Old man Bowan sat in his smithy, his expression blank. A somber sort of silence hung, only partially filled by the light crackling of a distant flame.

Before him sat three objects. On the wooden table that had been blackened to the point of nearly becoming ash, these three things appeared out of place. Yet, there they were, their surfaces reflecting the dim reddish yellows of the room.

A bottle. A cup. An urn.

The first two had long since run dry. Bowan’s fingers, more wrinkled than before, took a swig of the cup beside himself as though trying to manifest another drop. For his efforts, he received nothing but the strong whiff of a lingering alcohol.

The old man suddenly chuckled, placing the cup down. His uncoordinated actions caused him to miss most of the ledge. In the past, his reflexes might have been strong enough to catch it before it hit the ground—heck, in the past, he wouldn’t have been so drunk in the first place—but now, he could only listen for the sharp sound of scattering glass, his body too lazy to do anything about it.

“So many cheeky youngins out there these days.” Bowan’s words slurred, his eyes trained on the urn. “Don’t worry, though. Your husband might be reaching the end of his rope, but he’s still got a few tricks up his sleeve. If that brat knew who this old man was back in his prime, and how many enemies I have, he wouldn’t have left with such a pep in his step…”

These were the words Bowan spoke. Or, rather, they were the words he thought he had spoken. But, since he made the mistake of drinking alcohol he had saved back from his days as a Mythical Master without an ounce of Spirit Energy left in his body, what he really said sounded like nothing more than baby babble.

Still, this didn’t stop Bowan from cackling like a maniac. He had been worried for so long about what would happen after he died. Never did he expect that he would be so lucky to find such a sucker in his final hours.

Bowan’s forehead crashed into the black wood table, his loud snoring filling the smithy not long afterward.

As he slept, his skin receded further and further from his bone and a fog of black hung around him. Despite the smile on his face, the old man didn’t seem like he would live to see the next day. In his other hand, his grip on his pocket watch had never loosened.

**

Ryker trudged out of the city, something within him being pressed down again and again.

It wasn’t guilt of conscience, empathy or even sadness. Rather, it was excitement.

The more steps he took, he found his placid expression distorting out of his control. He ducked his head down and kept it lowered, his fast muscle fibers twitching to force what should have been a steady gait into an awkward skip.

‘Just hold on. Now is not time yet.’

Ryker tried repeating these words to himself again and again. But, he could almost see the sparks flying in his brain. Every flash of emotion came with a stronger spike. The compulsion to raise his head to the sky and laugh like a maniac was so strong he felt like he was on the verge of losing his mind.

A strong force suddenly pushed Ryker from the front. Even without looking up, he could tell that the stimuli came from a person, so he tried to walk around, only to be blocked again.

“Sorry,” Ryker said quickly, trying to maneuver around again. But, for the third time, he was blocked.

Ryker pulled at that collar of his shirt until it covered his cheekbones so that the twitching of his face was less apparent, only to look up and find a group of people he recognized.

“What are you hiding for, little merchant boy? You were so arrogant the other day, but now you’re ducking and dodging?”

Ryker’s eyes were excessively dilated at this point. A person who didn’t know him would think that he had taken some sort of drug, and quite frankly, he wouldn’t blame them.

Three men stood before Ryker, two large and sturdy and a last so pale that he didn’t look to have experienced the sun for the past decade. It didn’t take Ryker long to remember that the nightwalker amongst them was among the young men he had clashed with before. Now he had come with some beefier backup.

Ryker’s small mirror hover to his back. There wasn’t a hint of change to it. Just like always, it was silent and unassuming. Well, about as unassuming as a such an item following a young man around could be, anyway. This was despite the fact the materials the small mirror was made of were likely worth more than this entire world.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Hm?”

The young man had a certain boldness about him, one that Ryker was pretty sure had faded when he earned that bruise beneath his eye, the only bit of color on that pale face of his.

“Don’t want to talk? That’s fine. Why don’t you just take a walk with us out of the city? I’ll show you some nice sights.”

If Ryker could control his facial expressions, he would definitely be rolling his eyes at this point. The day had waned to the point the moon was already high in the sky. He might believe such a line if the location was within the city, but there was nothing but darkness and danger outside of it around this time.

Ryker knew he was taking a risk even trekking outside right now, but he couldn’t bottle himself up any longer. The more he tried to control it, the stronger the backlash would be and the more uncontrolled the result. This prick really couldn’t have chosen a better time? He had been in this area of the city all day, after all.

With night having fallen, the number of people on the streets was few. The shopping district wasn’t a region to be frequented at this time of day, so not many noticed the altercation. As for those that did, they made it their business to head toward their destination as fast as they could, making sure to avoid all forms of eye contact.

