Aias woke up to now open drapes. The night before he had asked Podrick to keep them open while he slept so he could grow accustomed to the light. He also used it to know at what time he woke upp.

Looking back at the other day, not much had happened. He had been served a new set of ribs. Tasted them and been elevated to a higher plain by the glorious taste of the honey glazed meat.

Podrick had come shortly after dinner to inform Aias that both O’jghar and Hannes were too exhausted to meet him before bedtime.

Georgio had chuckled and told Aias that they had been sparring for the last four hours, apparently O’jghar had been losing.

Aias had been caught off guard by Georgio’s stomach, however after getting used to it he started to notice the real strength behind him. He had an intense air about him. As if a typhoon that could devour everything around it.

The comparison was especially true when he was eating. During the night Aias had gotten to know what monster the ribs he ate from was, not by asking but by seeing Georgio eat through almost every part of the beast.

While eating it Georgio had told the story of himself hunting. He named the story, “Georgio’s conquering of the deadly Shoucho Lion”.

Shoucho lions are huge three meter tall lions that can discharge electricity through their mane and tail. They are considered to be an apex predator that even travel out of the wilderness to hunt down caravans and people.

They usually required a skilled group of hunters to bring down, or even a large squad if they were to hunt it down in its own territory.

If Georgio could hunt down one of these and best it in single combat then it showed that he was worth his legend, even if he had an odd stomach.

Aias had now woken up, by the look of it it seemed to be seven o’clock already. In an hour Hannes was supposed to come and speak to him concerning his A grade beast.

Until then Aias decided to continue trying to understand the depth of his heavenly energy.

………

A while had passed when Podrick knocked on the door, he helped Aias get dressed and ready for meeting Hannes. In Aias room there was a small table with two sofas surrounding it, there they would be holding the meeting.

Aias had gotten comfortable while waiting and Podrick had left to get Aias breakfast ready.

A knock came from the door, Aias responded, “You may enter!”, and in came Hannes.

Hannes was like a completely different man compared to last night, before he was like a corpse, sitting staring into the abyss. Today there seemed to be a jump in his step as he made his way through the room to Aias.

“Well Aias, I have great news!” He began with as he sat down in the sofa facing Aias.

He cleared his throat and began, “You are now indeed the owner of a beast with an A-grade connection to you. I believe I explained to you yesterday that A-grade connections aren’t forged by the master, you, however made by the beast themselves. And with an A-grade connection also comes benefits and dangers.” Hannes put an emphasis on the possible danger of the situation.

“Your Kjil serpent, Varja, appears to have linked its life to yours. If you were to die so would it! However if it dies, no harm should come to you.”

Aias grew concerned for his lovely snake, dying together sounded poetic however in reality it’s only sad! “But why did Varja do it?! Why would he create a connection with me?” Aias felt like he had wronged the beast, he was always thrilled to live life on the border of life and death, the high it gave him of being in a dangerous situation was something he couldn’t stop. But now, now he wasn’t just risking his own life, he could end Varjas.

Hannes could clearly see the sadness in Aias eyes, he was ready to cry for his beast. “Beasts don’t choose these connections, they are forged by trust and love. Only through powerful emotions do the beasts forge this bond. They do it without even realizing it.”

“Well no need to worry Aias I’m sure everything will be fine. Now let me tell you what the connection created!” Hannes clearly wanted to cheer up Aias the only way he knew.

“Varja himself appears to have gotten your full vocabulary, he can fully understand the Katorian language. The connection also seems to have triggered him to begin evolving which if I’m correct will be the more rare, spiritual transformation.”

The spiritual transformation of a Kjil serpent would make it considerably smaller however it would instead become a magical beast. The abilities of magical beasts were far more dangerous than wild beasts.

Wild beasts have to survive with their natural abilities and only have minor use of energy, like strengthening techniques. While magical beasts can use larger and more complex techniques.

