“So how do you want to prepare?” asked the queen. Once she had decided that it would be okay for cal to participate in the tournament she had decided to give him her full support, that meant she would need to prepare him as much as possible.

“Well, first I would like to level up a few more times, I also have a few abilities that I need to test, then I should also probably get another familiar, and maybe select another class.” cal said thoughtfully but suddenly stopped when he realized he had revealed his extra class slots.

The queen and king were both looking at him in mild surprise, “you have multiple familiar and class slots?” asked the king.

Cal reluctantly nodded and the king seemed to go into deep thought. While he was thinking the queen asked. “How many of each do you have.”

That made cal think. He didn’t want to reveal that he had four class slots but he thought it would probably be safe to admit to having four open familiar slots. After deciding on his answer he spoke, “I have two class slots and I have picked one, and I have 5 familiar slots.”

That caused both the king and queen to be extremely shocked. “Well because you’re a prince you could probably go to the drake mountains, and for your class slot we could buy a rare class stone if you need us too.” the king said mostly to himself.

“Umm, about my class slot I have a quest for a unique class and I think it would be better to do that instead of getting a rare class.” cal said hesitantly. He didn’t know how they would react to him having a chance at getting a unique class, but to his surprise, they hardly seemed to be affected.

“Cal do you know how unique classes work?” asked the queen. Cal shook his head. He had always assumed they were like normal classes but from the queen’s question, he could tell they weren’t. “For starters, they don’t fill a class slot when you get one of them, but to compensate for that they don’t give you an ability every twenty-five levels like normal classes do. However, they give you something called a unique stat, which is essentially an extra stat that has a special property, I have heard of ones that do things like increase how far you can see or make it so that certain attacks will do less damage to you.”

“Well, I would like to go for at least an epic class so I will work towards that without using a class stone, however, I would like to get another familiar. You said something about the drake mountains, what is that.” cal asked the king

The king thought for a moment then answered, “the drake mountains is a mountain range that holds some of the rarest and most powerful creatures in our peninsula. A long time ago, well before even my grandfather was born. the kings of our three major kingdoms made a deal with the monarchs of the drake mountains. It essentially said that our kingdoms would not form an army and try to attack the mountains, in return we would not be attacked. As part of the treaty, each country is allowed to send a prince or princess once every 25 years to try and find a familiar. They will not be attacked while they are there and if they don’t find a familiar within a week they are kicked out.”

“Would I be allowed to go there even though im just technically a prince?” cal asked.

The queen glared at cal for a second before answering “you aren’t just ‘technically’ a prince, you are a prince and we haven’t sent someone in nearly fifty years so no one will complain.”

After that, they discussed what else cal would do to prepare for the tournament which would start in a little over two months. In the end, they decided to teleport to the drake mountains in three days and after that cal would be allowed to hunt low-level monsters until he reached level 5-8 at which point the actual tournament would probably be beginning.

Cal had also asked about a workshop for Lenny to use, as well as getting his hands on some low-level magic materials for him to try out his fusion skill on. Both requests were accepted. after cal left the king’s study, he went and found Lenny to lead him to where the queen had said a forge that they could use was.

“This place is fairly nice,” Lenny said appraisingly after entering the room. The room itself was rather large spanning nearly 20 yards from wall to wall. The walls were all lined with different tools that were used for various types of crafting. There was a furnace in the center of the room and due to his Faye sense ability cal could see that it was filled with magic.

This was the first time that cal had clearly seen mana using his Faye sense. Before now he had occasionally noticed what he had assumed was small amounts of mana that was either floating in the air or attached to an object, but this was the first time that it was both large and dense enough for him to clearly see it. It looked like a red cloud and it glowed softly, cal could somehow tell that it was tinted with the element of fire, though he wasn’t sure if that was an assumption based on it being part of a forge or what he could actually feel.

As Lenny walked over to the forge he picked up a hammer and turned to cal, “so my lord is there anything that you would need me to make.”

cal was slightly taken aback by the request but after a moment of thought, he answered, “im not sure, I already have my swords, and im not sure if armor is the best choice for me considering my fighting style.”

Lenny gave cal what almost looked like an offended look but it quickly disappeared. “My lord I have an epic class that specializes in making extremely high-quality swords, I would like to take a look at your swords and see if they are at a level that I cannot yet create.”

Cal agreed and quickly summoned both of his swords, they also glowed with mana but it was much less noticeable, most likely because the sword material already resembled what their mana looked like.

