Chapter 4: A greater bond
When we got home we saw father had made it back from the elder’s house. He was smiling from ear to ear at our mother. “Its official we are now the third richest family in the village only after the elder and the millers. Of course half of it is for Wills schooling but with this you will be able to get a new loom and we can probably even buy a first or second tier magical sheep ram for our flock. Then we can start having higher quality fibers to weave on a better loom bringing in even more money. This is a great day for us.”
Mother smiled back at him and said “yes it is” showing him the greater earth stone. “Our son has at least a high earth affinity so we don’t have to worry about him getting in anymore.”
Father grabbed us all in a hug. Maybe now we would finally be able to afford that stuff I had heard of from traders feather pillows, jade, silk something even finer than wool, and best of all maybe even swords I could see it now me wielding the perfect weapon a giant great sword with a jewel encrusted handle against monsters slaying them left and right.
Mother brought me back down to earth with though “yes, with an enchanted loom I could weave fabrics of much greater quality. However, even though we are now one of the richest families in the village we are by no means even equal to nobles our wealth might be comparable to a low middle class family in one of the bigger families. I think we could probably only afford a low quality magic loom and a peak first tier magic ram.”
Disappointed I started to sulk a little I thought we were rich but I guess everything is all a matter of perspective we might be rich villagers but we are still poor compared to almost everybody else. Seeing my depressed face father said “It’s a start son. You can’t expect us to become nobles overnight; if we work hard we can keep getting richer and richer you just have to belief in yourself and work hard.”
Starting to understand I nodded. We might never be rich but we would be able to have more stuff if we worked hard enough and got lucky. “So can I bond my egg now? I really want it to hatch.” I said with pleading eyes.
“Haa ha, yes son we can work on the binding now it can even be a greater binding because we have something from its parent and her mana core. There are 3 types of bonds that can be formed a regular bond where you simply drop your blood on the egg over a binding scroll this forms the basic bond and each members of the bond can feel the others emotions and needs this is the most common each members work together to help one another as they are tied together. The second type is a slave bond where blood of one of the parents is used along with your blood to make a bond. A slave bond forces the bond beast to obey your commands. The third type of bonds are greater bonds by absorbing the mana core of one of the parents and giving it a part of its parent to absorb you tie yourself even tighter together than a regular bond. Once the beast reaches maturity they will be able to communicate with you and their humanification skill requirement is decreased one tier so for your beast it would be fifth tier now. This is the most powerful of the bonds but is often not chosen because the slave bond allows complete control of your beast.”
“I want to do a greater binding.” I said I didn’t want to make my pet squirrel a slave it was supposed to be my friend and if I could talk to it even better.
Father nodded his head like he figured I would and said “why don’t you go get your egg we can’t do it without it.”
I ran into my room grabbed the egg and ran back to the living room as fast as I can I didn’t want father to change his mind or mother to say I couldn’t do it. Father smiled when he saw me running into the room while mother frowned about it muttering about how I never listened to what she said and always ran around the house.
When I got back to the living room father had just finished unrolling the scroll on our old gray carpet and had secured two of the corners by using one of the foot and a half long reddish brown spiral horns and the other was held down by a small black and brown crystal that seemed to glow.
“What’s that rock?” I asked father pointing at the black and brown crystal.
“That’s a mana core. They are formed by magical beasts and contain about 60% of their mana. Each one is made up of the beast’s mana. This one contains earth and darkness mana. Now come on son we don’t have all day.” He said gesturing for me to put the egg down on the center of the scroll.
I set the egg down and stood back looking at him to tell me what I should do. “The first step to a greater bonding is to absorb the mana core. Sit down on the scroll around the egg. Cross your legs so the egg is surrounded by you on all sides then pick up the mana core.”
I quickly sat down like he asked me to and grabbed the mana core. “Now feel the energy of the mana core like you did the elemental stones and absorb it all into yourself. This may hurt a little because a third tier beast should be capable of making you go up a rank into the novice second level cultivator rank. However, you have to absorb the core to do greater bond.”
