Chapter 14: Leo

When the meeting was finished, Alfred went back to his tent with the two White Lion cubs. The other cub was taken by Shaman Catori for the reason that she was also interested in taming one, and Elder Ahote said to Alfred that he would look for something they could use as a container in which Alfred could make a rune.

While Alfred was sitting and watching the two White Lion cubs cuddle, Aponi came inside his tent with a smile on her face, but before she could say anything to Alfred, she noticed the two White Lion cubs in the basket. Aponi got a little scared.

“Alfred why there is a monster here?”

Alfred couldn’t help but laughed when he saw Aponi was scared of the little Lions.

“You do not have to worry, these little cuties are harmless, come here and take a look at them.”

Aponi walked closer hesitantly. When she saw the cuteness of the two White Lion cubs cuddling each other in the basket, her fear instantly vanished and was replaced by adoration.

“But Why are these monsters here?”

Alfred told the story of these cubs to Aponi and his objective to them. Aponi started to empathize with the cubs when she heard the story. Because she also knew the feeling of losing a mother at a young age, she didn’t realize that her hand was already caressing the soft fur of the white lion.

When the White Lion cubs felt the caring touch of Aponi, they cried and tried to cuddle with her hand. Aponi realized that she was touching a monster when she heard the cry of the White Lion cubs, she wanted to pull her hand back, but when she saw the pitiful look of the White Lion cubs, she stopped and continued caressing them.

After a while, the White Lion calmed down and fall asleep. Aponi stopped caressing them when she saw the white lion sleeping peacefully. She stared at them with adoration as if she wanted to hug them, and sleep beside them.

Alfred had an idea when he saw this interaction, he gently lifted one of the White Lion cubs, then hand it over to Aponi.

“Here, I want you to try taming one yourself.”

“No, I do not think that is a good idea, I do not even know how to tame one.” Aponi replied

“I think it is a good idea, you do not need to do anything special to tame them, all you need to do is to show them you care for them, treat them as if they are your family, and soon you will realize that they already treating you as their family. I believe that if anyone can tame these cubs it is you.

Aponi had a hesitant look on her face, she wanted to decline, but when she saw the white lion cub in Alfred’s hand, the adoration she felt earlier came back. She cannot decide what to do, Alfred saw the hesitation on Aponi’s face. Thus, he forcefully handed over the White Lion cub to Aponi.

When Aponi held the White Lion and saw its cuteness, she finally gave up and accepted Alfred’s offer, but Aponi still had something she was worried about.

“I want to take care of this little White Lion, but I am worried because I do not know how to take care of it. I do not even know what to feed it, should I feed it meat?”

“No, I do not think feeding them meat is a good idea. This is also one of my concerns, the best thing we can feed them is milk, but I do not know where to get one, do you know where we can get milk?” Alfred replied.

“Milk you say? Do you mean milk that a mother produced? Why would we feed milk to a monster, is it not better to feed them meat?”

“Yes, meat is good food for a monster, but not for a cub. They need milk to grow fast, usually, they get their milk to their mother, but as you know that is not possible. Therefore, we need a new source of milk, but I think human milk can be an alternative. can you get us milk?”

“Wait, you are saying that monster can produce milk too?”

“Yes, some of them can, for example, the White Lion.”

“How do you know this kind of stuff?”

“I do not know, I think I read it somewhere, but never mind that, can you get us some milk?”

“Yes, I think I can, but what will I say to them if they asked me where I am going to use them?”

“Just tell them it is for the future of the tribe.”

“What? You want me to lie to them?”

“It is not exactly a lie, if we succeed in taming these cubs, it will benefit the tribe a lot.”

Aponi hesitated and thought about it very carefully. After a while of thinking, she still couldn’t find faults in Alfred’s words, so, she finally agreed. When Alfred saw Aponi agreed about the milk, he smiled.

“Thank you, you should probably inform Shaman Catori of our discussion here. Because she also takes one of the cubs to try taming it.”

“Ok, I should probably leave now, and by the way, I am happy you choose to join our tribe.”

Alfred smiled at Aponi. When Aponi was about to leave, Alfred stopped her and said.

“Wait, you should put the White Lion cub inside a basket, we do not want other tribesmen to see them and start panicking. Also, I want you to inform Chief Viren to tell the tribesmen about the white lion cubs as soon as possible, we do not know what might happen. I know the chief probably going to do this, but just in case.

Ohh, I almost forgot you should also inform him about the milk and tell him to give more food to the mothers who will donate the milk, we need them to be as healthy as possible. Because the healthier they are, the more milk they can produce.”

Aponi agreed with Alfred, then put the white lion cub inside the basket. She was about to walk outside when Alfred stopped her again for a second time.

“Wait! One last thing, you should give your little Lion a name. Giving it a name can help both of you to become closer to each other.”

“Do you have a name for your White Lion?” Aponi asked

“Yeah, I will name it Leo”

“That is a good name, ok I will think of one and tell you tomorrow.”

“Ok, that is all sorry for stopping you so many times.”

“I will go now, see you tomorrow.”

This time Aponi finally left the tent. After Aponi left, Alfred took out the waterskin with monster blood in it, he wanted to see what kind of Runes he could make. In a span of time, he tried a lot of different Runes like Water Rune, Earth Rune, Air Rune, and different kinds of runes, he even tried to summon living things, but he failed.

He realized that he could only make the 4 main Elemental Runes for now, if he made something a little complicated, for example, ice or magma the Rune will instantly fail. He still didn’t know the reason, but he set aside it for now.

The thing he really wanted to know was, that the time he made the Rune for the first time and he didn’t use the Formation. The Rune glowed a bit, it almost depleted his Life Energy, so it meant the Rune might work if Alfred had enough energy.

He wanted to understand what was the difference between writing a Rune without the Formation and with formation. Therefore, he started to analyze everything to comprehend what was the difference.

‘First, I write the Rune without the Formation, the Life Energy it absorbs is a lot that it almost depleted all my Life Energy, and yet, the glowed it produced is very dim and sudden that it doesn’t even take a second to disappear.

The second, I write the Rune with the Formation, the Life Energy it absorbs is only half of my Life Energy reserve, and it succeeds. What I learn in the past few days is, that the Formation is only there to support the Rune. There are two parts of the Formation, the Support Circle and the Main Circle.

The Main Circle is where you put the Rune in the middle, this Circle is just a tool to determine how large the effect of the Rune is. I still have no idea about the Support Circle because I never tried them, but the Main Circle is enough to make a rune, and I guess the Support Circle is not really important right now.

So, when I make a rune with Formation, the area of effect will depend on how large the Main Circle is, which means the bigger the Main Circle the bigger the area of effect. Also, it means the Life Energy it needs to absorb will become larger. So, what will happen if you remove the Main Circle which is the area of effect?

Is that mean the Rune will treat the whole item as the area of its effect? Then is that also mean that the first time I make a Rune without Formation, I just tried to put a Rune on a whole world? No wonder why it failed.’