One afternoon during his third week at school, Artem had to tutor some students from the military classes in the building for the second-year students. The youth was walking through a green space to get to a training hall in this building when he met a member of the Eos Family.
Miles Eos was from the minor branch of the Family, which mainly consisted of adopted loyalists. This tall boy with black hair and dark-brown eyes was seventeen years old. He was like a cousin to the twins because he was a third-generation loyalist: Miles’s grandfather was the Third Elder of the Eos Family.
When they were younger, Miles and Artem had often trained together. They both wanted to work for the Army and become as strong as Artem’s father. But over the years, they had grown apart. Artem hadn’t seen much of Miles since the beginning of high school. Miles wasn’t even in the professional combat training elective class this year.
Miles should have participated in the Awakening ceremony with the carved spirit stone provided by the Family. However, the brown-eyed boy had failed to awaken. Looking at the black stripes on his cousin’s uniform collar, Artem realized Miles was in one of the military classes.
Most of the time, those who failed or lacked money transferred to Dascalos High School's military classes for a second chance. Since failing meant the compatibility wasn’t high enough, trying again without changing anything first was useless. If these students joined the Army, after five years of service as mundane soldiers, they could try again to awaken with a spirit-carved stone provided by the Army. Real combat experiences and risk of death could sometimes upgrade the compatibility. It was like a baptism. Then, if the young soldiers managed to awaken, they could choose a free pet from the officially issued ones. But they had to give another five years to the Army. It wasn’t a bad deal because the soldiers would work with a higher army rank and get more resources to train their pets.
When she saw Miles, Lyra became wary of him. She couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong, but her talent was sensing something odd from him. As he wasn’t a beast tamer, it was even odder.
Lyra warned her host. “Artem, I don’t like him. Stay away from him.”
“He is from the Family, so I can’t brush him off so easily. But I won’t lower my guard. I remember my mother’s warning about the Family.”
“Artem! I’ve been wanting to talk to you for days!” Miles said to him with a displeased tone.
“Miles. What for?”
“Are you serious? We had to learn about your parents’ crimes from outsiders! Don’t you care about the Family?”
Artem stayed quiet, as he usually did. However, he disliked how Miles didn't doubt these crimes.
When they first got to the school, the twins did think of calling the minor branch, since they wanted help to ask about Melia’s situation. But Artem and Galen soon abandoned this idea. They couldn’t trust the Elders.
Artem saw Miles frown in frustration or anger. In the strained silence, Lyra suddenly affirmed. “He has a small beast on him.”
“That’s impossible, he didn’t awaken,” Artem answered, keeping his eyes on Miles.
“I didn’t say that I sense any CSI, only that I’m sure there is a beast or a pet on him. My [Divine Hearing] can’t be wrong.”
“Isn’t your talent [Telepathy]?” Artem asked as Miles spoke again. The brown-eyed boy seemed to have a lot to say.
“I never said that,” Lyra answered in a snotty voice, “I just let you draw your own conclusion.”
“How many more secrets do you have?”
“A girl has to have some mysteries,” Lyra retorted, lifting her nose in the air even though Artem couldn’t see her.
Miles tried to get Artem to speak to him by talking about their childhood and their friendship. But Artem kept his answers short. He tried to pinpoint the beast without attracting Miles’s attention. Splitting his attention in such a way was an excellent exercise. However, Artem didn’t find anything.
As for Lyra, she was frustrated. “I’m lacking experience. If I had a sample of every beast in existence, I could easily tell which one is hiding on him. For now, I can only say that it sounds mostly like air and a bit like an insect. It isn’t a bee, a butterfly, a mantis, or a beetle – I'm sure because I know their breathing pattern from school –, but there are some similarities. It’s not a spider either.”
“An insect would be an excellent spy: small with good perceptions,” Artem commented. “It could even have some invisibility skills.”
