I ran my fingers along and felt the texture of the fur and the warmth of the body begin to transfer to my palm. Though it seemed natural that I felt this warmth, I thought about the mana present, which lingered idly and almost began to feel stale. I could tell that the boar had its own essence. A moment ago this essence raged against me. But now, this silence was eerie.

Suddenly, I felt a tug between my wrist and the idle mana from the boar. The deep purple glyph on my wrist began to resonate and a flow of mana started dispersing off from the body and encircled closer to my wrist. The mana surge was getting stronger and wrapped tightly around my wrist as the purple mana glyph fully activated.

I felt the mana coalesce and gather into me with my internal awareness, similar to how I felt my inner-depth be invaded with mana flow when I experienced Arady test me moments ago. I sensed as if the mana was collecting itself, to purposely interact with my mana.

If the deep purple mark felt like a gateway, this boars' spirit mana was now on the other side awaiting permission to be let in.

This understanding swept through me. The sensations I felt from it's mana spirit were extremely faint, but I could inherently comprehend that this spirit was willing to attach to me.

Fully immersed in the moment again, I heard Holtz' voice again. This reminded me to expand my sensory range to stay alert, although I was able to maintain the internal senses for this subtle mana interaction. I did my best to divide my awareness within to keep feeling this, while simultaneously drawing my attention to what is going on around me again.

There is a lot of depth to this world to get used to & It's all just there. I have to increase my level of discernment internally & externally!

Holtz spoke with a guiding voice helping to direct me on the best path. "Waaaaaiiiiitttt for it. Soon, be ready to 'Call' out to ‘it’ through your mark like what Arady showed to you. The trick is to wait for the maximum amount of mana that the spirit will gather. When it feels like- 'right now!', Reach to 'open the gate' and make the bond."

The idea was vague but the order of it made sense, corresponding to the impressions I perceived from this mana interaction within. The sensation of 'arrival' was indeed getting stronger.

It's here!!!! So I 'unlocked' the gate and 'pulled' on the mana gathered up through the gate like I was drinking in crisp water on a hot day......

When I was finished 'gulping' the mana in, I felt a warmth meld into my spirit. At the same time I witnessed a tiny boar, made of purple motes, leap out of my deep purple mark and scurry to the place I held my badge and it then melded into that as well.

[Bond Acquired: Bronze Boar lv.1 -- 1/10 till lv. 2]

[+1 str]

[+1 mana sense]

This was fascinating to experience, so I grabbed and took a look at my badge to now see one of the previously blank spaces have a new option to look into.

[Beastiary updated]

BRONZE BOAR - ????

"A crude food source to many inhabitants and creatures alike. Wild, easily provoked, and always hungry. When calm, a sense of alertness is magnified and the ability to sense mana disturbances is increased."

+ STR

+ MANA SENSE

_

I heard Holtz's voice again while I confirmed what was on the badge. "Hey, you missed something...."

Hhmmm? I looked in front of me and noticed that the body of the boar was no longer there. Instead in its place, a pearl-like iridescent crystal the size of my fist shimmered at me.

What. What was this?

I looked curiously at the light sheen and glisten and before I could reach for it, Holtz spoke up again. "Okay good. That is a spirit stone. When creatures, and even people pass on, their mana will consolidate into a form like that. So now you've got a choice to make from now on. There are two options to take that can eventually be dwindled down to one"

I saw one crystal but I wasn't sure what he meant by 2 choices yet. I reached to pick up the spirit stone and felt a distinct sense of the essence of this boar, however I could tell that the mana based in this was really a special type of mana distinct from the other stones I’ve felt up to this point.

Wait. This is new! Now I can more clearly feel the pressure exerted from the mana stones. My ability to recognize and sense for mana is sharper somehow.

Before I could burrow into that idea and go further down that rabbit hole of thoughts which my mind was about to embark on, Holtz interrupted, "Yes, two choices for you at the moment, and you're holding one of them. The other is still before you. Think about what you just did"

I looked at the manastone in my hand, and then at the other 3 dead boars in front of me..... "What I just did. Well. I felt the mana flow from the boar and made a new bond. Oh, there was an upgrade option I noticed on my badge."

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I set the manastone in one of the large bags, and I reached my hand out to touch another one of the boars. I felt that same sense of collection and tugging taking place at the gateway of the mark on my hand.

"Veeeerrrryyyy gooooood. You're starting to get the hang of that part. Go ahead and extract that one and see what happens".

"Extract......... Yeah, sounds a bit aggressive but that seemed like a fitting term for what happened last." I felt the accumulation point build up properly and opened up the flow gate to extract the mana.

I felt the essence meld and spread into me when more mana letters popped into my view.

[+1 STR]

[+1 MANA SENSE]

A similar event took place where the motes of mana consolidated into another pearl-like iridescent crystal. These are beautiful. But I was intrigued by the possibility of using this creature extraction as a strategy to increase my state of being. Each one of these creatures out here are indeed another type of resource for me......

"Now here is the next little trick available". Holtz took out a spirit stone of his own, and activated his light blue glyph. I felt his mana charging up the stone and light blue motes started to condense around the spirit stone.