As Lenny examined the swords he seemed simultaneously shocked and awed by the swords, “my lord I must admit you have very well made weapons. They don’t seem to have any effects or enchantment, but considering that they were created from extremely high-quality materials they should have slight elemental damage from basic attacks.” Lenny said in a slightly disappointed voice, he had been looking forward to showing off to his lord.

Cal then put away his swords and told Lenny that it would still be good got him to improve his skills. Lenny agreed and grabbed a bar of metal that was sitting in a basket next to the rest of the forging equipment. As he started the process of making a weapon cal turned and left the room.

Nothing much happened for the rest of that day. The next day cal was brought the materials he had asked for. He hadn’t given any specifics on what they should be just that they needed to be magical and that their mana density was at level one. Cal hadn’t been sure what that meant but, to his relief, both the king and queen had understood.

The materials that he was given were a large seed and a bit of liquid in a glass bottle. cal examined both of them. The seeds description was fairly straightforward, the item was the seed of a magic tree that’s leaves could be used to make a weak healing ointment. The liquid in the glass bottle was called sun water, it was water that had been infused with a small amount of solar mana, it was primarily used to fight monsters with a weakness to the sun.

As cal held the two items he used his fusion ability. As he activated it he felt a large amount of mana being drained from him but the overall amount used was less than a third of his total mana pool. When he activated the skill the water in the flask slowly floated out and wrapped around the seed it then seemed to flow into the seed leaving a slightly glowing spiral pattern around the seeds shell.

After his skill finished cal examined the new item, but to his surprise, it didn’t cost him any more mana and he assumed that was because he had already examined its previous form. Its description was a seed that had absorbed the power of the sun. If planted it will grow into a tree with a weak solar affinity. Cal was rather pleased with his ability and suddenly had an idea. He opened Abelard’s catalog and once again looked over the sun water’s original description. After being sure of what he read he refilled the bottle with water and activated the infuse mana skill.

The infuse mana skill allowed him to infuse a material with his mana and as he activated it he was asked if he wanted to infuse the water with elemental mana. He said yes and then was asked to choose an element that he had an affinity for he decided on shadow and soon he felt mana leaving his body and entering the water.

After a few moments, he stopped the mana flow but to his dismay the shadow mana left the water. He decided to try again and this time held the infusion process for longer using up more of his mana. He was about to stop because his mana pool was starting to run out when suddenly it felt as if he reached a certain threshold and the mana seemed to stick to the water.

Cal tried to examine the water and it gave him a similar description as the solar water except with shadow instead of sun. he then waited for his mana pool to refill. After he was at about half of his mana capacity he tried to fuse his new shadow water and the seed he had created earlier. Once again he used up about a third of his mana pool and the water wrapped around the seed leaving a black spiral next to the softly glowing one. Cal repeated this with all of his affinities.

The seed now had several spirals of multiple colors on it and cal examined it. It was called the elemental seed of darkness. Its description was a seed that had absorbed many types of elemental mana it had a high probability of turning into a treant if it was grown properly. With his experiment done cal went and looked for the queen. He eventually found her walking with mark.

Cal hesitated for a moment unsure if he should interrupt them but the queen saw him and quickly walked over to where he was standing. “What have you been up to cal I’ve barely seen you today,” she asked in a cheerful voice.

Cal hesitated for a second before pulling out the seed of darkness. He handed it to the queen who looked at it curiously. “I have an ability that allows me to combine magical materials though the materials themselves have to be very weak for me to do it. That was the first thing I made using that ability and I was wondering if there was a place that I could plant it.”

The queen handed the seed to mark and cal saw some mana shoot out of his eyes and into the seed. After a moment the mana left the seed and reentered Mark’s eyes. He handed the seed back to the queen and said. “It’s called an elemental seed of darkness. It should grow into an elemental tree and has a fairly good chance to turn into a treeant. It would also be a fairly powerful treeant considering the seed has several affinities.”

The queen gave the seed an appraising look and told cal. ”We can hire a plant mage to have this tree be at least halfway grown by the time you get back from the drake mountains if that's fine with you?” cal agreed and the queen handed the seed back to mark who quickly left presumably to go find a plant mage.

“Have you thought about what familiar you want to find when you go to the drake mountains?” the queen asked.