Artem suddenly brought his full attention to Miles when the other boy lowered his voice and came nearer. As soon as Miles began to allude to the Phoenix, Artem abruptly cut his cousin off. Artem used his authority as a member of the main branch of the Eos Family to shut Miles up.
Miles finally left in anger, berating Artem for his indifference and egoism and threatening to bring the Elders down on him. Was Miles really stupid and careless enough to try to mention the Phoenix in public, or was it deliberate on his part?
Anyway, Artem didn’t take his threat to heart. What could the Elders from the minor branch do to him while he was stuck at school and under surveillance? Artem was much more interested in Lyra’s talent and the knowledge that some of their enemies could use their pets to spy on them.
“Lyra, can you use your [Divine Hearing] to scan the surroundings again? Just to be sure the beast left with Miles or that there isn’t anything else around?”
Lyra rolled her eyes even though she knew Artem couldn’t see her. She didn’t need him to tell her what to do!
Artem kept quiet as Lyra went to work. Miles had stopped him between two buildings, so Artem was in a small park with several tall trees and many bushes. Now that Artem was thinking of it, it was an excellent place to lay in ambush.
“I don’t sense the previous beast anymore, but there is another unfamiliar one nearby. This one sounds like a plant and a small mammal. I would say a sort of rodent.”
Guided by Lyra, Artem looked around. Finally, Ayden found a squirrel with a thick dark green coat on a low branch in one of the tallest oaks. Artem didn’t know what kind of beast it was. It was holding an acorn in its two front paws, and it looked at Ayden without blinking. Its fluffy, curled tail was two times as tall as its body, giving the beast an adorable look.
“If Galen is free, could you ask him to come here?” Artem didn’t know why he asked that, but he felt Galen needed to be there.
“Done. He’s coming. If you want to know what kind of beast this one is, why don’t you let Ayden try to touch it?”
“That’s a good idea, but what if it takes that as an aggression?”
Artem didn’t want to put Ayden in danger. As the squirrel squeaked and moved his acorn around, the fairy came closer to it. The boy tensed, ready to jump to his pet’s rescue. He had little chi, but he wouldn’t hesitate to use his [Fusion] talent to add Ayden’s agility to his own to gain more speed. It would be a very short-time boost, but it might be enough to get Ayden to security. The squirrel became more animated but made no move to attack the fairy. Yet, Artem maintained his high alertness until Galen and Lucia joined them.
The Light Fairy almost immediately went to the Fire Fairy and the squirrel. With both fairies in front of it, the squirrel chattered rapidly. Then, it gave the acorn to the fairies before running away in the tree. Literally in the tree, its body melting into the trunk. The boys were bewildered.
“Did we get an entry for it?” Artem asked, trying to get a hold of himself.
“Yes, Ayden touched the squirrel’s paw when it gave her the acorn. Sorry, I was too stunned to tell you.”
The twins had easily gotten new entries last week during each pet combat practice. They only had several from the common pets, as the bouts were divided by rank, but it was a start. They even got an achievement when they got the 10th entry with some shuffles as the reward. This new one should be their 16th one.
These considerations instantly left their mind when they heard Lyra. “It was an epic beast, boys! It was a Mystic Oak Squirrel! From what the encyclopedia is saying, it’s a shy beast from the surroundings of the Baltic Cities-States region. There are very few sightings of it, and even fewer beast tamers have contracted it.”
The twins wondered why an epic beast from another region would give their fairies anything. Suddenly, a green glow surrounded the acorn that the fairies were both still touching.
“Not here!” Galen exclaimed in a panic.
“Too late!” Artem retorted, taking action to try to mask the fairies from view.
The fairies, understanding their beast tamer’s worries, floated down and let the boys surround them to hide them. Fortunately, nothing more happened. The green glow disappeared when Galen asked Lucia to let the acorn go.
The twins looked at each other. Artem wanted to return to their room to unravel this mystery, but he still had a job to do. Looking at his connected bracelet, he realized that he was late.
