After brock had left Alucard had quietly sipped from his wine glass before returning them to the place where Cal had first appeared. Once they were there Alucard quickly explained everything to Gabriel.

“So your part Faye now,” Gabriel asked.

“Yeah I'm a winter’s shadow Faye.” brock answered.

“I haven’t heard of that court before it must be fairly weak or new,” Gabriel said mostly to himself.

Cal who thought he was still being talked to answered, “yeah it was made about 5 minutes ago.”

Gabriel slowly looked up to Cal and asked with an oddly intense voice, “you formed a new Faye court.” Cal nodded uncertainly, Gabriel's reaction confused him, and the look that Gabriel gave him after getting confirmation only made it worse.

“So let me get this straight” Gabriel asked while massaging his temples, “you are the sole member and ruler of a Faye court and also you have four class and familiar slots, and if that’s not enough you seem to be collecting races like a dog collects fleas.”

“he also has the authority of a vampire prince and it’s now up to five familiar slots also he has an evolved connection to the shadow source,” Alucard added.

Gabriel let out a groan and looked over to Cal, “is there anything I seem to be missing.” Cal shook his head warily. “and your still a level one.”

Cal nodded but Gabriel didn’t seem to want a response. Gabriel just grabbed Alucards glass and started chugging some of the liquid despite Alucards objections. The glass seemed to never spill as it was jostled between the two of them and the liquid seemed unending as the two of them drank far more than the glass could have possibly held.

The two monitors fought over the glass for about a minute until Cal decided enough was enough and took the reigns of the conversation. “You guys keep talking about all of these things but I don't understand a single one of them so right now I am going to start asking you questions and you better answer them”

the two trial monitors stopped fighting and gave there full attention to Cal. “First I want to know what a source is and how my shadow affinity is connected to it.”

Gabriel looked over to Alucard who started answering Cal's question. “A source is essentially the power of a certain element and your affinity for an element determines how easily you can draw on its source do you understand that.”

Alucard paused to give Cal a chance to speak up but Cal just nodded for him to continue. “When your affinity for a source breaks past a certain threshold it can no longer be considered just an affinity and it evolves. Currently, it will only decrease the cost to use shadow spells and abilities but if you evolve the connection again you will begin to see bigger changes.”

“earlier you said that the lights hatred was canceled out by my fire immunity does this have to do with the sources.”

Alucard took a second to think before answering, “the sources can be put into three main groups being natural, unnatural, and unreal. Natural sources can only make things happen that are possible to begin with, for example, earth magic is essentially throwing around big rocks with mana which is something a normal person could do if they had enough strength. Unnatural sources use things that already exist to make reactions that are impossible like how your shadow magic uses preexisting shadows to create things that aren’t otherwise possible. Finally, unreal sources create things that don't naturally exist, for example, spirit fire which is a fire that can turn anything including water into ash as long as it’s fed enough mana.”

Alucard stopped to make sure Cal was following but Cal just waved him on. “Within those three categories, there are subgroups and each source can belong to a few subgroups. one of the unnatural subgroups is heat which both light and fire belong to, and having abilities with opposing effects from sources that are in the same subgroup can sometimes cause the two to cancel each other out.”

Cal nodded and then asked. “So the sources are where elemental magic comes from and having two opposing abilities from the same group can cause both of them to disappear which is what happened to my fire immunity and lights hatred abilities.” Alucard was slightly displeased at the oversimplification of what he had just explained but Cal was essentially correct.

After seeing that he had gotten the explanation right Cal moved on to his next question “Okay then could you please explain more about my bond servants.”

Gabriel seemed surprised by the words ‘bond servant’ and looked over to Alucard. “So that’s what his new marks are for can’t say I’m too surprised but still...”

Gabriel was giving Alucard a disapproving look but the vampire didn’t seem to mind. “I did what I needed to Gabriel, so stop looking at me like that. To answer your question Cal There are many types of bond servants and some bonds are more restrictive and forceful than others I was able to give your servants one of the less restrictive bonds known as a battle bond.”

Gabriel stopped giving Alucard a dirty look after hearing the words ‘battle bond’ but still seemed to be slightly disapproving. After seeing that Gabriel had calmed down Alucard continued “The battle bond turns your servants into less of slaves and closer to a soldier in your employ the battle bond is centralized on the bonded protecting their master. that makes it so that it is impossible for them to harm you in any way no matter what you order them to do it also makes it impossible for you to order them to harm themselves or each other because that would decrease their ability to protect you. also while in combat they will be able to sense what you need from them and act accordingly”

Cal let out a sigh of relief and asked. “So I won’t have that much control over them.”