He tossed it into the air and a similar Bronze Boar shape gathered and condensed around the spirit stone and manifested as a new boar. Its eyes glowed light blue and had Holtz' mark branded on its chest tuft. It was also thrice the size of the already large man.

This creation. This. This is a summoning?!

I looked at the spirit stone in my hand, then back at the beast in front of me. This boar was also looking down curiously at me before trotting over to Holtz and nuzzling up to him and received headpats! I was truly impressed.

I also saw a pinkish glow of motes rise up as it was being pet. Now this was adorably astonishing and I felt my heart flutter at the scene and smiled.

I was glad to know such a battle hardened warrior was able to experience his own warmth and love, and I felt a confidence raise up about being out here.

I smiled and nodded. "This is a good thing to know. I'm guessing that this is a way to protect myself out in these wilds?"

Holtz smiled and then scratched the back of his head like he was at a loss before retracting the mana from the boar he summoned back to his glyph and catching the spirit stone to return it to its place.

"Under normal circumstances yes. When it's time for you to do this by yourself, this will be the case. In fact the reason why mine was larger than those you took down is because I have bonded many of these spirit stones as nutrients to this specific one, to make him stronger."

I looked at the stone in my hand, paused a moment and shook my head. I took out the first spirit stone that I gathered that had the boar with the broken tusk instead. I chose to make him stronger.

I started by holding it up in the air and looking at it glimmer. I began to charge my mana around it.

Holtz noticed my decision and had a deep consideration about me. He hummed warmly at the way I regarded these beings. He wanted to feel good about this, but took a deep breath and resigned to sigh considering the next coming days I was to face.

Without missing a beat, on his next breath he continued to instruct me, "Take the charged stone and press it to the others. When you do, pull in with the charged mana to absorb the new spirit stone"

I did it as he spoke. I could feel an excitement stir within as the original boar devoured the second spirit stone.

[Bronze Boar - ???? Lv.1 -- 2/10 till lv.2]

STR: 2

MANA SENSE: 2

I considered the differences of me personally extracting the mana spirit for gain vs. supplementing the boar to devour more spirit stone. I felt a conflict of interests in gathering resources take place mentally. Now I'll have plural mouths to feed. Again.

I knelt there thinking about this before I spoke out. "So tell me Holtz, if you say that the two choices will eventually turn into one. Is it because the creature can only become so strong?"

Holtz smiled again at my ability to piece together the information puzzle he is teaching me. "Yes, this is the case".

I looked up and over to him and asked "Then what did you mean by 'under normal circumstances' from a moment ago?"

Holtz shook his head and let out a rough chuckle "Yeah. About that. You've gotta undergo this first trial without any aid from summons either. Special orders kid."

Trying to keep me from getting depressed about thinking too much about the lonesome stress war, he followed up by saying "Look on the bright side. Spirit stones are a valuable commodity because there are many Citizens that pay good money for the chance to own these."

He pulled out a few more of the same stones and mass activated 5 more of the same boars in various sizes and smiled. "There's no limit to the amount of these that you can carry, and many of us soldiers have our own armies of creatures we activate to help aid us in the creature flood events that the old wars refer to....."

He retracted them collectively as well, and although it was subtle, I took note of this ability to spread out that much mana towards extraction, then I turned and looked at the two other nearby boar carcasses that lay idle beside me.

"Oh yeah and there are plenty of merchants and nobility that battle in the Colosseum with these creature summons. There are even creature vs person competitions to win prize pools. There are some willing gladiators that do battle like this for glory and wealth, but many times the Colosseum slaves and prisoners of the Kingdom are the ones to be used as battle fodder for those particular staged battles. Many unprepared slaves have met their end at the whim of bloodthirsty handlers in the underground circuit, behind closed doors."

Hearing that made me go from looking at the boars, to holding my hand up and staring at my deep purple mana mark. It was silent between us for a few moments as I considered the implications of that hint. Wind blew by as we heard the far off hooves beating the ground in the distance.

I took a deep breath and concentrated on my glyph to extract the two other boars at the same time, testing to copy what Holtz had easily done.

[+2 STR]

[+2 MANA SENSE]

As the mana was extracted, the two spirit stones dropped to the ground. I stood up, walked over and picked them up. I weighed the thoughts of selling them to lighten my debt load sooner, but this wasn't in line with protecting myself.

I've been taught the way of peace and I truly cherish this, however I was also shown the wisdom of being ready to bind and suppress the strongman first, as strategy before daring to ransack his house of the stolen goods. When the enemy only understands violence, I have to be capable of speaking their language. Loudly.

Justice comes in many forms, and we reap what we sow. So I charged the spirit stone again and fed my ‘pet?’?

Well, what goes around comes around. "Eat up and get strong, buddy. Hhhmmmm".

I looked into the spirit stone as my purple mana traced around it. "Your name is now, Scree....."

[Bonze Boar - Scree Lv.1 -- 4/10 til Lv.2]

+4 Str

+4 Mana Sense

I settled my mind to refocus on the task at hand and smiled looking back at Holtz, who had a complicated look in his eyes. He began to crack a smile and laugh again at the way I was handling my choices to start off my new life.