It was immediate. An instinctual command made him speak the words, ones he never believed he would say, for life was not a game. “Status.” He said and remembered of times long gone, once upon a time where he would play Japanese RPG’s not understanding a thing, the retro stuff as well. His father had been a big fan.

Myron’s Status

Tier: Unearned

Level: 2!

Distributable Points -> 1

Path: None

Aether: 2/28

Bonds

Syl - Level 28, Emeramantis Queen - Plant/Metal Type

Attributes

Explosiveness - 3

Might - 3

Tenacity - 4

Instinct - 5

Focus - 9

Impact - 6

Spirit - 4

Clarity - 10

Skills

{P} Heart of Purpose (Lvl1)

The information of his person, that which the System deemed important came to life before his eyes. Only for himself to see. He knew all this at a base level. His Soul, he could tell, was now touched by the System, and his Bond was the one that pulled his attention first and foremost, level ups and Attribute points discarded as familiar.

“Is this what you were talking about? The System?”

She nodded from a safe distance now, her antennae bobbed after her head pulled down by the round, heavier, tips. She didn’t speak and that made her all the cuter. Those Antennae were very ‘Moe’ he had to give them that.

Syl glared at him, with a blush and Myron jumped, had he spoken aloud?

“Can you… Read my thoughts?” He asked her feeling worry creep up on him, did she manipulate him into doing something he shouldn’t.

“Wait no, don’t close yourself off. It’s the bond, and it’s… It’s good this way. It’s refreshing.”

“Refreshing? What is? Should I be able to read your emotions too?”

“It’s not an ability to read, it’s sharing. We’ve connected our souls with this bond, you just so happen to have created a very open and wide connection. It takes a bit of practice and some focus and you should be able to constantly feel the waves I’m sending through to you unconsciously and consciously too. Though for anything complex, and direct, Humans usually practice and spend years to master this, some just don’t bother.

Syl jumped up, meters into the air when she heard a voice booming into her.

“Oh! I sense doubt within you, Aimon.” Myron wagged his finger, his eyes closed, and his nose upturned to the sky in show of arrogance. “I’ve already done it. And it’s very cool.” He had found it just as easy as opening a jar of jam. After the initial squeeze the rest was easy and the world was his oyster. He could almost see the ethereal tether that connected their souls together from which her emotions flowed.

“How did you do that? Also, tone it down a bit, you’re too loud.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say its my Skill. Heart of Purpose.”

“What? How? And what even is that skill? A Passive?” Syl clearly didn’t expect him to have a skill. She was so shocked in fact that Myron felt even more proud.

Myron focused on its name right there on his status, and while a description given in letters didn’t appear in his vision, knowledge about the skill did appear within his skull.

“A Passive indeed. A Skill I earned for reaching the Human Limit of my Clarity with natural means. Heart of Purpose is akin to the stillness of a lake deep in the forest. No doubts shall wrinkle my mind, no worries shall bind me, I am unfettered to dream up goals and chase after them, thus making their acquisition easier.”

“That’s incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this skill because it’s so unbelievably rare for a Human to reach the natural limit of the Clarity Attribute. I’ve heard of all the ones related to the body. I think the King of Great Oak City has done the same for Impact. Yet it’s rare still. You may be the only one in the world. Not to mention, you got it right as you entered through the portal. You didn’t even try to get it. You simply have the maximum clarity you could have without Bonding to an Aimon and getting access to the System.”

“He~ Don’t praise me too much, I’ll blush.” Myron said and shied away from her gaze.

“It’s not praise directed at you. It’s just shock, really. Maybe your world is more inclined to Clarity.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“I wouldn’t say that, Focus ought to be our main attribute there, it was the easiest to increase without any of these attribute points I have been given, so people just work on things. Also, just saying. But I believe this high Clarity, this capped Clarity, is in fact a product of my latest and only actual decision in the past couple of years.”

“So you don’t have a System there?” She nodded, and a smile crept up on her lips. It seemed she had come to a realization, one that granted her a small degree of happiness. She soon schooled her face into one of formality, wiping all shock as well as interest from it, finally reminded of her actual situation.

“We have nothing there. In fact, you are a novelty right now if anything, to me. Stunning, Alien beauty.”

“To me… Well, you’re my jailor if anything. My leash on life also, the reason I still breath, if we look at it from the positive side of things.”

“I am? Shit, Is this related to the bond? That saddens me, I though we had come to an understanding. I can break the bond right now if you wish!”

“No! Don’t break the bond. I don’t want to find another. You… seem good enough, unbiased. Different. To avoid any rash decisions, let me give you a crash course on the Aimon basics.”

Myron took a sit on a big rock with a carpet of moss growing on it and waited. This was all knew to him, and he was very much willing to learn. Experiences like these were not the exact thing he expected, though he wasn’t quite sure what he expected. Yet this bond, struck a chord with him. He wanted to know all about it, and all about her.

“I am an Aimon, and you are Human. We are different species… Opinions differ, and history is shrouded in mystery, but what I believe is that Humans came into this world a long time ago through portals. I don’t remember a time when you didn’t exist alongside us, but I do know that you just came through a portal and that Aimon can survive in this world on their own, without Humans. Thus my conclusion.”

That probably wasn’t the entire truth of the matter, as to how Syl had gotten this world-view, but it was the truth she shared with him as of this moment, and strangers as they are despite the bond literally making them something more, Myron didn’t think it right to push. So he remained silent and let her speak.

“So you came, and thousands of years have passed since. We’ve co-existed for a long long time. The reason why both of our species have continued to exist together is because of these Bonds. They make the union of the flesh something much more, and they bring together in harmony two beings that are not of the same world. It gives us Sentience, and it gives you Aether.”

