Chapter - Overloaded System

The darkness covered Laxius, making him weaker until he had no strength and fell asleep. The pain had also subsided, most likely due to the Goddess placing him in a new vessel, and making the soul become stable again. Laxius could only sigh in his head, appreciating the pain disappearing. However, he had begun to worry and feel nervous, at not knowing what his new life would be.

“A nightmare!” A young boy shouted in alarm.

Opening his eyes, Laxius was greeted with a sight that he was very knowledged with. Hundreds of small campfires within a vivid and bright forest, filled with mystical and magical beings. It was the dream realm, a place for psychics that are new, advanced, or master at psychic control, it was basically a place for psychics to train and harness their powers when sleeping. However, Laxius was greeted with unfamiliar faces, that looked at Laxius’s form with fear and distaste. This isn’t what Laxius remembered, he remembered that he was the King, the God of the dream realm, and he knew everyone in and out, but what greeted him were unfamiliar faces.

The form is the body, or appearance of a person in the dream realm. It’s also used to distinguish the children from the adults, level wise. Since the form changes according to how much natural energy you suck up, or how much control you have over yourself, the more you do, the greater your form’s size is. Laxius’s form is a great black tarantula, the size of a mountain. Whereas, each and everyone else was still currently in their beginning stages, a human.

A nightmare, which psychic newbies have to defeat, are physical manifestations of one’s inner fear. They have to defeat them because if they don’t, they will only live in fear and have little to no psychic prowess. The greater the size, the greater the inner fear is, but for the people in the current dream realm, they have never encountered one of such size. Almost at the same time, all the people shared a slice of pity on the one who manifested this nightmare, this thing that is a true monster. However, little did they know, this person is one of their own.

“Is, Maxius Volgenheim here?” The spider said with an intelligent voice, given that it is a manifested monster.

Nobody knew who, or what the spider was speaking about. So Laxius immediately came to the conclusion and acknowledged, that this dream world was in a completely different dimension, since his brother ruled over and took care of the dream realm. However, Laxius’s brother, Maxius, was not at the level of power as Laxius, but Maxius was a prodigy in his own right. Dawning a different form than normal people, Maxius’s form is a tree-sized golden eagle, he even went onto further developing new ways in fighting nightmares. But even with all this, Maxius still stood no chance against Laxius, and could only produce a telekinesis push that felt like a slight breeze.

Ther spider placed a leg forward, and disintegrated into ash? There was only one explanation that fit the simple-minded psychics: the person who manifested this spider, overcome this fear and defeated it. However, they could still not lose the feeling of trepidation sneaking up their spine, nor could they forget the words that were said. It was the very first time a nightmare questioned, and it was the first time a nightmare had gotten so close to the camp.

Darkness once again filled Laxius’s vision, as a slight pain went through his heart, and he lost his grips on the dream realm. After the darkness came light, accompanied with a laughing child, and lots of background noise. Laxius put his hand out in front of him, since the light seemed very close. The light faded into a creamy colour, and a small black crack appeared. Instantly, the girlish voice of the child quieted down, along with the fuzzy background noise. Silence, it was a sign that something is about to happen, it scared Laxius into dropping his hand, and he didn’t want anything to happen right now, because something was seemingly leeching his strength, as he once again fell asleep.

***

Inside a shop-house of a tailor, called “Alfheim Traveler”, a family was celebrating a birthday. However, this celebration didn’t involve just cake and presents, a mysterious black chair-sized egg was placed beside a fireplace, for warmth. One could argue that this was just another present, but if you looked at the father of the family, and saw what his “true-wife” was, then you would reconsider calling it a present. A family of four people, a young birthday-girl with long blonde hair, a father with short brown hair; his ears were of a dogs, and a short-soft brown tail came from his tailbone. A beautiful mother with shoulder-length blue frilly hair, pointy long ears, and an annoyed facial expression. The last family member...was a pet or mount? A big golden over-grown female chicken, that was fairly muscular and had majestic pink feathers around her eyes. Her stuck up facial expressions that the bird made, would make you think of a nobleman straight away.

