"Aldo!", Diane exclaimed when she saw Aldo is inside a circle of fire.
Not only does the circle of fire surrounds him, splashes of scorching red fire are also coming out of his stiff, even his eyes are blazing with fire as if his insides and outsides are burning.
Looking at this, Diane immediately rushes toward him.
All kinds of emotions such as confusion, surprise, and even worry can be seen through her expression but mainly surprise because Aldo looks as if he was possessed by fire.
Diane went through the circle of fire before grabbing Aldo's body.
She shakes Aldo's body a couple of times but he didn't wake up, Diane then saw the circle of fire surrounding them slowly getting closer to Aldo's body as if it's being pulled by something, red sizzling light starting to cloak hear body before she hits the ground with the palm of her hand.
Swoosh!
Immediately after that, a wave of energy extinguishes the circle of fire.
Just after the circle of fire is gone, Aldo's eyes jolted awake before he gasp a deep breath of air as if he was drowning in water, but in this case, fire.
"You're okay, you're okay!", Diane said trying to calm Aldo down.
Aldo grabs Diane's hand with wide eyes with rough breathing as he tries to decipher his surrounding, "The Fire... It's coming to get me!", he gasps in fright upon looking at the still-burning tree that got hit by the fireball earlier.
He breaks free from Diane's embrace before pushing his body backward trying to get away from the fire as far as possible, the fire greatly scares him.
Seeing this, Diane looks back at the burning tree in confusion, "What happened to you?"
But even after she asks that, Aldo still looks at the fire with a frightened look without any sign of answering her question, Diane then stands back up before going to the burning tree and dispersed the fire with a wave of her hand.
Just after the fire dispersed clouding the place with the darkness of night again,
As if he was hypnotized, Aldo's pupils dilated before he finally regain his consciousness, he looks at Diane who is looking at him in confusion, "I- I don't know what happened"
"Let's go back first...", Diane said with a slight blush on her face.
The blush on her face makes Aldo looks down, he then realized that he's completely naked since he just finished taking a bath in the waterfall. Aldo instantly stands up while covering his crotch, he looks to his back and saw his clothes on a rock, "I'm sorry!", he said before scurrying to take his clothes.
A moment later,
Diane is finished making a bonfire before she darted her eyes t Aldo,
Both of them now are currently in front of the house sitting by the bonfire Diane created, the ground they are sitting on is sloping but the ground is rough enough for them to not slip.
Everything in the sky can be seen without any hindrance from the trees, the full moon added with a couple of stars makes the sky looks gorgeous this night.
After making the bonfire and sitting not far from Aldo, Diane then looks at Aldo.
The look in her eyes makes Aldo looks away, Diane is waiting for him to tell her about how did he experience something like before, "Tell me, what happened to you?"
"It's hard to say, but I saw a glimpse of vision"
"In that vision, I can feel something is talking to me no... the fire is talking to me"
"Even if I try to think about what the fire is trying to tell me, I can't. All I can do is stay there while the fire engulfs me, it's a weird feeling..."
Hearing this, Diane frown in thought be she suddenly stands up.
Diane walks toward Aldo under his gaze before standing behind him, she then said, "If anything, it's probably your Ego Beast trying to reach to you. Let's see your Ego Beast"
"How are you going to do that?", Aldo asks while looking back at Diane.
But Diane ignores his question a pushed his head to face the front with her index finger, she then said, "First of all, let's take this off first"
"W-What are you doing?", Aldo stutters as Diane takes off his plain white shirt.
After doing that, Aldo's upper body is exposed once again showing his fragile and thin body from eating less to save money before he becomes an Ego Fighter.
Even compared to Diane, her frame is a bit bigger than Aldo's frame.
Although Aldo's body is quite thin for someone his age, there's still a hint of muscles developed from the hunting he did for more than a year. He's not completely weak. He just looks weak that's all.
Covering his upper body from the cold wind of the night, Diane chuckles, "You're a man, stop overreacting or I'll throw you to the beasts"
"I just wore my clothes! Why didn't you say so from the start!", Aldo rebutted.
But Diane ignores his complaint before she instructed with a serious tone, "Steady your breathing and be calm, let my energy flow into you. Don't resist it", she instructed.
Aldo did exactly like that, he sits in a meditative position facing forward.
Steadying his breathing, he then closes his eyes slowly before he can feel Diane's hands touching his back. Her hands are warm, or maybe just because the wind is cold.
The warmness started to grow by the second, "Hrghkk...", Aldo grunted.
Seeing Aldo flinch upon feeling the energy from Diane, she reminded him again with a stern tone, "Don't resist it or you'll get hurt"
Hearing this, Aldo tries to calm his tense body.
It's not that he's nervous being touched by Diane, but the energy that is slowly seeped into his body is a bit painful. Just like getting pinched by two steel poles, it's not a great analogy but it hurts and is very hot.
While trying to ignore the pain, Aldo can feel the energy coursing through his body.
Think of the energy as a coiling snake but this snake is slithering inside his body, slowly slithering to his chest area before stopping right beside his beating heart.
But while Aldo is feeling the energy, Diane is sweating on the back.
'Why is his body so dense, he doesn't even have a well-built body. It's like burning through steel', Diane thought while trying to push the energy inside Aldo's body.
After three minutes that feel like an eternity, Aldo feels the snake slowly closing to his heart.
It's starting to become unbearable, the pain.
"Bear with it for a bit, just a little bit more", Diane said from the back, this makes Aldo grit his teeth trying to hold on for a bit longer just as Diane said.
Just as the snake was about to touch the heart,
BOOM!
