Edited by: Mystic
After the group of thugs cough, the young lord Ling finally left, Wang lowered himself to the ground, still holding onto the fluffy fox.
Ai kept himself nuzzled into the others arms, resting against his chest while he stared out at the villagers pleasantly. "See see! I told you I'd keep you safe. Hehe," he laughed and was really pleased with himself.
Ignoring the fact that the bandit lord was going to take him as some spoils of war and the only reason they were safe was due to Wang, Ai took the credit for himself. Who said one had to be so ignorant of the truth! He was a great beast. Sure he knew nothing about his race, but so what ah? His royal bloodline made him better than the rest hmph!
Wang smiled down at the male, stroking his fur softly. "Yes yes, The great Heavenly Fox surely showed them ah? Making this Master appear is great a feat, yea?" he said with a hint of indulging yet teasing tone.
Ai sniffed slightly, hiding a little embarrassment. "Who said you had to come ah? Clearly, you chose to show up and help because of me. So obviously it's my win." Ai stated it as if White was Black. Really, the villagers couldn't help but shake their heads laughing. This was how the little guy always was! So! Adorable!
Niani hurried over to the male, giving him an odd look before looking at Ai. "Xiao, is this why you wouldn't let me take you in ah? Because this guy bound you first?" she asked as if hurt. Truthfully, Niani had always hoped that Ai would let her bind with him, having wanted to do so from the start but Ai was good at sneaking off before she could bring it up.
With how weak the villagers were, no one here was able to force a binding onto a spirit beast like the young lord from before had tried to.
Ai tilted his head, "Well...No, I didn't know I had one. I just want to be free! Why should I be bound to someone who just wants to keep me locked up ah?" he said as if it were natural. Niani was going to comment when Ai jumped out of the male's hands and onto his shoulder, sitting down.
"Master is different, See? I was bound without knowing it so he didn't lock me up yeah? Plus he's gonna teach me to be manly!" he said with pride.
Wang let out a low cough, his gaze flashed with a strange expression before he gave a coy smile. "To be frank, I am not sure how manly I can help you get..." he said with worry, his thoughts, however, turned a different way. 'You are to be my wife ah! Stay adorable! I'll shape you into the perfect little wife.'
Ai sighed before he looked at Wang. "Ne! You said you were my bond person or whatever...So do you know who I really am, ah? I know Xiao wasn't my name before...at least I don't think so. That's what Niani started calling me.." he said hopefully. If they met before, and had done the bonding or whatever, clearly he would know what his name was!
Wang smiled as he nodded. "Of course I do but..." he seemed to ponder for a moment, unsure if he should use the in-game name that Ai had created or his real name. Well, Wang was still going by his game name...Besides, if he used the real name maybe Ai would remember his past, that pill had a low chance of being undone by something triggering past memories. A name could do it…
"Your name is Xiao Xue Hu, Though I called you Ai," he said deciding part of the name would be fine. Ai smiled as he beamed pleased. "So Niani got part of my name...and why Ai?"
Wang shrugged. "It was just something like a nickname," he said as if it didn't matter. He enjoyed calling Ai Yui's name out, and at some point, he'd trick the fox into using his real name. Though, that day would be when he was finally under him ah! To hear him cry it out...Damn, off to get him into human form! He didn't want to wait any longer!
"Let's go get you stronger. You should be breaking through to Spirit King beast status soon," he said with a cough. "Then you should be able to take the transformation pill and gain your human appearance."
Ai hopped down from Wang's shoulder to the ground, jumping about. "What's a Spirit King beast? How do I get to look like a human?!" he was super excited and wanted to know everything he always wondered about. Other Spirit beasts had this knowledge from birth, but Ai was not only a spirit beast through other means than birth, but he was forced to forget basically all the important information about his race.
Wang looked down at Ai with a look of pondering for a moment. "Well, um... There are 6 different ranks of magical beasts, and also 6 levels for practitioners that correspond with the beasts levels. The difference is beasts have more stages in each rank. The ranks are as followed:"
"Spirit Intermediate: 6 stages, Spirit Lord: 6 stages, Spirit King: 5 stages, Spirit Emperor: 5 stages, Spirit Saint: 5 stages and, Spirit God: 3 stages."
"You are at the Spirit Lord stage 5 rank. After you break through you'll reach Spirit King and then are able to transform into your human form with the help of a pill."
Ai listened while nodding, taking in the information. "So...what rank are you?" he asked looking at the other. Wang smiled as he lowered himself. "Well the ranks might match up but they aren't really the same. I am a Purple Star Rank 5, I won't go into detail right now about practitioners rankings since it will just confuse you. I'll get you a book to read through the differences later" he said patting his head.
Ai shrugged before giving a small nod. "Okay, so how do I train then? Before it just...did it on its own" he said as he tried to think of his own power-ups. He didn't really understand it. "Wang laughed, that's my fault. We are linked so you level up when I do, though because you were 'newly' born with no rank at all the shared ranking wasn't as great for you. Plus we were further apart so it wasn't as effective getting the spiritual power needed. It was diluted along the way."
Wang sighed as he thought back to his own struggle in leveling. It was harder in this world than the other, due to the needed fact of meditating that the game didn't have. "For you to level up you need to attack spirit beasts, the reason you weren't leveling up before was because of the lack of spirit energy. It's really poor here ah! No wonder the villagers can't cultivate." Shaking his head Wang looked around, feeling the air.
Ai pouted, this was his territory so why was it that it was rather poor at helping him level up? Ah! no fair! "Well..where do we go to get this 'spirit energy'?" he asked pouting. He didn't understand what that really was, mostly due not to having it around to be able to feel it.
Wang smiled with a smug look. "Of course we will be going to the Mogui Peak! It's the best area in this part of the world with the most spirit energy. If we go too far away, you'd be an easy target, ah. The further we go out from the south, the worse the others are... Really hateful people out there" Wang said with a dark look. He wanted to get strong enough to take over all of this new world, though he was only able to subdue the south for now.
"Well, let's go then!" Ai said while hopping up into Wang's arms that caught him by reflex. "Onward!" Ai said, waving a paw to point straight ahead. Wang laughed, "Right right, this stead will do as asked." he teased, turning the other way to head towards Mogui Peak.