In this world, magic was something only people who had blessings related to magic could use, while the usage of mana was universal in almost all blessings as their abilities consumed mana to be used, only people with magic blessings could fully utilize their mana fully.

Even though Avian was no magic user, he still studied this world’s magic quite a bit as it was the one thing that was completely different from his own world that did not possess magic, magic itself was also a extremely powerful weapon that if mastered could equal the might of nuclear warheads, every country in this world coveted magic users for this reason as they were powerful weapons to deter other countries and not only that as they were also used for things such as healing, constructing and more.

1 competent [Wizard] could do as much work as 100 laborers within a single day and much faster than ordinary people, truly show casing how useful and powerful magic users were.

To prepare for the future Avian studied as much as he could about magic in this world so that he could react it if he ever encountered someone like that making the knowledge Avian possessed about magic not at all shallow as he could even be called an arcane scholar which were people who studied magic even though they couldn’t use it.

From all the studying Avian came to know many blessings that used magic and he also categorized them appropriately.

The basic gist of how magic was used in this world was with a person or a magic user interacting with an invisible power known as the elements.

Elements not only included the basic 4, which were water, earth, fire and wind, they also included things like illusion, restoration, evocation and many more all specializing or doing different things and influencing the laws of the world.

What a magic user does is, he takes those elements and commands them to work in the way he wants to which causes the desired magic, the thing is not all magic users or people who have a magic blessing do the exact same thing when they interact with the elements to make them work for them.

Every magic blessing has their own unique way to influence the elements.

[Clerics] and [Warlocks] bow before the elements.

[Druids] and [Shamans] work with the elements.

[Wizards] enslave the elements.

And [Sorcerers] are favored by the elements.

From his studies Avian had roughly categorized every magic blessing to belong to one of these categorize with the method they exorcise their power.

All of them had their pros and cons and none were better than the other.

Dahlia was a [Shaman] just like [Druids] she worked together with the elements to cast her magic, this was reflected in her ability [Spirit Contract].

What it did was, Dahlia was able to communicate with any spirit and form a contract with them.

The contracted spirit would then lend its power to Dahlia as her contractor, but this wasn’t a master-servant relationship, but rather a partnership as the strength of the [Shaman] depended on the strength of the spirit Dahlia would contract vice-versa.

The way the spirit would lend its power to Dahlia came in only 1 form currently which was using itself as a focus to allow Dahlia to cast spells which was much as Dahlia herself understood from accessing her blessing.

A focus is what you call the medium you use to cast your spells; these things are what fundamentally allow you to cast spells in the first place while also determining what kind of spells you can cast.

What this meant was for example, if Dahlia made a contract with a Lesser Fire Elemental, she would immediately be able to cast spells such as [Fire Arrow] or [Flame Thrower], anything that the Lesser Fire Elemental could cast she could also cast, if she was strong enough that is, conversely she couldn’t cast anything that her contracted spirit couldn’t cast itself meaning that she was always limited to the spells her contracted spirits knew.

The resources she would consume casting these spells would be her own mana and nothing from the spirit she was contracted with, the pros of this method of casting is that she didn’t need to learn how to cast spells as her spirit naturally gave her those abilities, while the cons were that you were limited to the spells your spirits had and couldn’t use anything other than those spells.

This is why [Wizards] were so unique and versatile as they didn’t rely on an external focus to cast their spells, but relied on themselves or rather their brain which was their focus to cast spells.

Thought admittedly, [Wizards] needed to study and understand fundamental arcane principles for a long time before they could properly cast magic, majority of their spells also required actions such as chanting and gesturing, some powerful spells even requiring material components to be consumed.

Compared to a [Shamans] who gets those casting skills immediately without any effort and no need for things such as chanting, gesturing and sacrificing material, at first glance it seemed as if a [Shaman] was the better spell caster.

But [Wizards] made that up with how versatile they could get later as they were not restricted by how many spells they could learn or what kind of spells they could cast as long as they could memorize them properly.