“Get to your work. I’ll do some research in the library while waiting for you,” Galen said to his brother in a steady voice.
Galen speculated that this acorn might explain why their parents sent them the fairies, as both fairies seemed to be necessary to trigger the nut. So Galen mentally added, “Anyway, without Ayden, I won’t be able to do anything with the acorn.”
Artem hesitated. As he was already late, he suspected that his petty clients might choose not to pay him – that was the difference between his and Galen’s job. While each student that Artem tutored paid him, Galen was paid by the school in Mrs Bousrani's name. And if Artem wasn’t paid, he would rather stay with his brother than waste his time. The thought the students might never employ him again made Artem relent.
With a sigh, Artem turned toward the second-year students’ building. The teenager hurried to his job while sending a last message through Lyra. “We shouldn’t change our routine, it would be suspicious to anyone spying on us. Let’s train like usual this evening. We’ll take care of the acorn afterward in our room before going to sleep.”
Agreeing with his brother, Galen asked Lyra to put the acorn in the warehouse. Then, he went back to his studies.
***
At night, when the twins were finally alone in their room, Artem asked Lyra to scan the room with her [Divine Hearing].
“You don’t need to ask!” The CSI pouted. “Didn’t I notify you when I detected something suspicious?”
“What’s this about?” Galen asked.
Artem silently explained to Galen about the beast on Miles. Galen wondered if it was a wild beast or a pet. He knew about some beasts who could control a human thanks to their psychic skills, but they shouldn’t be anywhere near a human settlement. Galen believed a beast tamer was using Miles to probe the twins for information. The only question was if the pet was riding on Miles without the boy's knowledge, if it was threatening Miles in some way, or if Miles was one of the traitors.
Galen soon forgot about Miles when Artem explained about Lyra’s talent. “That’s make no sense. How can you have several talents? Mr Duval didn’t even talk about CSI having a talent!”
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“You have so many questions! Don’t you have better things to do, like triggering the acorn?”
“Don’t change the subject! How can we work with you efficiently if we don’t understand how you work?”
Thinking back to Galen never talking to her about the Hippocrates’ Oath, Lyra answered grumpily, “It’s not like you and your brother don’t have your own secrets!”
“But we trust you enough that if you asked us about anything, we would answer you. Would you?”
“Ah!” Lyra exclaimed moodily. “OK, what about the Hippocrates’ Oath? Am I not supposed to enforce it? How can I do that if you don’t talk about it with me?”
“High school students don't take this oath. It happens on the university graduation day,” Galen explained without hiding anything. “I’m still far from graduating as a pharmacist and a healer.”
Lyra stayed silent a while before relenting. She knew that with Galen’s mind, he would suspect her origin even if she didn’t explain. He might even already know it, but he respected her will not to speak of it.
“All CSI harmonize with their host. Since they harmonize, they can communicate. Communicating with the host is one of the basic programming of the system interface. How could it be useful otherwise? You get it, now? It isn’t a talent.”
“But you can talk to the both of us.”
“Hello? I harmonized with both of you, didn’t I? It’s like I have you on a double call constantly. I just need to juggle the lines when you’re far from each other. I’m used to multi-tasking, so no problem. Once I level up, I should be able to upgrade the programming to a sort of chatroom or something.”
Lyra didn’t add that programming was her best friend’s specialty, not hers. With his skills, her friend would have already solved the issue. The boys’ questions about her talent brought Lyra out of her thoughts.[Divine Hearing] was only the name she gave to the passive field of her talent, but as she didn’t intend to use her active talent, she didn’t want to talk about it.
Galen and Artem were frustrated to see Lyra staying quiet. Galen was running possibilities through his mind. To his knowledge, only humans could have a talent. To be accurate, only humans stimulated by a CSI could have a talent. Combining the clues, Galen concluded that Lyra was a human and not a simple AI like the other CSI were. She had her own will, she had a talent, and they clearly saw her body on the day of the Awakening ceremony.
