"Hello, Lone," Sophie greeted without stopping her sword routine. Clearly, Soph had chosen to give up control to her other self for training purposes.
Breena nodded her head lightly, a tiny wisp of freeform fire magic in her palm. "H-Hi, Master Lone."
"Hi, girls," Lone replied with a smile as he focused on his new Primal skill.
He had half expected a number to be visible about their heads, or perhaps question marks given their closeness to him. Instead, Lifespan Revelation gave Lone the ability to feel an almost imperceptible aura of sorts around them.
Sophie's was nigh invisible and impossible to decipher, clearly a sign of how close she and Lone were to one another. Breena's was hardly much easier to understand.
Lone could just barely glean from her lifespan that it was long, but that was it. Nothing else could be learned like how long, specifically, her lifespan was, nor if her death would be natural or otherwise. The skill was just useless for those whose lifespans he actually cared about.
Congratulations! The host's Primal skill [Lifespan Revelation] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2.
'Well, maybe it won't be entirely useless when it ranks up. Restrictions loosen when ranking up so here's hoping,' Lone thought optimistically.
'It will be powerful,' Death stated coldly.
Lone ignored his soul's latest tenant. "Down to help me rank up Greataxe Mastery? It only needs three levels so I bet we can get that whacked out before the sun sets. Anything you want to work on specifically while we do that?"
Breena answered first, surprising both him and Sophie. "My f-fire magic. I have a 6% affinity... It's low b-but I want a skill i-if possible. I'm sorry if it's a bother..."
"I'm down for that. Sure. Why not? You feel free to use up all of your MP to try to condense your raw fire magic into a Fireball. I'll guide you as I see you do it. Go ahead and overdraw your mana organs too if you can handle it. I can fix that with Creation Magic. When you're fully tapped out, you can borrow my mana orb. What about you, Sophie? Wanna tell me your magic affinities and work on one?" Lone asked, a teasing eyebrow raised.
Sophie snorted. "No. Soph shall do that when she feels she is ready. She would rather focus on Barrier Magic than diversify her skill set. We are inclined to agree. We have no need of weak low-levelled magic skills when we have access to such powerful magic already."
Lone sighed. "Fine, your loss. Come slice me up like sashimi then. Not with those swords though, use the ones Wilbur made for you."
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"I-I got it!" Breena exclaimed as perhaps the largest smile Lone had ever seen from the teen bloomed on her face.
"Fireball!" she invoked excitedly after a few moments of chanting, sending a small ball of concentrated fire hurtling towards Lone.
It had been four hours since they began and he was honestly excited to break up the monotony of Sophie getting frustrated by being barely able to penetrate his flesh with her steamforged shortswords.
The Fireball exploded against his ribs and an eruption of flames engulfed Lone's torso. A moment later, it was gone and there was no damage to be seen besides some burn marks on his clothes which he quickly fixed using Creation Magic.
"Congrats! I didn't expect my Teaching Mastery to let you get the skill in one session. Despite your affinity, you must be pretty talented in fire magic, huh?" Lone commented in praise.
Breena blushed and lowered her head. "S-Sorry for attacking you... I, uh, got too e-excited..."
"It's fine. It's what we're doing here, ain't it?" Lone laughed. "Now let's keep practising. I bet you can get it to beginner level two or three before the day's over."
"C-Can I have a minute? Um, even w-with the orb, that spell took most of my MP... I uh, don't want to push myself too hard since I got the skill now..." Breena spoke honestly and in more words than was usual for her.
Lone raised an eyebrow. He didn't really approve personally. He could undo any damage overtraining might cause. Still, it was her decision to make, not his. "Sure. Sophie, you ready to get Shortsword Mastery to intermediate rank?"
Sophie could hear the teasing in his tone so she growled in response and lunged at him, both swords aiming to disconnect his head from his shoulders.
Lone laughed as he easily blocked the attack with his basic steel greataxe. It was chipped from the attack but such damage was more than easily restored with but a moment of focus and a trickle of MP. "At this rate, I'll beat ya to it with a weapon I don't even care about. You tell me Soph doesn't want to focus on pointless additional magic types yet here you are taking training time away from her to play with swords."
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"We are not playing," she grunted through gritted teeth.
Lone stood arrogantly, his greataxe slung over his shoulder as if it didn't weigh close to 100 kilogrammes. "Prove it, short stuff."
"It may be working, you riling us up to push harder, but know this, expect us to bite in the bedroom when you least expect it," Sophie snarled as she lunged at him again.
Evasion Mastery kicked in, making him nimbly dodge the attacks. "Hey! This is business! Never mix business and pleasure!"
"We shall do as we please when you are pissing us off!" Sophie screamed as two more sword swings rapidly approached his neck.
Lone used the pommel of his greataxe to deflect the attacks, intending to knock his lover off-balance when she invoked a skill effect. "Follow Up!"
Nothing happened. Lone looked at her and used his free hand to scratch his unsevered neck awkwardly. "Wanna try that again?"
Sophie collapsed onto the ground and began panting heavily. Lone could see through her B-ranked aura that she wasn't dying or anything, so he approached her and raised her head to put it in his lap. "You good?"
"Got it to... intermediate," she wheezed. "Follow Up... needs 10,000 SP. We are quite far from... that. It took what it could and... found us lacking. It did not activate."
"Yikes. Brutal. I gotta level up then and get to the rank barrier for A-rank, now don't I?" Lone said with a cheeky smile.
