From a tree, the same black clothed girl came out.

“What do you want?” I asked and stayed vigilant. “Chill out, I am not here to fight or anything. I gotta say, you senses are quite sharp. Actually, I wanted to ask you a question.” She said and stood in front of me. “Ask away” I replied.

“You shouldn’t act so cold towards a lady. Well….my question is, how are you so strong? You are not a student of the Royal Academy but judging by your strength, your ability gotta be a tier-6 or higher one. Who are you exactly?” she asked and I could sense the doubt in her voice.

I chuckled “If you want me to answer, you’ll have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone. Plus, you need to teach me how to use swords. Deal?” I could use this chance to learn swordsmanship. If I am going to choose a weapon, it’ll be a sword because my first ability [Sword of Emperor] has aroused my interest in swords. 

She shows a surprised emotion for a second but smiles and nods.

“Hehe, it’s quite simple actually. I am a citizen of this very city and the reason I am strong as you say, is because my ability gives me quite the boost in a hand-to-hand combat. As for the tier of my ability, you’ll found out one day.” I say with a wink.

“Damn. Doesn’t this make me on the losing side of the deal? But since I had promised you, I’ll keep this a secret and teach you swords for 2 months. How much you can gain from that depends on your talent” she replies. 

“That’s fine by me. I’ll be leaving with my friend to the Royal Capital in 2 months anyways so it’s a good deal. And don’t worry, you won’t get out of this deal empty handed. My ability lets me see the weak points of my opponents so I could help you improve your fighting skills. Oh, by the way, I am Arthur. Nice to meet you” I say and extend my hands. She shakes my hand “Nice to meet you too Arthur. I am Lily and I’ll gladly accept your offer”. We discussed a bit about our schedule and decided to meet here every morning and practice till lunch. We bade farewell and I walked towards my home. Lily hun? She is quite the interesting girl. I wonder how I’ll reveal this to Sylvia.

The next day, I decided to wait for Sylvia in front of her house so I could inform her about my new arrangement. After a few minutes, she came out and was surprised to see me standing there waiting for her. I held her hands and pulled her away from her house without giving her a chance to say anything. What I failed to notice is a middle-aged woman watching us from a window of her house smiling.

“Hey Arthur, what are you doing here?” Sylvia asked while we were walking towards the city gate.

“I missed you so much that I couldn’t control myself and came to fetch you” I joked and she punch me.

“Ohk, ohk, the thing is, did you hear about the tournament of yesterday?”

“Yeah, Dad said it was to celebrate City Lord’s daughter awakening to a tier-6 ability and the awards were quite good.”

“Exactly. The thing is, I kind of won the tournament and the award was 5 Bone Cleansing Pills. I will give you 2 and I’ll take two. We’ll keep the last for future uses.” I said and gave her a pouch. There were 2 Bone Cleansing pills inside it. She eyed me for a second, but said nothing and accepted them. We had already accepted the fact that whatever we own belongs to both of us so she didn’t try to deny me.

“You didn’t have to take such risks. What if you had gotten hurt?” she asked and stopped walking. I kissed her hands and replied “We are cultivators Sylvia, a little bit of pain can’t scare me. These pills are important for a good foundation and at the end I did win didn’t I?” She nodded her head and we continued walking.

“By the way, there is something you should know. During the finals, my opponent was the City Lord’s daughter in disguise and after defeating her, we made a deal that I’ll tell her my identity and help her improve her fighting style and in turn she will keep my identity a secret and teach me how to use swords. Do you want to join our training sessions?”

Suddenly she stopped walking again, and I could feel a murderous aura around her. I had cold sweat on my back and turned around to see a pretty scary looking Sylvia, even though she was smiling.

“So you made a deal with another girl to spend time together, without even telling me?” she asks and I could swear I saw an image of a Shura behind her.

“Hey…i..its not what you think it is. I had….tr…training in my mind…..” my voice was shaking and god knows what was wrong with me. I try to speak more but Sylvia’s finger sealed my lips. Then all of a sudden, she started laughing. “Hahaha….Arthur, you should have seen your face. Relax, I was just joking. I am well aware that you will be great figure in the future and will have many maidens following you. Just know that the position of first wife belongs to me ohk?” she said and specially emphasized on the last part of her sentence.