Moreover, despite his lack of attention at the time, Galen vaguely remembered Lyra using “they” when complaining about something. Combining what he knew, Galen supposed that some people, somewhere, were messing with the carved spirit stones and the CSI, and they were probably disregarding humans’ lives. If her life was in danger, it made sense that Lyra was so reluctant to speak about it.
But Galen was still too weak, and he lacked too much knowledge to act on this supposition. With a glance at Artem, Galen changed the subject and shared his discoveries of the day.“There are really few mentions of the Mystic Oak Squirrel in the library.”
“I told you that my encyclopedia was top-notch!” Lyra exclaimed in her usual perky voice.
“If it’s yours, why don’t you know the information inside?” Artem asked in curiosity.
“I locked it in the encyclopedia. I can’t access it anymore.”
“Okay, that’s just stupid.” Galen couldn’t understand Lyra’s thought process. “Why would you do that?”
“You’re the stupid one!” Lyra retorted hotly.
“Could you please explain?” Galen forced himself to be polite. The woman could be infuriating.
“To put it painfully simply, it’s one of the system’s inner rules,” Lyra went on with a sigh. “By choosing a penalty in my inner feature when I programmed my system, it gained a larger advantage, which will be revealed later.”
“So, if we had access to the whole encyclopedia from the beginning, we wouldn’t have as much information?”
“Don’t forget the way the second tier allowed you to stock skills,” Lyra added proudly. “Do you think a normal CSI encyclopedia could do that?”
Artem frowned. If Lyra could sacrifice something to get what she wanted, what did she sacrifice to get them the warehouse? Artem had always felt uncomfortable with how they had been able to obtain the feature they needed the most.
Artem didn’t ask and stopped speculating. Galen nodded to the acorn and shared his findings. “I didn’t find much about the squirrel, so I focused on the acorn. There are a lot of legends about acorns, but I narrowed it down easily. I’ve been reading books about the feys since we got to school to get more information about our fairies, and it was tickling my mind. In some folk tales from the Old World, the feys used natural objects like acorns to send messages. As for why a strange squirrel brought us the acorn, I suppose this is because of Mom's talent.”
Lyra hurriedly finished transferring the thought to Artem to ask, “Oh! What was your mom’s talent?”
The twins exchanged a glance, they were tempted to withhold the answer until Lyra also talked about her talent, but they knew it would be mean. Anyway, the twins didn’t know the full extent of Tana Eos’s talent. It was classified as an epic talent, but they remembered their father complaining that her talent was weird because it had too many aspects.
“We don’t know its name. She could communicate with anyone without any language barrier. She could also communicate with any pets and beasts. I don’t mean telepathically: she talked to them in their own language. She must have negotiated with the Mystic Oak Squirrel.”
Lyra hummed in acknowledgment. She was now curious about the acorn brought by the squirrel. It was a strangely unorthodox yet traditional way to send a message.
“The fairies are the key to getting the message from the acorn,” Galen went on. “I think they need to both hold it while pouring their spiritual energy into it.”
As Lucia and Ayden did as they were told, the green glow appeared again and intensified until the light moved to form letters. The twins didn’t dare to write it down so they hurriedly tried to memorize it. Once done, they intended to destroy the acorn.
As an insurance, Lyra wrote down the message in her interface log book. “Relax, boys! I have a notepad on my interface.”
As Galen shifted his attention to the content of the message, he suddenly berated himself. As his brother raised his eyebrow in silent inquiry, Galen explained, “No wonder I couldn’t decipher the message from the account book. It wasn’t a message, but the cipher key! The key to deciphering the message from the acorn! I’m so stupid.”
With this new information, Galen could decipher his parents’ message in a few hours. This brought hope to the twins even if the boys were aware that nothing would be simple, and the message most likely only contained some clues to another message.
At Lyra’s insistence, Galen didn’t work on it immediately. With their lessons, their jobs, and their personal training, their days were excruciatingly long. They needed their sleep, and waiting one more day wouldn’t change much of anything at this point.