Alucard reluctantly shook his head and explained, “they are still bond-servants so they cannot disobey any direct commands however they cannot do anything that will harm you in any way whether or not you order them too”

Alucard finished his explanation and Gabriel jumped in. “he is forgetting to mention how the bond affects both groups. For you, it will be like a familiar where you will sense them through a certain point in your mind. For them, they don’t have that point where your will be emanating from. it will be difficult to tell their own feelings from yours and many bond servants eventually confuse whose will is whose and start becoming more and more of what their masters think they are and what their master wants them to become.” Gabriel was once again glaring at Alucard but the vampire didn’t seem to care.

“There is nothing that we can do about it now so I would like to hear your next question Cal.” the sudden change of subject was obvious but Alucard didn’t seem to care as the other two glared at him.

Deciding that Alucard wasn’t going to try to explain his actions Cal reluctantly asked his next question. “my next question is what is a Faye court and what does being a king of one do for me”

this time Gabriel was the one to answer and he quickly started his explanation, “the first thing that you need to know is that despite the name a Faye court does not have to be made up solely of Faye the only requirement is that the ruler is a Faye and that there isn’t already a court for their particular subtype. As for what being the king will do for you as of now nothing but as you expand your court by accepting new members you will start accomplishing feats as a group. This makes you and your group gain benefits, they are normally small things like a few stat points here and a boost in a particular type of magic there but as your court accomplishes more things the boosts will add up.”

after Gabriel finished Cal thought for a second then asked. “So what does being the leader mean for me.”

“well you will receive slightly better benefits from your accomplishments and you will be the one to design the hierarchy within your court you can elect subleaders and create rules for the members you can also make a minimum requirement for recruits.” Gabriel finished his explanation and waited to see if there was anything else Cal had wanted to know.

Cal who was satisfied with that topic for now looked back over to Alucard and asked. “What is the authority of a vampire prince”

“well, the vampire king or queen can give the rank of vampire prince to any clan but not to an individual. they can only grant the leader of a clan the authority and if that leader is overthrown the next leader will inherit the authority of a vampire prince and because the umbra-nivis clan had the authority of a vampire prince when it evolved into a Faye court it was able to retain that authority and as the leader of the Faye court you are granted the authority.” Alucard finished his explanation and waited for Cal's follow-up questions.

Cal did not disappoint and asked, “What does this authority do for me.”

“vampire society is brutal and very centralized on personal power so as of now you won’t gain many benefits but as you get stronger its usefulness will also increase.”

Cal nodded at the answer and then asked the two of them “so what your saying is I received many benefits but few of them will be useful for the current me.” Alucard reluctantly nodded and Gabriel remained still.

After seeing their answers Cal started talking again “Alright then my last question, for now, is what was wrong with the information in my grandpa’s books and how would it ruin my so-called foundation.”

Alucard shot Gabriel a glare and Gabriel let out a sheepish grin. “Well ill have to answer since Alucard doesn't know what was on them,”

Gabriel said while giving Alucard an apologetic look. “For the book about statuses most of the numbers were wrong and everything else was poorly explained to the point that you would have practiced and distributed your attribute points in a way that would make breaking through extremely difficult and some of the explanations were so bad that if you were to make decisions off of what it said it would be close to deciding to fight a dragon after someone told you that dragons are like lizards the best excuse that the author could have would be that he got his information from a small group of powerful people which could possibly explain what was wrong with the numbers but even still if you’re going to write a book to teach people about statuses you should try doubly hard to only get correct information” Alucard finished his explanation and looked over to Cal waiting for a follow-up question.

Cal did not disappoint and quickly asked, “And what about the other two books”

“the one about skills that you can learn was full of skills of every variety which is a problem because for a warrior like you there is no point in gaining skills like how to bind books or things like that and if you collect too many skills that don't have to do with your class your class abilities will not be what you want.”

Cal interrupted Gabriel and asked, “how do what skills I have affect the class abilities I get.”

Gabriel seemed surprised at the interruption and Alucard quickly jumped in. “the abilities that you get from your classes when you reach level 25 will depend on what your current strengths and weaknesses are for instance if there was a swordsman that relied on speed and he got to level 25 he could safely expect to get a skill that would either increase his defense without decreasing his speed or a skill that would increase his speed. that helps people specialize inside of there classes and makes no two class holders have the same ability set. however, if that swordsman were to also have a skill for treating animals he may get an ability for diagnosing animals which would obviously be bad.” Alucard finished his explanation and looked over to Gabriel expectantly.