The father, Hunter Fenix, his first name given to him for his profession, monster hunter. Hunter’s two hands were always rubbing against the golden chicken’s feathers. The golden chicken, Fenixia, purred with a blissful face as if she were in heaven, her purr only enticed Hunter’s creativity. Hunter’s shoe went flying off his foot, as he placed the bare foot on Fenixia’s smooth feathery back, and started to rub it up and down.

“Hey! What do you think you are doing? In the middle of a meal and Elis’s birthday, for crying out loud!” The mother, Adimera Frost Fenix, shouted in a huff whilst throwing her spoon at Hunter’s head.

As the spoon flew from one side of the table, to another, the young girl seated at the middle, Elis Fenix, watched the spoon soar peacefully across the table. Elis could only sigh, and laugh inwardly, as the spoon soon found the target and planted itself in Hunter’s forehead with a qwa-ponk. However, Elis didn’t think her father was the only one completely responsible, as she swiped her spoon with masterful sleight-of-hand and threw it at Fenixia, in one smooth motion.

Then, the food fight commenced.

“Elisia, how dare you attack my beloved!” Hunter shouted, as his piece of chicken flew towards Elis’s face.

“Mother is your beloved, and stop calling me that!” Elis shouted back, as her head bobbed and weaved around a stray flying chicken leg.

“Everyone calm down! Hun...” Adimera attempted to speak, but a plate full of broccoli was launched at her by Fenixia, stopping her mid-sentence.

“Cobo! Cobo!” Fenixia roared a mighty roar, as she jumped on the table, and broke it under her monstrous chicken weight.

Everyone instinctively moved away, since this kind of thing was now practically the usual for them, ever since Fenixia grew into an adult. However, someone acted differently for the first time. Adimera mumbled angrily under her breath: “That’s the fourth table...” Then, as if a demon spawn from hell, she grabbed a spoon beside her, and launched herself at Fenixia whilst shouting:

“We are having chicken tonight!”

Fenixia literally flew off the broken table, flapping her wings in an attempt to fly, but...she was just a big chicken, unable to fly and soar the skies. Yet even with her monstrous leg strength and running speed, Adimera had already snatched Fenixia’s leg, and pulled the big chick closer to herself. Adimera raised her legendary god-slaying weapon, a wooden mixing spoon, and with deadly speed her arm went down towards Fenixia’s golden face. Hunter was screaming like a little girl, his arm pointed towards the public execution in attempt to stop it, but it was futile since Adimera, The Tailor, has already locked onto her target, and nothing will leave unscathed when Adimera has locked on.

Elisa moved backwards to watch the comedic scene from a distance, beside the black egg that Fenixia had laid. Fenixia got knocked unconscious, with a funny face as her tongue dangled out her mouth. It made Elis giggle uncontrollably, since it was mostly her fault this escalated to this level. Searching for something to hold onto, due to her raising laughter, she touched the black egg.

Then an overly familiar noise resonated throughout the room, which resulted in silence, as everyone stopped and stared at Elis. Even Fenixia, who was pretending to be unconscious looked up with wide eyes.

*Ting*

Elis grinned as she read out a small piece of paper, that had formed and was floating in front of her, defying all laws of gravity.

“Congratulations on your first mount!”

Hunter began to clap in congratulations, but stopped when he received a stern look from Elis, meaning she wasn’t finished. Elis’s grin was turned to shock, as she continued to read.

“Due to your familiar’s current abilities and evolution path, aging has been disabled.” Everything that was once comedic in the room, turned sour and dark.

A tear ran down Elis’s cheek, as she inhaled and continued to read the pages that kept forming endlessly.

“For having a King ranked familiar, evolution has been changed from demi-human to blood elf”

“Congratulations! You are the very first person to tame a Legendary Chocobo. Evolution speed increased by 10% for two years.”

“Congratulations! Death Goddess Larissa has deemed you worthy of a blessing, be thankful mortal. Heavenly evolution path now unlocked”

“For having the Heavenly Evolution pathway, affinity with light increased by 20%”

“Due to your change in evolution, familiar Laxius Volgenheim’s evolution has the option of ‘demi-human’ added to it”

“Congra….” Elis’s strength left her, as the messages were too overwhelming, and something had started to change insider her body. Closing her eyes with a smile on her face, as she fell into her mother’s warm arms, only a single thought prevailed over the sleep.

“Laxius Volgenheim is in that egg...my first companion. Now I won't need to fight alone any more”