***
In the morning, the twins get up early to begin their day. Artem and Ayden went to do their physical training while Galen and Lucia went to Mrs Bousrani’s garden. Even though this job wasn’t what Galen expected, he still took it seriously. He watered the plants, pulled weeds, and checked the health and development of every species. All the while, Galen talked aloud, hoping to help Lucia’s mind in this way. Since Galen wanted to optimize his time, he was also using his talent to improve his understanding of the plants, though he was careful to do it sparingly on days when he had a chi practice class. It was a way to train his talent while fine-tuning his knowledge of botany to make better potions and pills.
Lucia was attentive and followed her beast tamer dutifully. That morning, Galen encountered a plant dying. He examined it briefly with [Insight], and he shared what his talent was showing him with his fairy. Galen concluded that the plant wasn’t getting enough sun, which was strange as this spot seemed sunny enough. Lucia listened and, showing her understanding, the fairy used [glow]. Galen praised her for her smartness and examined the plant again with [Insight], but it wasn’t enough.
Galen’s talent only let him know that the plant needed more energy, like some kind of vitamin or supplement. While he was busy trying to find a solution in his botanic book, Lucia seemed to be in deep thought. Then she began to experiment with her [small heal]. At first, Galen wanted to stop her, as he believed the skill only worked on human and pets, but he stopped himself. Some pets were plants, so why not try?
Sadly, they were both disappointed. Galen did see some improvements, but it soon dissipated as if the plant couldn’t hold the healing energy. He inferred that it was because the plant wasn’t hurt. There was nothing wrong in it except for the general weakness.
Galen was already proud of his fairy’s initiative, but she didn’t stop. Lucia persevered: she used both [glow] and [small heal] in quick successions. Galen wanted to encourage her to try things by herself, so he helped her judge the results. He observed that the healing energy dissipated slower thanks to the light.
Lucia fell into deep thought again. After some time, she made a globe of light using [glow] and tried to infuse it with [small heal]. It was difficult, so the globe of light dissipated several times before she managed to mix the two skills. This new globe of light was emitting a warm energy that stuck to the plant.
Galen was grinning proudly at Lucia when he suddenly heard Lyra. “Achievement! The first combined skill! The notable skill [nurture] uses light energy to help plants grow, nourishing and fortifying them. As a reward, you get to choose one skill for your pet or one feature for the inner world to redeem from the pieces present in your inventory.”
It was good news, but Galen didn’t want to decide without consulting Artem, even more so if the twins could obtain a new feature for their inner world. They had one piece of the “Research Hall” and one piece of the “Fountain of Fortune”, which they got for the 10th entry in the encyclopedia. The “Fountain of Fortune” could upgrade their luck.
Galen didn’t want to rely on luck. However, he thought the “Research Hall” could be helpful to discover new skills and evolution paths. It wouldn’t help for the exam at the end of this week, but it was a step to build up their strength.
Galen glanced back at Lucia. He was so proud of her. She was like him. She wanted to observe, to study, to learn. The boy wondered if it was her original character or if he was influencing her. It was intriguing since in contrast, Ayden was bad at studying in the library. She was smart, but like Artem, she was more active. The Fire Fairy needed to experiment with things to improve. Artem had realized it and altered his training plan to adapt to her.
***
During their free period at the end of the day, Galen went to the library. He discreetly worked on the code while Artem went to his job as a tutor. Galen was careful to hide what he was doing, and he conscripted Lyra’s help to note his process and the words deciphered.
After almost two hours of work, Galen could finally read the content of the message. The first part was a clue about a secret path leading to the fairies’ super-evolution and where to find one of the ingredients necessary for this evolution. Just this was mind-blowing. To the twins’ knowledge, the fairies had only one evolution possible: becoming a notable Elder Fairy. That was the other reason why people scorned the fairies: most pets could evolve two times, but becoming an Elder Fairy was the end of the evolution path for a Fairy. Galen contained his excitement – he would talk about this new hope later with Artem – and turned his attention to the second clue.
