First of all, they had to believe in what we were working towards, then they had to believe in my ability as a leader.

My intelligence and how I approach problems and what are my intentions, my strength, my resources, and so on, when all of those factors combined they'd give a real genuine trust and faith in their leader's capability to reach their common goal.

"Technically, yes all of them. But right now they are a sister", I pointed to Kali who was looking at us curiously from her branch, "Adopted brothers", I pointed towards the two tigers sitting side by side below Kali's tree, "and a friend" While talking about Shams I pointed towards the unassuming reptile in the middle of the sigil.

"Show them your true strength.", I quickly told him, I had to start building the perfect leader image in their minds.

Shams's previous curious eyes were now squinted and looked fierce and wild.

His two sharp fins suddenly popped up, his body bulged a bit and black smoke started radiating all over him.

However, that was only visually. The biggest change was both biological, mental, and spiritual.

To hide one's strength one had to use their spirit to cover up the pressure emitted by the strength of their body, because, unlike Mana and Spirit. The body's strength even if it's unintentionally released could be felt.

But, to show one's Intelligence and Spirit there had to be an active effort to do so.

Shams let go of the constraints blocking the strength of his body and let it explode, but he did not stop he pushed all of his mana towards the ground underneath him and used all of his Spirit to lock on Jia and Cai Yi.

The ground on a twenty-meter radius started shaking, with small branches and stones dancing above it.

Shams still had no clear indication of their strength or what it meant to go all out, so I hurriedly flapped my wings and sent a gust of wind in the space between the girls and Shams to break it. Yet, it was not that easy!

Thankfully, he got the message and stopped.

*Thudd*

Jia and Cai YI dropped to their knees breathing heavily, "I'm sorry, I told him to introduce himself but that's how demon beasts meet and greet. A pure display of strength.", Even though I was apologizing, I could not help but give him thumbs up.

Too fucking fierce! That's my favorite gecko.

I was also reminded of the importance of speech, they wouldn't understand anything we say unless I use a mind link to connect us. I needed to get Leria's Universal Scroll for them, learning the language on its own was not nearly enough, they had to form a physical organ to aid in pronouncing the words, mainly a bone of some kind at the front of their throats.

Jia breathed out and said with a sweat-filled forehead, "He's too strong!"

However, when she turned to look at him once again the domineering dragon's cousin was no more, and all she saw was a cute gecko. She could not help but make a weird smile at the instantaneous shift.

"Alright, let's start!", I took out one egg-shaped object, even though I no longer had a storage ring as they called it, I just hoped they would not be able to see that I did not have it, otherwise bringing things out of thin air without it is indeed strange even for this world.

I just betted on the fact if they indeed happen to glance in that direction and not see it, they'd just assume I had just hidden it somewhere that cannot be seen.

The egg-shaped object I took was a dark green stone, and it was the main ingredient for what we were about to do.

The technique and the sigil on their own were only secondary.

The sigil was filled with complex drawings of beasts, humans, other races, chains, cages, and some other mythical illustrations. That was exactly why I was stunned by Shams's handiwork, it was not just a simple circle.

In the middle of these complex drawings on the ground, was an empty circle. I flew above it and put the Beast Marker's stone then I landed above it and enveloped it with my mana.

"Cai Yi, go to the far right you'll find a big drawing that resembles a mouth and drip a bit of your blood over it.", I pointed towards the direction I was talking about with my wing and waited for her.

She quickly arrived there and just when I thought that I forgot to give her any sharp object she moved the index finger of her right hand and used it to make a sharp cut on the palm of her left hand. I noticed that the nail on her finger was surrounded by wind elements rotating at a fast speed thus making a very sharp weapon.

She also seemed to be a Wind user, what a coincidence. Jia also had Illusion, Fire, and Wind.

A long stream of blood fell on the beast's mouth.

Then! Suddenly a wonderful magical thing occurred.

The previously dead drawing came to life!

The drawings began to give a faint red light that was reflected on all of our faces, I quickly checked their facial expressions and noticed that all of them seemed shocked so it was a strange scene even to them.

Thinking of my plans I thought of using this little incident to boost my progress.

I closed my eyes and sat down on the egg, however, just as I was going to touch it I used my wind elements to keep me afloat just a couple of centimeters above it.

Cai Yi's blood kept running down and subsequently lit all of the sigil's drawings until it arrived at the last line going for the egg-shaped stone.

The moment the blood touched it, it started absorbing every drop of blood, the light coming from the other drawings was also absorbed by it.

Once it finished doing that, the mana color I used to envelop it previously turned blood red instead of transparent.