This made [Wizards] the number 1 spell casters as they were almost always unpredictable with their spells never knowing what they could do while [Shamans] were predictable as long as you knew what kind of spirits they were contracted with.

Avian honestly didn’t think the neither was better than the other, but currently he really preferred the [Shaman] blessing as Dahlia actually didn’t need to study anything to cast spells, she merely needed to contract a suitable spirit and let the magic course through her.

Of course things weren’t just that simple either, Avian, knowing a lot about magic [Blessings] from his previous studies, knew, as stated before, contracting a spirit wasn’t a master-servant relationship, but a partnership, in exchange of giving the contractor its power, the [Shaman] was obligated to help the spirit grow stronger, the way to accomplish this was to connect its spirit with the contracted spirit to absorb spiritual energy, this was in no way harmful to the [Shaman] as the contracted spirit was merely absorbing excess energy that was going to be wasted anyway, but even this excess had its limits which was the main resource [Shamans] used to contract spirits.

Just like Avian who had the [Monster Tamer] blessing that used his charm for the amount of creatures he could tame, [Shamans] required sufficient spiritual energy to contract spirits, each time they ranked up their spiritual energy would grow, they could also train their spirit to grow a stronger spirit like any other training exercise.

Contracting spirits also wasn’t the same with every spirit encountered, just like any contract, there existed terms and conditions, which increased by how powerful the spirit the [Shaman] was attempting to contract, low level spirits in this case don’t have sufficient strength and intellect to make demanding contracts which usually forces them to make contracts that say things like: I require this amount of spiritual energy each day and in return I will serve you forever! Which is usually an extremely beneficial contract as a contract couldn’t be changed once it is made between 2 parties.

High level spirits on the other hand would make contracts like: I require all the spiritual energy you can muster and I will be the only spirit you can contract, my contract lasts for 3 weeks, while I also require certain items for growth such as spiritual stones and…

This is why it was usually always more beneficial to contract low level spirits and grow them yourself to get stronger since the contract would never change even if they turned into high level spirits with greater intelligence allowing you to benefit significantly.

To Avian’s knowledge breaking a contract was also not possible as spirits would always demand things up front and never loan their services as this was against their nature, the only way to make a contract void was through the death of either party.

This was the basic rundown of the [Shaman] blessing Avian knew.

Dahlia listened very intently regarding every word Avian spoke as he gave her this sermon, Gabriella was the most impressed as she listened since knowledge like this was not something an ordinary person would know about, then again she reminded herself that her master wasn’t ordinary.

Either way Dahlia benefited the most from this as she understood that what Avian was telling her was very important to her since she was a [Shaman], she sometimes asked a few questions and things that she didn’t understand very well, but overall Avian found Dahlia to be quite a quick learner as she understood everything very quickly.

-So…what spirit should I make a contract with?

She asked, listening to Avian she had quickly understood her role in this place as she noticed from the tone of Avian speaking that he had expectations towards her.

Being the kindest and warmest person she had ever met who had taken her in and showered her in all this warmth, Dahlia felt that she wanted to do anything that made Avian her master happy and fulfill his expectations.

Avian too noticed that Dahlia seemed awfully perceptive about his wants and needs all of a sudden, they hadn’t been together for too long, but Dahlia was still a child making it easy for Avian to guess what she may be thinking as he hugged her from behind rubbing his chin on her head as he closed his eyes and felt her soft skin against his which not only made him comfortable as if he was embracing a small animal, but also Dahlia comfortable as she loved getting hugged and patted by Avian ever since her started doing so which made her feel safe and warm.

-Don’t be concerned about what I want, I do want you to become someone useful since this was the main reason I bought you, but I think this is something you should decide on your own, I just want you to keep the things I said in mind, I can also give you recommendations, but what you do will ultimately be decided by what you want.

