Gabe felt comfortable enough under the protection of the SickleBack dragon that he was able to sleep deeply. So deep in fact that he started to dream. First about his adventures with Colin and his travels under the Dark star sun. Walking across the North continent had been hard, they'd almost died countless times. The vision of Colin fighting off a Poison Bull snake the size of a house while Gabe ran for his life at ten years old was enough to make Gabe's heart sadden, he'd still Been under Sisfar's influence then and the Dirty soul beast had put so much fear on him that he ran and left Colin there alone to die. Fortunately Colin was resilient and had outsmarted the creature by leading it into a blue Monkey nest. The Monkeys were weak, but a whole hoard of them had rained down upon the Bull snake while Colin snuck away, returning to Gabe with a gash in his stomach and a silent anger.

It wasn't long before Gabe's dreams drifted back to his childhood. When he was just six and living a happy life with his family. He was the third son of a beast breeder in the Hellvine family. He was born with the most potential of all of his brothers and sisters. Enough that his father began to train him earlier in hopes to make him a powerhouse for his family. Potential was measured by the size of the beast a human Mortal can Bond with. Every child is born with a limited soul space inside them, this space can hold one Great beast of the Element the child has shown affinity with. If the child can hold a beast of great power then he can start cultivating at much faster levels. Gabe had the potential to bond with a master realm beast, and was treated as a rare gift in the family. The beast you bond with can grow with you but at a much slower rate, unless you have a rare or heavenly treasure that can speed up their growth. But these treasures are so valuable that even the rumor of one can start a war between families. And sometimes entire leagues have been known to fight for them. Leagues are Foundations built to train and bring up members from various families. They are extremely exclusive only taking the most powerful Savants and geniuses from each family, and have the most powerful resources to help cultivation. To be accepted into one was a guarantee that you would be a Pillar in your family.

Gabe's dreams drifted to that moment. The one moment where in the span of seconds he ruined his childhood and his entire life. The memory of the musty wood smelling room in his father's house came with vivid detail. He saw his family's store house, all the items and treasures they kept in the secure and large room. Because his Father was a member of the First branch of the Hellvine family, and a respected Channeler with an ancestor level beast he had gotten an entire fifteenth of the spoils when the Hellvine family recently attacked a smaller family that had kidnapped someone from one of the lower branches. The Hellvine family was renowned for its lack of caring about reputation, and everyone knew it would kill anyone who messed with a member of the family. It was for this reason that many of the Families on The north continent were afraid of them as they were not unknown to break many of the rules and be deceitful when someone had gotten on their bad side.

In his father's store house Gabe looked around at all the new treasures from the battle. He was awed at his father's glory and hopped to be just as powerful one day. That was when he stumbled upon the ship in the bottle. Immediately he could feel the presence inside it. It was laid on a shelf Carelessly and had binding runes drawn on the glass. These runes were his father's work apparently when he had taken the item he had expected it to be some kind of useful meditation tool, the presence inside of it very similar to a Celestial Spirit bottle. But when he had touched it it had attacked him with some kind of fear cloud. Immediately he'd tried to break it, or destroy it. But it didn't even Crack. Fortunately the cloud wasn't powerful enough to affect him, and when he'd drawn a binding rune on the glass on of the object it had stopped. He'd placed it in here with intentions to discover a way to destroy it later. After it had attacked him he had immediately known what it was, it was a haunted item. Hunted items were inanimate objects that had been infused with the spirit of a living being. They were virtually useless, just a prison for a poor soul who had ether made the mistake of binding his spirit to an item with no power or been forcefully bound by a cruel enemy. There were very few ways to be unbound from an inanimate object, all of which required lots of pure energy and some type of rare treasure. Only someone with a high profile family who was willing to pay for his life would ever see daylight again.

The bottle called to Gabe first. a soft purr, and he'd been too little to understand the danger. He was only in the treasure room because he'd snuck in, his father's powerful lock on the door was open when he'd come through the hall. He had gone in to quench his curiosity. He looked at the bottle with a smirk he knew what the binding runes meant, his father had taught him much about runes already and he had a natural talent for the drawing that even impressed his stoic teacher. The family was hopeful that he would be a soul Rune Channeler some day. A one in a million Channeler who had enough talent to draw runes on someone's soul. a rune drawn on a soul could have great affect on that persons Channeling ability, such as increase in their ability to absorb energy or giving their soul beast a boost. But if drawn incorrectly they could have detrimental effects. Even a single slip of the pen or a loss in focus could cause death. and any rune drawn on a soul would need to be incredibly intricate and delicate. Plus soul runes could only be drawn with Golden fairy dust, a rare treasure that was too expensive to waste.