Ryker soon felt a strong hand land on both his shoulders, squeezing down with a strength that made his bones want to creek. The two men that had been on the nightwalker’s side had found their way to his, clamping down both sides of the body as they escorted him out the shopping district and toward the city gates.

The guards on duty pretended to have not seen a single thing.

“The gates close in 15 minutes.”

The monotonous voice rang out as the gears grinded close. The click had hardly settled when Ryker felt a blow to his gut, his body keeling over under the pressure. The surge of pain was like a bucket of ice cold water over his body, traveling through his muscles, bones and nerves in a sharp pulse.

Ryker couldn’t help but inwardly applaud the audacity. The city gates weren’t even ten meters away. The guards at the top of the walls could still see them. And yet, they had already started going at him.

A grunt escaped Ryker when he felt a fist land right where his bruises were. His ribcage rattled and nearly snapped, air sweeping out of his lungs faster than he could inhale it back.

Shallow coughs left him, the large wooden box on his back breaking his fall as he slumped down. His shoulders got caught in their straps, his arms getting pinned upward as though he was being crucified on a cross.

The shirt that had covered his face slipped downward. Like a switch of the lights, Ryker broke out into a fit of laughter. He roared into the skies, his blue irises glowing like fiery, sapphire gems in the night.

The emotions burst forth in an endless tidal wave, his heart jumping with jubilation and his smile widening to the point his cheeks hurt.

The two burly men paused, confusion coloring their faces. The guards on top of the walls and on the other side of the gates were just as confused. The laughter was not coming from the nightwalker, so why were they hearing it at all?

The pale skinned young man, or who Ryker coined as nightwalker, was Francis Buderwoerk. If there were three of the most wealthy families to pick out of Smoke Tower City, it would be the Buderwoerk family, the Steward family and the Joseph family. They were all too familiar with this young man to not recognize his laugh.

Francis was just as confused as everyone else, but Ryker’s laughter only became more uproarious and less restrained.

It had been 18 years! Almost two decades of his life he had spent slaving after this goal! He did nothing but push and push and push, dragging his weak body up this mountain and he could finally see the journey that lay before him on the other side!

Shouts of horror and agony cut through the night sky and the booming laughter. The two burly men found their thighs stabbed through by Ryker’s sculpting knives.

As they fell to the ground, Ryker rose to his feet, his laughter continuing to resound. Whether by design or coincidence, the small mirror rose with him, hovering to the back of his head like a halo.

They both looked down on Francis, one quivering with a manic laughter and the other calmly reflecting the moon in the sky. It was an oddly picturesque scene, one painted by a life of hardship.

Ryker stepped toward Francis. The nightwalker was even paler than usual right now. Though he had strength of his own, who would feel at ease facing a madman?

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Francis took a step back before he could stop himself. He felt like his very spirit was being crushed. Like he was a small beast facing its predator, his palms sweat and his heart beat out of his control.

The spurt of blood was first felt on his shoulder. As though a drizzle of rain had fallen on that region and that region alone, it soaked the cloth of his shirt through. The heaviness of the crimson liquid was so gripping that Francis didn’t notice that it originated from his neck until he tried to open his mouth.

A harsh hiss and gross gurgle were drowned beneath Ryker’s laughter, his hand still holding the sculptor’s knife he used to pierce the side of Francis’ neck.

The guards atop the walls were horrified. They couldn’t see everything in as sharp detail as they would with the sun still up, but the light was more than enough to understand what had happened. Running through the consequences of such a thing in their minds left their limbs feeling cold.

“Open the gates!”

As Francis fell onto the ground, Ryker had already shot into the distance, his laughter still resounding through the night skies.

The roads at this time of night were already empty and the expanse around the city was mostly flat land. Picking out Ryker even without his manic laughter was all too easy. Yet, it didn’t seem to matter.

By the time the guards on the wall relayed what was happening to those manning the gates and the city was reopened, Ryker was several hundred meters from them, his laughter still resounding.

“Dammit! Horses! We need horses! Form a team! We won’t see the sun rise again unless we can find that son of a bitch!”

**

Ryker stumbled through the mountain range, his throat hoarse and his body drained.

Whenever he entered such a state, his body wouldn’t have an accurate grasp on how to conserve its energy. Fueled by whatever emotion it was, he would feel as though his stamina was endless, when the reality was that he was exhausting himself at an extreme rate. Plus, the only reason why he had been injured during their first encounter wasn't because of a lack of skill, but because he had allowed it to happen so as to garner more sympathy from Rosemary.

