I did not have to wait long for the goddess's indignant response.

"That is not done, you do not know what you ask, a god will never swear a binding oath to a mortal. It is not the parent's place to be beholden to a child."

I growled. "I can say with confidence that isn't true. Randy swore an oath to me, he didn't even have a good reason to, I would have trusted him without it."

"I do not believe you, child. Perhaps he made a promise, but do you even know what a binding oath does?"

My eye twitched, the condescending look in her eyes made me even more furious with her than I already was. I needed the oath from her, I was starving for it.

I spat out the words, "No, Belua, I don't know exactly what it does, but thanks to you, I know what one feels like. Or did you forget that you had me make one?"

"Swearing a binding oath aims a fragment of your own power inward. If you break the oath, you functionally attack your own soul. Your own Concepts are turned against you, and use their empowerment to harm you. For a mortal such as you, it would hurt. For a god, it is one of the few things that is potentially deadly." I saw fear in her eyes.

The survivor in me felt a kinship with her in that moment. I would have a hard time agreeing to something that could end me. And when she said it was deadly, I somehow understood that there would be no coming back from that death.

My expression softened slightly, but I still needed that oath. "You just have to make sure you don't break your word then, don't you? It will be a good exercise in self control."

"What has come over you, child? You are usually so sweet, it cannot simply be the removal of my aura's influence. I have watched how you interact with others."

My ears snapped flat, and I leaned forward with my teeth bared. "You put my survival in jeopardy, Belua. For someone who once blamed their Authorities for their actions you sure don't take other people's influences into account. My Concept is burning me right now."

"A survivor should know better than to anger a goddess." She tried to sound threatening, but I could practically smell the lie, perhaps honest was doing something there.

"Strangely enough, I know I can trust you not to take your anger out on me. I don't know if it's residual influence from being in your aura so often, but I believe that you really do care about me. As little sense as it makes, given the effect your past actions have had on me, I care about you too. You know you owe me this oath after everything that's happened. You're just afraid to actually do it."

The table, and the forgotten drinks on it disappeared and I found myself in the goddess's embrace.

"You don't hate me!" She stroked my mane, I felt her tears wet my fur. "I'll do it, I'll swear an oath. I just want you to forgive me, and promise to do as I ask without needing to be commanded. If you have a problem with something I ask of you, we can discuss it. Alright?"

The Concepts supporting my anger and defiance snuffed out, and the emotions were replaced by joy, and a desire for the affection she was showing me. I nuzzled her, and purred. I practically mewed, "I promise."

The emotional whiplash was intense, despite the lack of aura, I felt love radiating from her. I ate it up.

We stayed like that for a while, then she pulled away from me, and with a serious look on her face, took my hand.

I Belua, do swear on my power that I will never issue a command to my contractor, Angel. All prior commands are considered void. I further promise to take steps to decrease the amount of mental manipulation the System engages in to the minimum setting.

I felt the oath take hold, and Belua seemed to flicker in and out of existence. I also felt some minor pressures that had existed in my mind unravel.

"I will warn you that outside of this room, I can offer you no protections from Concepts, and the System has many triggers that I have no control over. Things such as class imperatives, and the Call to Adventure, for instance are out of my ability to control. Both influences are a result of the Concepts used to build your class. The way they shepherd mortals along the path chosen for them is considered one of the most basic functions of the System."

I nodded. "I suppose that's the best I could ask of you. Thank you."

"Now, let us speak of the mistake that was made, and what will result from it."

"Ah, yeah the death cores. You said it would take weeks off the time? How is that possible? They were just a few cores, that thing is drawing in mana for miles. Those things contain a lot of mana, but not that much."

Belua nodded. "The problem is with how death mana turns any pure mana it comes in contact with into more of itself. Pure mana is useless for crystal formation, but the beast is drawing in quite a lot of it with all the elemental mana in the area. The cores will turn the pure mana that passes by them into usable death mana, thus increasing their impact many times over. It is all but guaranteed that the creature that spawns will have a high death affinity. It is something I hoped to avoid, but now you must be prepared for that."

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"I have a strong life affinity, I'll practice with that."

"You will have to, but you will also have to practice resisting death mana while using your other cores. There is no way the life mana you contain will be enough."

"What if I kill a strong monster before the fight, and eat its core for fuel?"

The goddess sighed and shook her head. "I won't say that wouldn't help, but that is one thing I would sincerely recommend against for the long term. Unless you are comfortable with the likelihood of becoming contaminated with the Concepts in the core. I know you have ways to use that energy, but can you do that in a fight that could last over an hour?"

My eyes widened, an hour long fight? The ones I'd had so far had lasted minutes, I couldn't imagine fighting for an hour straight.

"You see why I wanted you to be as high level as you can? With your permission, I would like to remove your leveling cap. It will not be pleasant, but I don't see a better option."

I started to reflexively groan at the idea, but something lit up inside me, and my perspective shifted. Leveling had always seemed like something that was happening too fast before, but the results were good. The power that could flow through me now felt good. I wanted more. I licked my lips, and nodded.