"We will... bite a lot," Sophie threatened as she closed her eyes and fell asleep in his lap.
"Well, c'mon now. Don't just pass out on me when I only got Greataxe Mastery to beginner level ten..." Lone complained. "You good now, Breena, or are we all out for the count today?"
"F-Five more minutes?" the teen asked tentatively.
Lone smiled at her and nodded. "Sure. Wanna talk about the clan now that we're here?"
Breena took a seat on the grass next to him and was silent for a bit before replying, "Can... can you not call me by my name while we're here? I, uh, know that's a strange request bu-"
"The fourth child in line to become the next public leader of the clan was kidnapped alongside the third in line and several other foxkin some ten years ago. It was the largest-scale raid in recent history. The victims were sold in many different human-controlled territories where slavery is legal, one of which being Milindo. Counter raids were performed. Slavery rings were found to be entirely dismantled come morning and many slaves were freed and returned, but not all," Lone said, reciting the information he'd researched on the topic.
Breena stared at him in shock. "You knew?"
He nodded. "Yup. Was never my place to bring it up though. So, what's the story? Don't wanna muddle the puddle of succession? It's been ten years and you always wear that face mask of yours, so if you use a different name, it would be easy enough to pass yourself off as another victim who was never recovered by the clan. I will say this though, it's common knowledge when investigating me that I travel with my human lover and my foxkin charge who is named Breena Redtail. I can pay for some blocks to be put in place, however, information networks are anything but loyal. It'll only take a bit of pushing for your identity to be revealed."
"I... I know. I just... I want to know if this is where I want to be first. I... As much as Mistress Sophie doesn't like me, I-I feel comfortable at your sides..." Breena confessed.
Lone grinned and placed a hand on her head to which she didn't even flinch. "Whatever you choose, you have my full support, though if you do end up choosing to wander around with Soph, Sophie, Kyuubi, and me across Altros, then you'll be getting training every day and night. I can't accept a permanent weakness at my side. I love ya like a sister but you're something of an Achilles' heel right now."
Breena didn't seem upset by the harsh words. In fact, Lone could see she was smiling under her face mask. "I-I know. I'm ready to learn. Hard work is my talent, right?"
"That it is. Ready to put it to the test right now?" Lone asked, raising an eyebrow. "If Sophie won't get my Greataxe Mastery to intermediate rank, somebody has to."
"Y-Yes!" Breena replied. "Um, but, em, what do we call me now?"
"Brian would be funny. Briana would be too close to home. Hmm... Let's go with Sarah. It sounds like a human renamed you so they can't call you out for not being, say, another unfound victim of the raid ten years ago - I do have a list of names for that, but yeah, unwise to use one at best, dumb at worst. And... it's the name of the grand guildmaster so it can be a goal. At least until you're exposed and forced to make a choice. Thoughts?" Lone asked.
"S-Sarah Redtail greets Master Lone," Breena bowed her head.
Lone laughed. "No need for that shit. Come on. Try to gouge my eyeballs out with your needles or burn my flesh off with your magic. Use your racial skill too. I'll beat some skill levels into you before the day's over."
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'Why would they summon me now, out of nowhere?' Lossa Redtail, Matriarch of the Crimson Foxkin Clan thought while she continued down a seemingly endless set of stairs.
'The last time they bothered to acknowledge the clan's existence was to tell me to prepare a successor since I 'foolishly awakened'. All they do is sit around all day down in their secret pagoda hoping for enlightenment,' she complained internally.
The Elders were insufferable. If they wanted to be a group of secular immortals meditating in the hopes of reaching greater heights, surely they could do so without bothering the common folk like her and her clan.
Sure, Lossa recognised that they and their loose connection to the clan is what kept their borders safe. Well, relatively safe. They acted as a great deterrent to keep any powerful nation with a lick of sense from destroying them and the other beastkin clans. She did, however, completely despise The Elders for refusing to react to the human-led raid a decade ago.
''We will only show our hand when a clan is truly in danger',' Lossa quoted internally.
Bah, they were scared of awakening and losing their immortality, forcing them to rush towards an imperfect enlightenment or even death. Lossa wondered if it would take all of the clans being razed to the ground for them to leave their hidden fortress and re-enter the mortal plane.
Still, she was nothing but a dying pawn to them. A dying pawn never fated to enter their ranks, so do their bidding she must. Eventually, Lossa reached the end of the stairs and found herself at a familiar oriental red door that was ten metres tall and eight metres wide.
"Lossa Redtail, Child of the Primals and awakened one of Life, greets The Elders and answers their summons," she respectfully greeted, kneeling on the ground and pressing her forehead against the ethereal floor.
"An Avatar has entered the clan. Be respectful to him for it seems he retains his personality while harbouring four of the gods within his soul. It somehow evaded you that the new guildmaster of The Adventurer's Guild in your designated clan was a vessel in which Death travelled. It, too, now resides in this Avatar. Be wary of the Void within your clan's new guest. It could do much damage if allowed to. Should any signs emerge that the Avatar wishes harm upon the clans, eliminate them. That is all. The Elders have spoken. You may leave now."
Lossa would have grit her teeth in defiance if she could have but that would likely get her killed by her oh-so-gracious and wise ancestors. "As you wish. Lossa Redtail, Child of the Primals and awakened one of Life, hears your words and will obey, Elders."