A wild beast may be able to breath fire if it has heat mana inside its core, however a magical beast can not only breath fire but also naturally control it, similarly to lord Meleth.

Aias couldn’t wait to see how amazing Varja would become!

“Now we come to you!” Hannes spoke up again after having noticed that Aias mood seemed to have been lifted.

“From my research there are three possibilities that could have been given to you. First and most common, inside your consciousness there is now a special formation. You may not have found it yet however it may be deep within you, waiting for you to find it. I wouldn’t know what this formation does as all formations given by beasts are different.”

Aias felt that this wasn’t enough of an explanation and interrupted, “Why would I have gotten a ‘formation’ from my connection with Varja? How could the connection build a functioning formation?”

Hannes seemed amused by Aias clear disbelief of how the connection worked. “We don’t know much about how these connections work either, if we did we would try to create them ourselves. However it happens, sometimes an A-grade connection will build a formation within you, this formation will be a single technique that uses a certain type of energy. It will be up to you to find out how to use it if this is the case.”

Aias accepted his explanation however didn’t like not knowing how a formation could be created by the connection. He had now been studying formations and understood that making a new one from scratch was extremely hard.

“For the second possibility, you may have within you a portion of the Kjil serpents energy. In this case you will just have to find out what energy it is and then find ways to use it like any other energy.”

Aias immediately got that this was it, the energy he had found while playing with the fox wasn’t given by the fox, he had simply found the energy Varja had left within him.

“Then the third and least likely, almost impossible, the serpent imparted its soul into you. If this is the case then within your consciousness there would currently be a Kjil serpent made out of perfectly pure energy, which you should have noticed as the soul would be alive and constantly moving within you.”

No, Aias had never seen a Kjil serpent within his consciousness, however there was the large ball of energy. “Are these the only things you can get from an A-grade connection?” Aias felt he needed to ask as it seemed to be a short list. Sure the perks weren’t bad, however were few.

Hannes laughed, “No no no, these are the possibilities that you could have been affected by, you could have gotten all kinds of things. Mutations, that made parts of your body more similar to that of a Kjil serpent. A closer connection to the Kjil serpent, something like the two of you being able to communicate telepathically. Transformation, you may have even been able to transform fully into a Kjil serpent over a short period of time whenever you chose.”

“Similarly there are many different perks the serpent could have gotten but I don’t have time to go over everything. I have to go and sit in a four hour meeting with the city guild at nine.”

Hannes got up from the sofa and walked to the door, before leaving he turned back and smiled to Aias, “I don’t think we’ll meet anytime soon again so I hope you will have a good life.” Before Aias got to say goodbye the door had already closed.

Aias shortly fell into confusion over why he would say goodbye like that but quickly figured that O’jghar would most likely come to pick him up for leaving the castle soon.

………

Aias had been correct, after eating breakfast O’jghar had come to get him. From what O’jghar had been told the winter storms were far closer than he had anticipated and they would need to hurry.

Before leaving Aias went to say goodbye to Sophia, Sera, Podrick, and Georgio. It was a short farewell as they barely knew each other, however Aias felt that it was something important for him to do.

Sophia seemed to have been happy having a friend around and made Aias promise to come back once they were done in the capital. Both Sera and Georgio were happy to see their daughter had made a friend and told Aias that he was welcome anytime.

He waved goodbye while riding the carriage through the castle gates into the town.

They slowly made it down to the large gate towards the outside. Aias looked to the shops he had visited yesterday and was even recognised by some of the townsfolk he had been served by. Smiling faces passed through the streets and Aias felt at peace, an exciting life was what he wanted, however this was also needed along the journey.

This time they weren’t going through the same gate as they came from. There were two gates, one south gate and one north gate, they had come from the northern gate and were now about to pass the southern one.

The gates looked identical to one another and the only difference was that there were no tents for festivities and instead a proper barrak for training. Aias could see thirty or so men standing together practicing sword swings. Ah morning exercises, Aias could only wait for the day he could do them himself again.