“Not particularly don’t know what types of animals live in the drake mountains and even if I did im not sure id be able to find a specific monster that’s a low enough level for me to contract with.” cal answered. That was the major issue for cal in finding a familiar, he couldn’t contract with one that was too many levels higher than him. Even if both parties wanted a contract it was impossible to even initiate one unless they were both within at least 10 levels of each other. He had gotten lucky in finding kaze who was a recently awakened animal with an extremely strong bloodline.

“Well im sure you’ll find something good.” the queen answered happily. The two continued chatting about less important things for a while and nothing else important happened for the rest of the day. The next day cal was told to prepare for the drake mountains, which mostly involved him going with the queen to buy clothes that were more suited to being in the wilderness. He still had his cloak but he kept that in his necklaces storage and didn’t want to let people know he had that.

The queen ended up buying him a cloak that was similar to the one he already had except its coloring was different. He also got a pair of boots along with some pants that were enchanted to be difficult to tear. Cal could see the mana in the pants but it was fairly weak.

When they got back to the castle cal experimented with his fusion and infusion powers. This time he experimented with metal. The effects were slightly different this time as the lump of metal didn’t get bigger each time he fused it with another but it got denser as he finished he got a notification that both skills had leveled up. He was now able to infuse and fuse things up to the second level of mana density though with the amount of mana he had he was barely able to.

By the end of the day, he had four pieces of metal. One of them had level one density and all of his affinities. Another had level one density with just his ice, water, and wind affinities. Another had level two density and ice and wind affinites. The third had only shadow affinity at level two density but he had fused 5 pieces of metal so the piece of metal held a lot of shadow mana. At first, cal wanted to give the metal to the queen but In the end, he decided to give it to Lenny then he went to sleep.

The next day was the day that cal was going to go to the drake mountains. He started off his day normal but immediately after breakfast he was led to the room where he had first appeared after his trials with Gabriel and Alucard. The procedure for teleporting him was the same as it had been the first time except for this time all of the rings lit up with a white light.

after the light faded cal was standing on a large flat rock in front of him he could see a range of massive mountains with snowcapped peaks the bottoms of the mountains held a massive forest and cal could see several indistinct shapes flying above or walking around on the mountains. It took cal a second before he realized how truly massive the monsters must have been for him to be able to see them from where he stood, but when he did he was almost struck dumb.

Soon after they arrived one of the monsters detached from the mountain and started flying in their direction. Cal looked nervously over at the king but after seeing that he was calm cal also calmed and watched as the shape got closer. In a matter of minutes, the monster arrived kicking up dirt and leaves with the force of its landing.

As the dust settled the monster was slowly revealed. It was a sphynx that had a silver lioness’s head with piercing green eyes, and a massive pair of black and white wings each spanning over 50 meters. After it landed the sphynx sat down and looked at the king.

“King of kilayen it has been nearly 50 years since I’ve seen have you made up with that goblin you were so fond of?” the sphynx asked in an oddly melodic and feminine voice.

The king gave cal an apologetic look before looking back at the sphynx. “Sadly no, threynar recently died. That is actually why I am here. He raised a boy as his grandson and after his death I adopted the boy, making him a prince of kilayen.”

The sphynx turned its unnerving green eyes on cal. “So you are the one who came to claim a familiar.”

Cal was almost shaking under the intense stare of the sphynx but he was still able to answer, “i don’t really think of it as claiming, more of befriending.” after he spoke an odd pressure that cal hadn’t noticed seemed to lift off his shoulders and the sphynx smiled, or at least it tried, smiling is difficult with a lions head after all.

The sphynx looked over to the king and said, “this one is smarter than most. Tell me how many familiar slots does he have.”

At this point the king smiled proudly, “he has four open familiar slots.”

The sphynx seemed surprised and looked back over to cal then back over to the king. “That is a bit of a surprise. It’s been a while since I’ve been surprised like this. Where would you like me to drop him off.”

The king looked over to cal and asked. “Do you think you could make it back here from the peak of the mountains in a week?”

Cal looked at the mountains trying to judge the distance, “yes as long as I don’t get attacked by any monsters.”

The king nodded then looked back to the sphynx, “ok then Artellian, queen of the third peak. I would like you to take cal to the top of the primary mountain.”

The sphynx nodded. She then walked over to cal and had him get on her back after a bit of undignified scrambling and a push from the king cal was sitting on top of the massive sphynx. She then took off going at speeds faster than cal had gone when he was with the king. Eventually, the sphynx slowed then stopped and cal clambered down from her neck. He was now standing on the top of the mountain. In the distance, he could hear the cries of several monsters.