large doors that had just opened and stumbled to a stop about fifty feet from a throne.

He looked up and blinked at the jolly rotund man sitting in finery on the gold and red velvet throne.

The man blinked back then tilted his head, scrutinizing Harry.

"Oh bother," the king started, "Wagabou doesn't care much for introductions does he young man? I apologize for our Tree Spirit, he's a bit...prickly."

The use of the joke Harry had just said in his head in such a way that the king likely viewed it as a joke himself made Harry break out laughing.

In less than a moment the king joined in on the laughter.

"Ohohoho! So you noticed as well? I am King Rocco of Greatroost I am guessing you are the young hero Wagabou decided to bring back from abroad?"

Harry straightened and bowed, "I uh...apologize for umm...the informality? Yeah there we go, I am Harry Potter, sir. A wizard with I suppose a small amount of monster fighting and taming experience in my own world? It doesn't quite work the way yours does but Wagabou seemed to think it would crossover?"

The king nodded, "Well I tend to trust our Spirit on these kinds of matters of destiny and quests and so forth. So I am sure you will do fine lad, we are putting you up in the inn for the duration of your stay here. One of the better rooms due to the extended nature of your stay. Now I believe I need to send you up to Ptolema for your first monster is that not correct?"

Harry nodded, "Yes, uh...your majesty."