"Sure, I'll agree to that."

Belua narrowed her eyes at me, it was like she was trying to see inside me.

"Ah, well, I suppose that makes sense. You really need to be more wary of eating cores. But no Concept is useless, even the worst sounding ones have their charm."

I blinked, I wasn't quite sure why she brought that up all of a sudden. Did she see that I had picked up hungry? I thought I was doing pretty well ignoring the feeling of emptiness inside me. But maybe she'd felt the persistent sensation through the mark. But why mention it now? And why say it wasn't useless.

I ran my fingers through my mane, and shrugged. Torill said she'd help me rid myself of it, but it would have to wait until I wasn't looking down the barrel of what sounded like the toughest fight of my life. I could put up with the feeling until then, it wasn't much different from normal.

Thinking about Torill, I remembered the event that had led me to call Belua in the first place.

"Hey, uh, if the fight is going to be so hard, why don't we bring Torill in? She's already way higher level than me."

"Child, think on it, seriously consider taking her along. Know that my command not to speak on it has been eradicated. I have avoided speaking of what you will face, but a part of you knows."

I thought about it. I thought about her coming along and fighting my battle. She would likely do away with the beast with no issue. She would steal my kill. Mine. I wanted it, I needed to do it alone. I wiped the drool from my mouth thinking about how much I wanted the result. I had suspected what my prey was, but now I knew.

Gaining levels quickly suddenly became a much higher priority. I wanted to kill it in much less than an hour. If it fought that long, it would diminish my prize.

I was stunned to realize that the feelings weren't coming from my instincts. They were coming from something written into my core, the original one, it seemed to vibrate when I thought of my prey.

I heard the goddess laugh. "Truly mana beasts are interesting creatures. Every one of them is unique, but there is one rather consistent part of their nature that makes them so rare."

"They eat each other." I said, somewhat aghast.

"Oh, little one, do not be upset. It is not as though new beasts are sapient."

An intense hunger for the other beast, and its crystal warred with the kindness I had attached to my soul. Kindness won thoroughly enough to make me disgusted with the idea.

"Sapient or not, the idea of engaging in cannibalism is disturbing. Not to mention the fact that the only thing a mana beast needs to grow sapient is the time to fully absorb their mother crystal."

"Oh child, if only that were so. The recorded chances of a mana beast forming a core from its crystal are less than one in one thousand, and the mana types it includes matter quite a lot. Your host's affinities of connected life, playful air, focused water, with shrouded dark and revealing light balancing each other, were lucky. Those affinities are significantly less unruly than the ones that this beast seems likely to possess."

Belua shook her head. "No, this beast would almost certainly become a monster if it was to survive long enough to absorb its crystal, particularly with your recent contribution. Forming a stable core with death mana naturally is nearly impossible."

I raised an eyebrow. "I have a death core, it must be possible."

"Yes, child, you do. Do remember that the System created that for you, and you were already a classed being when it did so. I am sure an intelligent person such as yourself will understand the difference."

I nodded.

"Be that as it may. The beast's chances of becoming sapient barely matter. I have been able to conceal its formation so far with slight uses of my influence, but once the crystal fully forms it will require far more effort to cover up. I simply cannot waste my mana in such a way. It is far too close to civilization. Mages from both sides of the current conflict will detect it, and they will come. The war will be brought to this place, and the side that acquires the crystal will bring devastation to the other. I want the war to end, but not like that."

"Why don't you just command them to stop? You certainly don't seem opposed to using that ability on me."

Belua growled, I could almost feel the frustration radiating off of her. "I am not allowed to do so. It was decided long ago that such conflict brings strength in the long run. I believe a propensity to engage in it is even tied into the leadership classes. I am not even allowed to directly intervene to aid a side. No contractor may be hired to do so either."

"Ah, I think Samuel said he thought you were trying to create an avenue for friendship between spirit beasts and humans with my mission. Isn't that helping a side?"

"Samuel is a very smart man. However I must say that I hired you to specifically deal with the danger the civilians face when their able bodied adventurers are drafted into a conflict that they are not meant for, and are no longer available to perform their true duties. I did not hire you to engage with the war directly, and were you to ask me, I would be forced to tell you to ignore it. That said, you are your own being. So if you were to take action without checking in with me, it would certainly not be my fault."

"I see. And sending me after the mana beast is okay?"

The goddess stiffened, and let out an almost pained sound. She replied through gritted teeth.

"My dear boy, I think we have spoken long enough, you have your oath from me. Now that you've mentioned it, I cannot ask you to take care of the mana beast. It would have to be your choice. I believe we've spoken long enough, I allowed your lady time enough to get your body back home. Best of luck with that new Concept of yours, I do hope it doesn't cause you too much distress. I will continue to give you monster targets to kill, though the pull to do so will be a mere suggestion for you."

With that, my eyes opened to see Torril's sleeping face in front of me.