Dan sat on a large tree branch and watched the sun set on his second day on this earth. It was, as his home had been, called by its residents "Earth". From a linguistic standpoint this was logical. The word "earth" was not just a unique identifier for the third planet from the sun in one solar system. It referred to dirt or soil as a substance, to solid ground more generally, or to the concept of a world. So it made perfect sense that whatever planet you were on, a properly functioning Universal Translator would render the local word for its name as "Earth." But it did make it a bit difficult to think about his earth and this earth. Thoughts are made of words. When there were two things he was trying to separate and compare in his mind and one word for both, it added a slight friction, grains of sand in the machinery of his thoughts. No matter. It was a small thing. It had been a long, tiring, interesting and very fruitful day. It was in his nature at the end of days like this to become easily irritated at small things that muddied up his thoughts.

He sat alone. Ray and Dan were now on an informal, first name basis. This was a brick of progress among many in what they had built together over the night and the day. Ray had left to stretch his wings for an hour and give Dan solitude, time to think, reflect, and be alone before committing to a life altering decision. In some ways it felt a bit like he was about to marry an alien bird he'd just met, though that view of things held up only through very narrow windows of perspective. It would be more accurate to think of it as an extraordinarily close business partnership, though that analogue had its flaws as well. The truth was there was no relationship on earth - his earth - that closely correlated to the master/familiar bond he would soon form with First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves. It was mercenary. It was also intimate. It was mutually self interested. It would only succeed if both parties prioritized the interests and well being of the other.

The cold truth of it was that all the details, uncomfortable as they might be, didn't truly matter. He was alone in a dangerous, unfamiliar world and in desperate need of knowledge, power, and allies. This opportunity offered all three at once. There was risk of course. There was always risk in any committal decision. But what many people failed to adequately account for, and what Dan strove to consciously fight against, was the cognitive bias toward doing nothing. People would stick to the status quo, even when in the long run that was the most dangerous choice they could make. He was not going to make that mistake here. It might not end up working out, but he wasn't going to shrink back from a decision he'd arrived at based on careful thought and a lot of evidence out of blind fear of the unknown.

It would be good to have a friend. Or something like a friend. An associate with strong mutual interests who hopefully would be become a genuine friend in time, but until then would be bound to him in a quasi servant to almost slave like subordination? This was all going to take a while to emotionally unpack. In the meantime, Dan figured that as long as he just treated Ray with respect, as an emotionally complex, intelligent being - as a person - the rest should work out.

This was a little quicker that he'd have preferred to make such an important decision, just on principle. It wasn't wise to rush important decisions. But apparently there was in fact a soft deadline, which by this point Dan almost expected. Ray knew of an incredibly rare flower, infused with Aether, which bloomed only for a few hours on one night each year in a specific meadow, which happened to be a three hour run away. That one night was of course tonight. The rare flower would grant a permanent boost to the Constitution attribute. Ray was quite understandably only willing to guide Dan to the magic meadow where the magic flower grew on the magic night if they had the whole familiar thing finalized in time.

All of this was some fairy tale bovine excrement. It also, in the context of how the last two days had gone and the System had operated so far, fit the pattern. Dan was a Vanguard, had gained the title after passing his Initial Trial. What is a Vanguard? He was slightly unclear on the exact definition, and wished he could Google it, but as far as he knew it was basically the spearhead of an advancing army. Which fit with what Sam had told him of the function Dan and others who passed their Initial Trials held. If they made it back to their Earth, then they would be the spearhead who would help prepare and stabilize the rest of mankind for System integration. Or, in other words, they'd help everyone get ready to get super powers and fight a bunch of monsters. And how did all of this relate to the magic flower and the pattern of the last two days? He had consistently been given some time to prepare and make decisions, but not much. And there had consistently been significant power to be gained through making good decisions. Or at least at it seemed like those he he did in fact make had worked out.

Dan prided himself on his ability to look at complex fact sets and distill them down to underlying patterns. It was a big reason he was good at his job, a talent that many underestimated when it came to legal research. Looking at all of the facts here, what was the pattern? The System was testing his decision making in extremely unfamiliar, high pressure situations with finite time to think and high stakes. Given what he knew, why would it do that? Because System Integration would confront mankind with a whole lot of similar decisions, and it wanted to test how those it had judged to be among the most capable - the 10% most likely to survive the Initial Trial out of the top 1% in intelligence if he remembered correctly, which he was pretty sure that he did - handled them. Some of those decisions likely would be as blindingly obvious as "do I make friends with this person that can help me a whole lot and then go eat the flower that will make me stronger, or do I go 'nah'?" Either way, the System had to know. If his Earth was peopled with a species so dumb that even their best and brightest would decide not to do the obviously correct thing that would help them and make them stronger, that was important data.