If it wasn’t for the fact Ryker had predicted that he would have an episode the day he succeeded in convincing the old man, and had thus planned a route of retreat for himself, it was unknown if he would have made it back. It was impossible that those guards would know these routes better than he would.

As for the fall out of what he had done, Ryker didn’t care. That nightwalker chose the worst time to seek out his revenge. With the limiters on his physical capabilities having been removed for a brief time, Ryker was several times more powerful than he usually was.

Ryker collapsed before his cabin door, his lungs screaming. His breath felt like hot coals dancing up and down his throat, making it so that on one hand, he wanted nothing more than to stop breathing all together, but on the other, he needed the exact opposite.

Raspy coughs and thick spittle flew from Ryker’s mouth. The quiet mountainous woods were filled with his hacking and wheezing, what should have been the eerie sound of nature beneath the moonlight assaulted by something foreign.

Ryker’s hand pushed the door of his cabin open, dragging his body in one inch at a time. His lack of food was suddenly all too obvious to him at that moment. Even as he pushed the large wooden box off of his back and crashed onto the ground, it wasn’t his attempts at catching his breath that were the loudest to his ears, but rather the loud grumbling of his stomach.

‘A girl should keep her promises, you know.’

Ryker couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Even as the emotional high was fading, the grin on his face wouldn’t fade. One would have thought that the bland wooden ceiling above him was the most beautiful sight in the world.

’18 years…’

That day, on his third birthday, a celebration was held in the Valorian Clan for Ryker’s welcome to the family. It was a tradition every child of a prestigious family went through, but the name was more innocent than the reality of it all was.

The ‘welcome’ was nothing more than a family judging the worth of the next generation. At three years old, a child would be brought before an extended group of family and friends to have their talent displayed to all. As for Ryker, he had the luck of being the son of a main descendant, and with that he gained the privilege of have quite the crowd for his own ‘welcome’.

The story didn’t end as one might expect. Not only was Ryker welcome a hit, he was crowned as the kind of genius that might not be seen even through several millennia.

The talent of a potential Mythical Master was divided into nine grades. These grades were denoted by the titles of 1st Circle Talent up to a 9th Circle Talent. The dividing lines of these grades only became greater as one stepped higher and higher.

These grades didn’t just give one a fancy label, but was rather directly correlated to the kind of expert they could become. Mythical Masters gained their strength from contracting Spirit Beasts and building a bond together. The talent level of your Circle could decide how great of a Spirit Beast you could initially contract, making it the most valuable metric in estimating the future of an expert.

Ryker’s future couldn’t have been brighter. Blessed with 9th Circle Talent, he was destined for greatness. He would be able to contract a beast with 9th Circle Talent immediately, allowing him the fastest cultivation speed there could be. That was… until he made a mistake that had stuck with him to this day.

When a normal three year old made a mistake, it might be fixed with a light cry and a hug from mommy. But when Ryker contracted a beauty tool as his first Spirit Beast, it felt as though a dark cloud had been cast over the Valorian Clan.

Ryker was just a sweet and innocent kid. He liked playing with his mother’s mirror so much that he never wanted it to leave his side. Or maybe he was just that vain.

Contracting a Spirit Beast was supposed to be a difficult process. Contracting a Mystery Spirit Beast without a consciousness of its own should have been nearly impossible. Yet, somehow, a three year old had managed to do so. Ryker didn’t know whether to praise his talent or his bad luck.

There were a few major categories of Spirit Beast. But of them, there was an important dividing line. Though living, breathing beasts were what one often thought of when Spirit Beasts were mentioned, the creations of Mystery Craftsmen could also be contracted.

There were Mythical Master Swordsman who contracted swords as their first, and there were spearman who did the same with spears. Though these experts were of the minority, they did exist.

Still, what all of these Mythical Masters had in common was the fact their Mystery Treasures was that they all had a Spirit. This Spirit was what made Spirit Beasts and certain high level Mystery Treasures special. It was this Spirit that was important in the connection between it and a Mythical Master.

The small mirror that took up the space of Ryker’s first contract hadn’t had a Spirit at the time. Its only special qualities could be said to be the fact it was an heirloom passed down in his mother’s family for generations and also happened to be made out of precious materials that were worth an arm and a leg. But, much like gold and silver and on this world, though the materials were precious, they weren’t exactly useful.

To this day, Ryker still wasn’t quite sure how he managed to succeed with such a contract. What he did know, though, was that from that day forth, his life changed.

The Spirit creatures one contracts are very important. Humans were unable to cultivate by themselves, their bodies are too weak. Luckily, their Ancestors learned that while humans might have weak bodies, they had strong souls and minds. Using Spirit Beasts and Mystical Treasures as proxies, one was able to expand their pool of Spirit Energy and reach greater heights.

