Chapter 25 - Familiars And Souls

-----

I've been preparing myself for travel into the outside world with mother and father these past four days. Of course, during that time, I've also been practicing my abilities.

At night, I sleep, but also try to talk with the dragon. He's grumpy and tries to bite me, eat me, slash me, burn me, everything it could possibly do.

As time passed, the pain had slowly become dull to me. The system told me that the pain I felt was Soul Pain, which was tens of times more painful than actual physical pain.

I've been killed several times by him during these nights, but for some reason I don't feel much. Maybe it's because when you die once, you don't feel like death is that significant anymore.

There's also the fact that everything there was just an astral projection, so I guess that also affected my perception towards it.

Maybe I have to just keep being insistent and he'll eventually listen one of these days. It might take years for all I know, but I'll try to get into his sweet spot. He can't be grumpy for all eternity, right?

Other than that, I've heard from my parents that familiars can be created by making a pact with a certain being. Be it a spirit, a monster, or a beast.

All the Heroes have pretty strong familiars, so I've decided to have this dragon be my familiar. We'll, he's just a soul… but if I summon him using that Summon Familiar spell, perhaps he could turn into a Dragon Soul Familiar and become strong?

At the very least, I'm certain he could make my fire magic stronger. Of course, I've kept this a secret from my parents for obvious reasons. I don't want them to get worried over something like this.

Apparently, in this world, familiars are pretty common for strong people. But Heroes have perhaps the strongest among them, for obvious reasons. At the age of five, most of the young and talented kids with magic are encouraged to pick a familiar. They're often given the chance of taming a young creature.

After the bond with a familiar is made, it lasts forever. Also, it's said that having a familiar is very important if a person wants to continue growing stronger as it aid in the growth of magic power.

A familiar works sort of like a mediator of mana and elemental essence. Depending on one's affinities, one would pick a familiar that would match them. The creature will then aid the user into better manipulating mana and their specific element thanks to the Soul Bond between master and familiar.

So interesting… I want Ignatius to be one of my familiars if it's possible!

Wait, isn't the System technically my first familiar? But what element is she exactly?

I guess all elements? Or is it none? She definitely seems like a familiar now that I think about it…

Then again, people can have many familiars at once, the limit only lies within their soul.

If one's soul is big enough to establish many contracts and soul bonds with different creatures, then there's no point in hesitating.

However, if one's soul is too little and underdeveloped, then it would be difficult to achieve.

The thing is, the stronger the creature, the more "space" its contract occupies in one's soul.

But it's probably because Ignatius was eaten by me and he's already inside my soul, so I suppose we're already in some sort of "pseudo contract". Though, he has yet to agree to it.

For now, I can't use his help.

Moving that aside, I've been practicing my two abilities throughout these past four days, but it's not like I can achieve so much in so little time. I need even more time.

Nevertheless, the necklace has been wonderful. I can now conjure Ember several times far more easily than before. Plus, I can fuse these little Embers into larger spells as well.

The spells I've learned using this method of fusing multiple Embers has been "Fire Whip", "Flame Lance", and "Fireball".

Oh right. I've also conjured "Fire Wall" too. My parents told me that Fire Whip, Fire Lance, and Fire Wall are Tier 3 spells, which is considered strong and above average. According to them, only a strong wizard could conjure them, not normal folk.

Father told me it took him five whole years to learn the spells I've half-mastered in one.

And to think that these results are all through constant effort. Even as a baby, I worked hard and continued to conjure magic! It was hard, very hard in fact. Many times, I passed out of exhaustion…

Then again, I might do so every night as well. Just yesterday, I also passed out of exhaustion after practicing Mana Usage for four hours straight.

Huh, from a certain perspective, I think I'm quite the talented youngster…

Anyways, the necklace enhanced my capability of manipulating Fire magic, as well as it power. In exchange, it makes it cost more mana… which doesn't matter, since I have endless mana, hahahaha!

Now, leaving Fire-type magic aside, let's move onto the Nature-type.

Indeed. I am already and officially catalogued by my parents as a dual wielder of Fire and Nature attribute magic.

They told me both attributes are very different from one another, which makes me an incredibly rare magician already.

Usually, people are born with only one affinity, which helps them easily learn magic of that type, but that doesn't mean they can't use other elements. They can, but they'd have to exert a lot more effort.

Usually, specializing on your own attribute is the best and easiest path, but even my dad has learned many Tier 3 or 4 spells from the other elements to complement his spell set while still having Fire as his strongest magic. Speaking of which, he has a lot of Tier 8, perhaps even Tier 9 Spells…

Mother's the same as father. She uses Fire magic sometimes to light candles, start fires, and so on…

Continuing with that thought process, it seems that, in this world, with a lot of effort… I could master all elements.

Ohoho…

A-Anyways! As I've said before, I've been practicing using my Agriculture skill a bit more. Nourishing my Yggdra is priority, but I've begun to practice with normal plants…

I used the grass on the ground as an experiment subject the other day when mother let me head out. The result? I was able to make it grow up to 5 meters before I became exhausted.

Also, with a bit of concentration, I was even able to control the grown grass around like tentacles… On top of that, something special also happened to Yggdra all of a sudden! She began to glow…

-----