The next day, I had gone through the same steps as the day before. Wake up, drop off Michael at the orphanage and then travel to my training spot outside of the city.

I had decided to finally summon Revan's tier 2 form. He was probably excited to show it off.

I found myself in the now torn-up training spot. The clearing used to be a small plain filled with grass, but now it was scarred with the after-effects of yesterday's spar. Today it would get even more destroyed. Luckily nobody lived nearby.

It was a sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. The birds were chirping like usual, the forest's animals were starting their day. The calm sounds of the forest were interrupted by a loud roar, scaring the local birds into the sky.

I had summoned Revan into the clearing. Dark mana flowed into the amulet, nearly emptying my core in one go. It floated out into the air and coalesced, forming black bones one by one. Before long, I could see the rough shape of Revan be summoned.

He looked slightly similar to before, though there were some remarkable differences. Revan had grown to the size of a horse and gained two protruding bone horns attached to the side of his skull. They were pointed forward, rather than upward, giving him a menacing look. His claws had also grown, each now the size of a dagger. Finally, his tail had gained a large spike at the end, that didn't just look pointy, but sharp at the sides as well, which would make for some devastating tail swipes.

To summarise, Revan wasn't quite as big or intimidating as the boss I had gained him from, but he was getting there. With his increased size, I would be able to use him as a mount now, as long as I got a specialised saddle made. I figured that by the next tier-up, Revan would turn into a fully-fledged pseudo drake, like the boss.

With a mental command, I inspected the new talisman.

[Undead adult Komodo talisman]

Tier 2 talisman.

(Growth item)

This talisman allows the holder to summon an [Undead adult komodo] using dark aligned mana.

The summoned creature has bonded with the summoner and therefore inherits some traits.

This is a growth item and that will tier up each time the holder bound to it tiers up. The tier of the holder and the item must be the same for this to function.

[Soulbound]

Inherited traits? I wondered what that meant. Did that mean Revan would get some of my skills? That would be a little ridiculous though. Still, the fact that the talisman had accepted our bond meant that Revan hadn't turned on me after tiering up. It was rather strange though, I had seen the pseudo drake use a similar technique as my curse mark to stop Garrett from healing. Did that mean that I had inherited a skill from Revan's evolution line, or was it just a common type of skill? I would have to ask Doran next time I encountered him.

It was slightly disappointing that Revan wasn't designated as a drake yet, but there was no reason why he would've been. I supposed that Adult Komodos looked slightly similar to Revan now, only without the undead part. They would be a fearsome enemy to face as a normal tier 2, of that I had no doubt. Luckily Revan was on my side.

At least, I hoped so.

Revan was indeed behaving rather strangely. He had lowered himself and raised his tail, like a cat ready to pounce. He was growling at me in a playful way. I took that to mean that he wanted to fight to figure out how much he had grown. A telepathic signal that I interpreted as 'fight' confirmed my hypothesis.

He didn't hesitate, jumping at me claw-first a moment later. I used [Shadow apparation] to dodge and make some distance, before retaliating with a sword strike. As I did so, I activated my core and started releasing some overloaded mana. I was starting to get used to the process at this point, significantly limiting the amount of concentration I needed to produce it.

My attack just bounced off his bones, they were too tough to hurt with a tier 2 weapon at this point. Revan turned around when he felt my strike and tried to get a tail swipe in. I used [Overload aura] to coat my sword with a bit of the unstable black mana and blocked his attack.

The sheer weight behind his strike caused me to fly up and threw me some distance away. I had no doubt that I had higher stats than Revan, but weight played a part in how well I could use that strength. Maybe I would be able to figure something out to increase the weight behind my strikes in the future. An enchantment or a skill or something.

Now that I had tested some of his defences, I decided to test his attack. I sheathed my sword and concentrated on recreating the haphazard shield from the day before, slowly forming it out of cutting blades of black wind. Even Doran had a hard time breaking through despite his holy mana. I wondered how well Revan would do.

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When he saw what I was doing, he started circling me, trying to figure out what kind of attack I would be launching. Eventually, he realised that I was actually going on the defensive.

He charged at me as my maelstrom encircled me, and slammed one of his chair-sized claws into my shield, using his dagger-like nails to pierce my defence. I could see the pointy ends sticking through my barrier, but it wasn't enough. He simply didn't have the physical strength required to pierce it entirely.

Due to his dark affinity, he resisted the cutting winds rather well in the beginning. He was too stubborn though, and kept pushing into his attack. After a while, his entire claw and forearm just crumbled and broke from the constant beating they were getting. Realising his mistake, Revan tried to make some distance. I had tried to apply a curse mark as well, but apparently, he was immune.

He didn't have any healing capabilities, but he couldn't be truly destroyed as long as the talisman existed, which was a major advantage of undead familiars. I found this to be the perfect opportunity to test my [Overloaded orb] again. Since I was safe behind my twisting shield, I could gather, overload, expel and concentrate as much mana as I wanted.

About 20 seconds later, I had charged up a deep-black orb in the palm of my hand. Revan had tried to attack my barrier several more times, losing a part of his tail in the process. He had even thrown logs and boulders, with no luck.