What the hell? Well, the concept of polygamy did exist and was normally seen among powerful practitioners or nobles. Only the strong had the right to do whatever they pleased and have as many wives they wished. But since my dad had only one wife, I didn’t know what to feel about polygamy. Oh well, no point thinking about that now. We’ll see when the time comes.

I hug Sylvia and whisper in her ears “Hey, I don’t know what I feel about polygamy but know that you are the person I love the most in this world. You know me inside out since we have been together since kids and as promised, I’ll protect you for the rest of my lives. The only reason I am hell bent on gaining strength is because I want to be strong enough to protect you. You are the most important person in my life Sylvia.”

I know she was crying by the wetness I felt on my shoulders but I didn’t let her go and continued to hug her. There were not many people around here so it was fine. After a few minutes, she calmed down and whispered “Let go, people are watching.” I let her go and held her hands “Let them watch. You are mine anyways.” I reply and seal her lips. This time she doesn’t resist and returns the kiss. We separate and find a few people looking at us with a smirk. With a red face, we quickly dash out of the area.

“You idiot, I told you people were watching” Sylvia said, but I could see she was very happy.

“Haha….but you totally enjoyed it”

“Hmph…..go away”

Bickering and laughing, we reach our meeting point with Lily. I could see a blue-clothed girl with jet-black hair and green eyes with two swords and a dagger in her waist standing there. She quickly noticed me but narrowed her eyes at Sylvia. She then noticed us holdings and I could see a disappointed expression flicker across her eyes for a second. Is my mind playing tricks or is she really sad knowing I have a girlfriend? It can’t be possible that she had started to like me in a single encounter? Must be the former I guess.

We reached there and both the girls started eyeing each other carefully with me standing there awkwardly. Then suddenly, as if both of them came to tacit understanding started walking away signalling me to remain where I am. They went quite far away I couldn’t hear or see anything. After 5 minutes, both of them came out holding hands and eyeing me like a wolf eyes its prey. What the hell? What kind of earth-shattering discussion can bring about such huge changes? And why am I getting shivers down my spine all of a sudden?

“Arthur, you didn’t tell me you’ll bringing such a pretty girlfriend with you?” Lily asks with a mischievous smile.

“It’s not like I’ll be the only one for much longer, so no need to worry Lily” Sylvia says and gives her a meaningful eye. Lily blushes and looks away. What the fuck happened in just 5 minutes which made them such good friends in such a short time? Women are scary creatures.

“*cough* anyways, I am sure you have already introduced yourselves but let me do the honours again. Sylvia, this is Lily, City Lord’s daughter and she’ll be training me with swords. Lily, this is Sylvia, my girlfriend. I hope you don’t mind I brought her with me for our practice session”

‘No, no, it’s totally fine. In fact you did a very good thing by bringing her here. I could tell that she has a nice affinity with daggers so I could train her in daggers too.” She replies happily. They even talked about their weapon choices in just 5 minutes? Hah…forget it. I’ll just treat these two as oddballs and just accept everything.

“Thanks Lily. Fist let’s start with my swords. Sylvia has an offensive type spell in her ability which deals with long-distance attacks so we need to set up a training plan for her too.”

“I know. Let’s do this. Sylvia, first we’ll deal with your precision as that is very important when dealing with long-range attacks. We’ll set up a training dummy at some distance away, let’s say 50 metres and you’ll have to practice to hit it perfectly. Then we’ll keep increasing the distance until you can make a prefect shot upto 500 metres. After that we’ll increase the number of targets and see how it goes. Sounds good?”

Both I and Sylvia gave a thumps up. Her plan was quite good and will help Sylvia a lot with her [Holy Spear].

With that, we started our intense training for the next 2 months. Early in the morning, Lily will teach me how to fight with swords while Sylvia trains with her [Holy Spear]. Then we’ll take a break to discuss about our problems and success. After that, I’ll help Lily deal with her flaws and teach Sylvia some hand-to-hand moves at the same time. Then I’ll leave Lily to teach Sylvia how to fight with a dagger and walk deeper into the forest with an excuse of meditating when in reality I practice my own [Holy Spear] in secret. Who knows when I’ll need to use it so better get a good handle at how to use it efficiently. This training will also help me in future when I acquire more long-distance type attack abilities.