This one was about a secret way to identify an ally in the Agency, meaning Tana Eos had worked more specifically for the Agency in the Triad. From what Galen understood, some members of the Agency realized that there were traitors in their mist – but the wording made it unclear if these traitors were in the Triad or only the Agency. What was clear was that trustworthy agents – though how they were determined to be loyal was left unsaid – shared a symbol inspired by the Claddagh ring. The information was incomplete, but some coordinates were given. Galen surmised it was where the twins could find the next clue about this mess.
Galen wanted to check both information as he had never heard of the Claddagh ring, and he was curious about the fairies’ evolution. However, he was kicked out of the library as it was the closing time. Galen had no choice but to return to his room and wait for Artem. He didn’t have to wait long as Artem soon entered their room, followed by a worried Ayden.
As it had become usual, Galen noticed that Artem was injured. Without his prompt, Lucia immediately went over and used [small heal] on the teenager.
“Thank you, Lucia.” Artem smiled at the fairy. “It seems that you have improved again.”
“She did!” Lyra exclaimed. “She even developed her first combined skill this morning!”
Lyra hurried to mention Galen’s reward. Despite his brother's suggestions, Artem refused to hear anything about their inner world features. He believed they didn’t need the “Research Hall” any more than the “Fountain of Fortune” thanks to the encyclopedia. Artem insisted that Lucia learned the rare skill [illusion] to gain more versatility.
As Galen refuted him, Artem only relented on the fact that Galen had the right to choose between the rare skill [illusion] and the notable skill [guiding light], which was the only second piece of light skill they got from their last use of the shuffle. When Artem saw that Galen was still hesitant, he added that Ayden would surely also combine her own skills and obtain a reward.
Lyra forced herself to keep quiet. Indeed, Ayden hadn’t yet developed a combined skill, but the Fire Fairy mastered her skill [spark] to the point that she evolved and upgraded it. It was also an achievement, and Lyra, as a proud and fair system, rewarded Artem for it. Artem chose to keep it in reserve and asked Lyra to be quiet about it. Lyra didn’t understand why Artem was acting so out of character. Didn’t the twins usually share everything?
But it was perfectly logical to Artem: they didn’t have any useful piece of skill for Ayden yet in their inventory, so Artem didn’t want to use his reward. But if Galen knew of it, he would refuse to use it too, because he would feel guilty otherwise and insist on using it on a feature. Artem didn’t want Galen to suffer, so he kept quiet about Ayden’s achievement.
Galen mentioned the clue about the fairies’ secret evolution path, hoping to soften his brother's stance. This new evolution path needed to be studied to know if the skill choices could have an impact. But Artem didn’t give Galen a chance to muddy the water: he refused to discuss the fairies’ evolution if Lucia didn’t get her just reward. Anyway, this argument was nonsense since the fairies could easily change their skill set thanks to the encyclopedia.
Galen sighed in exasperation and yielded. Artem was more stubborn than him and they needed to talk about this evolution path. This information changed everything about their view of the fairies. It revealed a part of their parents’ plan. While their enemies underestimated Artem and Galen because of the weak pets, the twins could find their footing and secretly make their preparations to evolve the fairies into powerful pets. A super-evolution meant the fairies could jump a rank and directly evolve into rare pets. It was a powerful trump card.
So Galen redeemed the skill [illusion] as Artem suggested. It was an easy choice for him as this skill was of the rare rank. Moreover, the notable skill [guiding light] was a support skill, and Galen had decided not to focus on this path.
The twins knew that the super-evolution was important information they needed to study carefully. They were ready to talk about it, but Lyra reminded them it wasn’t the right time. The next day was their first exam, and they couldn’t afford to spend time on this and disperse their attention. They had to wait for the weekend. Galen hastily shared the second information about the Claddagh ring and promised to research it during the weekend.