There was a limiting factor to all of this, though. The amount of Spirit Energy one could consume was decided by your contracted beasts and treasures.

By now, the problem Ryker had faced was clear. He had all this talent, but it was bottlenecked by his own contracted Mystery Treasure. Where as by now he should have long since left the Enlightenment Realms, he had been stuck as the 1st Enlightenment Realm for 18 whole years.

One would think that this matter would be simple to fix. Just terminate the contract and everything would be fine.

For years, Ryker’s family had been trying to convince him to do the same thing. The trouble was the price that would need to be paid.

With 9th Circle Talent, one had the most perfect and pure soul. An 8th Circle Talent from a prestigious family might be able to get away with terminating a contract, especially if it was caught early. However, Ryker had been far too young to endure the impact back then. And, once he was old enough to, he refused for one simple reason: The backlash would cost him his pure soul and thus his 9th Circle Talent.

This was the price he had paid for perfection. He had labored for 18 years, pulling himself closer and closer to the 2nd Enlightenment Realm all so that he could finally contract his second Spirit Partner and raise his cultivation speed to something more befitting of his talent.

All along the way, he met roadblock after roadblock, all of which was thrown at him by this damned mirror he used to love so much as a kid.

Ryker’s grin faded into a satisfied sigh.

‘Now I’ve accumulated enough Spirit Energy and have entered the 2nd Enlightenment Stage. I also finally manage to form the mirror’s Spirit and gave it life. I’ve finally done it. Just wait, I’ll find my way back soon.’

Ryker finally had the strength to push himself up. He beckoned the small mirror to him, having it land in his hands. Though it looked no different, he couldn’t help but smile despite the fact he was looking at his own dark reflection.

There was a subtle and faint glow the mirror was giving off. Ryker could tell that this was a sign of Spirituality. The small mirror had finally birthed its own consciousness and could formulate its own simple thoughts.

This was important for more than just connection between it and Ryker. If Ryker wanted to achieve his goal, every one of his Spirit Contracts had to be to a powerful existence. However, there was nothing powerful about a mirror, let alone a beauty mirror.

There was hope, though. Compared to Spirit Beasts, it was easier to improve Mystical Treasures. Ryker had to take his time to strengthen the small mirror and raise it up to be an existence on par with his goals and aspirations. In order to do this, it was mandatory that the small mirror birth its own Spirit, only in this way would it be able to learn, grow and train just like a human or Spirit Beast would.

Toward this end, Ryker had done everything he could, even spending years studying the Mystery Craftsmen profession so that he could carve out a unique path for himself. All his work with sculptures and watches would build him toward the future he wanted.

Ryker held the small mirror in a palm, digging through the large wooden box. Despite the darkness, he didn’t need to fumble around. He knew this box like the back of his hand because it held everything he had in this world.

Soon, he produced several small stones. It was impossible to make them out in the dark, but Ryker could see their appearances vividly in his mind. How many hours had he spent looking at these stones, wondering when he would finally get to use them?

With gentle movements, he placed the stones onto the surface of the mirror.

“Take your time and absorb these.”

The small mirror vibrated, seemingly understanding. Ryker knew, though, that what it understood wasn’t the language he used, but rather the intention he gave off through their Spirit Connection.

Having done this, Ryker knew that he was fatigued and that he should sleep. The process would take at least a few hours to complete. But, he was far too excited, his heart still pounding out of his chest. If he tried to sleep like this, not only might he fail, but it was possible that he would trigger a second episode.

Knowing himself well, Ryker rummaged through the large wooden box once more. But, this time, he took out a small black container.

The container was longer than it was wide and had the thickness of half a palm. Overall, it wasn’t an issue for Ryker to hold it in either one or two hands, yet it had a heft of at least 20 pounds despite its small size.

It was smooth and cool to the touch, having an immaculate finish. No matter how long Ryker held it, it didn’t warm up as though it insisted on remaining a temperature just below the surface of his skin.

This container was a special Mystery Treasure designed to hold the eggs of unhatched Spirit Beasts. It kept the eggs in a state of unbirth until a suitable partner could be chosen for it.

When his parents were trying to convince him that perfection wasn’t necessary, Ryker had lost count of the number of times they tried to push this Spirit Beast onto him. They said it was powerful, mystical… His poor, stoic father even tried to describe how ‘cool’ it was at one point.

Ryker ran his hand over the surface of the container. He had never opened it before, so staunch in his opposition, he didn’t even want the temptation. Now that he could open it, though, it felt surreal.

Had he really done it?

No.

Ryker shook his head.

This was only the beginning.

With steady fingers, he opened the lid.