On the way home Alissa suddenly stops moving.

"Wolf, can you give me [Ignorance]?" She asks

"Sure, why?"

"There's a weakened bird over there, I can capture it easily with the spell."

"Oh, for [Bind]?"

"Yes."

"One moment."

I unmount her and she turns back into the love of my life. I adjust my points and cast [Ignorance], my hand glows and I touch Alissa. Suddenly she hurts to look at, something that sounds like a nightmare to me.

She stalks the bird and then pounces on it. The poor thing is old and weak, couldn't resist Alissa's assault even if [Ignorance] wasn't applied.

I pull out a bottle of paralysis poison made by Roxanne. Alissa opens the little beak for me and I pour a few drops into the beak of the little grey animal. Not even 10 seconds later and its body stiffens, could even pass up for dead if it wasn't warm.

"Let's do this at home," I say.

Everyone is circling me, anxious, excited, and curious.

"Here goes nothing."

"What?" Hana asks.

"Idiom."

I cast [Bind], my hand glows and I grab the bird.

I feel like I grew another arm, I wish I had [Materialization] right now. I pull the arm out and feel a need to bring it to my chest. With little effort I feel something enter my heart, then I release and my hand stops glowing.

My body convulses and I lose control of my muscles. I feel a stiffness on my whole body that's very uncomfortable. My heart beats fast and my eyes dart around, fear clouds my mind. I feel an incredible need to open my arms wide and flap. I'm hungry and tired, very tired. My vision doubles. n

My mind stabilizes after a minute and I recognize what I have been feeling. Proprioception, vision, hearing, touch, and other senses. The same overload of information when I first summoned something. I wish to cut all my senses and my body returns to normal.

"Ughh... I feel horrible..." I mutter.

"Wolfy! You okay?!" Alissa's orange eyes stare unto mine, fear and desperation on her demeanor.

"Yes, I think," I push her away and straighten myself on the sofa. Ciel removes a shining hand out of my arm. I look around and see everyone's pale faces, even Aoi's, if that's even possible. I look at my shoulder and a very calm Gify stares at me.

"Gih."

"Yeah, you girls should trust Gify," I say, "he sees how my mind works."

"At least he didn't get physically injured," Ciel sighs.

"Still scary, what did just happen?" Roxanne asks.

"I felt everything the bird was feeling and the poor thing wasn't feeling good," I say.

"Oh..."

I feel something more, like a string inside my mind that connects to my body, feels weird. I tug at it and feel the bird's mind flood into mine, like a large fluffy blanket that wants to engulf me. With little effort I bundle it up and engulf it myself.

The bird's mind starts to detach from myself, I still feel it but it seems like a different world, a second monitor that I can look at when I wish, different from the usual feeling of having more "eyes" that the usual summoning has.

"Give it the antidote," I say.

Lina receives a small bottle and pours it down the throat of the bird. Slowly its body relaxes and it calmly flaps its wings, stretching itself.

I watch it with warm eyes and hold the blanket tighter, it shrinks on my grasp and becomes a mere fuzzy ball of fluff. I see the little grey bundle of feathers shiver and chirp happily.

"You are safe here," I say.

"You can talk to it?" Alissa questions.

"Not really, it's even more abstract than [Animal Tongue]. More like it surrendered its mind to me."

I tug at the fluffy ball and will it to sleep. The bird curls on itself and closes its eyes, in a minute it's mind is completely shut down.

"Incredible," Ciel mutters.

"So you really can control it's mind," Alissa says.

"Yes but it could also do the inverse and control me if my mind is not strong enough. It's what happened when the spell started taking effect, I wasn't ready for it and felt like a bird."

The girls raise their eyebrows.

"This is dangerous," Ciel says.

"But also interesting," Alissa says, holding her head in thought. "You need to test it more."

I cast a [Heal] and [Refresh] on the bird. Its body was too weary, it wouldn't survive longer like this.

I wake it up with a thought and start controlling it. I have it eat some berries we have then I make it fly out of the window and make it cross town. The feeling of flight is enhanced by the birds own feelings of freedom. I can somewhat read its mind, its not smart enough to have proper thoughts but I can certainly understand its feelings.

"Controlling it costs mana. The further away he is the more mana it costs to send him signals," I say. "Though the sense sharing is not costing mana."

"Sense sharing could be something like a piece of the soul staying with it. This is why it doesn't cost mana," Ciel says.