Like this, a month passed and New Year came. Today we had taken a day off to enjoy New Year with our family and I was currently strolling in the market area looking for appropriate gifts for my family and friends. During this one month, my training with swords went very well and Lily was shocked with my unhuman talent with swords. Thanks to [Warrior], I became as proficient as Lily in swords in 3 weeks and for the next two weeks, she taught me some special techniques which she learned in school. I was really grateful to Lily for sharing everything with me and I had realised that I had started to like her. We had spent so much time together and I know she was a really nice girl. Sylvia has been giving many hints recently that she approves of Lily and I should confess to her. I have given a lot of thought to the idea of polygamy and realised that if I can make another girl happy and have the ability to protect her, then why not? I know for a fact that Lily likes me to some extent too and I can’t imagine rejecting her and breaking her heart. So I decided that I’ll accept her and protect her with all my heart. Sylvia had given me subtle hints that New Year will be a nice time to confess my feelings and I think she is right. But first, I’ll need to find a proper gift for her.

I had amassed some money by doing some F-rank missions. We have yet to hunt a monster otherwise I would have a lot more money but this much should be fine. Suddenly, I spot a small, secluded shop in an alley and with curiosity I entered the shop. There were a variety of items inside the shop and what grabbed my attention was a section of necklace in a corner of the shop. Those necklaces were really beautiful and came in various designs. I spotted a blue-colour necklace which was a perfect gift for my sister. It was a shield shaped necklace with two hearts intertwined together. It perfectly represented my will to shield her from all harms and my love towards her.

There was also a red coloured necklace whose shape looked like a rose flower and had ‘Love you always’ written on it. This was a perfect gift for Sylvia. Then there was a green coloured heart shaped necklace which depicted two lovers embracing each other. This is it! My gift for Lily. Strange, how come I got so lucky and ended up with perfect gifts I could ask for? Since the day I had awakened, I could feel that I had become an extremely lucky person. It can’t be [Ability Devour], so is it [Sword of Emperor]? It has such a vague name and it is still locked. I have no idea when I’ll able to use it. Well, whatever. Luck is something everybody desires and I am getting it just like that.

I purchase those necklace along with a few other things which I liked and decided to give it to my parents. A pair of earrings for mother and a flute for my father. Everything was worth 10 silver and I had enough to pay for it. I was extremely happy and went home in a very good mood. Today was the last day of this year and I had asked Lily to wait for me at 11:30 at our meeting spot. Normally she should be celebrating with her family, but due to some emergency her father was away and she was all alone. So I had invited her to celebrate New Year together. She had no idea that I’ll be going alone and Sylvia will be absent. I had already informed Sylvia about my plan and she was totally cheering me to go for it. She said she considers Lily as her sister and it’ll be perfect if they can become a single family. Hah…I am really a lucky bastard to get someone as amazing as Sylvia.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I arrived home and hid my gifts in my room. I spent the rest of my time reading books. After knowing about my ability, I had borrowed a lot of books from the library to increase my knowledge on the type of abilities present and some unique abilities present out there. Our library neither had any information on my abilities nor did it say anything about Sylvia’s ability. The word ‘scion’ in her ability gave me a feeling that it is not an ordinary tier-8 ability. Another thing which came to my knowledge is that I had an azure coloured tattoo on the back of my right shoulder, about the size of half of my palm. It was only thanks to Amy who barged into my room while I was changing and spotted it that I came to know about it. It was a spiral shaped tattoo which depicted a world getting swallowed by huge jaws. That’s what Amy described it to me and though it sounds dark, she said it really looked cool. Well, it must be related to my [Ability Devour]. I searched about this phenomenon in the library and came to know that all the abilities of tier-8 or above impart a particular symbol in the body of the user. Thank god my [Ability Devour] doesn’t give me additional symbols even when I absorb tier-8 abilities like Sylvia’s.