I just sat there with my eyes closed, floating above a red blood pillar.

I turned off my passive skill Mask Presence for the very first time, I let go of my bloodline constraints and actively let all of the mana inside of my body that was refined using a divine cultivation manual into the air.

Suddenly, in a ten-meter radius with me as the center, terrifying darkness descended with gusts of wind surging crazily.

The people inside were starting to get carried off the ground against their will, but they hurriedly rushed out of the domain.

Then, I controlled all of my spiritual energy while simultaneously activating my Dao Field.

Then, a most peculiar thing occurred!

The domain that was only filled with raging and wild mana seemed as if it gained a life of its own, strange black and white demon beasts of all kinds Fairies, serpents, wolves, tigers, eagles, drakes, bats, and some other beasts that I had never seen started flying all around me.

The egg-shaped stone underneath me started to melt and turn to a dark green liquid that rushed towards my body, while a tiny bit went towards Cai Yi outside of my domain and entered the space between her brows.

I felt the liquid turn gaseous and then suddenly started to draw some engraving on my mind. I knew what they meant because I used its scroll.

The first part was the real spell, a connection and sense spell between me and Cai Yi, when it was done I could tell where Cai Yi was without using my spiritual sense or map.

She also could feel where I was, but still, this spell was not strictly fair in the truest sense, because I could block her sensing whenever I want whereas she could not.

Then, the engraving was suddenly hidden as if it was but a dream, and a crude blood red sinister one started to take shape. This was the slave's imprint.

It was real, genuine, and even strong than the common ones perhaps, but in reality, it was all empty.

Once the engraving was finished it did not disappear like last time but stayed leaving a mark, strangely I could feel that it was not as passive as I thought it'd be.

I opened my eyes, spread open my wings, retracted everything once again, activated Mask Presence, deactivated Dao Field, and controlled my mana and spirit to hide my body's strength.

In the blink of a second, the previous ancient and primordial aura with wind and darkness elementals disappeared.

I quickly studied their expressions only to find every single one of them looking at me with awe, fear, shock, and most of all longing.

However, it brought me no joy.

This was one of the things I was currently struggling against, manipulation. I actively control my actions to get a desirable reaction out of them. Though I was not lying and it was a good thing for them to see the depth and the immensity of what I had in terms of strength, affinities, understandings, resources, and everything else.

It left a bitter taste in my mouth that I had to actively work towards it and was not as genuine maybe as it was for other people.

Maybe I was just overthinking things.

I appeared before them and acted as if there was no elephant in the room and spoke to Jia, "Alright, let's go. Go eat we will set off shortly."

It took a while for her to respond, "U-uh yes, Ok I'm on it boss!" saying that she threw me a knowing smile and a wink.

Of course, I knew what she meant.

"Shams, you go back with them to the camp, I have to finish some things.", after giving Shams what to do I took the tigers and Kali to a corner alone.

Show time!

I formed another mind link and connected with ShereKhan first, at first he was caught by surprise and was scared of this strange thing trying to take hold of his mind, but after understanding that it was coming from me he let it do at it pleased.

"Can you understand this kid?", I had no idea what to expect of the level of their intelligence.

Hearing the voice in his mind he started to look around confused and stupefied, "Hey it's me you hobo" I flapped my wing and sent a gentle breeze towards his face.

"Brother bird?", I heard a voice that sounded like that of a young teenager in my mind.

And what kind of name is that, "Yes yes, brother bird.", I added.

"Really?" After he got over his initial confusion and shock he continued, "Brother bird you're too strong, I wanna be like you!", He turned to look at me with awe-inspiring eyes.

I could not listen to what he was saying, the visual contrast of the fierce-looking black tiger with a younger voice and admiration struck me as strange.

"Let's go hunt I'm hungry, no let's play before that then let's hunt.", He did not wait for me to finish and started blabbering on about what he wanted to do.

Hmm... He is indeed intelligent but still child-like. There were no barriers you'd expect from talking to someone older, like that awkwardness, nervousness, or anticipation of a sort.

"Ok we'll go hunt.", I broke off the mind link after conversing with him for a while and connected it to his brother Rajah.

"Hey kid, it's me. You understand right?", I landed in front of him and spoke while looking him in the eye.

He also seemed confused at first but he quickly got the hang of it, "Big brother, you can understand what I say?", this voice was more docile and gentler.

"Yes, I can! Do you also want to go hunt and play like your brother?", I originally wanted to teach them about the beast pouch so that they'd stay there but I figured I let them hunt for a while to get it out of their system, after all, I'd be bringing wild animals to a human town in which their instinct won't be fully satiated.