Now, he would have to face the repercussions. With a sadistic smile, I threw my orb at Revan. He tried to dodge, but was just barely too slow. After his tier up he hadn't gained much speed, mostly strength and mass, which bit him in the ass right now.

This time, I was prepared for the blast and kept a proper distance, which meant that I could watch Revan be thrown into the sky without interruptions.

And indeed, he was thrown into the sky. I could see his black body soar past several trees before falling back down, destroying a part of the forest with his weight.

Revan was not in the mood to let me win like that though. He stood back up and, despite the cracks across all of his bones, rushed at me. I kept up my barrier, curious what kind of last hurrah he had up his sleeve.

He stopped his charge a few meters in front of me and opened his gaping maw.

I could feel the overloaded mana that I surrounded my body with escape my control and could see it gathering inside of Revan's maw.

He sucked up the mana I was using to keep up the maelstrom and the mana I was keeping on standby all at once. It gathered in the centre of his maw and concentrated into an orb similar to my own.

It was at this point that I remembered the 'inherited traits' part.

"Oh, crap."

Revan let go of his charged attack, which blasted outward in the form of a concentrated tornado of black wind. He had taken a leaf out of my book and decided that enough was enough. I relied on my reflexes to apparate away as soon as possible, but was still hit by part of the attack.

After I reformed several dozen meters away, I had to wait for my [Dark Form] to heal my deep cuts and lacerations.

When the dust settled, I realised that the forest itself was even worse off. A large part of the treeline had been annihilated, giving way to a scar-like trench in the ground.

Apparently, Revan was deserving of the tier 2 name, with his high durability and strength, as well as his own elemental attack.

I would have to teach him about friendly fire though.

With a smirk on my face, I decided to give him a beat down he would remember.

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

A few days later, the guild master had called me to his office.

I had spent the last few days training with Doran and Revan to settle into my new abilities. Things were going well. I had learned how to keep my [Overload Aura] stable enough to use it reliably with my physical attacks and practiced more with my curse mark- orb combo. If I got some more practice in, I was confident I would be able to extend my sword slashes by using the aura.

I had also had a saddle ordered. Doran knew a guy that made great saddles, and I had just had to send him Revan's sizes, which was nice. I couldn't just walk in there with an undead creature, after all.

He was one of his regulars because apparently, Doran had a griffin. A griffin! He had never told me, the traitor. He acted a little uncomfortable about the topic.

I didn't really know what Doran's background was, but for some reason, he always hesitated to show off his wealth and equipment. Was he secretly a rich kid or something? Eventually, I would wheedle this information out of him.

The saddle wasn't done yet, but it would be in a few days. I was greatly looking forward to it.

My musings were interrupted by the guild master coughing to get my attention.

"Oh, sorry, guild master. I was lost in thought for a moment."

"No matter, Arthur. You should know why I called you here, yes?"

I did know. In fact, I had expected him to call me much earlier to discuss Duke Rass.

"I do. It's about the Duke and his sword, right?"

"That's right. When I was informed of the circumstances by the appraisers' office, I sent another letter detailing them to the Duke, including your involvement. I have to admit, he didn't seem very interested in letting you watch the mayor's punishment before, but after hearing about this sword, he changed his mind. He even wants to meet you personally."

I smiled nervously. It looked like my plan could be enacted.

"Well, that's good, right?"

Andross hummed noncommittedly.

"It depends. Avoiding the attention of nobles is usually priority number one. If you displease the Duke it could spell trouble for your future advancement in the guild. The support, items and preferential treatment that you have been getting so far could be cut off at a single word of the Duke. While it is a great opportunity, it is also very dangerous."

Now that the reality of the situation was settling in, I was getting slightly worried. Would I be able to give a good first impression? My plan of getting his support by revealing my deeds and class might not go as smoothly as I thought.

"What's the Duke like? Have you ever met him?"

The old man nodded. "Several times, in fact. Because Reito is the capital of the Duke's territory and the witch hunters are one of the predominant guilds in the area, we've interacted a few times. He's a no-nonsense man. Started off as a commoner, in fact. He got his title because of his battle prowess. He has one son, though his wife died. Don't bring that up, whatever you do."

I snorted. I knew not to bring up another man's family, at least. I wasn't that stupid.

"How powerful is he? He must be one of the country's big shots, right?"

Andross nodded gravely. "He is. He became tier 6 roughly fifty years ago, the same tier as our guild head. His class has something to do with swordsmanship and a water alignment. Apparently, he's a nightmare to fight. Now then, let's move on to the arrangements. The mayor of Ralston has been caught and is being escorted to the Duke's palace North of Reito. I want you to depart in 3 days. You'll be escorted by a guard contingent, Doran and Garrett and his party, who will be returning tomorrow."

I got a big smile on my face when I heard the party would be returning from their latest quest. Despite everything, I quite liked them. Traveling with them and Doran would mean that nobody would be able to endanger the mission.

With a determined nod, I accepted my orders.

This would definitely be a gamble. Still, with some luck, I could gain a lot from this trip.