"… so you see, the force of nature is what allows us to connect with spiritbeasts. Therefore every beastmaster before acquiring their first companion is going through extensive training." Elder Fata explained. They currently sat at the table in her office where she usually held her private lectures, "Of course, the force of nature is what allows us to become stronger as well, but we never will become as physically strong as spiritbeasts. Even our headmaster has to acknowledge the physical superiority of few beasts, you know."
"Thus we make up for it with our ability to manipulate the force of nature right? But, master, I still don't understand how it works. How do you connect with them?" Reino asked while Alex pretended to have a nap nearby. These also were the questions he was extremely interested in.
"Well, you saw the ceremony your elder brother had – we call it 'the awakening'. Of course, we are not really awakening anything – spiritbeasts have their consciousness awakened soon after their birth. We only use it to connect to it so we can communicate. The methods we use to connect with beasts are all based on the force of nature and basically are harmless to the beasts." Elder Fata said while carefully observing the sleeping blackrock wolf on the floor.
Unfortunately contrary to what she hoped there was no reaction to her words once again. Already for some time she and most of other elders were certain Alex could understand them, but for some reason pretended he couldn't. By continuously holding these lectures she hoped to convince him to finally allow her to screen him, but her efforts were fruitless so far. But she couldn't do it against his will either since the procedure could cause permanent harm to the spiritbeast. In fact, that was the reason the ritual for students and their beasts was held – using the rune formation the beasts consciousness was blocked to allow their masters to 'awaken' them.
Alex already guessed it was something like that and his thoughts regarding this subject were actually very simple – 'There is no way I hell I'll allow any of you in! I'd rather die!'
On the other hand the concept of the force of nature was incredibly interesting. According to what he learned because of this phenomenon beasts and people acquired incredible abilities, especially beasts. But people had a way to cultivate it and Alex hoped someone would finally teach Reino ways on how to do it, at least the basics, so he could also learn it and hopefully – practice.
Regarding the latter part Alex had no illusions of living a long and happy life in this world. Already back in the circus he was fed up with being a dog, even if now everyone called him a 'wolf', he eagerly waited for someone to kill him on accident so he could take his chances in the next reincarnation.
In the beginning, similar to his previous life, Alex began to consider possibilities to end this life early, but changed his mind after one of the private lessons that was, in fact, held by headmaster few days earlier. The old man's favorite spot to teach was near the pond in front of the academy woods while everyone usually sat directly in the grass while listening.
On the current occasion the old man sat together with his whole audience – Reino and Alex and the small group in their leather outfits looked like hunters taking a leisure break.
"Headmaster, why are there different ranks of spiritbeasts?" Reino asked at the time, "I understand that the higher rank is stronger, but not always, right? A rank three woolly rhino can easily stomp on a rank five cinder weasel, but his beast core is still much smaller."
"That's a good question, Reino, and there is no clear answer to it. We, beastmasters, have many theories about it, but the most common is that it has something to do with the beast's soul. The higher ranked the beast is, the higher developed its soul is. You can also see it like this – the higher rank is the beast, the closer it is to being a human. Of course, some say there are beings much more advanced than we, humans – like, for example, the eternal dragon, but we don't have any evidence on that yet – elder Jintoro is working on it though." Headmaster explained while secretly throwing glances at Alex.
"Headmaster, but why there are different ranks of beast souls?" Reino asked.
"Oh, that's what you initially meant!" Headmaster realized the subtle meaning behind Reino's question. It was a bit too existential for a ten year old.
After thinking for a while, he continued, "You see – every single thing, being in the world is continuously progressing – they come to existence, for example, are being born, then grow, age and die. But the progress is not only physical – the soul of everyone is progressing as well. Thus when the next time the soul is born in this world, it will become a being according to its point in the progression path."
"Does that mean we all will become eternal dragons?" Reino pondered.
"Hahaha!" Headmaster began to laugh heartily, "Wouldn't be bad, huh? Well, not everyone. Because while most of the souls are progressing, many are regressing as well. And that is the cycle of life."
"But why are others regressing?" Reino asked, "Isn't the progress for everyone inevitable, like you said, being born, grow up and then die?"
"That's only the physical progress that I mentioned as an example." Headmaster explained, "The souls are more difficult to understand, therefore for now just accept the concept that while most of them evolve, many degrade."
"Headmaster!" Reino exclaimed realizing the implications, "Could it mean that the people can become beasts in their next lives?"
"Exactly!" Headmaster beamed with joy, but not because he liked what the student said, but because he noticed a particular minute reaction from the wolf he was observing the whole time.
"Does that … does that mean my blackrock wolf … could be my … grandfather?" Reino asked while staring at his pet in shock.
