Far away in the distance, a man covered in dark mist had his eyes closed.
"We still have a long way to go before you can fulfill your purpose, kid." This man was Tirus, he was using his power of laws to infiltrate the dream of this young man.
It took a him long while before reaching this point.
After Tirus chose Keith as his pawn, he waited, and waited, occasionally affecting the dreams and emotions of Keith's father and eventually causing his death. Not only that, he was also the one who manipulated those wild beasts to attack the sibling duo, keeping them under constant pressure to break their minds.
Now, after years, he had finally pushed Keith to his psychological limits. Tonight, if he wanted to, then he could have infiltrated the dreams of both of these siblings, however, he didn't feel that it was necessary, and also the fact that Keith's personality was much more suitable according to Tirus.
'Now, what powers should I give him?' He ponedered. He was currently at rank 6, and even started comprehending the power of laws. So, if he wanted to, then he could give any power with the battle strength of a peak rank 5 radiant moon magus.
But that would not be in line with magi's ultimate rule, that was the rule of equivalent exchange.
'Should I give him darkness manipulation? Or should I increase his natural affinity of lightning? This kid really could've become a strong lightning magus if he was born in the magus world, but that dosen't matter, I can just increase his affinity with the darkness element.'
A second later,
Inside Keith's dream,
He felt as if had finally become able to see in the endless darkness, with his body being as ethereal as it could be, the only things he was able to see were two balls of energy who looked quite different from each other.
One was a ball made up of smoke which seemed to glow with a faint red light from its core and the other was a ball of lightning, simply standing near which could numb someone's senses.
'Choose...' Was the only thing that word that rang in his mind at this moment.
At first, he extended his hand towards the ball of lightning, but felt an increasing attraction towards the ball of darkness.
'I want this.' He stretched out his ethereal hand and felt a numbing sensation. Within a milisecond, the ball of darkness transformed into a strange symbol and engraved itself on his soul.
Before he knew it, he had woken up with his entire body covered in sweat.
'What...what was that dream?' Thinking that, he placed his hand on his chest. That was where the symbol had engrave itself in his dream.
'I...feel something, but what excatly?'
"Oh, you're awake." Just as he was getting lost in his thoughts, he was disturbed by his sister's greetings.
"Yes." Still half-lying on the ground, Keith returned her greeting with a simple one word answer.
"Why are you covered in sweat? Did you get a nightmare?" Nessa asked while drawing closer.
"Don't know...don't remember much." Keith said with a myriad of feeling welling up in him.
...
Half an hour later, they started thier journey once again, so far, they hadn't encountered any wild animals at all. Right now, Keith was running in the dense forest effortlessly, which left Nessa baffled.
'I never felt this good!' Keith exclaimed. All of his physical pain that he was feeling yesterday was gone, and he even felt that his body was getting fatigued at a much slower pace.
'Maybe...I did the right thing.' He thought.
After a while, they encountered a group of four ordinary sized wild boars following a bigger one while maintaining a distance .
"I'll take them." Keith shouted as he charged forward with his axe in his hand.
All the muscles on his hands bulged, "Haa!" With just one strike, he killed one of the four ordinary boars.
*Bam*
The wild boar charged at an extremely high speed, covering the distance of several meters in a second.
Just the force from the collison of the boar and Keith was enough to send the latter flying.
Keith spat a mouthtful of blood, however, didn't feel any pain coming from his body, instead, he felt a rush of adrenaline that he had never felt before.
As he tightned his grip on his axe, he murmured softly, "Oh entitiy, you wanted me to become a slave, so I did in exchange for power..."
He got up and continued, "Then, I'll do whatever you want, but give me more power to achieve your goals!"
...
Tirus looked at Keith from a distance. He still had an expressionless face.
He had increased this kid's affinity with the darkness element and had also given him super human strength and vitality, not only that, but had also imprinted a slave brand on his soul as well.
After a long research on the slave marks from the magus world, Tirus had found a way to make a slave mark on one's truesoul. The power of this mark would be much greater than ordinary and would make the slave more and more loyak to their master as time passes.
Now, as long as this kid made blood sacrificies to Tirus, he could be given a sudden permanent increase in cultivation.
'Now, first phase of my plan is complete.'
To be continued...