I was led outside to the castle arena.

It is an open space with no vegetation bigger than a football field behind the castle.

It’s a completely flat area of just dirt.

The sky was just blue, a couple of clouds, but not big enough to rain for a while.

“You ready, start the duel.”

(“I’m sorry, it’s the first time I’ve been back here.”)

“So you can speak, is that telepathy, that must be your starter skill.”

(“Nunya.”)

“Nunya?”

(“Nunya Bizness.”)

“You arrogant little-”

“EWDS, NO.”

“What? He is one.”

“He’s literally done nothing to you.”

“He has telepathy, the arrogant little-.”

I start the duel in the middle of his sentence.

“Now that's more like it!”

He spreads his arms out wide, gets low, and charges forward.

I stay still and try to read his movement, he’s probably a higher LVL than me, but I’ve been trained to fight to know this.

I see a hesitation, but he doesn’t slow down, he speeds up in fact.

He runs straight at me, with an unchanging facial expression, a creepy grin showing two sets of fangs, one going up, one going down.

I spring right then left to throw him off his timing and attack him with a flying kick.

I go through him and see he’s behind himself.

He attacks me with an uppercut then hits me with a right hook, sending me flying a couple of feet.

It hurt but didn’t injure.

Once my feet hit the ground I back up.

Mind Acceleration was already active, but I couldn’t react with him that close mid-air.

I think it was an illusion, a very aggressive way of using it.

It surprised me, but it won’t happen twice.

He charges me the same way.

This time I lead with a pepper breath, and use its size to hide behind it.

He dodges this time, meaning he hasn’t cast one yet.

I attack with a kick in the shins instead.

It was easy and safer than a flying kick because I am already low to the ground, and he lost where I was after the fireball so he was looking for me farther away.

He then fell to the ground, but he also swiped at me.

It didn’t get hit, but I did learn something from that encounter.

He sets up his illusion when he’s very close to me.

I set up with another pepper breath, he gets up but is letting me approach.

I activate both flamethrower and water gun to make a smokescreen.

He doesn’t move, I guess it’s better than going in blind.

I set myself up on his right side and then use forge to make a dirt pillar on his left.

He turns and blocks, arms making an X, but leaving his back wide open.

I use a flying kick, using fly to boost myself, and then I go through him again.

He turns around and does a wide swing while jumping backwards, which would have been good if a dirt pillar wasn’t there.

I activate tidal wave, it’s currently my least-fatal finishing move.

The steam hasn’t even dissipated yet, poor guy, couldn’t even see what hit him.

After the steam dissipates, it shows the barren landscape is wet, and that the panda is on the ground.

He isn’t down yet though.

He gets up, looking surprised, “What the hell was that, water, aren’t you a fire chocobo, did you get resistance, but that would’ve taken so long.”

(“Give up.”)

“Are you insane, why would I, I’ve withstood your attacks so far.”

I activate magic armor and combustion, I was playing around and apparently I look scary with both of them.

I obviously can’t see myself, but I’m told the fire leaks out the helmet, I can see through the helmet, it’s completely clear for me, and I can't see the fire.

He sees me and instead of looking scared, he went stern and went into stance.

“Deeee-Maaan!”

Well he’s kinda right.

I activate speed up and go way faster than before.

He couldn’t react in time for me to be there, his eyes noticed, but his body couldn’t move.

I bite his arm, use crushing beak to latch on, and then spin him around.

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At the peak of his momentum I move him up, then slam him down.

"Sacred duel won by Kwehzalcoatl." "Gained 6631 EXP." "You leveled up to LVL 97."

I deactivate my skills and go back to normal.

“How many skills did he use?”

“More than 5, couldn’t tell with some of them.”

“That shouldn’t be possible, should it.”

“Definitely shouldn’t be, unless you have through a lot of resistances, but that’s been disproven.”

“Why?”

“He has magic armor and telepathy, and I think Speed Up, those are all starter skills.”

“So, do you know how he has them?”

“Two options, he was lucky and got the attention of multiple gods or divine beasts and they gave him skills, or there’s a new skill to take skills.”

I think they think I can’t hear them, well it doesn’t matter much if they know about it, but I’m not going to tell them.

The only thing they’ll get from me is a nunya bizness.

