It had been a little over five years since Leon's first birthday party. In that time, a lot had happened.
Firstly, the obsidian beast egg did indeed hatch the night that Leon conjured his first bit of magic. It led to a rather chaotic situation within his family.
His mother woke up to a strange beast lying in her son's bed, which prompted a scream and subsequent reaction from his father.
He was by Leon's bassinet in a matter of moments, sword in hand, and he nearly cut the beast down before realizing at the last second that the beast posed no harm.
The beast was standing over and protecting Leon from the blade that had been drawn on him; Leon himself was still asleep. It was one of his worst traits: he slept like the dead.
Leon did stir from his sleep quickly after everything had begun, only to look up and see a rather small-looking black wolf standing over him. It had a thick coat of fur and golden, sparkling eyes.
It was bigger than Leon but not big in wolf terms.
He'd honestly thought he had dreamed of the egg cracking, as he physically could no longer fight sleep after he'd seen it happen, but was pleasantly surprised when glancing over and seeing that the egg had completely cracked.
It was only when looking in the direction that his new companion was looking that his heart began racing wildly, especially when he saw that his father had a blade drawn. So he did the only thing he could think of in that brief moment.
He threw his arms around his new friend's neck and cooed in excitement, rather aggressively pulling her down closer to his chest, making it impossible for his father to harm one without the other.
He disliked acting like a baby, but it was all he could think to do in those kinds of situations.
Of course, it didn't come to that. Instead, Leon was seen as some kind of prodigy within the family, even if no one knew how he made a pact with the beast in the first place.
A 'pact' wasn't as serious as Leon had previously been led to believe. All it required was one's own mana signature for things to get moving along.
Eggs were almost like a cheat for anyone who wanted a beast, as most of the population of the kingdom had the ability to control at least a small amount of magic.
Life became very different for Leon afterward, even if he was only one year old physically at the time.
The biggest change was that his parents had assigned someone within the palace to teach Leon magic, knowing that he must have conjured some kind of magic to hatch the egg. Even if they suspected he hadn't much control of his magic, producing anything at all at his age was seen as an anomaly.
Also, his older brother, Alex, became much more involved in his life in the form of a beast tutor.
His mother was very much against the idea due to his age, but his father pushed the matter fervently until she relented.
The king had grown fearful that his child might accidentally hurt himself if he didn't begin the process of learning how to control such things, believing that his young age was secondary.
He'd often had terrible dreams about Leon accidentally setting his bed on fire after he'd seen that his young son had made a pact with an beast at such a young age.
Leon had to feign ignorance for a long time, acting like he didn't really understand any of the lessons, but he practiced relentlessly whenever he found himself alone.
He practiced magic more heavily than anything else, but his new companion, whom he named Wren, also got a lot of his attention as well.
He'd been quite confused initially, as he expected a bird-like creature to be born from an egg, but he'd since grown to avoid any of his old life's common sense.
She was an unknown magical beast type, something still relatively common within the kingdom of Feravon. She had grown relatively fast and was now much bigger than Leon, being slightly larger than a normal-sized wolf.
Her appearance stayed similar otherwise.
Secondly, he had found another passion as well, which was physical training. He hadn't initially been drawn to the idea, but with delicious food, a strong body, and memories of his past self, it became an obsession of his when he had any free time.
He also trained with the knights in the palace whenever he got the chance. They initially just thought he was a cute addition but soon found that he was quite serious about training.
Leon's father beamed about his son's passion for training, even giving him his very own sword so he could learn swordplay on his fifth birthday, which prompted a harsh lecture from his mother and a ban on swords until Leon was 'old' enough to properly use one.
He'd not been able to even hold so much as a wooden sword since that day. He might have complained if he'd actually cared, as his main focus was just being physically healthy and strong.
He was an extremely large child, now standing a little over five feet tall at the age of six, so he had been able to properly train for a while, even if he was still far from physical maturity.
Wren also enjoyed the physical training as well.
His looks had also changed. He'd grown a large mass of golden locks that he tended to tie back into a messy bun. His body became much denser with muscle due to training, and his face became much less soft as well.
He looked very much like his father, which he didn't see as a bad thing; the main difference being his decision to have longer hair, which Leon just decided on a whim one day.
He wouldn't let it grow too long, but he'd grown used to having long hair in his past life, just not healthy hair like he now had.
The last major change was something he had wished for as a baby: he could now read as many books as he wished, at least whenever he had the time to.
He'd stopped reading 'practical' books early on, as he had help with magic, beast taming, and fighting way earlier than he had initially expected.