-Master…

Gabriella muttered under her breath, slightly touched by her master’s care and kindness, but really this wasn’t any kindness on Avian’s part at all as this was simply his true thoughts mixed with his way of taking care of Dahlia who was still a child, in the future as she grows up, controlling her too much while she was still young would grow an overly powerful dependence on him from her, what he wanted was to cultivated a powerful magic user for his use, again not a mindless drone who did as she was told, being obedient to Avian was obvious, but self-sufficiency and knowing what to do without him was just as important which is what Avian wanted her to understand as he couldn’t always be next to her and protect her from her nightmares.

Dahlia obviously didn’t fully understand the hidden meaning, but she accepted Avian’s words and wanted to follow them as best as she could, in fact Dahlia decided to do it right now in fact.

Looking at her surroundings with her [Spiritual Sense] she searched for a suitable spirit, towns and cities usually had close to no spirits as they were all manmade and not natural, but that didn’t mean there were no spirits at all as Dahlia was easily able to find one right beside them.

Dahlia was nervous, and actually scared when she thought about what she was about to do, but she remembered what her master just told her, she felt his warm touch and really just wanted to be useful to him, she didn’t want to be abandoned or beaten like she like she was all those years ago, Dahlia was no longer the nameless mongrel everyone in her tribe shunned, she now had a name, a name she had grown fond of and a name her dear master had given her.

-(Please, help me! Give me strength!)

She prayed, prayed to the spirit and as she did so she witnessed the spirit which had been aimlessly flying inside the bath momentarily twitch as it turned its head or at least what she thought was its head towards her, looking like a mix between a frog and a miniature human approximately 10 cm’s in size, this spirit looked awfully odd, but not scary or malevolent as it had a funny smile and mischievous sets of big eyes that were reptilian in nature.

This was Dahlia’s first time reaching out to a spirit, she always knew they existed and that she could see them compared to actually people she could only see their outline, but she had never once tried to talk to them as she always had been scared and too frightened to do anything, but cower and cry.

Only now she realized that she should have done this sooner, seeing the gentle spirit as it slowly flew towards her, Dahlia almost wanted to smile as the spirit gently landed on her knee sitting down while staring at her with her big eyes.

Unfortunately, the spirit could not talk, it was simply too weak making to really no different from an animal which meant it wasn’t yet strong enough to form a proper conscious and gain intellect.

But even though it couldn’t talk, Dahlia could communicate with it as a [Shaman].

-(Hello! I…I need strength, you too need strength, do you want to form a contract with me?)

Dahlia asked, slightly hesitant, speaking not with her mouth but through her spirit which was for some reason natural to her, the mute spirit didn’t respond at first, but after a few seconds it nodded its head happily before conveying the things it wanted if Dahlia wanted to contract it.

And just like Avian said, the contract was extremely simple with the only requirement being a small amount of spiritual energy while her term of service was forever or rather until Dahlia died.

Dahlia was careful though, not wanting to get tricked as Avian described, she tried to negotiate with the spirit further to lower the spiritual energy requirement.

To her surprise the spirit agreed very easily showcasing it truly was not very smart at all, but Dahlia felt that if she tried to lower it further the spirit would leave which she didn’t want.

With that done, the contract was finalized and the spirit suddenly flew in front of her face touching her forehead as it mysteriously started to convey something to Dahlia’s mind.

It was sign of the completion of the contract; it was giving Dahlia its true name.

Nixie.

All this time Gabriella and Avian simply sat inside the tub enjoying the bath, neither of them noticing anything strange about Dahlia as they assumed she was also just enjoying it as well, but suddenly something different would happen as a light shone in front of her out of nowhere.

It shocked both Avian and Gabriella as they didn’t understand what was going on, but just as the light came, it disappeared just as, leaving a happy Dahlia who smiled at Avian proclaiming.

-Master…I made a contract with a spirit!

Again Avian and Gabriella were shocked, things were truly going fast for this girl.

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