Gabriel coughed and then continued, “as he said collecting too many of the skills that were in that book could make it harder for you to gain the abilities you need and as to the third book the training regiment it explained focused too much on increasing your physical strength and not enough on your skills don't get me wrong being healthy when you first awaken is a good thing but as you gain levels the 1-2 stat points that you might have gotten from physical training would be obsolete.”

“so you’re saying that my grandfather was either stupid or was trying to stop from advancing,” Cal said anger entering his voice.

Gabriel gave Alucard an alarmed look and Alucard quickly tried to remedy the situation. “No, we never said anything bad about your grandfather we said that he may have been ignorant of how some things worked and ignorance is not the same thing as stupidity”

Cal Calmed down a little but was still slightly angry. “Okay, then I’m ready to start the next trial,” Cal said wanting to leave the trials as soon as possible.

Alucard smiled at that and said, “don't be so hasty to start the next trial you have a real opportunity here”

Gabriel nodded in agreement and added, “we were once the most powerful of experts in your world even with the limitations on what we can tell you we can teach you some fairly useful stuff.”

“like what?” Cal asked he was rather interested in the offer.

“Well with the limitations we have in place and what you can probably learn outside of here the best things I believe that we can teach you would be how to use your abilities and spells in combat, and help you improve your sword skill and help you pick up a style,” Gabriel answered.

“what’s a style,” Cal asked.

“a style is basically a skill that improves another skill in your case we will teach you a sword style which will increase the effective level of your sword skill,” Alucard answered this time

“what do you mean by effective level.”

Gabriel let out a long sigh and looked over to Alucard. Alucard nodded and looked back over to Cal, “before we do anything else we need to teach him more about his status.”

Gabriel sighed and pointed out. “That is where our biggest limiter is we can only just say as much as we have already, much more and we’ll be punished again.”

Alucard acknowledged his words and then looked back to Cal. “What will have to happen is as soon as you leave the trials you will need to find some sort of teacher or join an academy to learn about your status until then if you level up distribute your stat points as evenly as possible throughout your stats.”

Cal nodded and asked, “so you guys are going to train me for a year then ill do Gabriel's trial then ill leave.”

the trial monitors nodded and Cal asked, “can, I have a second to decide whether or not I want to stay.” the monitors didn’t respond and Cal started debating what he should do. Truthfully he wanted to stay here and train but there was a major issue, kaze. he had already been gone for nearly a week and even though they hadn't been together that long Cal had started missing his familiar.

While Cal debated whether or not it was worth leaving kaze stranded Alucard butted in. “I’m sorry but you have less of a choice in the matter than you might want to. we were asked by brock to tell you about things we aren’t able to and if we don't try to train you in this way he may punish us.”

Cal raised an eyebrow at that and asked. “So brock who is your boss and makes the rules around here is simultaneously making it impossible for you to tell me something meanwhile asking you to tell me that same thing.”

“well no brock isn't actually the one who makes the rules around here it is more than once you reach his level of power it doesn't particularly matter whose toes you step on because they will all be weaker than you so...” Alucard tried to explain but was cut off

“then just let me go and tell brock that you had no choice,” Cal said obstinately.

This time Gabriel jumped in with an oddly serious voice, “kid I have enjoyed your presence more than most of the people I meet but I do not value your life more than my own so we will keep you here and train you even if we have to drag you around while your kicking and screaming to do it.”

the two stared each other down for a second until Cal let out a sigh and asked, “so there is no way out of this for me?”

Alucard and Gabriel just shook their heads and Cal tried to keep his composure but on the inside, he was burning with rage how could they keep him here as a prisoner. He wanted to try and fight his way out but there was nothing that he could do. “Ok, what is this style that you are going to teach me.”

Alucard looked over to Gabriel and asked. “Do you have anything that would suit him”

Gabriel started stroking his chin and said, “maybe, I was always a spearman so none of my spear styles will suit him but I have a mana blade style that is an almost perfect match?”

Alucard nodded and said, “I have a two-bladed style that he could work with so we’ll have him pick between the two.”

with that Alucard turned to Cal and said. “The two of us are going to spar ill use a style that might suit you and so will he. when we’re done you tell us which one you prefer.” Cal nodded at the two of them and they started their spar.

First Alucard seemed to cast a spell as an odd red essence gathered around him and condensed into an arm and two red swords one held in his real hand and the other in his newly conjured hand. Alucard began circling Gabriel as soon as he was armed.