"If information is being shared and a piece of my soul is in the bird than maybe there's a way to detect the transfer of information somehow."

"What?"

"Some concept from my world. I'm also worried about someone getting a hold of the bird and hurting it's soul, it could end up hurting me too."

"Remove the points and see what happens," Alissa says.

I call back the bird and start to focus on how to summon it. This spell is very different, I can't use the "pocket monster" approach and summon a ball of light, I have to summon it instantly besides me.

I pull on the string that's connecting the blanket, a little mana goes away. I "grab" the string and pull it hard, it keeps coming to me and my mana drops a considerable amount.

A light appears in front of me and the bird materializes out of it.

"Oohhh," Roxanne looks at the bird in wonder.

"That took a lot of mana."

"Expected since you teleported it," Alissa says.

I remove the points and the fuzzy ball turns back into a blanket, taking a lot of effort to keep it contained. I quickly put it back on.

"Didn't remove the [Bind], only made it more difficult to control."

"Okay, you really have to find a way to undo the bind," Roxanne says.

"Soul damage first," Alissa says.

I put 40 points into [Spirit Magic] and a new spell appears [Soul Blade], I cast it.

A small ethereal purple broad blade appears in front of my right hand, the size of a dagger. Awkward to use, it's similar to the katar, a push dagger.

I make the bird land on the table and cut all senses from it. I let a sigh escape.

"Here goes nothing..."

Preemptively wincing I push the blade into the bird.

"AAH!" I yelp in pain as my head sears in pain. The bird also cries and falls over, passed out, "FUCK!"

I cast [Soul Touch] and grab my chest. As if my insides are caressed the pain slowly recedes and soon turns into a gentle pleasure. Alissa caresses my hair, Aoi licks my chin, and Gify turns on his touch until the pain goes away. Then I do the same for the bird until I can see it's back to normal through the sense sharing.

"Yeah this is bad," Hana says, "Meet a spirit mage and you are screwed.

"You really have to find a way to undo the bind," Roxanne says.

"Agreed. Hm, maybe if I..." I get an idea.

I grab the fuzzy ball and start to push it away towards where it came. Somewhat like the reverse of [Redirect Mana] I push it out of my soul and the fuzzy ball simply disappears. The bird suddenly chirps and flies into the window and crashes. Alissa hurries and grabs it again.

"Well... I did it."

"That's reassuring. A bird isn't that useful for you, anyway," Lina says.

If I could teach this spell to other people it would be something like familiars, quite the exciting idea.

"I have to develop chants for these spells and teach other people, you girls would benefit from having something like this," I say.

"Possibly, scouting would be much easier, specially when you have an eye on your back," Hana says.

"Bind a Beholder and you are safe from nearly anything," Lina says.

"Except invisible assassins," Roxanne says.

"Except invisible assassins," Hana repeats with a sigh.

"What do you think would happen if you do it with a humanoid?" Alissa asks a glint in her eyes.

"Difficult to tell, the bird was barely sapient and he tried to take over my mind."

"Sapient?" Alissa asks.

"Intelligent like us," Ciel answers.

"Then let's test with something barely intelligent, perhaps goblins or Mossy Fangpines."

"First we have to know what happens when we kill it," I say.

"Let's use the bird then... sorry, it's important to know this," she hurriedly adds as she sees the pain in face.

I'm sorry little birb, you are not safe here.

We move to the kitchen. Alissa holds the bird over the stone sink and looks at me, I nod. The dagger slices, its head falls off and I feel my heart stop. My vision goes dark.

I felt "death", not only did [Battlefield Perception] trigger but I also felt the dagger run through my throat and the blood leave my body. Then I felt emptiness, cold, and loneliness. Aoi's feelings of her parents are a mere drop in the ocean of what I felt. Something was ripped from me, something very dear.

When I realize I'm already on my knees, head buried on my hands, tears flowing freely. Slowly the emptiness recedes and I start to feel again, the touch of the hug, the warmth of their skin, the fruity mix of smells from their hairs, Alissa's concerned eyes staring into mine.

"That felt horrible..." I mutter.

"I'm sorry Wolfy," Alissa's frown deepens.

I weakly smile and chuckle.

"You worry too much," I say.

"Look who's talking," she pouts.

"What did you feel?" Ciel asks.

"This is quite the dangerous spell," Ciel says.