'Wtf? I'm not your grandfather! I'm your f*cking mama!', Alex thought at the time, but soon he had to swallow his curses.
"Hahaha!" The old man laughed again. For some reason it took really long time for him to calm down. Afterwards he said, "The idea is correct, except the example is terribly wrong. Your grandfather was a great man and died a heroic death. There is no way he became a beast in his next life and, in fact, it is more likely that you are your grandfather, not your pet. You see, Reino, for a human to degrade to a beast one must do something really terrible."
"Like killing the innocents?" Reino asked remembering the stories of his grandfather, who was quite a figure. There were times when people even called him 'the protector of Lionsburg'.
"What does the killing have to do with anything? Killing in the world happens left and right! Just observe this pond and you'll see tens of murders every minute." Headmaster explained, "Of course, I don't mean you should go on a killing streak either. Killing people is against the law and one shouldn't do that. Anyway, when I say 'terrible' I mean that the being is going against the force of nature and their soul instead of developing begins to degrade."
While Reino was processing the information, headmaster kept observing Alex in satisfaction. At this point there were no doubts – the beast clearly understood his words! Now the main task was to make sure it, or rather the human soul in its body would trust him and the other elders enough to begin an absolutely unique cooperation. He already discussed with others the proceedings that would take place in such situation and was looking forward to it.
But Alex didn't even care about the obvious reaction he had. The information he got was too crucial, even if it was only a theory. The people in his current world were much closer to the nature, or rather – to the beasts than those on Earth had ever been and what the old man said sounded so reasonable … especially since he really did something terrible!
While he, possibly, became a spider in his second life because of a curse, he was a completely healthy baby in his third, until he basically committed a suicide. If one looked at it from his point of view, it seemed fine, but if the event was considered from the perspective of the natural order of things – his actions were completely against the nature! Every living being has to have an instinct of survival, but he artificially suppressed it … and now … now he had to pay. The worst part was that according to the old man his soul was on the way of degradation! Then what about the next life? Will he become a chicken? Or worse?
After the lecture at the pond Alex wrecked his brain for days until he figured out a theoretically possible way to become a human again. Not in this life, of course. But that didn't mean this one was completely wasted either – he would do his best to use his position as a sentient pet and learn the way humans manipulated the 'force of nature' how they called it.
From elder Fata's lectures he gathered that the 'force of nature' was a form of the natural energy that resided in everything in this world. By naturally absorbing it from the air, water and food spiritbeasts grew in strength. In addition it was continuously stored in their beast cores and fueled their bodies in case of necessity.
Humans, on the other hand, used meditation techniques to feel and control the flow of the force of nature and manipulated it according their will.
The latter part to Alex was not that important, but he was in dire need in 'finding' or 'feeling' the force of nature. He figured that if he could make his soul 'resonate' with the nature more or make it start progressing in its development path again, he had higher chances to be born as a human once again.
Unfortunately the set of beginner's meditation techniques taught by elder Fata to Reino only included the proper posture, breathing method and an encouragement, "If you practice diligently enough, you'll soon feel the force of nature. When that happens, I'll teach you the next step."
Alex felt cheated, but still tried to secretly imitate the breathing pattern she taught and, in fact, few days later felt a tingling sensation all over his body that soon transformed into a pleasant feeling of excessive strength. With nowhere to went, he forced his owner to follow him to the woods behind the academy and ran for so long, he tired the poor kid so much that he barely managed to drag his feet back to the room.
This went on for a few days and the only two who didn't realize what was going on were, of course, Alex and Reino. The academy elders, on the other hand, in the real time excitedly observed how the unremarkable rank two blackrock wolf transformed into a rank three.
While a spiritbeast gaining a rank was not a very unique situation, it still didn't happen every day and in this case – it was basically a pup and who evolved in front of their eyes! Who knows what heights could it reach if properly groomed!
When Alex evolved his rank, he didn't change much and only grew a little in size. Not noticing his own transformation he decided to continue his leisure runs through the woods and his poor owner was once again forced to follow.
Luckily with practice Reino's stamina increased as well and even if he couldn't keep up with Alex, he wasn't dying from fatigue anymore. Maybe someone said something encouraging to him at the right time or he remembered the sight of Clinto Milas practicing on the training grounds, but soon he even showed initiative to go to woods and train.
Thus the two spent their next month mostly practicing in the morning, having lecture or two during the afternoon and reading books in the evening. Of course, the one who read was Reino.
Since lately nothing interesting happened, most elders lost their enthusiasm and stopped secretly following them, but still from time to time paid a visit to elder Fata who grew increasingly annoyed at the lack of any 'real' results in her research. The damned pup still refused to acknowledge his ability to understand her, to not speak about cooperating.