I heal the guy and leave him lying there.

The king was looking at me, not showing any emotion.

He’s a memory keeper, but from 1000 years before me, it must have been something like his soul was kept for thousands of years before reincarnating or something.

“If you could, would you have taken his life?”

(“If he had tried to take my life, probably?”)

“I mean could you?”

(“I mean, yeah.”)

“You do know that he’s almost as strong as me?”

(“No, how would I know that?”)

“Could you take on a stronger foe than that, trying to kill you.”

(“The lion was stronger.”)

“The lioness was stronger than him?”

(“Definitely.”)

“I see.”

The king looked down, to ponder.

“Uhhh, I… don’t hurt?”

“Wait you didn’t get hurt?”

“Recovery Magic, another one, What are you?”

(“An adolescent chocobo.”)

“You are way more than an ‘adolescent chocobo.’”

“Wait you're an adolescent, you’re not even a year old?”

(“Yep.”)

“Wait, not even a year old?”

“He’s a memory keeper?”

All of them went quiet.

“Then he has the mind of a, how old are you?”

(“about five months.”)

“No how old were yo- wait only five months.”

(“I was fifteen.)

“Only fifteen, what have you been through these past five months.”

(“I’ve been really lucky mostly, but not all the time.”)

“URGH,” *Boom*.

He hit the ground with his fists causing a loud sound, but no ground is damaged, must have an enchantment.

He walks off towards the castle, “You guys coming, we have to plan for the quest.”

“What? You angry that you lost to a 5-month-old.”

“Very!”

They each followed him.

“What are you doing, follow me!”

(“Give me a minute.”)

“EEEHHHHH! You're saying you just proved that you’re stronger than me and then you think that we’re not good enough to be on your team!”

He made a face a delinquent would use to intimidate a classmate.

(“I never said any of that, I just need to talk with the king first.”)

“Well hurry up, we’ll leave without you.”

They made way toward the castle.

(“So how about we strike a deal?”)

“What kind of deal?”

(“I want to look and maybe choose an item that the Last Cameo lady gives out.”)

His face became very grim.

(“Obviously you would get first dibs, but items worth 500 zoulx sound interesting, so I want to see what they have.”)

“I thought you had no ambition?”

(“Curiosity is a different thing.”)

“Is it?”

(“So do I get to do that or not.”)

“What do I get in return?”

(“What do you want.”)

“Loyalty.”

(“I’m loyal to you as long as I’m getting paid adequately.”)

“What if they offer you a better price.”

(“Depends if I like them or not.”)

“Brainwashing isn’t hard.”

(“Yeah, but why would I be loyal to a leader who put me with a monster hunter party in case I betrayed you.”)

He was quiet.

(“So I’m right, and now that you know you can’t contain me, you want me to swear it willingly.”)

He was still quiet, just looking down.

(“How about this, I’ll do whatever I can in this mission, then I will forget about all of this, that work for a deal.”)

He looked up, “You aren’t going to just take it?”

(“I said I was curious, not a thief.”)

“As long as I get the item I’m looking for.”

(“What if she doesn’t have it?”)

“She will, so go.”

----------------------------------------

Shadowstealer POV (MC’s Dad)

“Don’t... stop... running…”

Why you might ask?

Because about a hundred tiny carnivorous dragons are chasing us.

It started with one, then three, then we ran, and more joined the group, and now we’re in a life or death situation.

Kwehzalcoatl could fly so he must have gotten over this so easily.

But it’s a demonic task for us.

We’ve been running in a straight line for a long time now, almost two days straight.

Of course, we’ve had to hide from multiple huge monsters.

And the grass blocks the view from random traps, there are earth dragon traps every once in a while, just pitfalls, we fell in one, but with Sholl’s strength and speed we could just jump out.

A big wall is ahead, should we go around, or should we try to stop there.

It looks wide so I don’t know.

I look behind at the growing number of dragons and then I look ahead, and there’s a fireball.

“Duck.”

We both crouch and the fireball goes over our head, hitting the dozens of dragons behind us.

Who?

Sholl runs ahead of me towards the wall, I follow her.

I notice that there is a huge door to get into the wall, I stop Sholl.

“Sneaking out is my specialty, can’t be that different for going inside.”

“If you insist, master.”