Standing outside the ashram, where he had once stood all those years ago, Kiran's conflicted gaze lingered on the wooden gate. It had been almost 10 years since he had first walked through this gate. A decade. He had grown much in these years. Neither was he a boy now, nor a young adult. He was a fully grown man of twenty-two years of age.

However, his face still lacked even a single strand of facial hair; something that had caused him much distress in his younger years when his sense of masculinity had been fragile and sense of self had been brittle. Even knowing that they had been a part of his unwitting sacrifice had not helped him any. As a result, his smooth skin gave him a babyface despite his age. Alongside his bald head and his white robes which contrasted against his rich brown skin, he exuded a dignified and pure aura, much to the chagrin of the young man.

But that mattered not now as he was leaving. His gaze travelled down the low wooden walls that still seemed to be infested with termites; the continuous march of time hadn’t seemed to have affected them much. Though looking at them, what Kiran saw now and what he had seen then were vastly different things. He now knew to look beyond the appearance and to stare at the truth hidden beneath.

The gate that seemed light and flimsy was made from the Remnant of an ancient and monstrous tree. It was stronger than any metal gate available in their province while the walls contained a colony of a Termite Monarch that had been raised as a tamed creature within the ashram.

The colony was the primary defence against the monsters that resided in the forest. It acted as both the shock troop and the cannon fodder. Generations after generations of the Termite Monarchs had served the ashram before being released far into the wild with the natural death of their tamers. This was the pact between the Tamers and the tamed.

Mortals lived short lives that blazed like lightning while monsters lived elongated ones that simmered like embers. Yet it was Mortals that achieved greatness while monsters still struggled to survive. And this was the basis on which Tamers tamed the monsters. In exchange of obedience for the short duration of a mortals’ lifespan, a monster gained the resourcefulness of mortals. It gained their knowledge and their help with its evolutions only to be released within a century when the mortal finally died.

Century was a duration of time that meant less and less to monsters as they evolved. A critter may have had a lifespan of merely a few months. However, within the span of a few evolutions, it had the potential to outlive most Mortals. This was the essence of the Tamer’s pact. But this was only one of the methods of forming such pacts.

However, Kiran knew of the dark secret of Tamers. Despite the seeming sacredness of the pact, this was a pact meant to be broken by mortals. If not by the one that made the pact, then by those that ruled mortals. No government of any sort would allow the release of powerful monsters that knew the working of mortal civilizations. It was lunacy. It meant courting disasters when the resource lacking monsters revisited the civilization within a couple of centuries.

As a result, [Monster Tamer] was a highly regulated Class. Every individual possessing the Class needed to register themselves and their beasts with the government, mandatorily. The Tamers were also required to get their monsters linked to government tracking scrolls which tracked the monsters at all times. Any Tamer that resisted the rules, or refused to follow them, was charged with high treason and executed. None of the governments and rulers anywhere tolerated a defiant Tamer.

All these measures were for one goal which was to kill the tamed monsters when the Tamer neared death or died suddenly due to conflict. With the death of the monsters, not only were future calamities avoided but these monsters that had served the mortals in their lives also benefited the mortals in their deaths by having their Remnants harvested.

Such was the profitable business of the taming monsters.

And such had been the fate of every Termite Monarch released after the death of its Tamer. Though, the ones to kill the Termite Monarch had never been the people of the ashram; for they lived with the termite Monsters and if such acts were sensed by the monsters, then only doom awaited them. Not wanting to face such a situation, the ashram had always passed on the deed and the resulting profit to the local rulers.

Thus, the weak gate and the termite-infested walls which had once made him feel unsafe once offered him a sense of safety now. But Kiran turned away from the gate and walked off. Now that he had reached Level 20, he needed to go on his journey of self-reflection.

This journey was not something that other Classes had to go through. But Kiran possessed not just any Class. He was a [Shishya]. Not only did this Class require an ascetic life to continuously Level but it also required a high [Reflection] Attribute of 12.

-X-

Within a desolate desert, inside a dilapidated shop, on a simple chair, a youth seemingly slept.

-X-

Name: Kiran Prajapati

Race: Mortal Species: Manav

Age: 22 Gender: Male

Class: Shishya Level: 20

HP: 322/322 MP: 713/713

HPR: 17/Day MPR: 34/Day

Titles: -

Dharma: To learn.

Karma: |-|-

[Str: 4] [End: 5] [Agi: 5]

[Int: 13] [Wit: 11] [Rea: 9]

[Spi: 8] [Wil: 4] [Ref: 8]

[Sur: 3]

Attribute Points: 0

Skills: [Link Lv.5] [Anatomy Vision Lv.17]

Spells: [Stimulate Lv.9]