Gabriel was not standing idly as this happened and the tip of his started glowing with a white light. Gabriel stabbed forward at Alucard but one of the red blades deflected the attack as the other one swung around in a side chop. However, As Alucard and Gabriel's weapons collided a small ice crystal formed where the weapons had hit and it floated there unmoving.

As the two continued sparring, Cal began to grasp what their styles were about. Gabriel's style left the ice crystals everywhere the blades met and it seemed that neither of them could move an ice crystal after it was formed. Meanwhile, Alucard’s style seemed like an impenetrable wall, all of Gabriel's attacks were easily deflected with either blade and Alucard never missed a chance to lunge in with the other blade as he deflected Gabriel's attacks.

As the fight continued the victor became apparent as Alucard’s ice crystals began to form a web around Alucard soon it got to the point where there were no more gaps large enough for him to slip out of and Alucard held up his hands in defeat. As he did so Gabriel‘s spear stopped glowing and the ice crystals almost instantly melted. The two monitors weren’t even breathing hard as they walked back over to Cal.

Once they got back over Gabriel asked Cal. “Did you see the strengths in each style”

Cal nodded and started to explain what he observed. “your style is extremely useful but you have to be smart with it and have extremely well developed spatial awareness because the ice crystals will stop you from moving if you’re not careful but like you just did it can be extremely useful in slowing down or even stopping enemies.”

Gabriel nodded in agreement and Cal continued, “Alucard’s style seems to mostly involve the ability to simultaneously use two weapons independently from each other as well as an excessive amount of deflecting attacks instead of blocking or dodging which will give him more openings to use the second sword to attack.”

Alucard nodded at this and then asked, “so which one would you prefer to learn.”

Cal thought on his answer for a moment but he had come up with an idea while he had seen the two fighting. “I think I should try to combine the two styles.”

the two monitors were shocked by his words for a second before Alucard started laughing delightedly and Gabriel started muttering to himself. “We would have to incorporate dodging but no that defeats the purpose of the style but the manablade would need.... yes he’d only infuse one blade then… but that would be hard for a normal person to but.”

Gabriel suddenly smiled and then explained his ranting. “To make that happen you will need a lot of difficult training but I think it might end up being extremely effective.”

Gabriel paused as if waiting for approval and once seeing Cal gesture for him to continue he began to explain his idea. “If you were to only use one of your blades as a mana blade you would be able to continue Alucards style of continuous deflecting but you would have to decide whether or not you want a crystal forming in the spot where you deflect and attack and decide which sword to deflect with accordingly this will be extremely difficult but I think that it would work.”

With that, the three of them started smiling each envisioning a slightly different result to what Gabriel had just described. After a small break, cal was ordered to summon both of his blades and once again started a life of endless training. Like that one year passed.

……………...End of Part 1……………...

Cal’s status at the end of part 1

Level 1

Health 840/840

Mana 300/300

Stamina 392/392

Name: Calaeris Windlab

Race: Winterwraith

Name: Kelaris

Race: Windwalker

Name: Calee-aris

Race: frost Spirit

Skills:

[Archery: 25] [Small blade: 17] [Forestry: 13] [Swords: 24] [Pain tolerance: 8] [Acting: 9]

Abilities:

[ice magic:max] [cold immunity:max] [flurry:max] [water magic:max] [wind magic:max] [feather weight:max] [corporeal shadow:max] [spell school of water:1] [spell shool of shadow:1] [spell school of wind:1] [abelard:1] [brock:max] [imbue strike:1] [unending barrage:1] [insta-cast:max] [abelards catalog:1] [shadows chosen:max] [babels tongue:max] [speed reading:1]

Spells:

[teir 1 splash] [teir 1 gust] [teir 2 miniature shadow summon] [teir 3 boreas’s rage]

Shadowblade: epic

Stormcaller: mythical

Class slot (empty)

Class slot (empty)

Kaze 72/72

Familiar slot (empty)

Familiar slot (empty)

Familiar slot (empty)

Familiar slot (empty)

Stats:

Strength: 14

Endurance: 14

Dexterity: 14

Wisdom: 15

Spirit: 13

Intelligence: 16

{hidden}

Race: Faye of Winter’s Shadow

Abilities:

[Ruler of Shadows:max] [Faye Sense:max]

Spells: n/a

Court:

Name: The Court of Winter’s Shadow

Leader: King Calaeris Windlab

Members: 1

Accomplishments: n/a