"Argghh!", Diane suddenly got flung away after an unknown force push her away even rolling down the slope they are on, this prompted Aldo to open his eyes.
With wide eyes, Aldo saw Diane lying on the ground a couple of feet away.
He's trying to bear the pain just as Diane instructed, he then suddenly feels the pain vanish before he hard Diane scream and a thud on the ground from her rolling on the ground.
"Diane!", Aldo gets up and rushes to Diane.
Before Aldo can help her up, she already pushes herself up from the ground before stopping Aldo, "I'm fine, it's alright", she said before standing up.
"What happened just now? Did it work?", Aldo asks in confusion.
The point of her pushing her energy into Aldo's body is to see his Ego Beast that should be a Tiger, but seeing the expression on Diane's face, it seems the method failed.
Diane looks at Aldo in disbelief before she asks, "Isn't your Ego Beast a tiger?"
"Yes, that's what it looks like during the ritual, yeah. Why are you asking? You're there so you should see my Ego Beast", Aldo replied becoming even more confused.
But this makes the frown on Diane's face even more evident, "What I see is not a tiger"
"I don't know what it is, but it's definitely not a tiger. Anyway, we'll just see your Ego Beast when you reach the first circle. Go sit down there, I'll teach you how to reach the first circle", Diane added before pointing at the ground beside the bonfire.
Hearing this, Aldo nodded his head before turning his body around and going to sit on the ground.
Unknown to Aldo, Diane is looking at him sweating.
'That thing inside of him... it manages to propel me away even when he's not even in the first circle yet? Isn't it supposed to be a lower-tier tiger? If it can propel me like that then it must be a higher-tier Ego Beast than mine'
'I'm his Cleric, but I don't even know what his Ego Beast is anymore. Just what is it?'
A couple of weeks have passed,
During the last couple of weeks of living in this desolated house, Aldo started to miss his sister as he never lived alone like this in his life.
No matter how hard life is, Laziah is always there with him.
But now Laziah is not with him anymore, she's taken by Lord Arter's soldiers. Her whereabouts and even her well-being are unknown. Laziah is out there alone just like him, but the difference between them is that Aldo might be attacked by beasts while Laziah's fate is solely in others' hands.
There's some hope in Aldo's heart that she's fine, Ivor despite him being a bad person, Aldo knows that really likes Laziah.
So with that, at least Laziah will not be soiled.
Back then during their exchange on the day of the incident, Ivor is only saying that to make Aldo cave in and finally help him in gaining Laziah's heart. That is what Aldo believed of course.
Aldo fights the uncertainties every day and he finally adapted it as a fuel to get stronger.
Diane already told him how to reach the first circle, he will only need to gain enough energy from beast cores to communicate with his Ego beast, but this all depends on the Ego Beast entirely. Some need more energy than others, especially high-tier Ego Beast.
But with the fuel of Laziah, Aldo kept absorbing beast cores.
Thankfully, Diane has brought him a pouch full of beast cores. They're all only lower-tier beast cores but it's still better than nothing, 'Tomorrow, I need to find beast cores on my own'
A couple of days ago, Diane saw Aldo absorb the beast cores after training.
She commented that his absorption rate of the beast cores is average, in fact below average, he can only absorb three lower-tier beast cores a day and for every beast core he absorbed, he can only absorb the 50% energy inside of it putting him in the average talent of Ego Fighters.
Aldo didn't pay her comment any mind and kept training, he can't afford to fail.
For the sake of training his skills in fighting an actual opponent instead of a dummy, Diane finally told him that from tomorrow onwards, he will be searching for his own beast cores.
Knowing that he will have a hard day tomorrow, Aldo decided to sleep early this day.
But this night, for so long he has finally had a dream.
Aldo woke up in the harsh blizzard again, it's the same feeling during the day he almost died from the Talentless body sickness.
Everything is the same,
The place he's in, the condition he's in, and even the decapitated beast is there on his side.
Upon realizing that he's back to where he met with the mysterious middle-aged man, Aldo looks around through the empty and thick snow and finds the same middle-aged man staring at him from the huge boulder.
With the blizzard blowing on his face, Aldo finds it hard to see the middle-aged man.
But after realizing that the same yellow bright eyes are staring at him, Aldo then finally stands up fighting the force of the blizzard before he asks with a loud voice, "Why did you help me!"
Silence...
"What did you do to my body?! What happened to my Ego Beast?!"
Silence...
Aldo grits his teeth before he shouted, "Just who are you?!"
The middle-aged man then seems to smirk but it's hard to tell from the thick blizzard, but instead of answering Aldo's questions, the middle-aged man turns his head and looks in a direction in his right.
After doing that, a voice seeped into his ears, "Use your power well..."
"I'll be watching you"
Just after he said that Aldo snap his neck toward the tattoo on his right arm that is starting to burn with fire that even melted the entire snow in the area, the eyes of the unknown creature on his tattoo are the source of this hazardous fire.
"ARGHHH!", Aldo shouted as the fire makes his right arm throb.
As the fire was about to engulf his entire body, Aldo jolted awake with cold sweat covering his entire body, 'It's a dream...', he thought while steadying his breathing on the bed.
Aldo looks outside the window and it's still dark,
With a sigh, he wanted to get back to sleep again but his eyes suddenly stopped when he saw the creature's eyes on the tattoo on his right arm glowing with a red hue.
This caught Aldo off guard as he has just gotten up from his sleep.
But he then remembers the dream that he just got, 'Use your power well, does that mysterious man trying to give me a hint through this tattoo?'
'If that's the case, then the power he talks about should be this tattoo...', Aldo mutters while looking at the glowing eyes on the tattoo.