By the time I was done reading, it was already time for dinner so I headed towards the dining room. Our family ate dinner happily and I gave everyone their respective gifts and told them to open it after 12 pm. Amy was very impatient, but after some coaxing, she agreed reluctantly to wait. My parents were already aware of my arrangement to spend the New Year outside and didn’t ask me anything. The probably assumed that I’ll spending it with Sylvia. I had absorbed the abilities of my parents and though they were weak, mom’s ability could be useful when my friends or family would be in danger.

I bade them farewell and made my way towards our meeting point in the forest. When I reached there, Lily was nowhere to be seen so I patiently waited for her. After a few minutes I sensed movement and turned my head, only to be greeted by a breath-taking sight. Lily was dressed in a dark green sleeve-less dress and had left her hair open. The dress perfectly emphasized her figure and made her look exceptionally hot. Her sexy long legs were bare and were reflecting the moonlight, giving me the urge to touch and feel them. She had a slight blush on her face and was fidgeting looking in my direction. I slowly approached her and she was looking down.

“Lily, you look breathtakingly beautiful in that dress” I said. She looked up and stared straight into my eyes. She said nothing but I could see her happiness and a little bit of anticipation and nervousness in her eyes. I held both of her hands and her face turned beet red, but she kept staring in my eyes.

“Lily, I called you today to tell you something important. I like you, a lot. I don’t know whether it’s at the stage of love since we had known each other for a very short time. But I can tell that for me, you are very special and I don’t want to lose you. I want to protect you and be with you. You are well aware that I already have a girlfriend and I can’t promise that there won’t be any other woman in my life. I have laid my heart open, the rest is upto you.”

By the time I finished, Lily was smiling with teary eyes and shook her head “I like you too Arthur. I am well aware about Sylvia and we have already talked about it before. It is quite normal for a powerful and talented person to have many wives and I am perfectly fine with that as long as I get to be with you and stay happy.” She said and hugged me. I hugged her back and whispered “Thank you”. We stayed in each other embrace as bright explosions started lighting up the sky, signalling the beginning of New Year. I separated myself from her and took out her gift from my pocket. She smiles and cheerfully accepted it with a ‘Thank You’.

She opened up the box and took out the green necklace. She then gave me bashful look and coquettishly asked “Would you help me put this on?” I nodded with a smile and took the necklace from her hands. She then turned around her removed the hair covering her nape. Her skin was so smooth and glossy under the moonlight. I gently place the necklace around her and as soon as my fingers touched her skin, she gasped slightly. My heart started beating faster but I controlled myself and carefully intertwined the two ends and locked it. In the end I couldn’t control myself enough and kissed her nape slightly, which got me a sexy moan. I lost my cool and started kissing her neck feverishly. Lily was moaning every now and then but didn’t stop me. My body was urging me to go down but I controlled myself and sealed my lips with hers. Our tongues intertwined and we started sucking each other. We kissed for god knows how long until we were out of breath and separated panting. We both had a silly grin on our face and sat down embracing each other under a nearby tree. The rest of the night was spent with occasional kisses and laughter as we fell asleep hugging each other.

The next morning, I felt someone poking my face and I opened my sleepy eyes. Sylvia was standing in front of me with a mischievous smile and I realized that I was hugging Lily who was still asleep. I hastily separated myself which woke Lily up and as soon as she saw Sylvia and then our position, she screamed and got away. Both I and Sylvia started laughing watching her reaction and Lily’s face got red with embarrassment.

“I see, so you two finally got your feelings straight. I am glad, I was getting tired of both of you eying each other and trying to hide your feelings all the time. Arthur, you better take good care of both of us now and you Lily, now that we are a family, you don’t need to hide anything from us and you can share all your problems and joy, ohk?” Sylvia said and glared us both. We nodded and she smiled. Hah…she sure is enjoying the role of First Wife.

“*cough* Now that we all are here, let’s begin with our training”. And thus our normal training began. Sylvia had almost finished up her precision training and now could fire multiple [Holy Spear] from a distance of 500m perfectly. She had also perfected her dagger proficiency as much as she could and was as proficient as Lily now. Lily had also fixed up almost all of her flaws and her moves were now as smooth as flowing water.