In other words, this wasn't a game, even though it seemed to heavily mirror RPGs. It didn't need to have a balanced power curve. This whole thing was a test. So having thoroughly overthought this, Dan resolved not to overthink this. He would conclude the Familiar Contract with Ray and go eat a magic flower.

The twilight raven glided to a graceful stop next to Dan on the branch. Most of their lengthy conversation had taken place in a tree. Ray felt more comfortable there and Dan had no objections. It was time.

Familiar Contract Offered. Awaiting Response.

Contract Accepted. Congratulations! You have gained a Familiar, First Ray of Dawn Through Wet Leaves (Twilight Raven, lvl 14). +5 bonus to Aether Attunement gained. Title Gained: Aether Contractor (+1% to Level Directed Aether Gain).

You may select an available Familiar Linked Aether Ability. You may delay this selection. Once made, this choice cannot be changed.

The preliminary research, analysis, and negotiation were long and mentally taxing. Actually executing the contract? That turned out to be pretty simple. As with most other things, the System understood intent clearly. And now it was done and Ray was his familiar. Everything as expected. Ray's highest attribute was a two-way tie between Perception and Aether Attunement, and apparently when you gained a Familiar who was a Noble Beast of level 12 or higher you got a +5 bonus based on their best attribute. In this case, the tiebreaker went to boosting Dan's lower stat of the two.

Familiar Linked Aether Abilities turned out to be one of the biggest advantages to getting a familiar who could use Aether Abilities. Out of all the Aether Abilities your familiar had access to, you could pick one and use it as if you were your familiar. Which meant that it would use the same percentage of your aether pool as it did of your familiar's and have the same effect as if your familiar used it. Dan and Ray had already talked about this too, and it wasn't going to be a hard decision. Dark Bolt was the clear winner. It was the primary offensive ability of Twilight Ravens, and that was Dan's greatest weakness that could easily be remedied by one Aether Ability. It sounded pretty awesome. Dan made the pick.

Familiar Linked Aether Ability "Dark Bolt" Gained.

The next level appropriate monster he ran into was gonna have a bad day. Dan smiled. He turned and looked at the large bird sitting next to him. The raven was very still.

"How are you feeling, Ray?"

"I am well. Before this sunset, I was my own master. Now you are my master. We have spoken at length. We each know the other has not lied, and I trust you. This is still a bittersweet thing. Come, let us get you to the Lonely Moonflower."

The raven flew off and Dan hopped down, grabbed his gear, and followed. The bird set a hard pace and the human pushed to keep up. He could not have done so without his enhanced agility and constitution of course, which bolstered his speed and stamina, but it was also subtly enabled by his supreme perception. He navigated around the minor obstacles and uneven footing of the forest floor without effort or conscious thought, and his balance and coordination were on a level unattainable by natural humans.

He should have been planning. This was a gift of three hours to think and analyze with the use of far more data than he'd had the day before. He needed a plan. Instead, his mind turned again and again to his new friend and familiar, who had just voluntarily sacrificed a portion of their freedom, and to home. Dan thought about the people he had been taken from, the work he'd left behind. This new earth had super powers, new friends to make and many new things to learn. It did not have online shopping, smartphones, Google, his mom, lemonade, coffee (he'd asked), his van, the reading chair in his living room, Netflix, Wikipedia, Reddit, his job and coworkers, and in general the life that he knew and loved. The life that he had been trained, by others and then by himself, to belong in.

Then there was Ray. The bird who was a person older, smarter and more powerful than him had trusted Dan enough to voluntarily agree to a relationship where Dan was his master. That was never not going to feel weird. He very much hoped not to miscarry the raven's trust. Eventually, the truth became clear to his tired brain, and that truth was that his brain was too tired. He had asked too much of it, stretched the poor thing to its limit. It had, to its credit, performed admirably. But now it had little left to give, and no matter how much he demanded that it plan, it was tired, and could be pushed no further, and so returned to safe memories of home. He let it rest, and Dan's mind settled into the comfortable rhythm of footfalls.