After dinner was done, or at least Dragan's dinner, I had never actually eaten anything, unless it was for show. We were just laying on the ground of our campsite. Dragan had brought one sleeping bag where he and I could sleep. Me in my slime form of course, in between his arms. He had his arms around me and cuddled with me like a pillow.
After a little while the roof had been depolarized, creating a hazy sky we could see through, the stars shined brightly through.
"Tomorrow is our first challenge," he started all seriously like.
"The Forest of Phantom's Peak is formidable at best," he said.
"All walks of life stand in that forest, animals and other creatures thrive in that forest, we'll need to be careful not to encounter any enemies that might be hostile towards us if that's the case, we might need to fight," he said.
"What if we check out stats?" I asked.
"What!?" he exclaimed not knowing what I was talking about. I pulled out our stats and a blue hologram appeared in front of us, with text about my stats. I've grown to level 20, not bad. Everything else was just kind of the same.
It seemed like that time I had evolved, or absorbed the sun god - it only changed my maximum fill on some stats, but didn't change anything about my body.
I wondered how they worked, and when they were given out.
"Where's mine?" Dragan asked.
Suddenly Sybil spoke to me.
>Appraising
>Complete!
And then just like that another blue screen appeared next to mine with his name on it.
I quickly noticed something. Both screens were interlocked with a chain symbol. It must mean that we're soul-bound.
Nothing I already didn't know.
His stats were higher than mine except in magic, I was overly powerful in magic, but he had little of it, his strength was unmatched of course. And then I noticed something.
Holy Blessing + 1
What exactly did that mean?
Had it something to do with why the jellyfish elders had asked him to follow the path of the Bishop?
His level was lower than mine strangely. It read. Level 15. Only five levels under me, but still it was more than enough, it was a good start.
I brushed the stats away.
"So tell me more about the forest," I started.
"Well in ancient times, it was used as a sort of proving ground for new soldiers wanting to join the High Alliance," explained Dragan.
Training Grounds, huh… This was going to be a walk in the park.
"Don't get greedy," said Dragan.
"You never know what could be lurking inside," I abide by his decree.
But still, I was in high spirits about tomorrow.
Then he said exactly what I wanted him to say.
"Can you take your human form, please?" he said in a whimper.
"Or I could you know, just like this..." he said, I was flabbergasted he even had that thought, it had certainly not crossed my mind.
"No - No, I preffer human, please!" I said stopping him before he could do anything else.
I bounced and landed sitting down next to him, now in my human form. I knew what was going to happen next.
And it's exactly what I wanted.
Screw what Kamika had said, out here it was only the two of us. And nothing else mattered.