“Aether?” Myron asked and felt the answer bubble into him. “Ah yes, I have a bit of that, it says so in my Status.”

“Aimon are beings of Aether, born of it even, either through our own will and Ritual, or randomly, through saturation in Nature, in calculations and processes that we don’t understand.”

“That’s unique. You weren’t born through the mating action of your parents?”

“I was. I am a Queen Aimon. My parents were King and Queen, they have the choice, as all those in power do, and they chose to give birth to a child. Normal Aimon can’t have children with each other or with a Human, but Royal Aimon can, I am a result of one such union, long lost to the flames of greed and ambition humans carry.”

“We’re not all bad. I for one saved you at your request. It was difficult to calm myself and try something so new like ‘opening up myself and my soul’ to get into that weird space. And then I ran a marathon to get to you. All the while you were bleeding out on the ground, in a forest, in butt-fuck nowhere.” Myron wouldn’t argue, he felt just a bit indignant.

“I have to inform you, that it was not from the injuries of the flesh that you saved me.” She quickly said, pulling attention from her embarrassment and calming herself with the cold dread of death that had lingered right over her until he appeared and the hope which came gushing out of her inner most depths despite her own will at that moment.

“Then what? Those things were pretty serious. I’ve never had wounds that deep, for sure.” She raised a brow at Myron’s words but ignored the implications about his life.

“From the Withering. I had but a single day left to live, out of the 28 alloted to me by my strength. My strength was plenty diminished and an ambush from a Trainer trying to Capture me had me turn tail and run.”

“A Withering… Some type of Curse?”

“A curse indeed.” She chuckled grimly. “It’s the payment we Aimon have to pay for gaining sentience. Once a Bond breaks between Aimon and Human for whatever reason, the Aimon has a limited amount left to live unless she bonds again. A Day per Level.”

“Humans are not the same? Seeing as you excluded them just now.” Myron asked.

“Correct. Humans face other repercussions in the form of a loss of levels, attributes, Aether in their pool, and drop in Skill Level and Quality. But I assume you understand that the prices we have to pay are not equal.”

“It is unfair, I can’t deny it…” Myron said. “It’s lucky then that I just happened to pop into a existence right next to you Syl. I’m happy you’re alive and explaining all these things to me. I hope we have a merry time us two, and that you may lessen the amount of apprehension you hold for this new adventure that awaits.” Myron said with a smile and stood up. Syl had not been very selective of her emotions during their talk. With Myron’s apparent prodigious use of the open pathway that connected their souls he picked up on all the minute shifts. Syl was a woman in need of rest right now, worn down, dead tired. He hoped they got to some city, and a clean bed easily enough. Hah! That wouldn’t jinx it would it?

Out of the shrubbery, jumped an Aimon. A naked beast with a pigs nose snorting supporting by two short tusks from its protruding lower jaw. A Wild mane of hair ran down his neck and back to his but where short tail stood up like a flag pole. Four legs, and four hoofs, with fur running up the back of the joint. It barreled towards him with its hoofs digging into the earth, heavy breaths, and a squeal that had Myron trembling.

Syl slid in front of Myron without hesitation. “Wait, be careful!” Myron cautioned, but she didn’t seem scared at all. She flexed her arms and pushed forth with her legs. Myron felt the Ability activate, his own Status connected to hers pinging his brain like a notification.

[Rend]

Syl whispered and with her left arm, three claws ripped into space itself and imposed themselves atop the lunging Boar-like Aimon with pronged hooves on its four feet. He squealed in pain, pushed back and on his back as blood scattered on the meadow of the clearing. From his right shoulder and across his chest till his ribs showed, that is how far and deep one of those three claw marks spread.

“Wait!” Myron took a step closer and grabbed Syl, stopping her before she killed the struggling, dying Aimon.

She looked at him with a raised brow. “You want to Bond with him? Not that it’s entirely rare, my previous trainer did have one male Aimon in the team for a time.” She shuddered.

“No, I don’t want to Bond with him, I’m not ready for that yet. But, do you have to kill him?” Myron certainly did not look at the boar Aimon’s nether area barely hidden by the fur of his underbelly.

“It’s not him, not really. It’s an ‘it’. It’s still a beast at this point, without intelligence, low-level, First Tier. And he just attacked you. It’s not very pleasant, they way Aimon like this try to Bond with humans. More often than not they end up cracking open your chest and gorging on your heart.”

“Okay, well. Can’t you just let him go then? You clearly are much stronger than him-it.”

“His tusks are precious. Do you have money on you? Why should another Aimon come by and take my kill?”

“Not any money that would amount to anything in this world.”

“Seeing as how I intended to Die here, in the edge of the forest that birthed me, I don’t have any wordily possessions with me either. So let me kill him, take his tusks and some of the best cuts of meat. We need to fill our bellies too, don’t we?”

Myron let Syl’s hand go, and thought a bit. “You make sense.” He said and shrugged eventually, all guilt washing away. “Do it.” He added and felt nothing but a bit of squeamishness at the unfamiliar sight of death and gore, but nothing more. Myron was a pragmatic man, he’d like to think. Even his suicidal decision was done as he saw the lack of meaning in continuing the life he had. So when presented with such hard facts, that worked in his favor, and with the understanding that Syl was stuck with him as she did not want to die and that Myron didn’t want to kill her, it is only natural that this attacking Aimon be used for his recourses as he lost the battle.

“You changed minds pretty quickly.”

“I didn’t come into this world hoping for daisies. I hoped for change, for an escape. I won’t stay stuck in the ways of my old world. If that is how things are done here, then that is how we shall do them. You know, When in Rome….” He said and left the saying unfinished, not paying any mind to continue, and Syl most certainly ‘didn’t know’ but she continued with her bloody work none the less.