They slowly passed through the large gate to now leave for the capital. On the way out there was no security check or inspection whatsoever, only guards waving them goodbye.

Aias hoped to see the guards he had meet when they arrived however they were nowhere to be seen.

Exiting the gate and following the road Aias was greeted with the view of the land ahead, a single large field as far as his eyes could see.

Svordie is the castle that sits before the edge of central Antrim, a rich land that’s used to grow seventy percent of all Antrim’s crops.

Goibi the northeastern region of Antrim is comprised of mostly wildlands, which makes farming to dangerous without personal guards and so it’s main exports are beasts and herbs from said wildlands.

Aias had never seen proper farmlands before, only small patches outside of Canastota that were barely the size of archery ranges.

……..

They had traveled a whole day and night before coming across their first different landscape, it had been nothing but large open hillside with rocks littering the land until now. In front of them now there was nothing but yellow.

Nothing but an ocean of yellow, wheat, wheat everywhere. Only after Aias looked really hard could he see a house long in the distance.

After slowly making their way to the house could they see another house equally far away from the first one. O’jghar explained that this large field of wheat wasn’t owned by a single farmer but a group that worked together to protect it from beasts, bandits, and disasters that could bring harm.

As the sun started to set O’jghar brought the carriage up to one of the houses on the road. Unlike many of the houses they had passed thus far this one had a large stable and was more close to an estate that a simple house.

Aias could tell that this place wasn’t a part of the farming community by the lack of farming equipment and by how appealing the place looked. This was most certainly a tavern of some sort, most likely for traveling people like themselves.

O’jghar got of the coach of the carriage and entered the establishment, leaving Aias with Varja. Aias and Varja hadn’t spent any time together since leaving Svordie due to Aias constantly training to understand energy.

Aias looked to Varja and said, “Sigil”, a symbol appeared on Varja’s forehead. The sigil was of a dark purple with an outline of red, it was an A. If anyone said the word ‘sigil’ in front of a branded beast its rank would appear.

According to Hannes there are many who create fake brands for beasts, however if a person from a guild were to inspect the brand they could tell it’s authenticity.

Aias stroke his hand over the mark, feeling Varjas large powerful scales. To Aias they still felt like small shield’s that couldn’t be broken, even if he had seen it before.

The dark loomed over Aias and he felt a presence behind him, “Who is it?” Aias wasn’t concerned, but did get a feeling of danger.

“Do you still hold the pendant?” The voice from behind him was someone he remembered very well, the old man!

Aias felt an odd need to respond, “Do you want it back?” It didn’t feel like he was trying to ‘take’ it from him, but that he would lift a burden of off Aias.

He had never since getting the pendent given it a single thought, however now that it was mentioned to him his neck felt as if it was being dragged down into the ground. He had always had the pendant around his neck, it had never bothered him and he hadn’t bothered thinking someone would try to take it from him. Even though he knew someone from Orion would try to he had still not worried, so why now!

What gave him this unease? “No, no, I can never hold it again!” The old man as if terrified of even the thought of touching the trinket took a step back.

“Yes, I’m carrying it!” Aias gave a quick response back.

“Good! But you will have to watch out, the imposters will come back soon. Now that you aren’t under that woman’s protection anything could happen!” And just as suddenly as he appeared he was gone into the darkness surrounding them.

Aias was left laying there wondering what he had meant. After a brief while O’jghar came out from the tavern, he seemed angry. “Damn racist peice of shit, can’t sleep in your shitty little tavern for a night because I have horns.” Aias could hear him muttering under his breath. He had never seen him this emotional, he was usually serene and calm, explaining energy as if he knew all the answers of the world.

“We’ll be sleeping under the moon again tonight!” Finally O’jghar raised his voice and spoke to Aias. Aias looked into the sky, where there was a clear lack of a moon. A truly dark night.