"But incredibly useful," Roxanne says, she grins and her glasses glint.

"How so?"

"What if we [Bind] each other? Not just one [Bind] but two-way."

Holy shit, instantaneous mental communication.

Ciel massages her temples.

"Imagine if we can coordinate strikes!" Hana grabs Lina and Ciel's hands.

"Scouting and stalking would be much less dangerous," Alissa says.

"No one would be truly alone," I say.

Aoi suddenly sparks up from the table and jumps on my chest.

"No, mo-re, a-lon, e-ver."

My head hurts. There's going to be so many cons to organize this, but the pros!

"Gih, gig go-geh-gih-gah."

"Yes, the potential. But it's dangerous, so dangerous," Roxanne sighs and massages her eyes.

"You mentioned that it became harder to "control" the bird when you reduced the points, right?" Ciel asks.

"Yes, the bird's mind tried to control me."

"What if two strong-willed but equally inexperienced humanoids are bound together? Could their minds mesh irreversibly?"

Roxanne sighs again but much longer.

"Only Wolfy can do this. You could act as the central connector, can you do more than one?" Lina asks.

"Could be possible but the bond is quite deep, I could lose control."

"Then we really have to test this with goblins then orc maybe. Alissa should be the first of us to be bound, if it won't work with her then it won't work with anyone."

"Kweh!"

"You are second," I say.

She snuzzles up on my neck and her blue scales tinkle.

We go take a bath. Emotionally exhausted, I sink on the tub and close my eyes. I recognize Lina's touch, then I open my eyes and see her impish smile.

I give a peck on her lips, then on her cheeks, then on her neck, then on her ears. I fill her body with quick kisses until she giggles. I pull her to me and finally give her a long tongue kiss. I pull on her small tongue and lick her palate, giving her a shiver.

I make her breathless just by kissing. I stimulate her tongue with mine, I plunge it deep into her mouth, I give a small bite on her lips.

-

"Careful, your grip is quite bad, you can cut yourself like this," Hana says.

"Didn't you have [Dagger Use]?" Alissa asks.

"Helps with cutting, not with gripping vegetables," Roxanne answers.

"Cut the Remmidy in half first, having a flat side on the board prevents it from slipping," I say.

"Oh, I see," Roxanne says, she nods repeatedly deliberately just so Aoi has to grip to stay on her head.

Like a child scared of pain, Roxanne awkwardly cuts the onion-like vegetable in small pieces while grimacing.

"Next we put the fire at maximum and keep stirring it so it browns evenly."

"So what's this brown stuff? Your world explains it, Wolfy?" Roxanne asks.

"It's called Millard reaction, though I think that since it's a vegetable it's technically caramelization."

"How does that work?"

"No idea, not my area of expertise, I only knows it works."

"Pff," Alissa scoffs.

Ciel quietly cuts down the meat alongside Lina. Lina tries to slowly move closer while Ciel slowly moves away.

I grab Ciel's arms and pull her around me, forcing her to be the bigger spoon.

The [Holy Spirit] runs up the sofa and kicks Ciel's chin, making her flinch. She wakes up from her stupor and glares at me. She gives me playful slaps until I remove the smirk from my face.

When going to bed, Ciel quickly grabs Lina and smothers her, Lina turns around and hugs back. The two adorably sleep with their noses touching.

"Just a little push..." Alissa whispers to me.

Intermission 10

Tarano comes to get Farana and I'm left alone. I dim the lights and rest my head on my hand. Suddenly my chair doesn't feel as comfortable anymore.

Damn Royals, what in the hell do they want with Rabanara? Kyros is not worthy of this response, something else made them angry. Probably something petty, their spit is worth gold, someone was probably just playing around with me.

I let a long sigh escape.

If only I had met him sooner, a Gifted ally would be perfect for me. As much as I review the information on him there's nothing that stands out too much, he's just a runaway noble like others. The annoying thing is that I can't find from where he came from.

All I can do is keep a cordial relationship with him, though he seems scared of me. Not that I blame him, sometimes I despise the Eyes of Authority but in the end they have done more good than bad for our family.

It's unfortunate he's taking the Misty Fox slave away but such was the deal we made with the Slavers. I'm sure the Fox Chief is satisfied with Ryder.

Well, what a waste. If he can deal with 5 women than maybe he has some interesting to show...

Whatever, at least I have Grosnok, I prefer bigger men anyway.