He could easily learn about all those things through hands-on experience, so he instead focused primarily on learning about this new world he inhabited.
He also had grown fond of cookbooks as well. It was something he picked up unintentionally one day but had developed a passion for it.
All of that is to say that Leon was, and had been, incredibly busy with life since his first birthday.
•••
"Leon, you'd better be up for training!" A booming voice could be heard echoing down the halls and chambers of the castle.
Leon himself couldn't be bothered by the noise and was laid out awkwardly on his bed. You'd think he was a corpse if not for his loud snoring.
Wren had learned that if her owner did not wake up on time, he'd get in trouble, so she eventually became a kind of alarm clock.
Had this not been the case, Leon would be in constant trouble.
She got up in the bed, previously laying on the floor next to him, before nuzzling her snout underneath his side; then, with a large push, she flipped him off of his bed and onto the floor.
"We're under attack!" Leon shouted, jumping up and looking around right after hitting the ground.
He quickly saw Wren looking at him on the bed, a smug expression laced on his beast's face. He was incredibly embarrassed, but he'd grown relatively used to it at this point.
She never woke him up without cause, and he knew exactly what it was when he heard an all-too-familiar thumping racing down the hall.
In haste, he grabbed the clothes he had prepared the night before, throwing his old ones off and new ones on as quickly as he possibly could.
Then, at the last moment, just as he got himself together, his door flew open.
Standing there was a man in his late forties. He had unkempt hair, a beer belly, and was the size of a rhino; he wore clothes that suited a local drunkard, with a breath that matched.
He even currently had a bottle of liquor gripped in one of his gigantic hands.
The man's name was Bert, and he was, quite surprisingly, Leon's magic teacher.
Leon was not a judgmental person at all, but he had been quite horrified when meeting Bert for the first time. He had expected literally anybody else.
However, appearances aside, he had taught Leon a great deal about magic and was surprisingly a fantastic teacher.
'I still would have preferred a beautiful woman,' Leon thought, gazing upon the giant of a man.
"Come on, we've not got all day." Bert said after inquisitively looking Leon up and down. He would have made the training twice as intense if he'd found Leon still asleep.
Leon followed him out of his room, listening to the heavy, rhythmic steps of his teacher as they made their way to the training grounds his family used for magic practice.
Wren trailed close behind. She stayed with him always.
When they got there, Leon began doing the stretches he'd grown accustomed to before training, then ran ten laps around the large green field that was the training grounds.
It was a relatively barren field, with only a few targets and other training apparatus littering the area.
When he finally finished, he began walking towards Bert, expecting that he'd give him the day's plan for training.
However, what Leon instead saw was Bert disappearing and suddenly reappearing directly in front of him, his hand now flying merely centimeters in front of his face, with a power that cracked the sound barrier.
Leon quickly shot down to the ground, ducking his teacher's unprovoked attack by only a minuscule margin, before quickly visualizing his own magic and shooting back a good distance from his teacher.
Leon was terrified as he didn't know why his teacher would suddenly attack him in such a way, sweating due to the raw strength he had just witnessed.
He'd only ever seen Bert use magic, but he hadn't detected any in his teacher's previous movements, which meant Bert was even more monstrous than he had previously thought.
"You've been wanting to go on a hunt with your brother for a while now?" his teacher asked inquisitively, walking slowly towards Leon before taking another drink of whatever alcohol that was in his bottle.
"Yeah?" Leon said in response, slowly backing away from his teacher, his entire body screaming at him to run.
"Well, your father has told me to test you," Bert spoke again, his face looking rather aloof still.
Leon had, in fact, begged his father to let him go out and hunt with his older brother or really anybody. He desperately wanted to get out of the palace more, but his age had restricted him up until this point.
He only left a few times a year when both his parents had something to do outside of the castle.
"You've got an hour." Bert said.
Leon had no idea what he needed to do within that hour, but he was absolutely terrified of fighting his teacher, especially now, for such a long amount of time.
He didn't have any time to protest, however, as suddenly his teacher had disappeared again; reappearing in front of Leon, this time sending a sideways kick so violent that Leon thought it would surely kill him if he was hit by it.
Leon had been more mentally prepared this time, so he conjured a large pillar of earth in the place he was standing while simultaneously using the same magic as before to propel himself out of the way.
What Leon saw then sent him into a cold sweat.
His teacher, who he had only known for his magical capabilities, had just broken a solid mass of earth with only a kick, then proceeded to give Leon one of the most wicked smiles that Leon had ever seen.