A few weeks passed since Magus Sept warned the inner circle of the tide.

In that time Fraser continued his hermit lifestyle with the only exception when he needed food.

So it was no wonder that the information of the tide didn’t affected Fraser in any way.

As the members of the inner circle who experienced their first time at the outpost had no responsibility or duty, Fraser simply meditated all day long while letting the AI store and process the meditation data which might lead to an improved version of the meditation.

Sadly for Fraser there was no success in the past few weeks.

‘My spirit increased for a small amount of spirit. With each increase in the spirit, it starts to become harder to add spirit simply by using the meditation technique. However, since I don’t know how the meditation process increases the spirit I have to add more data in order to have the possibility of the AI calculating an improved or better meditation technique.’

Though there was a more worrying change in the past few weeks, Fraser completely ignored the change and didn’t panicked.

After all the source of the change is clear:

The odd and unknown fusion with the yellow insect.

Which somehow gave Fraser the ability of an innate spell model and doubled his spirit.

With these obvious advantages, Fraser naturally expected a few problems or negative traits that appeared with the fusion.

But nothing negative appeared. Instead, a colorless, smooth and hard armor appeared on his entire body. Almost like the armor of an insect.

Touching the armor gave Fraser a feeling of safety.

‘It feels like a second skin which is able to feel. Obviously, it is biologically connected to my body or else the crack caused by the muscular man wouldn’t have healed with the basic wound mending potion.’

Fraser continued to touch his newly grown armor which looking at a mirror.

Yellow eyes reflected back which caused Fraser to feel somehow strange.

‘It feels like I am looking at a stranger. So much happened in the past year that it almost feels like that this body belongs to someone else.’

Fraser stood still while he looked at the mirror.

A nudge of a small furry something put him out of the short daze.

The baby bat grew a little bit and compared to his malnourished state it looked a thousand times better. It already had its chubbiness and round shape back, yet it was smaller than it should be at that age.

This was a flaw that only could be eradicated with time as the body development of the baby bat got delayed due to the fact that Fraser fell into some kind of coma when he fusioned with the yellow insect.

Now that Fraser had a higher spirit thanks to the fusion, he knew that the baby bat formed some kind of connection with him when the baby bat licked a little bit of his blood.

It felt similar to that of his connection with his servant, yet it also felt different.

As Fraser couldn’t control the life of the baby bat, yet it would send a few impressions of it's surrounding and warn Fraser of different things.

Since Fraser didn’t step out of a lot, it often times would be the shadow of the furniture or other weirdly shaped structure appearing in Fraser's chamber.

At first, he felt annoyed, but after quick research into the specific information, he realized that this species of a bat would grab onto a more skilled lifeform and “serve” the lifeform by warning it of weird things.

The bat naturally adapted different lifeforms and would never change its lifeform.

In order to avoid extinction, the bat would have the rule of every lifeform only two bats in order to produce offsprings which would latch onto different lifeforms or the baby of the lifeform.

While Fraser caressed the soft fur of the baby bat, he glanced towards the former pile of corpses which now turned into a huge cocoon.

A pulse echoed from the cocoon every now and then which gave it a mysterious and magical vibe.

Veins covered the surface of the cocoon and with light the shape of the creature was visible. Not clearly but only hazy.

When Fraser touched the cocoon, it reacted within in the blink of an eye.

The veins started to pulse faster, almost in a human way and Fraser felt that the connection to his first servant started to become clearer and clearer.

A feeling of joy got transmitted towards Fraser when he touched the cocoon.

A faint smile appeared on Fraser's lips as he planned his future.

‘As soon as the servant of the class soldier hatches I will be able to hunt for corpses. Since the monster tide of the howling abyss is happening right now there should be a surplus of meat and corpses in general. This will be the time to increase my power.’

After looking after his two pets Fraser turned towards the crates which were filled with the potion materials.

‘I will have to create a supply of potions in order to save me from certain danger. As I acquired the armor of the insect, I need a lot of basic wound mending potions in order to mend them.’

Just as Fraser created a couple of potions he could feel that his servant seemed to cry out loud.

His connection to the servant instinctively knew what happened:

The servant is about to hatch.

With excitement, Fraser walked towards the cocoon and could see how the creature in it seemed to prepare itself for its birth.

To be honest, Fraser expected an insect the size of a human or the size of a larger wolf, but as the cocoon grew, so did Fraser's expectations.

After all most hives were extremely efficient, almost to the point of not wasting anything in order to optimize everything.

Since the yellow insect which fused with Fraser obviously belonged to the hive-type, Fraser knew that the bigger the cocoon, the bigger the creature would be.

A crack appeared on the cocoon and it stopped pulsating. The shell of the cocoon seemed to lose its shiny color and the feeling of it being alive turned into that of a cold and hard eggshell.

The cracks started to become more and more distinct, as the walls of the cocoon seemingly started to become harder and harder as even light wasn’t able to shine through it anymore.

While the focus in the physical world seemed to be focused on the cracking cocoon, something entirely different happened in the spiritual world. Especially in the spirit sphere of Fraser.

…

…

It felt like a long lost part of him returned back into the warm embrace of the spirits sphere.

That is how Fraser would describe the feeling that he felt during the moment when the cocoon started to crack.

With each crack in the cocoon, Fraser felt that amazingly longing feeling of warmth and love. It felt like not being alone in the world and finally meeting someone who fully understood the true nature of himself. It felt like the greatest moment of his life, the birth of a true companion.