“Wha… what the… How’d I get here? I’m not still drunk am I? Wait. Are you the final elemental spirit lord contractor? Did you form a contract with the spirit lord of time?” Rose asked, circling his head around quickly with a stunned look. Surrounding him was now a thick forest within which a small wooden house stood. As he gaze scanned his new surroundings, his eyes fell on a certain bird man.

“You! Swindler! It must’ve been you who told him about the Rose story!” As said, quickly unsheathing his sword and lunging towards Eril. “You promised you wouldn’t tell anybody! All of you did!”

“Relax, drunkard. I only told him to call you rose, nothing else,” Eril replied calmly as he sidestepped Rose’s vertical swing. “Why would I tell him such a juicy story for free? Plus, as long as I don’t tell anyone, you will forever owe me a favour. Why would I let go of the leash around your neck?”

“So who is this student I’m teaching anyway? And I want an advance on my payment!” Rose grunted at Kiefer, who was already walking over to the 2 of them.

“Oh? So you ended up bribing him after all. What did you use? A new set of swords? This weirdo seems to enjoy collecting and mastering swords for no good reason,” Eril asked, intrigued by Kiefer’s success.

“No actually. It was alcohol,” Kiefer replied, turning to face Rose now. “And you’ve already had your payment. That bottle earlier will be considered your first salary. You will be teaching my daughter. She should be back from her training soon. Eril, where are they?”

“Why bother asking me when you already know?” Eril barked back. He already had a good guess on the range of Kiefer’s abilities. “There they are now,” he pointed, as Jielin and Kina came trudging through the forest from a small pathway that had been cleared for training.

“Kina, come here and greet your new teacher. He’s going to teach you how to master your new toy,” Kiefer beckoned, waving his hand to his daughter. “This is Rose, he is a swordmaster.”

“Oh, so you are called Kina huh? Nice to meet you. You can just call me Master, or Big brother,” Rose greeted.

“Nice to meet you Uncle Rose,” Kina laughed. This birdman stunk of alcohol and was clearly much too old to be called brother. “When do we start training?”

“Ugg… Like father like daughter huh. Fine then, why don’t you show me your little sword? Is it a rapier? A shortsword? A falchion?”

“No, it’s a GreatSword. I’ll go get it,” Kina remarked, speeding off towards the house. Kiefer was silently reminding himself to teach Kina how to open a PD.

Within moments, Kina was skipping back out with a sword even larger than her person, causing Rose’s jaws to drop. She had both her hands behind her back, holding onto the hilt of the sword as she jovially hopped and skipped her way over, not the slightest bit affected by the imaginary weight of the sword.

As Rose, studied the giant sword from top to bottom, his eyes were sparkling, his mouth on the verge of drooling. However, the moment his gaze fell on the hilt and blade guard, his face turned into a frown as the feathers above his eyes scrunched up.

“This could have been such a good sword. Except the smith who forged this blade fucked it up badly. Such a waste of good resources,” he lamented, sighing with pity.

“What do you mean?” Kina asked, cocking her head to the side, wondering how such a magnificent blade was only considered a failed product in the eyes of this new master.

“This blade is obviously forged with gravitite ore as one of the main materials. However, looking at the hilt and the guard, there are no runes engraved to allow the user to control the weight of the sword. Normally, along the length of the blade guard would be a series of 5 small runes to set the weight of the sword. The hilt will be covered in runes to absorb the user’s mana according to the setting on the blade guard. Such a waste. The craftsmanship is impeccable, but in the end, it’s still a flawed product since the main features of the gravitite ore can’t be used.” Rose explained, shaking his head in pity.

“I don’t need the runes you know,” Kina elaborated, sticking the tip of the blade into the soft earth. Then, just by simply touching the pommel of the sword with her fingertips, she began channelling her mana into the blade, causing it to grow heavier by the second, digging further and further into the ground. Rose simply stared at the spectacle, his original frown now turning around to form an interested smile.

“I see. Then everything’s good I suppose. I’d thought I have seen everything when I went adventuring, but looks like there more strange things that I never even knew existed. Well then, seeing as you are on training with the swindler, I’ll start my lessons with you tomorrow. But your training with the sword begins now. To start off, make sure your sword is at its lightest weight. From now on, you are to never let go of your sword. Hold it in your right hand at all times. Anything you do, you do with your sword. You eat with your sword, you sleep with your sword, you train with your sword. The swindler should be giving you strength and endurance training so I’ll skimp out on those for now. Remember, never let go of your sword. You can only let go when I say you are ready.” Rose instructed as he turned around towards the house.

“Oh, before I forget,” Rose stopped and turned back around. “When eating, hold the sword in your right hand, and eat using your left. I need to train you to be ambidextrous.”

And so, Kina’s new training regime started, with Isana and Kiefer pitching in to help with training for both Kina and Jielin. Kina would alternate between Eril’s lessons, Rose’s sword class and mana training with Kiefer from day to day. Kiefer had become relatively well-known within Natiria over the following week, making several appearances within the city to chauffeur Rose around as well as meet up with Snow.

On training days with Eril, Kina and Jielin would undergo basic physical training such as jogging under enhanced gravity, weight training, and reflex training. Every few days, Eril would bring them to the city to study social behaviour, understand basic personality traits as well as discern lies from truths within busy market places. According to him, these were all skills that need to be learnt through first-hand experience, aka, experience being cheated by others, hence learn how to cheat. This of course helped Kina’s fame shot through the roof as she carried her giant sword around in public.