"Why hello there." The voice of the Ship in the bottle scared young chubby cheeked Gabe and he stared wide eyed like a doe in the wild. He couldn't believe the thing had just spoken, he knew even as a kid that treasures with intelligence were extremely rare and only created when so much Spirit energy was absorbed into a Heavenly treasure that it gained sentence. These artifacts were Truly the most terrifying and valuable treasures in the world. Some were even renowned enough that bards would sing songs about their wielders. Like a sword that could cut down an entire mountain range with a single swipe of the blade, or a pair of Heavenly death Boots that allowed a man to kill even an Avatar level Channeler with just one kick. Gabe felt pride rise in his chest when he realized that his father owned such a Heavenly object, he wondered what it could do. "Are you going to answer me?" The bottle sure did have a creepy voice. Gabe smiled not scared of it any more. He strode up to the bottle and waved at the ship inside it, the ship looked hunted with a cloud of swirling mist under it making it hover inside the bottle. "Hello, my name's Gabriel." He told it confidently smiling at the thing with his two front teeth missing. The bottle vibrated slightly, making a clinking sound on the wood. "Well Gabe my name is Sisfar, do you think you could do me a favor?" The bottle asked kindly. Gabe thought about it for a second and then nodded. "What do you need Sissfur." The bottle let out a thankful aura and Gabe felt his heart warm a little towards this nice Treasure. "Well Gabe you see, I'm not supposed to be laid on my side like this." The bottle was laying forward with its neck reaching out over the edge of the shelf. "Do you think you could put me back up the way I was?" Gabe nodded vigorously. "Yes sir!" He smiled and reached forward to help. The moment he touched the bottle however a bolt of fear shot through his small body like lightning. He was dead still, frozen with fright. Immediately he knew he made a mistake coming into the treasure room, he tried to call for help but his body was frozen completely. "Good Gabe." The Ship didn't sound so friendly anymore and his thankful aura turned into a malicious one. "Now tell me the truth, do you know how to write a binding rune?" Sisfar was well aware of his impending demise and he felt glee when he thought of how fortunate he was that this little guy had wondered in. He would survive no matter what the cost. Gabe was so terrified his body was shaking, he didn't want to do it but he nodded. Somehow this bottle had taken full control of him by his fear. "Good. Now start righting it, do it over the runes your father drew on my bottle." The binding rune was the rune used to Absorb a beast into a Channeler's soul space. It could only be done once by most Channelers and it was permanent. There was no way even the most powerful Channeler could undo it. It would make whatever Beast you bonded with into your Soul beast forever. Gabe knew better then to do it, but when he went to pull away from the bottle more fear shot through him and his whole body began to sweat. He was too Young to fight it. He just wanted the fear to go away, already his heart was beating like a rabbits. So with another burst of fear from the Bottle he bit the tip of his finger and began to draw the rune with his blood. It took ten full minutes to draw and three more bloody fingers. But even at six years old he was able to copy the arch design scratch for scratch the way his father had shown him. When he finished his heart still racing as the bottle continued to pump fear into him the binding runes his father had drawn faded away. Immediately a cloud of pale off white fear engulfed him and the fear that he had felt before seamed small in comparison. He was frozen unable to move, breath, or even think. He was horrified. The Binding rune on the bottle began to glow brighter and brighter. Finally it was so bright he had to close his eyes. For a split second through the Terror Gabe had one thought. He Couldn't bind with a rare treasure, even a sentient one only beasts and demons could be bound to a human soul. Finally the bottle shot like a bolt of lightning into his right hand and a quick burning pain made him look at his palm. There it was his Channeler's mark. The circle of runes and the rune for the number one in the middle. Even though the bottle was gone Sisfar wasn't. The fear cloud still enveloped him. "Thank you." The soul beast said in his mind with a hateful tone. Immediately Gabe was hit with so much fear he passed out on the floor.

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When his family discovered what had transpired they wept for him. He had been such a great potential. But hunted objects were some of the weakest items in the world, yes they were almost indestructible but they couldn't evolve, They channeled Energy so slow it took years to go anywhere, and no matter how strong you became their rate of Channeling never changed. A channeler needed his Soul beast to purify spirit energy for him, if the purifying was slow then the cultivation would also be slow. When The Hellvine family discovered how it had happened they had been very displeased with Gabe's father and everything that had been stored up for Gabe to incur his future as a great Channeler was given out to other talents. Gabe's father didn't speak to him much after that, and Gabe quickly became a family shame. It wasn't long though before Sisfar began to insist Gabe travel northwest towards a storehouse he claimed held Rare and even godly treasures. Gabe refused but then would be hit by increasing amounts of fear and Sisfar would laugh while he controlled him to steal supplies and treat others with distaste. The ship claimed that he was a Great Terror Demon before he was bond to the bottle and Gabe believed him for he truly acted like a demon. Hitting Gabe with fear, forcing him to do horrible things. The whole time acting like he was doing the kid a favor.

In less then a year Gabe was brought before the Hellvine Family counsel and banished from the family for his behavior, weakness, and dishonor. Gabe remembered standing there trying to fight down the fear that Sisfar was trying to use to make him start screaming in the counsel room, he saw his father standing by watching the sentence without a single word in his son’s defense, he knew then that he was a disgrace to his loved ones and wished he could kill himself but Sisfar wouldn't let him. If he hadn't been a member of the First branch of the family he probably would have been executed, but instead he was sent away with the instruction to never use his Family name or he would be punished dearly. The only thing his Parents did for him was petition the courts for Colin to be bound to him. The Man was also a member of the Hellvine family and Gabe’s cousin. He was from the family branch on the South continent. He was a Life element Chaneler from the fifteenth branch of the family who had robbed an ancestor stage Channeler from the Third branch. He was caught and the death sentence was being considered because the man he robbed was a member of the counsel and disliked him. Life Elementals weren't very common in the Hellvine family, but Colin wasn't talented enough to get special treatment. Gabe's parents were granted their wish and Colin had been bound to him as a servant by some of the most powerful Members of the family. The rune drawn on his neck contained a single drop of Gabe's blood and would last exactly One thousand years. Then the bounds would break and he would be set free. Colin had been nineteen at the time and hot headed, he never let his anger over such a harsh punishment go.

Gabe continued to dream about these things, his heart in turmoil and his teeth clenched in his sleep.