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“Okay dad” I said and focused on the mana core. In the core I noticed some of the friendly earth mana and something I hadn’t felt before it must be the darkness mana. I tried to absorb it into myself grabbing with my other limb and pulling the energy into myself. Slowly I felt something trickling into me. It was warm and made me feel stronger and more alive; however, it kept getting stronger and stronger until it felt like my body was burning up.
“Aaaah!” I screamed as the burning sensation reached its peak and finally subsided. I looked accusingly at father if this was what a little pain felt like what did he consider a lot of pain.
“Amazing he went from someone who had never absorbed mana this morning to a novice mid second layer from just a little earth mana from the stones at Mabel’s and this mana core. I can’t even begin to imagine how high his earth affinity is I think he might actually be a greater affinity.” Father said beaming with pride at me while talking to mother.
Mother just sighed looking at a teary eyed me and father beaming with pride. “Your father just gets carried away with things and doesn’t take the time to explain them. You want to slowly absorb the mana from a mana core or it can be extremely painful and even lead to negative side effects.” She said glaring at father. What just happened was you broke through into the second layer of the novice cultivator realm. It is the very first realm there is, the realms are then broken up into four greater realms mortal, ascended, immortal, and god. No one has ever reached any of the god realms though. Each greater realm is made up of four realms and each realm is made up of nine levels. The mortal realms are novice, beginner, apprentice, and disciple. I am an apprentice peak second layer and your father is a beginner mid eighth layer. You just increased your cultivation by a level so the pain you felt was your body absorbing the mana from the core and condensing into your dantian. Your dantian is formed in the center of your chest starting at the novice second layer stage. It allows you to use your mana to manipulate your affinities and to use pure mana.”
“Okay, now that your mother has gotten her lecture in lets continue on with the binding ceremony.” Father said causing mother to start glaring at him again.
“This ‘lecture’ was all your fault. If you had correctly explained what he had to do I wouldn’t have had to tell him.” Mother said.
“Okay now you need to cut yourself with the horn. Be careful not to slice too deep, but use the end of the horn to cut a line across your palm.” Father told me. I did as he said cutting myself with the sharp tip of the horn gritting my teeth against the pain.
“Now set the bloody horn beside the egg so that they are touching and drip your blood onto the egg.”
I leaned the horn up against my leg so one end was on my leg and the other was on the egg. Then I let the blood drip from my cut palm onto the egg. Below me the scroll started glowing. The faded red symbols started a bright crimson and after about 20 drops of blood crimson symbols started appearing on the egg. Suddenly the symbols flared and the horn disappeared turning into energy which was absorbed by the egg. A cracking sound was produced and the egg split down the middle.
Holding my breath and waiting I looked at the egg waiting for my new bond beast to appear. Slowly the egg started to split away from the crack and a fuzzy head with two little nubs on it poked out. Reaching up with a reddish brown little paw it pulled itself part of the way out. Now it got its other front paw a cream colored thing up and crawled the rest of the way out.
It was adorable it had a cream colored belly, left front paw, and spot on the end of its tail. The rest of it was black except for its ears, other three feet and a star shaped spot in the middle of its back. It crawled into my lap and I started petting it, it was so small and soft.
“What will you call her?” Mother asked me.
“Her?” I said.
“The squirrel is a girl silly.” Mother said.
“How do you tell?” I asked mother curiously.
“It’s just a skill mothers have.” She said while behind her father started laughing.
“I’ll call her Astra then for the star on her back.”
*Sorry about the long wait but have been dealing with finals week in college and then I got the stomach flu. I am out of college though for three weeks so expect more to come. I am planning on this being my main fiction. My other fiction is World Update: The Era of Monsters
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My two fictions are World Update: The Era of Monsters and A Warlords Origin