Training with Rose was pretty much straight forward. Mornings started out with basic sword strikes, and then afternoons were either technique training, reflex training, or dexterity training. Kina seemed bored initially with this schedule which required countless repetitive motions, but quickly caught interest when Rose displayed his skills with his sword. Having requested Eril to buy some paint and a thin sheet of canvas from the city, Rose showed Kina the art of delicate and fine sword control, painting a picture of the landscape using nothing but the tip of his sword, varying speeds of slashes and perfect fine motor skills. Even though his sword was sharp enough to slice a blade of falling leaf in half, the tip of the sword never touched the canvas, leaving it without a single scratch.

Kina seemed to enjoy training with Kiefer the most, surprisingly. It was the only time she could fully utilise her abilities as a titan, often shocking Rose or Eril with her abilities. Kiefer would try to teach her the finer controls regarding mana manipulation as well as methods to increase control and sensing of her particles. They would often pit their own skills against each other, with one on defence and the other on offense. Kina was improving, but still not on the level where she could write runes in the air.

Of course, aside from training, her most enjoyable time was being pampered by her mother after the harsh training sessions. She could always count on her mother to freshen them up with bowls of shaved ice or a nice cooling shower. Isana spared no effort pampering her baby, and along with Kina, her ‘second’ daughter Jielin.

As the days passed in a routine manner, almost as if it were clockwork, Kina was showing improvements by leaps and bounds. Kina showed improvements not only in her skills but also in her character and attitude as she focused more and more on training. This of course, left Isana conflicted. While it means that her baby was growing up and maturing, it also meant that she was growing distant from her daughter. The young girl who used to run to her for comfort the moment training ended was now opting to stay behind for personal training.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and months turned into seasons. Elder Snow had failed to convince the other cities’ lords for Kiefer’s special permission, but had decreed that Kiefer and his family were free to roam within the borders of his own city. Kiefer had decided it was high time he paid the other lords a visit.

Soaring through the sky in a series of carriages were the entire party. The small carriages were made of Gravitite to ease the load on the giant falcons pulling them. These falcons were different from the birdmen, as in they were not as sensitive to mana as the birdmen, making them unable to transform into humanoid forms or develop higher intelligence upon maturation. Instead, the high mana concentration of the planet caused them grow larger, some up to 3m tall. Each carriage held 2 people. The first one was being led by Elder Snow and his assistant. Kiefer and Isana in the second, Jielin and Kina in the third, and finally Eril and Rose in the fourth carriage.

These carriages were flying towards Paradise City, the central city of the Yurza continent. It was already approaching sunset as the red glow of the evening sun peeked into the carriages. They had been riding for the whole day already, but seemed nowhere close to their destination.

Snow was running multiple simulations within his head, coming up with contingency plans in case this meeting with Paradise city lord went awry. Isana and Kiefer were cuddled up next to each other, enjoying some alone time with each other. It felt awkward at first for Isana, since this was not the usual Kiefer that she hugged, but after a while her maternal instincts kicked in and she began to find Kiefer adorable in his child form. Eril and Rose were enjoying a bottle of wine that Kiefer had given them. Jielin and Kina seemed to have fallen asleep, having finally some time to relax from their training.

“…”

“Past… Present… Future…”

“I have seen your past… I can see your future… Rife with struggles, torn from influence, drunk on power…”

“Time… is the end… of all things… With eternal life… I shall accompany you to the end of time.”

“!!!!” Kina suddenly jerked awake from her sleep, her hand gripping her sword firmly. Jielin was roused from her nap by Kina’s sudden movement, rubbing her eyes as she glanced outside the carriage, and then at Kina.

“What’s wrong Kina?” Jielin asked in a sleepy slur.

“I… I don’t know. Did you hear that voice just now Jielin?” Kina whispered, as if afraid of being overheard. However, only silence greeted her as she realised, the carriage had stopped moving. Jielin seemed to have frozen in her seat, her beak still open in the midst of a yawn. Kina frantically looked around, trying to open the doors of the carriage but to no avail.

“Call my name, contractor. Finish our bond. What’s mine shall be yours. One cannot perish without the other.”

Kina was shaking with fear. She had not felt such a sundering feeling of death before. The voice resounded clearly in her head. The world outside frozen to a standstill. She could not rely on her masters, or her parents. Then, her lips parts involuntarily as she felt a surging sensation within her throat.

“Kronos,” She spoke, and suddenly the deathly aura exploded forth from her body. She was yanked from carriage as her consciousness was submerged into a muddled state. There she was, floating in an empty space, filled with a dull grey mist.

The mist began to coalesce in front of her, forming a hazy and smoky figure. Where the mist left, what remained was a blinding white space, pulling all focus onto the hooded figure in front of her. It was nearly 5m tall, with no visible lower body. The smoke trailing downwards from the hooded cloak. Where there should have been a face, was nothing but endless pitch black silence. Skinny arms extended from the sides, covered in matt black armour plating. 5 talons formed on each hand, as they gripped the thin air. Then, finally, from one of the hands, the black smoke began solidifying into a long rod, extending the length of the figure and quickly forming curved blades at each end. A dual bladed scythe.

The creature bowed in front of Kina’s floating consciousness, keeping a distance of almost 5m from her. One word reverberated through the space, directly into Kina’s mind. “Master.”