“Hey girls, I think it’s time we take our first monster hunt mission from the Adventurer’s Guild and test out our powers. It can also give us some battle experience. Me and Lily will play offensive while Sylvia will support us from behind with her long-distance attacks and [Holy Heal]. What do you think?” I asked them. Both of them agreed and so we made way towards the Adventurer’s Guild. When we entered the guild, we got more eyes full of lust and hate than last time, thanks to the extra addition of Lily. We ignored them and headed towards the mission board. After going through we found an E-rank mission to collect Fire Boar’s horns, a lower tier-1 monster in the Badlands Forest. We could collect as many as we want and will be given 50 silvers each. I tore the paper out of the board and submitted it to the reception, accepting the mission. We also registered ourselves as a party of three.

Badlands Forests was located a few kms away from the city and Lily said she had visited that place once with her father and knew where we could find Fire Boars. She led us outside northwards and we followed. After a few hours, we reached a gloomy looking Forest, which was our destination.

After a few minutes of searching under the lead of Lily, we found our first Fire Boar. It was the size of a normal bull and had fire coming out of its nose. It was brownish in colour with a few red lines running over its body. It had a large red horn on its head and its scarlet eyes were looking straight at us with a murderous glint. It mooed angrily and charged straight towards us. Me and Lily charged towards the boar while Sylvia remained where she was and started conjuring holy spears. Just as the boar was going to crash onto us, both of us tripled our speeds and dodged its attack. Due to its momentum it couldn’t turn mid-way and we used that to our advantage and plunged our swords straight through its neck. But unfortunately it didn’t go all the way in and this made the boar more enraged. Suddenly, its upper skin caught fire and the boar charged at us with greater speed. With my foresight, I had already pushed Lily out of the way and managed to dodge the boar by a few centimetres. The fire burned my clothes a bit otherwise I was fine. I quadrupled my speed and slashed my sword at the boar’s legs. It lost its balance and I signalled Sylvia to launch. 5 Holy Spears then penetrated the boar’s neck at the same spot where we had injured it earlier. The boar gave a last cry and slumped down lifeless. I sighed and looked back at my team who were showing me victory signs. These girls…….

We then went near the corpse and cut its horn apart. None of us knew how to dismantle a monster’s corpse so we had no choice to leave the corpse as it is. Similarly, we found 10 more boars and defeated them by combining various combat techniques and even managed to kill a boar in 10 seconds. We were getting better and better in our co-ordination as a team and killing boars became very easy. Injuries were no problem to us but next time, maybe we should bring an extra pair of clothes. The girls were fine, but my clothes were torn and burned in some places. By the time lunch came, we had killed 40 boars. We took their horns and made our way back to the Guild. We submitted them and got 20 gold coins. The girls told me to keep the money safe and left. 20 gold coins…..I can’t believe I just made them in a single day. My family’s yearly income was just 5 gold coins.

In this way, we hunted Fire boars for the rest of the week and amassed 330 gold coins by the end of the week. We had become quite skilled in our co-ordination and utilising our powers efficiently.

The next day, we decided to try a higher difficulty and took the mission to collect the liver of Dark Panther in Bloodhound hills nearby Badlands Forest. This was also an E-rank mission but was more dangerous and payed 10 gold coins per liver. We collected some basic information about this monster and made our way towards the hills. This particular monster was skilled in stealth and was very fast. The only reason we took this mission was because stealth will be useless with my foresight and I don’t believe it’ll be much faster than the maximum speed of [Flash].

We reached the hills and it was like we entered a dark domain of some sort. The trees here were huge and blocked most of the sunlight which made this place incredibly dark and perfect for stealth. After walking for some time, my foresight alerted me and I signalled the girls to stop. Suddenly I felt a bit of killing intent coming from our back and screamed “Duck!!”

The three of us ducked and a large shadow passed from where our heads were a second later. We looked in front of us and a huge black panther was standing in front of us, eyeing us like we were destined to be its food.

“Sylvia, stay back and try to climb into one of these tree branches while we distract it. Lily, use your fastest speed and try to keep its focus on you.” Both of them nodded and the panther lunged at us. Sylvia jumped back and we side-stepped and dodged its paw. Lily threw her enchanted dagger straight at the panther’s eyes, who managed to dodge it but got a bloody wound beneath its eye. It was enraged and lunged at Lily. Even though the panther was fast, Lily still managed to dodge its attack repeatedly with [Flash]. Sylvia had already climbed atop a tree’s branch and I signalled her to attack right after I say so with two spears. While Lily was engaging the panther, I calmed down and tried to hide my sense as much as possible and carefully approach the panther from behind. I signalled to Sylvia and two holy spears came flying down towards panther. While the panther was busy dodging the holy spears, I ran and slid under it and plunged my sword straight to its heart. I had read in the information provided to us that this monster had a tough skin, so I was well aware that holy spears won’t be able to penetrate it directly but the skin on its belly was comparatively less tough and my plan was to use this to our advantage. The monster collapsed on top of me, dying my whole body red. I crawled out of the corpse and Lily giggled looking at my state. I looked at her with a mischievous eyes and she stopped giggling and shook her head. She tried to run, but before she could, I had already embraced her and kissed her lips. By the time I separated, her body was also dyed red. She glared at me furiously and I shrugged while Sylvia was laughing out loud. We cleaned ourselves using a bit of water but most of our clothes still remained red. Lily had some experience with dismantling by now so she took out the panther’s liver and we helped her the best we could. Since now we had a good grasp of the panther’s weakness, we proceeded similarly and killed 10 more panthers before going back and submitting our proofs. We got 100 gold coins and I was grinning from ear to ear looking at the money.

For the next three weeks, we only hunted the panther and a monster called shadow wolf which was at the same difficulty as the panther. The only difference was, we had to collect its pelt which was time consuming but the pay was bigger so we didn’t mind the time loss. By the end of the 3 weeks, our total income was 3000 gold coins. We divided it equally and got 1000 gold coins each. We stopped our hunting exercise and decided to spend the remaining few days with our families instead. News was that the sky ship heading towards the Royal Capital will arrive in 3 days and that was our transport. Our continent in size was huge, covering millions of kilometres, therefore travelling by foot was impossible here. That is the reason why sky ships were used to travel large distances. They were not very costly and there were no major risks of encountering danger during the journey. Though the skies had the danger of flying monsters upto tier-3, every ship had a practitioner of Core Formation stage guarding it, which was more than enough to handle them. The major cities around the empire and used space gates to travel. Even though they were incredibly costly, you could travel to your destination instantly using it. The only disadvantage they had was that both the places should have a space gate for it to work.

Before going back, we decided to buy some new gear and weapons. Lily could use her father’s money to buy anything, but she refused to and said since her friends were buying everything from the money they earned themselves, she’ll do the same. The three of us bought leather armours with decent defence, 2 new short swords made from light steel for Lily, a sword of dark steel for me and a few more accessories. Lily passed her enchanted dagger to Sylvie saying she doesn’t have much use of it and only kept it as it was a gift from her father. Sylvia tried to deny but after a few glares from Lily, she gave in and accepted. After that we bade farewell and decided to meet up in the docking area near the City Lord’s Mansion where the Sky ship lands on the morning of 3rd day.

Two days passed in a blur and it was finally time to bide farewell to my family. I was standing outside our home with my family ready to see me off. Mom and Amy were crying non-stop while Dad was trying his best to remain calm even though his ability didn’t seem to be helping him much.

“Arthur, take good of yourself. Do not take unnecessary danger and be cautious out there. Take good care of Sylvia and let no harm befall her. All the best for you Entrance Test.” Dad said and patted my shoulders. Mom had already lectured me the entire night so she had nothing much to say. She simply hugged me and kissed my temple.

“Big Brother *sob*, are you leaving us?” Amy said with teary eyes.

“No silly sister, I am just going to a new school. My school is a large distance away from our city so I’ll have to go there. But don’t worry, I’ll visit every 5-6 months. Plus, Amy will be going to her new school in the Royal Capital too and after a few years, you’ll also join my new school. Make sure to study hard and top your class otherwise you may not get permitted to big brother’s new school ohk? Promise me you’ll be a good girl while I am away?” I said and kissed her cheeks.

“Un, Amy will be a good girl for big brother. One day, I’ll come to your school to stay with you brother” she replied and I could see a fire burning in her eyes. Little did I know that the next time I see her, she would be one of the legendary Saints.